Yet the Holy Father continues to push forward. On November 6, the Pope’s spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls announced a papal trip for June 2001 to Ukraine, a country where one of the most turbulent issues dividing Catholics and Orthodox—the dispute over the status of Eastern churches in communion with Rome, or as the Orthodox call them, “uniate” churches—finds its strongest expression.

With the invitation to visit Ukraine, the Pope has now received three bids since 1999 to visit predominantly Orthodox nations. That is an impressive total, considering that before 1999 no pope had ever received—much less been able to accept—such invitations since the Great Schism nearly 1,000 years earlier.

The “uniate” controversy
Uniatism, which the Eastern Catholic churches themselves prefer to call Greek Catholicism, refers to the Christian communities that left Orthodoxy—in some cases several centuries ago, in others much more recently—to reunite with Rome. Although these churches are now a part of the worldwide Catholic Church, they maintain their Eastern liturgical and theological traditions. It was the continuing dispute over the status of these churches that blocked consensus at Emmitsburg.

“The very existence of Eastern Catholic churches is seen by many Orthodox Churches as an abnormal situation,” said Father Johann Bonny, official for the Oriental section of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. “Before continuing with dialogue, they wanted ‘the problem’ of uniatism solved first.”

At a previous meeting in Balamund, Lebanon, in 1993, the Joint International Commission had rejected uniatism as a way to re-unite the Orthodox to the Catholic Church. Each side recognized the other as having the same apostolic faith and sacraments; it was agreed that there should be no organized attempts at conversions. Yet the Balamund document, which is now considered a milestone in Orthodox/Catholic relations, also affirmed the right of Eastern Catholic churches to exist.

For the Orthodox to insist on “solving uniatism first” in Emmitsburg, then, seemed to be a contradiction of the Balamund conclusions. Catholic delegates believed the theological implications of uniatism had already been resolved. “For us, Balamund is an achievement of our commission and should remain so,” said Father Bonny. “Even if some Orthodox churches have problems, we cannot go back.”

Eastern Catholicism
When Communism collapsed during the late 1980s, few people anticipated the way in which religions re-emerged in Eastern Europe. Not only did the Orthodox Church rise to prominence after decades of heavy restrictions, but Eastern Catholicism was resurrected from the ashes.

While Orthodox churches had been allowed to exist under Communism, usually under tight government controls, Eastern Catholicism was not tolerated. David Figueroa of Princeton University, a member of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of America, explains:

Under Communism, the Orthodox pledged allegiance to the state despite its ideology. They were “protected” by the Communists. Uniates, with their allegiance to a “foreign” Pope, were stripped of their churches, money, schools, etc. They were given to the Orthodox who then labored to “reconvert” Uniates to the traditional Orthodox faith.

For years, then, the Eastern Catholic churches were virtually invisible. Father Bonny recalls:

At the end of the 1980s, it looked as if the Catholic Church had disappeared in Ukraine, with only the Russian Orthodox faithful remaining. In 1989, when religious freedom was installed, those who had hidden or those going to the Orthodox Church said, “My parents were Greek Catholic.” They then started to re-organize their own parishes and dioceses.

One of the complications arising from property disputes is that the Orthodox generally lose their faithful whenever a church building is returned to the Catholics. When an Orthodox parish is given back to the Catholic Church, the congregation also switches allegiance. As one Vatican official put it, “It’s not that the faithful decide to travel to a new Orthodox parish. No. They stay in the neighborhood, because this is where they have always worshipped.”

Many Orthodox bishops were further offended by what they perceived as the Catholic Church’s inordinate support of uniate communities. “Some of the Orthodox lament the creation of so many bishops who were sent to Romania to resurrect the Church in 1989,” said Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh. “They felt that Balamund had been violated.”

Theological differences
But the controversy over uniatism is not just about buildings. It is also about theology.

“For the Orthodox, uniatism seeks to avoid the hard issues which divide East and West and only seeks a nominal unity,” says David Figueroa. “In fact, uniatism is perceived as an insult in many levels.” He goes on to list the Orthodox complaints:

First, that the only or main difference that divides West and East is liturgical praxis—a suggestion which minimizes Orthodox complaints against what is considered Roman theological innovation that goes way beyond liturgics. Second, that allegiance to the Pope is paramount to unity. This shows a basic disagreement as to the nature of leadership in the Church. For the East, creed and faith is the locus of unity and not allegiance to a bishop in particular.

At the end of the meeting, delegates decided not to issue a common statement. All were to report back to their churches and decide how to overcome this obstacle in order to continue the dialogue. The problem is that moving forward means different things to different churches. Because the Orthodox world is fragmented into at least 39 different churches, the representatives of Orthodoxy do not speak with one voice. While many look to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church, a closer inspection shows that individual churches do not necessarily follow their lead.

The Ecumenical Patriarch
Within the world of Orthodoxy, the Patriarch of Constantinople is considered the “first among equals.” Although he cannot intervene in church affairs outside his patriarchate, he uses his status to promote conciliarity, coordinate activities, and mediate when problems do occur. Within the context of ecumenical relations, the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch has been crucial as the initial point of entry. The first contacts between the Orthodox and Catholic churches began with Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope John XXIII. Pope Paul VI met Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in 1964, after a year of exchanging personal letters. In 1965, a common declaration lifted the mutual excommunication of 1054. Paul VI went to Istanbul in 1967, paving the way for Patriarch Athenagoras to visit Rome later that year.

Why did everything start with Constantinople? “Because you had two very charismatic people in Athenagoras and Paul VI,” answers Father John Long, consultant on ecumenical affairs and former rector of the Russicum in Rome. He also observes: “All the other patriarchs were under Communist rule.”

In 1976, a commission was prepared to enable dialogue between the two churches with the explicit goal of re-establishing full communion. In 1979, Patriarch Dimitrios I (who succeeded Athenagoras) and Pope John Paul II announced the formation of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. The commission would publish three joint documents during the next ten years.

One of the high points in relations between the Holy See and the Ecumenical Patriarchate occurred in 1987, when Dimitrios I came to Rome for a pilgrimage. During a Mass at St. Peter’s, the leaders of the two churches processed in side by side, kissed the altar together, and sat in front of the papal altar. It was as close to a concelebration as was possible. During Dimitrios’ homily, he lamented that the two churches, “are not yet able to serve there together.” He prayed that “the Lord grant that the Church may see his day, the day of reconciliation, peace, fraternity, and unity.” The Pope declared in his homily that full communion could be achieved on the basis of the relationship that had existed between Rome and the East before 1054. The leaders embraced twice during the Mass, most poignantly during the Kiss of Peace.

Yet while the Ecumenical Patriarch may have taken several strides closer to Rome, his role as “first among equals” made it very difficult for him to press his Orthodox brothers from Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow, Athens, Belgrade, and Bucharest along the same route. None of the other patriarchs made similar gestures during the 1980s or early 1990s.

In 1991, Constantinople elected Patriarch Bartholomew after the death of Dimitrios. When the Balamund document came out, Bartholomew welcomed it for its “condemnation of uniatism.” He then told a Vatican delegation visiting Istanbul in 1993 that the Orthodox could tolerate the existence of uniate churches as “an abnormal situation” until the time when “the uniate churches finally realize where they belong.”

During a speech at Georgetown University in 1997, Bartholomew told the audience that the manner in which the Orthodox and Catholic churches exist “has become ontologically different.” He also stated that the “divergence” between the two churches had increased, so that “the end points to which our courses are taking us, foreseeably, are indeed different.” This statement seemed to indicate that Patriarch Bartholomew, in sharp contrast with his predecessors, had little hope for ecumenical efforts. It also exposed the chasm between his thinking and that of Pope John Paul II, who pushed still harder for Christian unity in his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint.

The Moscow patriarchate
During the past decade, Patriarch Aleksei II of the Russian Orthodox Church has twice backed out of planned meetings with Pope John Paul II: once in Hungary in 1996, again in Austria in 1997. Each time he backpedals, he faults the Catholic Church for pursuing missionary activity in traditionally Orthodox territory and for “persecutions” against Ukrainian Orthodox by Ukrainian Greek Catholics. Once these obstacles are overcome, “an encounter between the heads of the two churches will have meaning, and will become in all effects an epochal event, and not only a simple step in protocol,” he told the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera in 1998. During the same interview Aleksei added that such a meeting was not only possible, but extremely necessary. “I desire that that this take place in the shortest time possible.”

Exactly when that meeting will take place is still a question. During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the Vatican in June 2000, the press around Rome was rife with rumors. Would Putin bring the Pope an invitation from the Patriarch? But Putin did not produce an invitation from the Patriarch. Moreover, he himself did not invite the Pope on behalf of the Russian government, thus parting company with his predecessors Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev. Analysts concluded that Putin did not want to confer an invitation without the Patriarch’s blessing. “I get the impression that he didn’t invite the Pope out of deference to the Orthodox, “ said Father Ronald Roberson, the associate director of the US bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. “Certainly the Orthodox have grown in prestige since the fall of Communism. In this specific situation, the government realized that it was not the only actor.”

The Russian Orthodox Church, too, must move carefully to avoid internal conflicts. Father John Long reports:

Within the Russian patriarchy, there is a faction that is strongly opposed to the West, and the Catholic Church in particular. I think that Aleksei is in a mediating role. His particular duty as Patriarch is to keep the factions together. I don’t doubt that Patriarch Aleksei would like to meet with the Pope. He’s concerned about keeping his Church united. There’s a possibility that if he moves too far, it could split.

In 1991, the Moscow Patriarchate was infuriated by the Vatican’s move to reorganize the Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow. When two archbishops were nominated for European and Asian Russia, the Orthodox bishops called it an example of “Catholic expansionism” and an act which could “generate a war of religion.” The Vatican tried to make amends by producing a “pro-Russian” document in 1992 which specified how Catholics were to act in Orthodox territory: not to compete with the Orthodox, to inform the Orthodox Church of important pastoral initiatives, and even to help the Orthodox in evangelizing their own peoples.

“In Moscow, there is a great fear of the Catholic Church’s influence,” said Frans Alting Von Geusau, a board member of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic organization that helped the persecuted Church under Communism. Today, ACN assists the Russian Orthodox Church with her own pastoral efforts. But Von Geusau sees that the Orthodox are preoccupied with the influence of Catholics, and particularly with the extraordinary strong appeal of Pope John Paul II. “All non-Orthodox churches are considered a danger,” he remarks. “They consider the Catholic Church a sect.”

The accusation that Ukrainian Greek Catholics are “persecuting” their Orthodox neighbors is also seen by non-Orthodox observers as an exaggeration. Father Long says: “There has been cooperation in certain projects between Catholic and Orthodox: contacts between Catholic and Orthodox seminaries and meetings between Catholic and Orthodox bishops. These seem to be working themselves out. It’s not as serious as they say.”

“Personally, I think that Aleksei is posing and grandstanding because he is in competition with the Ecumenical Patriarch for the spotlight as the most influential leader,” said Figueroa. “He is also concerned about losing ground at home. Missionaries—Catholics and others—come with tons of money and Western goodies. Undereducated, underpaid, and overworked Russian Orthodox priests are no match.”

Romania
Romania offers a prime example of an Orthodox Church which took her own route in relations to the Catholic Church. After 1990, Greek Catholics in Romania asked to have all their churches back, as had been done in Ukraine. “They didn’t take into account their diminished numbers,” said Teodor Baconsky, Romanian ambassador to the Holy See. “In 1948, they were 2 million. After 1990 they only had 10 percent of the original number. The Orthodox gave back 100 churches and two cathedrals, but it was not enough.” Catholics originally had 2,000 churches and schools.

The tension between the two churches played itself out in a verbal war in the nation’s newspapers. In 1998, the two hierarchies opened an official dialogue and decided to terminate the reciprocal attacks in the press. This cooperation proved so fruitful that it paved the way for Pope John Paul’s landmark trip to Romania in May 1999. This was the first time a Roman Pontiff had set foot in an Orthodox nation since the schism.

One of the highlights of the trip occurred during the papal Mass in Bucharest, where some 300,000 Catholics and Orthodox were in attendance. At the sight of Patriarch Teoctist and Pope John Paul II, two bishops dressed in white, together on the altar, the crowd began to chant “Unity! Unity! Unity!” This startling and emotional moment took many by surprise, and was later termed “the cry of Bucharest” by Romanian journalists. It has often been mentioned by the Holy Father as a vision of what could come.

The reason for Romanian Orthodoxy’s openness to Catholicism stems from her status as an autocephalous church. “The Romanian Orthodox Church governs alone in the national territory,” said Ambassador Baconsky. “The invitation of the Pope showed that they have independence from the Moscow Patriarchate on the ecumenical plain.”

Dialogue between Romanian Catholic and Orthodox representatives still continues, with a joint commission meeting regularly. However, some areas of the country still exhibit significant tension. The Pope was impeded from visiting Transylvania because the Greek Catholic “problem” is strongest there. Nevertheless, Romania can be seen as a model for how things might be worked out. “Romania is a wonderful example,” said Cardinal William Keeler. “Romania is basically a very good example of collaboration between Catholic and Orthodox bishops.”

Ukraine and the United States
Catholic-Orthodox relations in Ukraine are complicated by the virulent persecution and martyrdom that Greek Catholics endured under the Soviet regime and by the presence of three different Orthodox churches now competing with each other for dominance.

On October 5, 1989, the Moscow Patriarchate demanded the dissolution of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The Soviet Union followed suit, proclaiming that the Ukrainian Catholics were not a religious body at all, but a nationalist and separatist organization. When the Holy See agreed to join in a tripartite negotiation on the issue with the Moscow Patriarchate and the Soviet Government, Greek Catholics in Ukraine protested their exclusion from the talks and began to stage massive demonstrations. On October 29 of that year they took over the largest church in Lviv, the Church of the Transfiguration.

After tense negotiations, Ukrainian Catholic communities were finally allowed to register with the government on December 1, 1989. They then began gradually to re-acquire their old churches. The resurgence of Ukrainian Catholicism greatly upset the Moscow Patriarchate, which claimed that violence had been used to resolve property disputes—a claim denied by Ukrainian Catholics. By the mid-1990s, the two groups were learning to live with each other. A mixed commission is still working to resolve questions of church ownership.

The dialogue between Orthodoxy and Catholicism in the United States seems to be unusually productive. But the US is a special case. “It is going well because we are all out of the places where the history happened,” said Cardinal Francis George. “And that is the great advantage of America. We are free from the baggage.” Father Long agrees: “When you get out of the atmosphere of centuries-old conflicts, we are able to understand each other better, and we get better results.” Despite the success of Orthodox/Catholic dialogue in North America, organizers decided not to use it as a model because no other nation faces a comparable situation.

Conclusions
The Emmitsburg meeting highlighted the fact that each Church has different priorities. For Pope John Paul II, Christian unity is the highest priority. For some of the Orthodox, unity can only take place in the distant future—after the resolution of various doctrinal, cultural, and even real-estate issues. “Unity is not a priority for the Orthodox,” concedes David Figueroa. Within the Russian Patriarchate, there is an active debate on how far—if at all—the Russian Orthodox should be involved in the ecumenical movement.

The question of papal primacy is one that Catholic leaders have been eager to tackle in East-West discussions. But that topic has not yet come up; the question of “uniatism” seems to have pushed the papacy off the agenda. “Papal primacy has not yet been discussed,” said Cardinal Keeler. He continued:

With the encyclical Ut Unum Sint, the Pope took up this issue. He wanted to know what model of the papacy could serve unity. I think he was thinking in particular about relations with the Orthodox. We were hoping it would come up at Emmitsburg, but it didn’t.