A fresh start ” “” “

A “genuine new start” in relations between Orthodox and Catholics, after years of division and misunderstanding, “a purification of memory”: that’s how Cardinal Karl Lehmann , president of the German Bishops’ Conference, describes the significance of the annulment of the reciprocal excommunication between Orthodox and Catholics in 1054, lifted on 7 December 1965. The cardinal expressed his view during the ecumenical symposium held in Munich to mark the 40th anniversary of this event to which he had invited the Metropolitan of Germany and Exarch of Central Europe AUgUSTINE . The meeting was the first of its kind to be held in Germany. It was attended by other senior representatives of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. The participants on behalf of the Orthodox Church included the Russian Orthodox bishop of Berlin and Germany, Feofan Galinskij , the Serb-Orthodox bishop of Central Europe, Konstantin Djokic , the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of Germany, Serafim Joanta , and the chairman of the commission of the Orthodox Churches in Germany, ANASTASIOS Kallis of Münster. The Catholic participants included the archbishop of Munich and Freising, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter , the chairman of the Oriental Churches work group of the Bishops’ Conference, Msgr. Gerhard Feige (Magdeburg), and the chairman of the Commission for ecumenism Msgr. GERHARD Ludwig Müller (Regensburg). LOVE AND TRUTH. After placing the events of 1054 and 1965 in their historical context, Lehmann said that “contrary to what is often supposed, the reciprocal excommunications should not be considered the beginning of a schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Nor did the act of 7 December 1965 simply eliminate the separation. The events of that day should rather be evaluated in the light of various events”, he observed, recalling the symbolic meetings between Patriarch Athenagoras and Paul VI in Jerusalem on 6 January 1964, at the Fanar in Istanbul in June 1967, and in Rome in October 1967. The annulment, he insisted, “forms part of a series of actions of great expressive force of the Second Vatican Council”, among which Lehmann recalled the announcement of the Ecumenical Council by John XXIII in 1959, with the invitation of non-Catholic observers, and the message of the conciliar fathers to humanity, issued during the Cuban missile crisis on 20 December 1962. The act of annulment of the excommunication, placed in this context, is, in Lehmann’s view, a “sign of the inseparable dual nature of love and of truth”. The cardinal cited the words of the then professor of theology Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, (“the symbol of division was replaced by the symbol of love”) to emphasise how “over thirty years ago”, the present Pope had indicated the close union between theological dialogue and the constant work of the “healing of memory”. These are tasks, said Lehmann, to which the German Bishops’ Conference feels itself expressly pledged” and which are performed for example in the structure of training for Orthodox theology in Munich, in which the study of Orthodox theology is combined with that of the study of Catholic and Evangelical theology. DIALOGUE TO THE ADVANTAGE OF EVERYONE. The cardinal firmly dismissed any “anxiety lest Orthodox-Catholic dialogue should be to the detriment of Evangelical-Catholic dialogue”; “in no way will that happen”, he exclaimed. Lehmann explained: “dialogues are like channels of communication. The results, irrespective of where they are reached, end up to everyone’s advantage”. The same concept was also reiterated during the final ecumenical celebration, presided over by Cardinal Wetter and by Metropolitan Augustine. During his homily, the Metropolitan publicly declared and solemnly reaffirmed that “our open hand and our open heart are especially turned to our partners in the German ecumenical process, in particular to the Churches of the Reformation”. It should also be underlined that the participants at the pontifical Vespers, celebrated in part according to the Catholic rite and in part according to the Orthodox rite, also included the bishop of the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Bavaria, Johannes Friedrich. CONTINUING “Communio”. “A momentous day in the history of the Church”: that’s how the Metropolitan of Germany and Exarch of Central Europe described 7 December 1965. “Reconciliation, brotherly love, overcoming the pain, forgetting [the division] and eliminating it from the memory of the Church” – these were the keywords of 40 years ago”, he recalled. “These were the categories of the ecumenical dialogue between our Churches, which now seem to us already antiquated. So much has been achieved over the last 40 years. The ‘discovery of communio‘ will be taken forward also in future”, he promised, “for example through the work of the joint Commission of the German Bishops’ Conference and the Greek-Orthodox Metropolitanate of Germany”, “through our various ecumenical meetings” and “through our common witness in this country”.