How about a common date in the Latin Rite for the 40th day after Easter, ASCENSION THURSDAY! And a common date for Corpus Christi, which should fall on a Thursday always! And a common date for Epiphany, as always on January 6! And a common celebration of Septuagesima!
Just saying!
Vatican calls for all Christians to set joint date of Easter
Finding a common date for Easter has been part of ecumenical endeavors for many years, as the divide between Catholics and Orthodox over the use of different calendars has led to varying dates of the feast.
17 comments:
To the Orthodox, ecumenism is heretical. To think otherwise, is to not understand the Orthodox. The Roman Church, and those churches relying on the Gregorian Calendar for major feasts such as Easter/Pascha, readopting the Julian Calendar formula for Pascha's determination would simply be viewed as correcting its own error. The Orthodox will not adopt the Gregorian Calendar and its method for determining Pascha.
Orthodoxy has retained the practice/custom established at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea - the formula for which was based on the Julian calendar.
I believe its referred to as the modified Julian Calendar whereby Easter/Pascha is fixed and agreed across Byzantine Orthodoxy yet major feasts like the Nativity can and are celebrated according to the Gregorian Calendar.
"To the Orthodox, ecumenism is heretical." Exactly right. For that and other reasons, it makes no difference to most Orthodox Churches whether Rome changes its dating of Easter or not.
The majority of Orthodox world uses the Julian Calendar. The rest use the Revised Julian Calendar. I suspect that, one day, all Orthodox Churches will return to using the Julian Calendar.
Always the push, push, push for change....how about something novel such as leaving ancient rites and practices the (blank) alone for a change....especially, does it really make a difference whatsoever as to when another ancient church celebrates Easter? Why the big deal about a common date? We all meeting at the same church, same bat time, same bat channel, be there or be square? Are they going to erase time zones, too?
A small step on the way to being in communion with one another? Why don't they take care of communion first, as sharing a common date with a church NOT in communion is as much a yawner as are Hindu and Islamic celebration dates, totally irrelevant. How about us being in communion and leaving them alone, otherwise? To me, this push is an exercise in extreme eggheadism, and make-work to pretend to be doing something substantial and with meaning, the hallmark of this papacy
Has there ever been a time when Easter had a common date? And does it really matter ?
Fr. David Evans,
To your question, yes.
Does it really matter? I suppose that is governed by one's perspective.
The "two lungs" of the Church is a quaint notion until the rubber needs to hit the proverbial road. On the one hand, do the Orthodox care when Catholics celebrate Pascha? Probably not. Catholics left the Church from their perspective, erred in several ways notably the filioque and papal supremacy, then compounding a concept that did not exist at the Church's founding with papal infallibility.
On the other hand, Catholics desire unity with the Orthodox. Superficial gestures will not accomplish this; understanding the need to reassemble the Church the way it was at the time of the first 7 Ecumenical Councils might get us closer.
Example: For actual unity to have a fighting chance of occurring, the Eastern Catholic Churches of which I am part (Byzantine Ruthenian Church) likely need to cease to exist. To them, we are an aberration despite our successful efforts to reclaim practices from when we were Orthodox. When dissolved, we would simply rejoin our ancestral Orthodox equivalent. Am I opposed to this? No. Would some be? Perhaps, but then, they would likely and sinfully be focused on pride and temporal matters, not that which Christ himself established.
So, at the end of the day, it gets down to what the Catholic Church desires. IMHO, the Orthodox Churches have a point regarding their issues with the Catholic Church - really the Roman Church - the way it has changed, bowed to earthly cares in ways that Orthodoxy has not. Watching my own Byzantine Ruthenian Church reclaim its patrimony by washing away that which crept in for no justifiable reason has made this crystal clear, at least to me. The burden would be ours, not theirs. I don't think many in the Catholic Communion could accept that, admit error, then reclaim the patrimony and structure that would make reunification actually possible.
The Orthodox can think what they want about ecumenism.
The unity of the Church is the will of Christ, so I prefer His view to that of the Orthodox.
Wasn't the date common from after the First Council until the creation of the Gregorian calendar? So, something like 1,200 years...
It mattered enough that the fathers settled the issue at the First Council.
I think we can have unity in diversity even with the date of Easter. Many places celebrate the Epiphany, January 6, at their Christmas Feast. And certainly a diversity of ways of celebrating the Divine Liturgy/Mass is fine too and I would include the various rites of the Latin Rite, all of which need recovering as these were celebrated prior to the Pope Paul’s unfortuante decisions about the liturgy.
What many in the West might not realize is that this matter is not entirely black and white, rather, it has has shades of gray. Why? No one knows exactly when certain events occurred and who really left who first. Reality: The Roman Church changed more over the years than the Orthodox. Reality 2: While both sides will need to meet in the middle, the burden will largely be on the Roman Church to do so. I am not attempting to sound like an apostate, but unity of the Church is not as simple as expecting Orthodoxy to bow to the will of Rome which has become layered with a political component that simply didn't exist from the apostolic age through the first 7 Ecumenical councils. Example: Orthodoxy largely does not accept Roman Catholic baptism as it pertains to conversions. Why? To the Orthodox, they never left the Church, the Roman Church did.
To understand how reunification is possible, a very good understanding of history, acceptance of the lack of transparent black/white that led to the split and a relaxed mind is necessary to achieve a unified Church in concert with the will of Christ. To the Orthodox, ecumenism is simply compromise. As they feel they never left the original Church, they do not see the need for such as they don't feel they ever erred.
Unity is an ideal that we should be praying and striving for as was rightly noted. The peripheral complications are crushing requiring a willingness to jointly study the history working towards realignment. Absent this, nothing will change.
But after the First Council, there were still local Synods called to 'settle' the date of Easter: eg Council of Whitby 664 and this was not the last before the acceptance of the Gregorian Kalendar
If some Orthodox Church (I'm looking at you, Istanbul) entered into union with Rome, they would cease to be Orthodox. The rest of the Orthodox world would simply continue on without them. Unification from an Orthodox perspective is people or groups renouncing their errors and entering the Orthodox Church.
The "Our Church Is Perfect and Admits of No Change" is the error the Catholic Church made for many centuries. (It's the same error from which the Jews had to be dissuaded - "We Are God's Chosen People and He Doesn't Care About you.)
Liturgical style can - and must - change, including liturgical languages. Architecture and the decor of churches can - and must - change. The Catholic Church began to learn the lesson of necessary evolution following the Protestant Reformation, although we fought mightily for centuries to keep the wagons tightly circled.
We will become ONE again as we once were. It means we all must be willing to admit past errors, to chart new pathways.
"Liturgical style can - and must - change, including liturgical languages."
Why must liturgical "style" change? What was wrong/broke in the first place?
"Architecture and the decor of churches can - and must - change."
Why must architecture and decor of churches change? What was wrong/broke in the first place?
"We will become ONE again as we once were. It means we all must be willing to admit past errors, to chart new pathways."
Eastern Christianity is in part predicated on the preservation and continuation of holy tradition, handed down from the apostles along with the Deposit of Faith. You potentially do not understand this mindset that is significantly different from both your own as well as that of the west if you believe there would be an interest in charting new pathways. Return the Church to how it was? Yes. Create something different from our inheritance? No.
I am 100% with ByzRus in his reply to FMJK, and meanwhile, hard to square FMJK's desire for unity with demand for evolution, as all things will not evolve the same in all times and places, leading to disunity....
Don't believe me?...if both Eastern and Western churches had not changed an iota since the Great Schism, a reunification would have been far far simpler today than it it is currently, which is currently nearly impossible minus divine intervention, as too much water under the bridge/evolution.
Liturgical style must change because, like language and all things cultural, it is a human construct. The way we worship - colors, architecture, iconostases, dalmatics, church decor, etc., - is not ordained by God. We made it according to the styles and cultures of the time.
I very much understand the mindset that Holy Tradition - not 't'radition - must be maintained. That's why I am part of the One, Holy, Catholics, and Apostolic Church. It is in this Church that Holy Tradition is most fully believed and taught.
Bob - I do not "demand" evolution. Evolution happens whether I demand it or not. Did anyone demand that cars evolve? That computer operating systems evolve? That finches or archaeopteryges or alphabets or music notation evolve?
Fr. MJK,
I do not follow your comment relative to a countercultural Church. It sounds as if you are suggesting change for the sake of change.
True, the Eastern liturgical books were created at a point in time. Other styles of chant have been introduced, regional variants, really, but the core liturgy is unchanged. Again, we see nothing wrong with it necessitating change.
As for cars, teletype, computers etc. these are earthy matters that we as Eastern Christians are called to set aside when addressing the divine. Microphones don't count. Your view seems overly worldly from my perspective.
We may have to agree to disagree that the Western and Eastern worldview and ethos are different and, perhaps, irreconcilably so.
One could conclude that this exchange is emblematic of why unity will not be easily achieved.
"can- and must- change" is a demand....there is no divine order demanding change in doctrine or liturgy. Simply because something may change, might change, and can change, does not automatically prove that it must, which is an imperative, an order, a demand.
And, you totally ignore my point that evolution leads to disunity, such as the subject at hand, the Great Schism and its healing, made far far more difficult to heal due to changes on both sides over the past nearly 1000yrs.
As for dating Easter, at the time of Ireneaus, it was plain that churches in the West had apostolic teaching via Peter and Paul with Easter determined one way, while churches in the East had apostolic teaching via John going a different route. Who was wrong? Who must change?...nobody. Meanwhile, both sides did, from.different starting points change their dating systems since then, driving them ever further apart, another wonderful example.of how helpful is change.
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