The Eastern Catholic Churches

and the Furtherance of Catholic-Orthodox

Unity: Three Possible Paths

A. Edward Siecienski

1   Introduction
For most of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and especially over
the last thirty years, people have talked about the deleterious effect the
Eastern Catholic or “uniate” Churches have had on Catholic-Orthodox
rapprochement. Ecumenical progress, these individuals claim, which was
swift throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, has stalled almost
completely since the resurrection of the Eastern Catholic Churches in
1989. Instead of “bridges to Orthodoxy,”1 these churches have become
the chief barriers to restored communion—ecumenical stumbling blocks
in need of removal. However, as appealing as this narrative may be to

1
Among the many interesting discussions that took place at the conference, both in formal
sessions and in informal conversations, was the appropriateness of this term in describing the
Eastern Catholic Churches.

A. E. Siecienski (*)
Stockton University, Galloway, NJ, USA

© The Author(s) 2021 269

V. Latinovic, A. K. Wooden (eds.), Stolen Churches or Bridges to
Orthodoxy?, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55458-3_16
270 A. E. SIECIENSKI

some, it neglects the oft-forgotten truth that over the centuries there also
have been several occasions when Eastern Catholics actually served the
cause of unity; when they acted, or had the potential to act, as true
“bridges” between East and West. Perhaps a way forward might thus be
found by looking back to those moments when the Eastern Catholic
churches were seen not as barriers to, but as champions of, church unity.
Gleaned from history, these examples provide three possible paths for
Eastern Catholics today, although which, if any, the most productive
option might be under the present circumstances I leave for others
to decide.

2   The Loyal Opposition

The first possible path is that the Eastern Catholics continue to remain
part of the Catholic communion of churches, but at the same time increas-
ingly work to become “the Orthodox voice” within it. This would entail
not only continued resistance to theological and liturgical Latinization,
but also, when necessary, actively opposing those Roman policies, prac-
tices, and doctrines that they believe contrary to the faith of the Eastern
Church. They would essentially become “the loyal opposition” to the
governing bureaucracy of the Roman curia—loyal because they would
maintain communion with the See of Peter and the essential teachings of
the Catholic faith, and an opposition because as autonomous churches
within the Catholic communion they would be free enough to speak out
on issues of concern to their Orthodox brothers and sisters.
Historically there are at least two examples of how this might work.
The first is Melkite Patriarch Gregory II Youssef (1864–97), who at
Vatican I was one of the strongest voices raised against the dogmas con-
tained in Pastor Aeternus. Of course, the debate on the pope’s jurisdiction
and his infallibility were of great interest to the Christian East whose bish-
ops had long questioned the extent of the pope’s authority. However, the
Orthodox had refused Pope Pius IX’s invitation to attend the council,2
and thus it seemed that they could only watch and wait to see how the
2
Tactlessly the invitation was published in the Italian newspapers prior to being sent to the
patriarchs, so Patriarch Gregory VI of Constantinople (1835–40, 67–71) knew of its con-
tents before the Pope’s representatives had even arrived. Gregory returned the letter
unopened, telling the papal delegation that he could not attend such a gathering. The
Patriarch of Alexandria similarly rejected Pius’s letter, asking the papal envoy how he could
attend a council scheduled to open on the “Feast of the Immaculate Conception,” which
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 271

conciliar proceedings unfolded. That said, it would be inaccurate to say

that the voice of the Christian East was not heard at Vatican I. The historic
concerns of the Orthodox vis-à-vis the papacy were raised, and to a great
extent ably defended, by many of the bishops of the Eastern Catholic
Churches who continued to oppose the ultramontane tendencies of both
the pope and his supporters.3 Chief among them was Patriarch Gregory II
Youssef.
Youssef intervened on several occasions during the council to speak
against the promulgation of the pope’s universal jurisdiction and infallibil-
ity, citing not only the obstacle these doctrines would place in the way of
East-West unity, but also the limitations they would place on the historic
rights of the patriarchs. Youssef argued that one could not view the pope
as an “absolute monarch,” lest the function of the bishops be distorted
and the nature of the church itself changed.4 He pleaded that the docu-
ment should content itself with repeating the Florentine definition of the
primacy, with the rights of the other patriarchs confirmed. He said:

The Eastern church attributes to the pope the most complete and highest
power, but in a manner where the plentitude and primacy are in harmony
with the rights of the patriarchal sees. This is why, in virtue of the most
ancient right founded on customs, the Roman Pontiffs did not, except in
very important cases, exercise over these sees the ordinary and immediate
jurisdiction that we are now asked to define without exception. This defini-
tion would completely destroy the constitution of the entire Greek church.
This is why my conscience as a pastor refuses to admit it.5

Youssef’s’ efforts on behalf of the Eastern Church did not go unno-

ticed. In a famous story, whose historicity is now deeply suspect,6 Youssef
was summoned to an audience with the pope following one of his speeches.

celebrated “a dogma wholly unknown to the church.” “The Pope and the Patriarch,”
Queabeyan Age, July 29, 1869, 1.
3
See especially Constantin Patelos, Vatican I et les évêques uniates: une étape éclairante de
la politique romaine à l’égard des Orientaux (1867–1870) (Louvain-la-Neuve: Collège
Erasme, 1981); Wilhelm de Vries, Rom und die Patriarchate des Ostens (München:
K. Alber, 1963).
4
He suggested an amendment to this effect, but it was rejected.
5
Patelos, Vatican I et les évêques uniates, 482.
6
At the Second Vatican Council Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV raised this event with Pope
John XXIII (who had introduced Pius IX’s cause for sainthood) claiming that at the council’s
final ceremony the pope had kicked Gregory in the head and said “Testa dura.” See Henri de
272 A. E. SIECIENSKI

According to the story, “when Youssef kissed the foot of Pius IX in the
traditional fashion, the pope placed his foot on the patriarch’s head (some
said his neck) after the manner of a pagan conqueror, and said, ‘Gregor,
you hard head you.’ ”7 The Chaldean Patriarch Joseph VI Audo (1847–78),
another champion of the patriarchal rights of the Eastern Church, alleg-
edly had a similar meeting with an enraged Pius IX, who locked the door
behind him and told the elderly patriarch that he would not be allowed to
exit the room until he had given his full assent to the bull Reversurus.8
According to Edward Farrugia, even if these stories are not historically
accurate they are still reflective of the relative position of the Eastern
Catholics, which was still one of subservience.9 For example, the prepara-
tory commission “On the Mission and Churches of the Oriental Rites”
was spearheaded by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who suggested as
one of the “reforms” the introduction of mandatory celibacy for Eastern
Catholic priests.10 Latinization, not independence, was the order of
the day.

Lubac, Vatican Council Notebooks: Volume One, trans. by Andrew Stefanelli and Anne
Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), 160–61.
7
August Bernhard Hasler, How the Pope Became Infallible: Pius IX and the Politics of
Persuasion, trans by Peter Heinegg (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 89.
8
Ibid., 88–89. Audo had angered Pius on several occasions for his continued refusal to
bow to papal dictates. In 1872 Pius IX wrote an encyclical to the Chaldean Church (Quae in
Patriarchatu) chronicling Audo’s alleged misdeeds. Pius IX wrote how at Vatican I “We
quickly noticed that he who had shown Us many signs of reverence and obedience had
changed very much […]. We ordered him to make a declaration of support and submission
to the Constitution on the Church of Christ which was published in the fourth session of the
ecumenical Vatican Council, which he had not attended […]. He first devised delays and
sought evasion and then declared stubbornly that he would be more useful after he had
returned to his See […]. Once he returned to Mesopotamia, he consorted with promoters of
novelties and said many things rashly which, as it is reported, could be reconciled neither
with the office of a Catholic bishop nor with the orthodox faith.”
9
Edward Farrugia, “Vatican I and the Ecclesiological Context in East and West,”
Gregorianum 92 (2011): 451–69. Luis Bermejo notes, for example, that the Eastern bishops
were tightly controlled by the Congregation of Propaganda, “presided over by authoritarian
Cardinal Barnabò, a confirmed infalliblist.” When sixteen bishops “signed the postulation
against the proposed definition [of infallibility] […] they were forced by Barnabò to with-
draw their signatures.” Luis Berjemo, Infallibility on Trial: Church, Conciliarity and
Communion (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1992), 123.
10
Constantin Patelos suggested that among the positives of the council’s early adjourn-
ment was the failure to ratify all the “projects prepared by this commission that would have
widened the gap between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church and rekindled the
old tensions and polemics.” Patelos, Vatican I et les évêques uniates, 546.
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 273

Yet despite the various attempts to silence them, Patriarch Youssef and
the other Eastern bishops held their ground. When a trial ballot on Pastor
Aeternus was held on July 13, Patriarchs Youssef and Audo, along with
five other Eastern hierarchs, were among the eighty-eight bishops who
voted non placet.11 Since the pope desired that the document be passed
with “moral unanimity,” most of the minority bishops, including Youssef
and Audo, left Rome before the final balloting, which took place five days
later. Of the sixty-one Eastern bishops who had attended the council, only
twenty-two were present on July 18 when Pastor Aeternus passed by a
vote of 533–2.12 When later asked to subscribe to the teachings of the
council, Patriarch Youssef and his synod complied, but not before adding
“save for the rights and privileges of the Eastern Patriarchs.”13 In July
1872 Patriarch Joseph Audo also made his affirmation, albeit reluctantly,
clarifying that he only did so “with the reservation conserving all the
rights, distinctions, privileges, favors, usages, and traditions enjoyed by the
ancient patriarchs of the East, both general and specific, without change
or difference.”14
If Gregory’s defense of the rights of the Eastern Churches angered
some, it also brought the admiration of others. In this latter group was
Pius IX’s successor, Leo XIII, whose 1894 apostolic letter, Orientalium
Dignitas Ecclesiarum, reaffirmed many of the principles Gregory had
advocated, including the end to Latinization and the expansion of the
Melkite patriarchate to include all “those faithful of the same rite who
reside within the Ottoman Empire.”15 Within his own church Gregory
became a model, especially for those intent on preserving the rights of
their own churches while serving the cause of Christian unity.

11
There were 601 votes, with 451 placet, 88 non-placet, and 62 placet iuxta modum.
Cuthbert Butler, The Vatican Council 1869–1870 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press,
1962), 400.
12
Patelos, Vatican I et les évêques uniates, 507: They included: the Armenian Patriarch and
six of his bishops, six Chaldeans, two Maronites, two Syrians, three Melkites, one Coptic
bishop and one Bulgarian.
13
Ibid., 535.
14
Ibid., 536.
15
“Inasmuch as this diversity of liturgical form and discipline of the Eastern Churches is
approved in law, besides its other merits, it has redounded tremendously to the glory and
usefulness of the Church. They ought not figure any less as subjects of Our charge. So much
is this the case that it is in the best interest of all that their discipline not haphazardly borrow
anything that would be ill-suited from Western ministers of the Gospel whom love for Christ
compels to go to those peoples.” Leo XIII, Orientalium Dignitas Ecclesiarum.
274 A. E. SIECIENSKI

Among this group, and the second example of Eastern Catholicism’s

“loyal opposition” to Roman centralization, was Melkite Patriarch
Maximos IV Sayegh (d. 1967).16 At the Second Vatican Council, Maximos
consistently reminded the assembled bishops that “Latinism and
Catholicism are not synonymous,”17 and for this reason the Eastern
churches could not be treated as mere appendages of the larger Latin
church. When told that cardinals were to be given precedence over the
patriarchs in the council’s opening procession, he refused to participate,
believing that as head of a church he ranked higher than the clergy of the
diocese of Rome. This was done, he argued, not out of pride of place—he
had on several occasions already declined the cardinal’s hat since he
believed it beneath a patriarch to accept a lower rank in the Latin Church—
but out of concern for the dignity of the patriarchal churches.18 At the
council itself he alone refused to speak in Latin, the gathering’s official
language, since he maintained that Latin was the language of the West,
and not the church universal. Instead, he spoke in French.
At the council Maximos continually defended the equality of the
Eastern Catholic Churches and the patriarchal/collegial ecclesiology to
which it adhered. Even before the council, the Melkite bishops had sub-
mitted their responses to the preparatory committees synodally, which
Robert Taft noted exercised “collegiality ante factum, long before the

16
According to Robert Taft, Maximos “was the first to acknowledge the synodal, collegial
nature of the Melkite enterprise, and other major Melkite council figures like Archbishops
Elias Zoghby, Neophytos Edelby, Peter Medawar, and our own Archbishop Joseph Tawil,
also made the trenchant and eloquent ‘Voice of the East’ heard at Vatican II.” Robert Taft,
Introduction to The Greek Melkite Church at the Council: Discourses and Memoranda of
Patriarch Maximos IV and the Hierarchs of His Church at the Second Vatican Ecumenical
Council (Newton, Mass: Eparchy of Newton, 2014). The book was originally published in
French as Maximos IV Sayegh, L’église grecque melkite au Concile; discours et notes du patri-
arche Maximos IV et des prélats de son Église au Concile œcuménique Vatican II (Beruit: Dar
al-Kalima, 1967).
17
See, for example, Maximos IV Sayegh, ed., The Eastern Churches and Catholic Unity,
trans. by John Dingle (Freiburg: Herder, 1963); Gaby Hachem, “Primauté et œcuménisme
chez les melkites catholiques à Vatican II,” Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 93 (1998):
394–441.
18
When Maximos did eventually accept the cardinal’s hat in 1965, it was only after Paul VI
clarified that, unlike other cardinals, patriarchs would be neither members of the Roman
clergy nor assigned to a titular Roman diocese or church. This was still not enough to satisfy
the patriarchal vicar for Alexandria, Elias Zoghby, who resigned his post in protest.
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 275

later work of the Council had made this ecclesiology common coin.”19
Echoing what the Orthodox had been saying for centuries, Maximos
made it clear that Christ founded the church not only on Peter, but also
on all the Apostles, for “neither chronologically nor as an idea does the
primacy of Peter come before the ministry of the Twelve. Even while pos-
sessing this primacy of leadership, Peter remained one of the Twelve, an
Apostle like them, sharing the power which was given to them jointly and
severally, not only as a member of the college, but also as president and
chief of the college.”20 In a similar manner, “the Roman pontiff is a mem-
ber of the episcopal college and at the same time the head of this college.
The head commands the body, but it is not outside the body.”21 Bishops,
Maximos maintained “in union with their head, the Bishop of Rome, and
under his direction […] have the collective responsibility for the whole
church, and they exercise with him, in some manner, a collective power
over the universal church. This is what we mean when speaking of episco-
pal collegiality.”22 Roman ecclesiology may have “blurred” this “rich idea”
in recent centuries, both in its theory and practice, but Maximos hoped
that the council would soon rectify this mistake.23
Aside from emphasizing the principle of synodality, Maximos is cred-
ited with helping the Latin Church adopt other Eastern practices, includ-
ing “the use of the vernacular in public worship; eucharistic concelebration
and communion under both species, [and] the permanent diaconate.”24
Maximos’s defense of traditional Eastern concerns led Patriarch
Athenagoras to praise him as “the voice of our common hopes” since at
the council he “spoke for Orthodoxy.”25 Like Patriarch Gregory before

19
Robert Taft, Introduction to The Greek Melkite Church at the Council. Referenced at
https://melkite.org/faith/faith-worship/introduction
20
Maximos IV Sayegh, The Greek Melkite Church at the Council. Referenced at https://
melkite.org/faith/faith-worship/ chapter-5.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
24
Joseph Amar, “The Liturgy Was Made for All People and Languages, Not Just Latin”
America, August 13, 2019. Referenced at https://www.americamagazine.org/
faith/2019/08/13/liturgy-was-made-all-people-and-languages-not-just-latin
25
According to a report of the conversation, Maximos told Patriarch Athenagoras that it
was his goal “to be the voice of the Great Absent One at Vatican II.” “Every time I spoke,”
he said, “I thought of you.” Athenagoras’s reply was “You spoke for Orthodoxy […] You
were the voice of our common hopes.” Cited in Emilios Inglessis, Maximos IV: l’Orient
conteste l’Occident (Paris: Cerf, 1969), 72.
276 A. E. SIECIENSKI

him, Maximos made it clear how Eastern Catholic bishops could, without
breaking the bonds of communion that joined them to the Latin Church,
speak with an Orthodox voice and serve by their presence (and occasional
criticism), as a bridge between the two worlds. There have been, of course,
other examples of this principle over the years, but more recent Eastern
Catholic bishops have not been as outspoken as their predecessors. One
could, of course, speculate as to the reasons for this, but it appears to help
the cause of unity, or the Catholic claim to “catholicity,” very little if the
only thing the Eastern churches bring to the table is another Latin voice
wearing Byzantine dress.

3   Via Media

A second suggestion is that the Eastern Churches continue to explore the
possibility of dual communion with both Rome and Constantinople as
was proposed by Melkite bishop Elias Zoghby in his 1996 book Tous
Schismatiques?26 Commonly known as the Zoghby Initiative, the plan
would have allowed the Melkites to maintain their ties with Rome while
entering into communion with the Orthodox, requiring but two concur-
rent confessions: “I believe everything which Eastern Orthodoxy teaches”
and “I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the
bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the
East during the first millennium, before the separation.”27 This sort of
dual communion was possible, Zoghby claimed, because both sides now
recognized that the faith of the two churches was so close as to be identi-
cal. The fact that Patriarch Maximos V and twenty-four of his twenty-six
fellow bishops signed the statement suggested that the Melkites them-
selves believed this to be the case.

26
Elias Zoghby, We Are All Schismatics, trans. Philip Khairallah (Newton, MA: Educational
Services, 1996). Zoghby had been advocating this approach for almost twenty years, see
Gabriel Hachem, “Un projet de communion ecclésiale dans le patriarcat d’Antioche entre les
Eglises grec-orthodoxe et melkite-catholique,” Irenikon 72 (1999): 453–78. See also Suzane
Mary Aboueid, Archbishop Elias Zoghby and Orthodox-Catholic Reconciliation: An Exposition
in the Light of Contemporary Ecumenical Thought (Fairfax, VA: Easter Christian
Publications, 2007).
27
See Elias Zoghby, Ecumenical Reflections, trans. by Bishop Nicholas Samra (Fairfax, Va.:
Eastern Christian Publications, 1998).
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 277

However promising it might have been, the Zoghby Initiative did not
receive a warm welcome from either side.28 Although the Greek-Orthodox
Metropolitan of Byblos and Batroun, George Khodr, endorsed the profes-
sion as “the necessary and sufficient conditions to re-establish the unity of
the Orthodox churches with Rome”29 the rest of the Antiochene Synod
was not as optimistic. In October 1996 it issued a statement that said that
“our church questions the unity of faith which the Melkite Catholics think
has become possible […] our Synod believes that inter-communion can-
not be separated from the unity of faith […] Inter-communion is the last
step in the quest for unity and not the first.”30
From the Catholic side the then-head of the CDF, Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger, wrote to Zoghby in 1997 criticizing the initiative, claiming that
“with respect to the declaration on the part of Greek-Melkite Catholics of
complete adherence to the teachings of Eastern Orthodoxy, one must
keep in mind the fact that the Orthodox churches are today not yet in full
communion with the Church of Rome, and that this adherence is thus not
possible so long as there is not from both sides an identity of professed and
practiced faith.”31 This was especially true of the Orthodox refusal to
acknowledge the “primacy of the Roman Pontiff,” which although “sub-
ject of some development within the elaboration of the church’s faith
through the ages […]. must thus be upheld in its entirety from its origins
all the way to the present day.”32

28
Zoghby’s original 1975 proposal had been rejected by Rome in a 1976 letter that noted
both churches “exclude totally the possibility, either temporary or provisional, of a double
communion or a double allegiance.” Zoghby, We Are All Schismatics, 97. See also Gabriel
Hachem, “The concept of ‘double communion’ in Bishop Zoghby’s project. What model of
unity?” Cristianesimo nella Storia 38 (September 2017): 867–80.
29
Quoted in Waclaw Hryniewicz, “Outliving the Schism,” in The Challenge of Our Hope:
Christian Faith in Dialogue (Washington, DC: Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy, 2007), 258.
30
As quoted in a Melkite Greek Catholic press release (September 1996), an online version
of which can be found at http://www.ratzinger.it/documenti/BeatitudeMaximos.htm
(accessed October 25, 2007).
31
“Letter of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches addressed to His Beatitude
Maximos V Hakim, the Greek-Melkite Catholic Patriarch (June 11, 1997),” 30 Days 11
(1997): 15.
32
Ibid., Interestingly this idea, that the Eastern Churches must explicitly affirm all of the
legitimate second-millennium developments that took place in the West regarding the
papacy, seemed to run contrary to the proposal that Cardinal Ratzinger had first floated at a
talk in Graz in 1976. The “Ratzinger formula,” as it became known, held that East-West
reunion required only that the Orthodox accept the primacy as it existed before the schism
278 A. E. SIECIENSKI

As novel as Bishop Zoghby’s proposal might have seemed, the histori-

cal truth is that dual communion was hardly a new idea, and that many of
the Eastern Churches, including the Kyivan Metropolitanate, enjoyed
communion with both Rome and Constantinople for decades after the
schism. This, it should be noted, is a reference neither to those isolated
pockets where intercommunion between believers was tolerated or tacitly
allowed—this, we know, occurred throughout the Mediterranean until
the eighteenth century33—nor to the situation of the Ukrainian Catholic
Church during the Soviet period, when persecution led to widely acknowl-
edged sacramental sharing between the Eastern Catholics and the
Orthodox.34 Rather, this references the fact that for several years between
the councils of Florence and Brest the Kyivan Metropolitanate was in
communion with both the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of
Constantinople, and that the “Zoghby Initiative” is not a twentieth-­
century invention, but was instead suggested as far back as the seventeenth
century by Metropolitan Peter Mohyla.
For Boris Gudziak, the unique position of the metropolitanate, in the
years following the Great Schism is largely explained by its relative

without the need to consent to all the “legitimate and orthodox […] developments that took
place in the West in the second millennium.” Ratzinger wrote: “Rome must not require
more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and
was lived in the first millennium. When the Patriarch Athenagoras […] designated him as the
successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one also presides in charity, this
great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was
known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more.” Joseph Ratzinger, “The
Ecumenical Situation: Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism,” in Principles of Catholic
Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press,
1987), 198–99.
33
Frans Bouwen cites numerous examples of this, including an eighteenth-century letter
to the pope by the monks of Sinai indicating that “from one side and the other, intercom-
munion was still considered to be in force.” Frans Bouwen, “Ouverture du dialogue
théologique entre l’église catholique et l’église orthodoxe,” Proche orient chrétien 29 (1979):
316. See also Kallistos Ware, “Orthodox and Catholics in the Seventeenth Century: Schism
or Intercommunion?” in Derek Baker, ed., Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, Studies in
Church History, 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 259–76.
34
In December 1969 the Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate officially sanctioned this prac-
tice, stating that “in cases where Old Believers and Catholics ask the Orthodox church to
administer the holy sacraments to them, this is not forbidden.” See Eastern Churches Review
3 (1970): 91–93. This decision was interpreted by most as applying only to the Soviet
Union, at that time living under religious persecution, where Catholics and others might not
have any access to their own ministers. This action was explicitly condemned by the Church
of Athens the following year.
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 279

isolation—that is, “because of the geographical and theological remote-

ness of the Kyivan metropolitanate from the respective jurisdictional and
theological centers of the opposing Greek and Latin ecclesiastical worlds”
the polemic that so dominated in other parts of the East “largely bypassed
the church of Kyiv.”35 For the Ruthenian bishops recognizing the primacy
of Rome did not preclude acknowledging the historic rights of the
Constantinopolitan Church as its mother, nor the right of the patriarch
(not the pope) to confirm the Ruthenians’ choice of metropolitan. In
1476, for example, Metropolitan Mysail (1475–80) sent a lengthy letter
to the Pope Sixtus IV (1471–84) addressing him as “universal pope” and
maintaining his adherence to the Florentine union, and yet he signed as
“metropolitan-elect” since his appointment had not yet been confirmed
by the Constantinopolitan Patriarch, whose jurisdiction over him he con-
tinued to recognize.36
For evidence that this idea of a dual communion did not die, we have
the witness of the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv, Peter Mohyla, and his
1644 memorial to Pope Urban VIII, Sententia cuiusdam nobilis Poloni
graecae religionis.37 Believing that the Union of Brest had brought only

35
“Like a child in the midst of chronic family discord, the Kyivan church occasionally
repeated formulations overheard in a distant debate, but for the most part avoided, or even
ignored, the conflict within the senior generation.” Borys Gudziak, Crisis and Reform: The
Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of
Brest (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 48–49. See also Kallistos Ware,
“Response to the Presentation by His Grace Bishop Basil (Losten): ‘The Roman Primacy and
the Church of Kyiv,’ ” Logos 34 (1993), 107–16.
36
Mysail compared the pope to the “source of four rivers [i.e., patriarchates] watering all
creation” and wrote that “there is no difference among Greeks and Latins concerning
Christ” since both are part of “one and the same faith […] called to live according to their
respective traditions” The letter is found in Andriĭ Sheptytsʹkyĭ and Alexander Baran, eds.,
Monumenta Ucrainae Historica. Supplement 9–10, 1076–1632, n. 4 (Rome: Editiones
Universitatis Catholicae Ucrainorum. 1970): 5–55; Eng. trans: Gudziak, Crisis and Reform,
50. For more on the letter see Petro Bilaniuk, “The Five-Hundredth Anniversary of the
Letter of Misael, Metropolitan-Elect of Kyiv, to Pope Sixtus IV. (1476–1976),” and “A
Theological Analysis of the Letter of Misael, the Metroploitan-Elect of Kyiv, to Pope Sixtus
IV” in idem, Studies in Eastern Christianity, vol. 2 (Toronto, 1982): 129–142, 143–55.
37
See Waclaw Hryniewicz, “Orthodoxy and the Union of Brest: The Ecumenical
Significance of the Memorial of Metropolitan Peter (Mohyla) to Pope Urban VIII
(1644–1645),” in The Challenge of Our Hope, 243–52. For more on Mohyla see Ihor
Ševčenko, “The Many Worlds of Peter Mohyla” in Ukraine between East and West: Essays on
Cultural History to the Early Eighteenth Century. (Edmonton: Canadian Inst. of Ukrainian
Studies Press, 2009): 164–186.
280 A. E. SIECIENSKI

schism and damaged the church because it did not properly protect
Orthodoxy (opting instead for the gradual transformation of the Orthodox
into Latins), Mohyla suggested a solution.38 The Bishop of Rome, he
wrote, has always been recognized as “first and supreme in the Church of
God (semper primus ac supremus in ecclesia Dei), as the Vicar of Christ, the
Chief. May that be conserved today! But we have never read that a Latin
has ever exercised a direct jurisdiction over the Greek rite (nusquam fuisse
ut ritui Graeco Latinus directe superintenderet).”39 For this reason Mohyla
suggested that the Kyivan church should acknowledge the primacy of the
pope and enter communion with Rome, but do so:

1. without ceding jurisdictional authority over the Kyivan Church as

had happened at Brest
2. without breaking the bonds of communion with Constantinople,
Kyiv’s “mother church” from whom she received faith and holy
baptism (neque a Patre nostro Patriarcha, a quo initiate sumus sacro
Baptismate recedentes)40

This move, Mohyla recognized, was only provisional, until such time as
the patriarch could free himself from the stranglehold of the Turks and
personally lead the whole “Greek religion” into a salutatory concord (ad
hanc salutarem concordiam) with the West.41 Until then the Kyivan Church
would remain semi-autonomous, with its metropolitan seeking confirma-
tion neither from Rome nor from Constantinople, even though it would
send synodal letters as had been done in earlier centuries. For Mohyla even
if the patriarchs of those churches had temporarily broken off communion
with each other—a situation he still regarded as temporary—this did not

38
Peter Mohyla, Sententia cuiusdam nobilis Poloni graecae religionis; Atanasij Grigor
Velikij, ed., “Un progetto anonimo di Pietro Mohyla sull’unione della Chiese nell’anno
1645,” in Mélanges Eugène Tisserant, Vol. 3: Orient Chrétien, 2ème parti (Rome: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, 1964): 451–473. See also Bernard Dupuy, “Le dialogue Rutki-Moghila
en vue de l’union des Ruthènes (1624–-1647),” Istina, 35 (1990): 50–75; Ernst Christoph
Suttner, “Metropolit Petr Mogila und die 1644 verfasste Sententia cuiusdam nobilis Poloni
graecae religionis über die Einigung der Kirchen,” Ostkirchliche Studien 50 (2001): 106–116.
39
Peter Mohyla, Sententia cuiusdam nobilis Poloni graecae religionis in Velikij, ed., “Un
progetto anonimo di Pietro Mohyla,” 471–72. Eng. trans: James Likoudis, “Testimony to
the Primacy of the Pope by a 17th c. Russian Orthodox Prelate,” Social Justice Review
(1992): 25–27.
40
Ibid., 472.
41
Ibid., 473.
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 281

mean one had to choose sides, for as Peter III of Antioch had demon-
strated in 1054, fights between patriarchs need not involve everyone
else.42 Thus by maintaining its bonds with both sees, the Church of Kyiv
could achieve “a happy union and peace,” finally ending the divisions
caused by the Union of Brest.43 It is interesting to note that despite oppo-
sition from Polish Catholic bishops, the initial Roman reaction to Mohyla’s
plan was relatively positive, and it was only the metropolitan’s premature
death in 1647 that prevented negotiations moving forward.
There are those, and here one could include both the former and cur-
rent Ukrainian Catholic Major Archbishops of Kyiv-Galicia, Lubomyr
Husar and Sviatoslav Shevchuk, who have suggested a similar plan for the
Eastern Catholic Church in Ukraine. Of course, there are several problems
with such a scheme, chief among them being that neither the Roman nor
Orthodox authorities have expressed any willingness to support it. And
yet in 1992 the Kyivan Church Study Group proposed the idea of dual
communion along the lines of the Zohgby Initiative as a way of moving
the dialogue forward. Even after the Vatican’s 1997 statement there are
those on the Catholic side who think it deserving of (at the very least)
further study, and among the Orthodox there are still a few hierarchs and
scholars who continue to advocate a reappraisal. The Zoghby Initiative
may not have the same momentum it did twenty years ago, but it remains
a viable option moving forward.

4   Canary in the Coal Mine44

For decades Eastern Catholics have claimed that the Orthodox world
closely monitors the Vatican’s dealings with the (so-called) “uniate”
churches, the logic being that in these interactions the Orthodox receive a

42
According to Zoghby, “the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch knew the meaning of double
communion” better than most, and until the seventeenth century “received Catholic mis-
sionaries in their churches and gave them the tasks of preaching and of helping in the devel-
opment of Orthodox youth.” In fact, the Patriarchate of Antioch seems to have maintained
communion with Rome and Constantinople for long stretches between 1054 to 1724, until
the election of Cyril VI eventually brought about a permanent break. Zoghby, We Are All
Schismatics, 94–95.
43
Peter Mohyla, Sententia cuiusdam nobilis Poloni graecae religionis in Velikij, ed., “Un
progetto anonimo di Pietro Mohyla sull’unione della Chiese nell’anno 1645,” 471–72.
44
Beginning in the early twentieth century, caged canaries were used in mines to detect
carbon monoxide and other toxic gases. Because of their small size, the birds would get ill or
282 A. E. SIECIENSKI

“preview” of how Rome would treat them if/when union is achieved. The
argument is simple: If, as has increasingly happened since Vatican II, the
Eastern Catholic Churches can truly remain “Orthodox” in their liturgy,
theology, and ecclesiological structures, the Orthodox will come to under-
stand that union with Rome does not necessarily lead to latinization or
subordination.45 However, if the Orthodox see the rights and traditions of
the Eastern Church trampled underfoot and uniates increasingly treated as
second-class Christians within the Catholic communion, there is little
incentive for Orthodoxy to restore relations with Rome. In this sense, at
least, the Eastern Catholics have come to see themselves as scouts or the
“canary in the coal mine,” witnessing to the Orthodox world what it
might look like to be Orthodox in communion with Bishop of Rome.46
The third possibility is that cause of church unity might better be served
if the Eastern Catholic Churches continued in this role as “canary in the
coal mine” but in the other direction—that is, for the Eastern Catholics to
return to those Orthodox Churches from which they originally sprang,
becoming witnesses to an Orthodoxy stripped of the anti-Roman bigotry
that has become one of its most distinguishing features. Naturally this
would necessitate a temporary break with the successor of Peter, some-
thing for which the Eastern Churches have suffered greatly over the cen-
turies, but it must be stressed that this is envisioned as a short-term
measure taken to diminish the true roadblock to unity—the historic and
deeply ingrained anti-Roman/anti-Catholic feeling among the Orthodox.
As those involved in ecumenism know, solving the theological problems is
nothing compared to overcoming centuries of suspicion, mistrust, and

die long before the gases affected humans, giving miners time to evacuate. Thus they became
a metaphor for someone/something tasked with testing potential dangers ahead.
45
“By our fidelity to maintaining our patrimony, by our refusal to be assimilated, the
Eastern Churches render a most precious service to Rome in still another area of Church life.
Latinizing this small number of Easterners would not be a gain for Rome; rather it would
block—perhaps forever—a union of the separated Churches of the East and West. It would
be easy then for Orthodoxy to see that union with Rome leads surely to ecclesiastical assimi-
lation. Thus it is for the sake of ecumenism—to create a climate favorable to the union of the
Churches—that the Eastern Catholic must remain faithful to his tradition.” Archbishop
Joseph Tawil “The Courage to be Ourselves: 1970 Christmas Pastoral Letter” Referenced at
https://melkite.org/faith/faith-worship/the-courage-to-be-ourselves
46
In their role as scouts, “united Easterners are like a child warning his older brother
against an unsuspected danger,” walking the road ahead “with the courage to precede [their
siblings] at some personal risk along the road we all must travel.” Sayegh, “The Eastern Role
in Christian Reunion,” in The Eastern Churches and Catholic Unity, 54.
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 283

sometimes open hostility. In fact, one could perhaps make the argument
that exchanging (at least in the short term) full eucharistic communion
with the pope for “all but perfect communion” is the greatest service the
Eastern Catholics could perform for Peter’s successor—sharing with their
Orthodox brothers and sisters their experience of, and emotional links
with, Rome in order to lessen the anti-Catholic prejudice that currently
poison relations between the churches. Instead of serving as a witness
outside the Orthodox communion, they would begin to change hearts
and minds by living within it.
Once again, such a plan has many problems, not the least of which is
the resistance of many Eastern Catholics to surrender something—com-
munion with the Bishop of Rome—for which their ancestors suffered and
died. In a January 2019 interview following the granting of autocephality
to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), Ukrainian Catholic Major
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk was asked about Greek-Catholics joining
the new church.47 While claiming that some individuals inevitably would,
Shevchuck argued that it would probably be few, since Eastern-Catholics
“remember very well the martyrs and confessors of our church during
communist times, who gave their lives in order to witness to unity with the
successor of the Apostle Peter […]”. “This unity” he said, “is an integral
part of our identity.”48
And yet at the same time there is the truth, often forgotten, that the
Eastern Catholic churches have a unique vocation within the Roman com-
munion, since part of their calling is eventually to cease to be. They were
created as temporary measures, not as permanent structures, since the
assumption was always that on the day full communion between the
Roman and Orthodox Churches is achieved the Eastern Catholics would
and should simply return to their ancestral homes and disappear as sepa-
rate entities. According to Archbishop Neophytos Edelby,

Too often, unfortunately, uniates […] act as though they were themselves
always to remain as they are today. They fail to see that their function is to
scout on ahead and that they have no meaning except in relation to the army

47
Rumors, true or not, circulated in the days surrounding the Tomos that Patriarch
Bartholomew hoped that the creation of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church free from Moscow’s
jurisdiction would lead the Eastern Catholics to join the new body.
48
Interview with His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Glavcom, January 9, 2019. English trans:
http://news.ugcc.ua/en/interview/his_beatitude_sviatoslav_unity_of_catholics_and_
orthodox_is_not_utopian_thinking_85020.html
284 A. E. SIECIENSKI

that is to follow. They forget, too, that their position is essentially temporary
[…] in the sense that, once union comes about, they will rejoin their
churches of origin, henceforth united with them as though they have never
departed.49

Edelby’s position, valid though it is, makes many Eastern Catholics

uncomfortable, and one can certainly understand why. After four centuries
it is hardly surprising if Eastern Catholics have come to regard their
churches as permanent, or the preservation of their unique history/heri-
tage as part of their ecclesial identity. However, if their vocation is to
return to their churches of origin, the question is not if they return, but
when. The obvious answer, of course, is on the day of full communion
between Orthodoxy and Rome is achieved, but given present realities this
is not going to happen at any time in the near (or even distant) future.50
The question thus becomes whether to hasten this day another “scouting
party” is necessary, and whether the Eastern Catholics, who have played
this role before, are not perfectly positioned to serve as the vanguard. Yes,
they would return home ahead of schedule (i.e., before the day of full
restored communion), but only as witnesses to an Orthodoxy untainted
by the anti-Romanism/anti-Catholicism that continues to hinder all
efforts at reunion.
As an historical example of what this might look like one can turn to the
United States, which in the twentieth century saw a large number of
Eastern Catholics return to the Orthodox Church. In fact, despite the
encomiums heaped upon Sts. Innocent and Herman and the Russian mis-
sionaries to Alaska, the reality of the Orthodox Church of America (OCA)
is that many of its parishes, especially in Northeast Pennsylvania and Ohio,
were once Eastern Catholic Churches, brought to Orthodoxy by Alexis
Toth (1853–1909) and his successors.

49
Archbishop Neophytos Edelby, “Between Orthodoxy and Catholicism,” in Sayegh, ed.,
The Eastern Churches and Catholic Unity, 69. Over thirty-five years later Bishop John Michael
Botean of the Romanian Greek-Catholic church shocked many of his co-religionists at one
of the early Orientale Lumen Conferences in Washington DC when he repeated Edelby’s
point—that the vocation of the Eastern Catholic churches was to become extinct.
50
Avery Cardinal Dulles, himself a longtime participant in ecumenical dialogues, once
despaired that reunion between the churches is so far from realization that it could only be
understood as an eschatological event. Avery Dulles “Paths to Doctrinal Agreement: Ten
Theses,” Theological Studies 47 (March 1986), 32–47.
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 285

Toth’s own story, of course, is well known. As a widowed Eastern

Catholic priest, Toth was told after coming to the United States that he
should seek out the local Latin hierarch, John Ireland, with whom he met
on December 18, 1889. Like most of the bishops of the United States,
Ireland had little love for the “uniates” or their traditions, as soon became
clear.51 According to Toth’s own account:

[N]o sooner did he read that I was a “Uniate” than his hands began to
shake […].
“Have you a wife?” “No.”
“But you had one?” “Yes, I am a widower.”
At this he threw the paper on the table and loudly exclaimed, “I have already
written to Rome protesting against this kind of priest being sent to me!”
“What kind of priest do you mean?” “Your kind.”
“I am a Catholic priest in the Greek Rite, I am a Uniate. I was ordained by
a lawful Catholic bishop.”
“I do not consider you or this bishop of yours Catholic.”52

The audience, which became increasingly acrimonious on both sides,

soon ended, and an enraged Ireland then directed Polish Latin Rite priests
to denounce Toth from the pulpit, which only made matters worse.53
Toth, for his part, decided that if Rome was going to treat him thus, he
would enter into full communion with the Orthodox, which he did, bring-
ing along thousands of Eastern Catholics in his wake.54 In the years that

51
Bodhan P. Procko noted in his dissertation that “the majority of Latin hierarchy and
clergy in the United States were unfamiliar with the usages of the Byzantine Rite” and thus
their hostility often sprang from their complete ignorance of Eastern Catholic tradition and
history. Bodhan Procko, The Byzantine Catholic Province of Philadelphia: A History of the
Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S.A. (PhD diss, University of Ottawa, 1963), 34.
52
Quoted in John Erickson, Orthodox Christians in America (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999), 66–67. See also D. Oliver Herbel, Turning Toward Tradition: Converts and the
Making of an American Orthodox Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 25.
53
A similar fate greeted Father Ivan Wolansky, an Eastern Catholic priest from Lviv who
tried to meet with the archbishop of Philadelphia, Patrick J. Ryan, in order to discuss the care
of uniates in the diocese. Ryan refused to meet with him and the archbishop’s vicar general
told Wolansky that there would be no meeting since there was no room for a married priest
in the United States. Ivan Kaszczak, Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and the Establishment of
the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States (Toronto, CA: The Basilian Press,
2013), 18.
54
According to Erickson, by the time of his death in 1909 Alexis Toth had led 65 Byzantine
Catholic parishes with more than 20,000 faithful back to Orthodoxy. Erickson, Orthodox
Christians in America, 64.
286 A. E. SIECIENSKI

followed there were several more waves of conversions, as the Vatican con-
tinued to issue decrees restricting the rights of Eastern Catholics in the
United States. In 1907 there was Ea Semper, which not only forced certain
Latin practices upon the Eastern Catholics (e.g., the separation of chris-
mation and baptism), but also forbade the ordination of married priests.
In 1929 Pope Pius XI issued Cum Data Fuerit, prohibiting all married
Eastern Catholic priests from serving in the United States, leading Father
(later Metropolitan) Orestes Chornock of Bridgeport CT and thirty-seven
Eastern Catholic parishes to form the American Carpatho-Russian
Orthodox Diocese. The truth is that Orthodoxy in America was largely
born out of the Eastern Catholic Church, and that John Ireland is prob-
ably responsible for more souls being brought to Orthodoxy than the
Russian missionaries the OCA praises so highly.
It is true that these conversions originally brought with them lawsuits
over church property and even the ending of lifelong friendships—Toth
and longtime friend Fr. Nicephor Channath would only reconcile as
Channath lay dying in 1898.55 However, by the latter part of the twentieth
century these tensions were largely forgotten, and relations between
Eastern Catholics and Orthodox in the United States warmed immensely.
For example, in 1997 the Orientale Lumen Foundation was formed under
the auspices of the Society of Saint John Chrysostom, with annual confer-
ences taking place since 1998. The brainchild of Jack Figel, a Byzantine
Catholic from Virginia, for over twenty years the Orientale Lumen
Conferences have brought together Orthodox, Roman, and Eastern
Catholics for both study and prayer. Having attended several of these con-
ferences myself, what struck me most was the obvious fraternal bond
between Eastern Catholics and Orthodox, all of whom lamented the juris-
dictional (but not spiritual) lack of unity between them.
My reason for citing this history is this—one interesting phenomenon
in the United States is that the remarkable cordiality between Orthodox
and Eastern Catholics found at these conferences is not the exception, but
rather the rule. Orthodox Christians in the United States, especially in the
OCA, do not share the anti-Roman biases so prevalent elsewhere in the
world, perhaps because for most of the OCA, whose family histories or
even current family situations have roots in the Eastern Catholic Churches,

55
Anthony Clark, “Fr. Alexis Toth, Bishop John Ireland, and the Grace of
Reconciliation,” Catholic World Report, May 18, 2016; https://www.catholicworldreport.
com/2016/05/18/fr-alexis-toth-bishop-john-ireland-and-the-grace-of-reconciliation/
 THE EASTERN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND THE FURTHERANCE… 287

it is impossible to maintain the old polemics. The Orthodox Monks of

New Skete, who themselves left the Byzantine Rite Franciscan Order to
found the monastery in 1966, testify to this reality. Even today they con-
tinue to celebrate the feast of St. Francis (a post-Schism Western saint),
with icons of Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, and Pope John XXIII on
their chapel’s walls. For these monks becoming Orthodox did not com-
pletely break their emotional and spiritual links with Rome, allowing them
to serve as a witness from inside the Orthodox communion of the kind of
unity ecumenists dream of.

5   Conclusion
As was stated at the beginning, these three possible roads are just some of
the options open to the Eastern Catholic Churches, for there are an infi-
nite number of other paths they could take.56 This is merely an attempt to
draw lessons from history, allowing the cause of church unity to move
forward by examining the past. In order to work each of the options dis-
cussed would demand a level of change and even sacrifice from the Eastern
Catholics, and a certain amount of flexibility from both the Orthodox and
Latin churches. Unfortunately, if the history of the schism has taught us
anything, it is that flexibility is not the strong suit of either. However, can
either side look at what the Eastern Catholics have endured, especially this
past century, and the kind of sacrifices they might be asked to make in the
future, and not respond? A new path forward demands new thinking, even
if these “new paths” have very ancient roots.

56
Following my presentation I had dinner with some of the Eastern Catholic representa-
tives at the conference. “You forgot at least one option, perhaps the most important,” one
Ukrainian deacon told me disapprovingly. “Instead of doing this or that in order to break the
Catholic-Orthodox deadlock, what the Eastern Catholics most need to do is continue their
own spiritual renewal, preparing themselves theologically and spiritually for the day union
comes. On that day the Ukrainian Catholic Church must be strong and vibrant in order to
serve, and that is the irony, because this will only take place when we finally stop obsessing
about how the Romans or Orthodox see us, and we focus instead on how God sees us.”