Unlike many international ecumenical groups, the work of the Anglican
Oriental Orthodox International Dialogue may well be interesting to those other
than ecclesiastical nerds, of whom Miss Jean Brodie says “for those who like
that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like”. Its work is set
against a background of persecution, modern martyrdom, ancient division, Islam,
and the exotic music, dress, languages, liturgies and cultures of the Middle
East.
The Anglican Communion has international ecumenical commissions with six
global church families: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Lutheran,
Reformed and Methodist. A small group of worldwide Anglicans are appointed by
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General of the Anglican
Communion to serve on these dialogues. I was honoured to be appointed to the
Anglican Oriental Orthodox International Commission earlier this year and have
just returned from our first meeting in Cairo, Egypt.
Most of the International dialogues are about building relationships and
engaging in theological dialogue to find common ground and heal divisions. On
the face of it the Anglican Oriental Orthodox dialogue is the same. However,
unlike the other dialogues, there is a much deeper and more pressing rationale.
The International Commission is really an act of solidarity with an
increasingly persecuted Christian community.
For those who are not familiar with Oriental Orthodoxy, it is the
communion of the ancient churches found primarily in the Middle East who
refused to subscribe to the Council of Chalcedon. The Oriental Orthodox
comprise: The Armenian Orthodox, the Coptic Orthodox, the Eritrean Orthodox,
the Ethiopian Orthodox, the Malankara Orthodox, and the Syrian Orthodox. These
churches represent the most ancient forms of Christianity found today with many
still speaking West Syrian, East Syrian, and even Aramaic – the language of
Christ Himself.
Their music, religious liturgies and customs, dress and culture seem to
many western Christians alien and they are often confused with Islam. If you
observed black clad Syrian orthodox clerics chanting and prostrating themselves
during evening prayer you could be forgiven for first thinking they were a
group of Imams. The similarities are striking. However the reason they are
striking is not that the Christians are worshipping like the Muslims but rather
the other way around. There are some who even believe that early Islam was
strongly influenced by the Assyrian Orthodox communities in the Persian Empire
(modern day Iraq) who, holding to the Nestorian Heresy, deemphasised the
divinity of Christ and who tended to think of him as a Prophet like in the
Koran.
These communities flourished after the Edict of Milan established
tolerance of Christians in 313AD until the coming of Islam in 634AD when their
traditional territories were overrun. For the last 1400 years they have lived
in their homelands as a religious minority. Although there were periodic
persecutions under the Byzantine, Persian, Muslim and Ottomans it is the 20th
century that has seen one of the greatest threats to the survival of the
Oriental Orthodox: the attempted genocide of the Armenian Orthodox (1 and a
half million Armenian Orthodox were killed and 750,000 Assyrian Orthodox, and
750,000 Greek Orthodox) and a sustained persecution of the Syrian Orthodox the
by the Turks, as well as violent persecution of the Coptic Orthodox by militant
Islamists in Egypt (94 Copts have been killed in the last two years).
Palestinian Oriental Orthodox have been denied traditional human rights in
Israel and forced to flee the country (fifty years ago 15% of Palestinians in
Israel were Christian while today that percentage has dropped to only 1.5 and
most predict there will be no indigenous Christians in the Holy Land in twenty
years) and the indigenous Church of the East (Assyrian Orthodox) in Iraq has
been almost wiped out. The only traditionally stable country in the Middle East
for Christians, Syria, has been a refuge for them from persecution. The current
destabilisation of that country may well see another great exodus of these
communities from their homelands to new homes in Canada, Australia, and the
United States.
Although it is a difficult thing to face up to, the reason so little
international attention has been paid to the plight of these Christian
communities is the widespread ignorance of these churches by Western Christians
and their instinctive Islamaphobia towards those from the Middle East. Part of
the Anglican Communion’s attempt to educate the rest of the world about the
urgent need of our sister churches has been to highlight, prioritise, and publicise
our dialogue with them and encourage the churches of our communion to learn
about their history, culture, predicament, and to foster local ecumenical
relationships with them. Although Montreal has the most Oriental Orthodox
communities in Quebec, there is a Coptic Orthodox community in Quebec City and
a Syrian Orthodox community in Sherbrooke. There are even a couple of Coptic
families in Magog.
As Anglicans, we look to the Scriptures, Tradition (the early church),
and Reason (the three legged stool of Richard Hooker) for authority. As such,
the Council of Nicaea (325AD), Constantinople (381AD), Ephesus (431AD),
Chalcedon (451AD), and the Creeds that came from them (The Nicene and the
Apostles Creed) hold doctrinal importance for us second only to Holy
Scripture. Anglicans have placed patristics (the writings and teachings
of the fathers of the undivided church such as St Augustine, St Ambrose, St
Jerome, and Pope St Gregory the Great) as part of Tradition. As Anglicans hold
to the teaching of the early church, the Council of Chalcedon, which defined
the human and divine nature of Christ, is central to our understanding of God
and his work in the creation. It is this Council and the nature of Christ that
the latest meeting addressed.
For decades international dialogues between the Orthodox and the
Oriental Orthodox, between the Anglicans and the Orthodox and the Oriental
Orthodox, as well as the Church of Rome have led to a re-evaluation of the
significance of the refusal of the Oriental Orthodox to subscribe to the
Council of Chalcedon. This has primarily been attributed to the complexities of
several Greek words and their Syrian translations. To make a complicated
theological argument simplistic – we have agreed that the Oriental Orthodox in
speaking of the one nature of Christ do not thereby deny full humanity and full
divinity of Christ. Therefore, our historical condemnation of the Oriental
Orthodox as being Monophysite (those that believe that Christ has only one
nature which therefore must be either fully divine or fully human), was
incorrect and a misunderstanding of their true position as Miaphysites (those
that believe that Christ’s one nature is a unity of his humanity and divinity
and are united without separation, without confusion, and without alteration).
I assume the significance of the difference is self-apparent: if we believed
Christ had only one nature then our central Trinitarian theology of incarnation
and the atonement would be meaningless and we would not believe God is
encountered by us through his creation, one another, and the Sacraments.
For almost thirty years the Anglican Communion and the Oriental Orthodox
have been trying to reach an agreed Statement on Christology. The Orthodox had
already come to the same agreement with the Oriental Orthodox which paved the
way for our agreed statement. On October 15th we finally achieved our goal and
the Joint Agreed Statement on Christology was signed. Thus an almost 1600 year
division was swept away. The next day the entire delegation was received in St
Mark’s Cathedral, the largest Cathedral on the African continent and filled
with thousands of Copts, by the Patriarch of Alexandria (one of the four
Ancient Patriarchs or Popes of the undivided church) where we presented His
Holiness with the fruit of thirty years of theological dialogue, ecumenical friendship,
mutual understanding, and a passion for unity in the spirit of Christ’s High
Priestly Prayer “that all may be one”.
