Eastern Orthodox Churches is the communion of Chalcedonian Eastern Churches that preserve apostolic succession and valid sacraments but are not in full communion with the Catholic Church.
Identity and Catholic recognition
Identity and terminology
Eastern Orthodoxy is a communion of autocephalous and autonomous Churches rooted principally in the Byzantine tradition. It is not one centralized worldwide jurisdiction, and its member Churches contain local dioceses gathered around bishops. Their use of Orthodox Church is a proper name as well as a claim about their faith; Catholic usage preserves the name while classification remains separate.[1]
Eastern Orthodox must be distinguished from Eastern Catholic, from the Oriental Orthodox Churches that did not receive Chalcedon, and from the Assyrian Church of the East. These Eastern Christian families share much but have different conciliar histories and are not interchangeable forms of one organization.
Catholic ecclesiological judgment
Unitatis redintegratio 15 teaches that the separated Eastern Churches possess true sacraments, above all Apostolic Succession, priesthood, and Eucharist. The 2007 CDF Responses therefore calls them true particular or Local Churches and says that the Church of Christ is present and operative in them. They are not Ecclesial Communities in the contrast applied to Reformation bodies lacking Orders.[2][3]
This recognition does not establish Full Communion. Communion with the successor of Peter is an internal constitutive principle of a particular Church in its fully catholic condition, and serious differences remain concerning universal primacy and other doctrinal and canonical questions. Catholic recognition and the call to restored unity belong together.
Sacramental and ecclesial consequences
Baptism, Orders, and Eucharist
The Ecumenical Directory 99 states that there is no doubt about the validity of Baptism in the various Eastern Churches once its celebration is established. Their bishops and priests possess valid Holy Orders, and their Eucharist is the true sacrament. An Eastern Orthodox Christian entering Full Communion is not treated as an unbaptized catechumen.[4]
Catholic law permits specified sacramental sharing because these sacraments are valid, but it does not authorize ordinary intercommunion. Catholics must also respect an Orthodox Church's own discipline, which may be more restrictive. Eucharistic communion is the sign of ecclesial unity and cannot be detached from the unity still sought.
Churches, not a parallel universal Church
Catholic sources can call an Eastern Orthodox local Church a Sister Church of a Catholic Particular Church. They do not place the Catholic Church as a whole and Eastern Orthodoxy as two sister universal Churches that together constitute the Church of Christ. The one Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church while true Churches exist outside full Catholic communion.[5]
Accurate prose should therefore use Churches for these sacramental bodies while naming the lack of Full Communion. It should not flatten them into denominations, call them Protestant, or imply that sacramental recognition resolves every ecclesiological difference.
References
- 1.Lumen gentium — The Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church, especially nos. 8, 14–15, 23, and 26
- 2.Unitatis redintegratio — The Second Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism, especially nos. 3, 14–15, and 19–22
- 3.Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church — The CDF's 2007 clarification of subsistit in and the distinction between Churches and ecclesial communities
- 4.Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism — The Holy See's ecumenical directory, especially nos. 92–101 and 122–125 on baptism and the separated Eastern Churches
- 5.Dominus Iesus — The CDF declaration, especially nos. 16–17 on the Church, particular Churches, and ecclesial communities