Transcript

Good evening, welcome to The Journey Home.

My name is Marcus Grodi, your host on this weekly program.

It's a great privilege I always have to meet with you each week to introduce to you a convert or someone who's come back to the Catholic Church to talk about their journey.

I'm very privileged tonight to introduce to you James Lakoudis.

Many of you probably have seen him on EWTN before; he's been on Mother Angelica's program, and he's going to talk about his journey from the Greek Orthodox Church.

It's exciting because many of you have given me emails or letters asking if I'll have a convert from the Orthodox Church, and up to this point, I've not had one.

So I look forward to Jim's presence with us on this program.

Remember, you're an important part of this program, so start getting your questions and emails ready to put to Jim later in the program.

The phone number, if you'd like to call us, is 1-800-221-9460, and if you'd like to email us, it's [email protected].

Jim, welcome to the program.

Thank you, Marcus.

And you say you watch the program once in a while at home; it's a great program.

Well, I'm glad to have you here.

Sometimes our guests have never seen the program before because where they live, they don't have the dish or they don't have the cable.

But you're able to see the program, so you know a little bit of what it's like to be on the other side, and now you're here with me on this side, ready to take their calls for you.

I'm a great privilege to have you on the program because Orthodoxy is one of the issues that many converts explore a bit as they consider the Catholic faith, and there's much confusion about the two churches: Catholic and Orthodox.

There's confusion about the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church, so we'll talk about that a little bit later.

Why don't you start by giving us a summary of your early spiritual journey?

Well, Marcus, I was brought up in Lackawanna, New York, famous for Bethlehem Steel.

Good, and also Father Baker's magnificent basilica, which is rather interesting because in Lackawanna, New York, Monsignor Nelson Baker founded this magnificent church and built it.

He died at the age of 96, and his cause for beatification has been opened.

So Lackawanna is certainly famous for Father Baker, perhaps a future blessed.

There were a number of Catholic schools in Lackawanna.

I was born to Greek immigrant parents who came to this country right after World War I. My father was a soldier in the Greek army; he'd been kept there too long and wanted to come to the United States.

So they were Greek Orthodox and came from a little island off the west coast of Greece called Cephalonia.

My earliest memories were of the magnificent Greek liturgy in the Greek Orthodox Church in Buffalo, New York, and going to public school.

I was sort of interested in religion; I wanted to know more about my own faith, and I was impressed by the Catholic schools and the Catholic youngsters who went to those schools, insofar as they were getting a religious education that I wasn't getting.

Because it was very difficult to travel into Buffalo from Lackawanna, my dad didn't drive.

There was no possibility of a formal, let's say, catechesis in Greek Orthodoxy, but I was interested in religion, and so I studied.

Frankly, I was confronted by a problem very early on.

The Catholics, you see, claimed to be the true Church of Jesus Christ, and interestingly enough, the Greek Orthodox claimed to be the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Obviously, you couldn't have two true churches.

When I went to the University of Buffalo and studied philosophy and history there, I spent a lot of time in the library studying the history of the Church and studying the history of the schism between West and East, which gave rise to the separated Eastern churches that separated from Rome.

The key date usually given is 1054, but historians of the 20th century have discovered that really that's not a very good date for the schism; it really occurred later.

You have a serious rupture taking place at the end of the 12th century.

By that time, the first attacks on papal primacy were taking place among the Greeks, and this schismatic tendency spread to the Slavs.

So you're really dealing with what you might call the Greco-Slav churches that form a block of about 16 national churches, where you have most Russians, most Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians, a lot of Romanians, some Arabs in the Middle East, and the Greeks.

All of them form a block of national churches that, for centuries, despite certain reunions that took place in 1274 and 1439, you have a more, let's say, solidified separation taking place after the repudiation of the Council of Florence in 1439. So you have a very tragic episode in Church history here: the separation of these patriarchal churches of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—these old historic churches.

Plus their daughter churches, you might say, that for many centuries have been separated from the Sea of Peter.

That's probably the greatest tragedy in the history of the Church.

Well, back when you were studying this in college, you were still Greek Orthodox, is that correct?

At the time, had you already gone through your transition in thinking, or did you still have an Orthodox way of looking at the Catholic Church at that point?

Yes, there was a period in which I was very hostile to the Catholic Church simply because I had read a number of Orthodox writers and polemicists.

The major point was that the Catholics had separated from the Greek Church, and the first thousand years of Christian history had no evidence of the universal jurisdiction of the Pope over the entire Church, both East and West.

My story there’s perspective, you know.

I paid special attention to the history of the papacy itself and read the writings of Popes Julius, Innocent, Leo I, Gregory I, and Gelasius.

When were they?

They would be in the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries.

Now remember, and you see this among a number of Orthodox writers today, they keep insisting that for the first thousand years, there’s no evidence of the papacy as we know it.

Of course, my own study of history indicated this was simply not true because if you read the writings of the popes themselves, long before the schism—hundreds of years before the schism—there is no question what they believed their role in the Church was.

The Pope considered himself to be the successor of the Apostle Peter, who was given an office in the Church to be the rock of the Church, to be the holder of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, to be the confirmer of his brethren, and to be the chief shepherd of the Church.

For our Lord said to him after the resurrection, Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.

One of the words in Greek is actually rule, rule my lambs and sheep.

During this time when you were examining these things, was it this particular issue that made it difficult for you to be a lifelong Orthodox?

To confront these things you were discovering in history—was it a shattering thing for you at the time?

What did it do to your family?

Is that when you converted, while you were in college?

It was a sort of complex scene at the university.

I was sort of a kind of crypto-Catholic while on campus because the Catholic Church was coming under attack.

These were the days of Paul Blanchard and the rise of secular humanism and secularism among academics, and the Catholic Church was taking a beating at that time on campus.

The campus newspaper was not very friendly to the Church.

I was sort of sympathetic to Catholicism after my reading, and one of the things that perhaps is interesting for those who are listening was the writings of Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Manning, Thomas William Allies, and Henry Wilberforce—converts from Anglicanism who had a great grasp of the history of the Church and who were great defenders of papal supremacy and papal primacy.

And it was quite obvious from reading their works and reading the original writings of the popes themselves that the Pope was more than just the first among equals.

He didn't just have a primacy of honor; yes, he had a primacy of honor, but that was based on a primacy of jurisdiction.

The Pope was not just like any other bishop of the Church; he was the successor of the Apostle Peter and the only bishop in all Christendom that was a descendant or the successor of a particular apostle.

There is no successor to Andrew, no successor to James—perhaps there are successors to Judas; we won't talk about that—but the Pope was the successor to Peter, who had a permanent office in the Church.

The whole concept of Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology came under examination.

The Eastern Orthodox concept of the Church—now they believe, along with us Catholics, that the Church is visible, unlike Protestants who don't believe that there is a visible organism in this world that is to be identified with the Church of Christ.

Eastern Orthodox don't agree with the idea of an invisible Church; they too believe that the Church is visible.

But the anomaly in their thinking, the contradiction, I just couldn't overcome: how do you believe in a visible Church that does not have a visible head?

The Church must have, in its human perfection, a visible head.

If you're going to speak of the Church as a visible body, it must have a visible head, and the only claimant to being the visible head of the entire Church in those first thousand years was the successor of Peter.

One of the things that I've run across in my working with those outside the Church is they'll often say that if there was a development of Peter, it was something forced on the Christians after Constantine and the more Latinizing of everything.

I'm sure you've heard that argument.

One tires of people who have a highly politicized view of the Church; they always think in terms of power and political power.

Christ established a primacy of Peter in the Church to preserve and safeguard the unity of faith.

That is the great function of the Pope in the Church.

One only has to read the magnificent writings of Pope John Paul II, who was a great ecumenist—the greatest ecumenist of our day—and he tells you what real, genuine ecumenism is.

In these two marvelous writings, Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One) and Orientale Lumen (Light from the East), the Holy Father gives his thought to all Catholics and to non-Catholics as to what genuine ecumenism is.

What he basically says is it is incumbent upon every Catholic to be an ecumenist in the right sense of that term: to dialogue with others, to interest them in the faith, to show them where the fullness of the Catholic faith is.

It is with the Catholic Church.

And to be truly Orthodox, one has to be in communion with the See of Peter.

Most Orthodox certainly believe 98-96% of everything Catholics believe, but they still lack the completeness of their orthodoxy in the sense that if they are to really be faithful to the tradition of the Fathers and councils of the first thousand years, they have to accept the primacy of Peter that comes with it.

There’s no question of what Pope Leo and Gelasius and so many other popes in that first thousand years taught, what their function and their role in the Church was: to be the center of unity for the communion of churches, both East and West, comprising what St. Augustine called the Catholica, the Catholic thing, the Catholic Church.

You mentioned that the real division probably didn't take place as we usually think about 1054; it really was more solidified later.

What were the key issues that you said divided the churches?

The great dogmatic differences between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy today are basically two, and that can be reduced to one because the objections to the Filioque that the Orthodox have censured Catholics for for centuries—oceans of ink being spilled in that controversy over that word Filioque, which means and the Son.

It’s in the Creed; we say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The Greek Orthodox did not like that addition and criticized it as heretical.

Now, Orthodox theologians, many of them, have come to believe that it’s simply a semantic difference; it’s not a heretical thing.

It doesn’t necessitate Catholics and Orthodox staying apart on the basis of that dogmatic issue.

In the Middle Ages, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone, which is what the Orthodox stated, or the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, which is the Catholic position—that was the big difference.

It’s very interesting that in the medieval period, from the 12th century to the 15th century, the Filioque controversy was a greater doctrinal difference than the papacy, which now is the number one issue between Catholics and Orthodox.

The Holy Father is calling upon the Orthodox to study faithfully the history of those first thousand years and to realize the necessity of a visible head for the Church militant on earth.

Christ did establish a center of unity to safeguard the faith and communion of the churches of East and West.

So he’s called upon a rethinking, even among Catholics, as to how his primacy could be exercised in the Church without raising the hackles of the East.

In the Middle Ages, if I can just complete that answer, it’s interesting that in the 12th century, the dispute over unleavened bread in the Eucharist was a more serious problem than the papacy itself.

In the early Middle Ages, in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, the fact that Catholics had unleavened bread in the Eucharist was regarded as a heresy.

Now, I don’t think there are too many Orthodox today that would hold that position.

There has been a softening of polemical reasons for the rejection of Catholicism among the Orthodox, and that's very good because it's coming from the genuine dialogue and conversions of ideas that are the result of ecumenical conferences.

What about the—this is the question I didn't mention earlier when we were talking—the issue of Caesaropapism, that whole issue of the relationship between the churches and then the governments around them?

Often, that's more of a charge from our side, from the Catholic Church.

Is there any truth to that?

I think there's a great deal of truth to it.

Can you explain what I mean by that term?

Caesaropapism means a Caesar-dominated Church, the Church dominated by temporal powers, whether it's the Byzantine Emperor, whether it's the Tsar, or whether it's the modern nation-state.

In other words, Eastern Orthodoxy, in the countries where it has flourished, has always been under the thumb, under the control of some temporal ruler—the Byzantine Emperor, the Czar, or the modern, let's say, Greek state—which is a national church where the government is always interfering in the internal affairs of the Church, just as the Byzantine Emperor did in the Middle Ages.

So Eastern Orthodoxy has suffered from the control of secular or temporal powers.

You have to remember that the Eastern Orthodox churches, especially those in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe, which are now free because of the fall of communism, for centuries were either under the control of the Tsar, under the Ottoman Turks, or under the communists later.

So for centuries, Eastern Orthodox churches have suffered from the interference of temporal powers in the internal life of the Church, even unto martyrdom, as we know from the millions of Catholics and Orthodox who died under Soviet oppression.

We still know about the persecution of the Catholic Church in Red China today, don't we?

This gets us to another issue: the relationship of authority in the Orthodox Church.

Where is authority found?

If we're describing Peter as the authority in the Catholic Church, where is authority or living authority to decide on doctrinal issues as they encounter new cultures and new issues?

This is one of the great weaknesses of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Without the Pope, there cannot be any dogmatic development.

They don't have an infallible magisterium, an infallible authority to decide questions on which patriarchs and bishops might disagree.

That is one of the great questions that the Eastern Orthodox simply cannot answer.

If a heresy breaks out or a serious error, and patriarchs and bishops disagree—like, for example, on the Filioque—there were some Greek theologians in the Middle Ages who didn't see anything really wrong with the Filioque.

To them, it was not a heresy, but others said it was a heresy.

Now, the Patriarch of Constantinople broke with Rome because of that issue, but why should one believe the Patriarch of Constantinople, or the Patriarch of Moscow, or the Patriarch of Bulgaria or Serbia, as against the voice of Peter in the Church?

Who has the divine commission to teach in matters of dogma and doctrine?

That is a serious question the Eastern Orthodox cannot answer.

They will speak about ecumenical councils, that the supreme authority in the Church is an ecumenical council, but who calls an ecumenical council?

Who confirms its decrees?

The history of the Church indicates only one voice: the voice of Peter can summon an ecumenical council.

Even as late as the Council of Florence in 1439, to show you the grip of Caesaropapism on the Eastern Orthodox, it was evident there that the Greeks believed only the emperor could call an ecumenical council.

Since, of course, the schism with Rome, the separation from the Sea of Peter, they’ve been unable for the last thousand years to have an ecumenical council, and consequently, there’s no end to the theological disputes that rage among the Eastern Orthodox today.

It’s a mistake of some evangelicals—yeah, there’s a large number, in fact, of evangelicals that are attracted to Orthodoxy today.

Yes, and the reasons, of course, are the great spirituality flowing from the magnificent liturgies.

We Catholics should think very seriously about liturgical celebration in our own parishes because many have been alienated, and it’s a scandal of the Eastern Orthodox to see the way in which the Mass is celebrated in many of our Latin Rite parishes.

Evangelicals love that Eastern spirituality, that cosmic view of the liturgy, the eschatological aspect, the otherworldly aspect that the liturgy brings in its proper celebration according to these magnificent Eastern rites, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and so on.

So that’s an attractive feature of Eastern Orthodoxy: the magnificent liturgy, where the Church is heaven on earth, and the celebration of the liturgy lifts you to thoughts of the Blessed Virgin and the saints and the whole splendor of Christianity.

I know that some that I’ve talked to are certainly drawn to the apostolic witness, the apostolic connection, the historical view.

Some that I’ve even read about—evangelicals who have gone to Orthodoxy—it's almost like when they look at the issue of Peter, they originally say, I can’t accept that, so they move on.

I mean, they don’t give it much thought.

I still think that the issue of papal authority is the rock-bottom issue in deciding one or the other.

All dogma depends upon authority.

With the Eastern Orthodox, even though they have valid priests and a valid episcopate, nevertheless, they lack oneness.

They lack the unity that Christ established in His Church because the unity is indivisible.

Among the Orthodox, you have all these autocephalous churches—independent national churches—but there is no visible bond of unity that unites them into one corporate or organic organism.

In other words, they lack the unity that Christ established with a center of unity in Peter.

Where Peter is, there is the Church, said St. Ambrose.

If you study their history very carefully and the modern theological disputes taking place among them, you’ll find a great variety of opinions on key issues and also a deviation from that apostolic tradition that they prize so much.

In terms of, let’s say, the doctrine of divorce, divorce and contraception are permissible; there is no condemnation of these moral evils among the Eastern Orthodox because they have no voice with Peter to teach them the truth on these very important subjects.

Let’s take a moment, if you would, and describe the difference between the Greek Orthodox and the Eastern Rite Catholics.

Let our audience make sure they understand the distinctions.

Eastern Rite Catholics, or the Eastern churches in communion with the Holy See, are those Eastern churches that returned to Catholic unity because of, let’s say, the Council of Florence or the Council of Brest-Litovsk or some other minor councils that took place where a number of Eastern bishops solidified their unity with the See of Peter.

Basically, they have the same liturgy, the same spirituality, the same rich doctrinal treasures flowing from the Eastern Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

They’re the same.

What separates them is that the Eastern Orthodox remain separated from unity with the Chair of Peter.

One of the questions I received from a person—I can’t remember if it was an email or a letter—had to do with Catholics visiting Orthodox churches or attending an Orthodox wedding.

What’s valid for Catholics in their relationship to Orthodoxy?

The popes for the last centuries have encouraged Catholics to know their Eastern Rite brethren better and also to know more about the Eastern Orthodox—the Russian Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, and the other national churches.

Catholics are encouraged to attend these magnificent liturgies to know their separated brethren better.

Can Catholics receive the Eucharist if the Orthodox do not allow Catholics to receive the Eucharist?

There was a time when the Russian Orthodox admitted that a few years ago, and then they rescinded that.

The Catholic discipline in these matters is, in a sense, more charitable.

We allow Eastern Orthodox, where there is need, to receive the sacraments of the Eucharist, penance, and the anointing of the sick where there is real need.

There’s no question of their belief in the seven sacraments.

The Eastern Orthodox, as I said before, to use a statistic, let’s say 98-96% Catholic.

But they still lack that unity with the Sea of Peter, which makes for the oneness of the visible Church—the oneness that our Creed talks about: Yes, one holy, Catholic, and apostolic.

One wonders sometimes what Protestants think these words mean when they recite the words of the Creed: We believe in one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.

We know that Luther, for example, during the Reformation, got rid of the word Catholic and changed the Apostles' Creed to the Christian Church.

But there are many Protestants who recite that Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed: one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.

One wonders what they understand by those words.

The Church, to be truly Catholic, must be at first one.

Christ established one Church.

The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, over and over again has said what a great scandal it is for Christians to remain divided.

What kind of witness is that to the world?

Our Lord, in the Gospel of St. John, prayed that all His followers would be one, that the world might believe.

So this is one of the great priorities of this Pope's pontificate: to heal and to mend these terrible tragedies of the past, these schisms of the past, which impede the spread of the Gospel in our time.

You have a book out which isn't about your own conversion; it's about ending the Byzantine-Greek schism, and it does have a conversion statement in here, doesn't it?

Yes, it has a marvelous apology or defense of Catholicism by a 14th-century lay theologian, Dimitrius Kidonis, who was the chancellor and the secretary to one of the Byzantine emperors at Constantinople.

He has a very interesting defense of the papacy and the Filioque.

The Filioque, of course, means and the Son, as in the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Why did Catholics insist upon that?

To safeguard the divinity of Christ.

If the Holy Spirit did not proceed from Him, then He was not equal to the Father from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds.

I also noticed in here that you print a letter of St. Thomas Aquinas.

It’s a treatise—this famous treatise against the Greeks.

He was given a writing by one of the Greek bishops, which was translated into Latin, and Pope Urban IV asked him to give an opinion on this.

So he wrote this very interesting treatise where there's a marvelous defense of the primacy of Peter.

That's one of the things that, when I was studying at the university, I was very impressed by St. Thomas Aquinas and tried to read everything he did on the questions of the papacy and the Filioque.

This book is sort of a little record of that.

Would you say this is a good book for a Catholic to give to an Orthodox friend or someone that's seeking to understand more?

I think so.

I think such a reader would be impressed by the continuity of Catholic thinking from the first thousand years right to the present.

I think the book would be good to put into the hands of an Eastern Orthodox who wants to know why Catholics think the way they do.

The book has the advantage of being, I would say—and I'm somewhat prejudiced—an excellent analysis of Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology and its defects.

All right, well thank you, Jim.

Please stay with us.

We'll be back in just a moment for your questions for Jim Lakoudis about his own journey and also questions about the Orthodox Church versus the Catholic Church.

Be back in just a moment.

Welcome back to The Journey Home.

My guest for this evening is James Lakoudis.

We've been talking about his journey from the Eastern Orthodox faith into the Catholic Church.

We've also mentioned his book on ending the Byzantine Greek schism, which you may have seen during the break.

The phone number where you can find out the information about his book will be later in the program.

Also, I recommend that again as a book one that you can share with those who come from an Eastern Orthodox background.

Let's begin with our first email, if we would.

Jim, this comes from Jason.

It says, Dear Marcus and guest, do you think that the Roman Catholic Church and the separated Orthodox churches are close to a full communion, or is full communion between the two churches impossible at this time?

I pray and pray that the two will one day be reunited.

Thank you, Jason.

What do you think on that, Jim?

I think it's close.

There's no question that Patriarch Athenagoras, Patriarch Demetrius, and now Patriarch Bartholomew are very open to reunion, and this is the great hope of the Holy Father—that one day, surrounded by the patriarchs of the Eastern churches, they can celebrate the Eucharist together.

That would be the great manifestation of the restored visible unity of the Church with our separated brethren.

It's quite possible that another great ecumenical council of union might very well meet in a few years.

We have to understand that there are problems among the Eastern Orthodox insofar as there is a kind of Protestantization that is also evident there.

There are different intellectual currents: a Catholicizing current, where you've got a certain openness to unity with Rome; on the other hand, you've got the hardheads who want to remain in that tragic, irrational schism of theirs, influenced by a sort of anti-Roman complex.

We have to understand also that Eastern Orthodoxy has been influenced by some of the Protestant polemics against the papacy.

But you've got these different currents of thought: you've got a Catholicizing current, and you've got a Protestantizing and secularizing current.

Now you have a novel situation occurring in modern history, namely that for the first time, the Eastern Orthodox churches are confronted by a thoroughly secular society.

That is something terribly new, and that is something that the followers of, let’s say, the great convert to Russian Orthodoxy, Vladimir Soloviev, are addressing.

Here are some of his followers in Russia who say that the only answer to the problems of Eastern Orthodoxy, being confronted by an increasingly inhumane and genocidal secular society, is unity with Rome.

So you have these different currents of thought, and it seems to me that we should be very optimistic.

Didn't Our Lady of Fatima promise the conversion of Russia?

I've always understood that to mean a Catholic Russia, which will renew its great mission that some of the Russian philosophers talked about in the last century, who seemed to ascribe to Russia a special mission to convert Islam.

It may very well be that the terrible crucifying persecutions that both Catholics and Orthodox suffered in Russia are the seed ground for this new mission of a Catholic Russia.

They will emerge from a reunion council being held perhaps within the next few years.

When you see this openness, do you see it more or less in the hierarchy of the Orthodox churches or in the laity?

Is there as much openness amongst the laity?

I think there is a greater openness among the laity, but there are some ecumenically-minded bishops among the Eastern Orthodox churches who also look to hopefully a reunion council that will settle these differences.

Let's take our first caller.

This is Peter from Connecticut.

Hello, Peter.

What's your question for us tonight?

Yes, I'm a Roman Rite Catholic, but for the last ten years, I've participated in one of the Uniate rites, the Melkite rite, which I find has a beautiful liturgy, a beautiful celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation especially.

I find more and more Roman Rite Catholics attending the Melkite rite where I live, and I find that there's a possibility of a bridge there.

I wondered what the gentleman thinks of that.

Well, I know the Holy Father thinks there might be a bridge there too between the Uniate churches and Rome and the Orthodox churches, the more Orthodox churches, and I'd just like to hear his comment on that.

All right, thank you, Peter.

Well, the Eastern Rite Catholic churches—the Holy Fathers over the last century have looked to them to proceed with dialogue and study with their Orthodox fellow counterparts in order to overcome our divisions, so they have a great role to play.

One of the things that the Pope has mentioned in those two epistolary letters, Ut Unum Sint and Orientale Lumen, is that you will not have ecumenism making any progress with this highest priority of this Pope's pontificate, namely union with the East, if Catholics do not pray for it.

We have millions of Catholics in the United States, and this isn't on their mental horizon at all.

But they've got to understand that to the mind of Pope John Paul II, the highest priority of this pontificate is union with the separated Eastern churches because we need their sense of tradition, we need their sense of beautiful liturgical celebration, and we need their sense of the great Fathers of the East and the Doctors of the Church in the East.

Their witness today, as we confront modern man who is increasingly secular and, sad to say, atheistic, is vital.

Hasn't it been a common thread, a constant thread, from John Paul’s first encyclical all the way through, pointing ahead to the great Jubilee when the prayer was that there would be this reunion?

And of course, that needed our prayer all along and our work to reach out.

There was this marvelous Trappistine nun who lived in a monastery in Grottaferrata outside of Rome, Blessed Maria Gabriella, who gave her life totally for the union of the churches.

All her sacrifices, and the same thing with St. Leopoldo of Castelnuovo, a marvelous Capuchin priest who died about 1947. St. Leopoldo offered all his works, all his sufferings, all the confessions that he heard—15 hours a day for 50 years—for the union of the Eastern churches with Rome.

He was canonized by John Paul II. So we have two marvelous patrons, also the great Ukrainian saint, St. Josaphat, who died a martyr for the unity of the Church in the 17th century.

So we have these great witnesses, a cloud of witnesses praying for the union of the churches, but we need the prayer of the Catholic people of God for this prayer and charity.

Yes, let's take our next email.

Good question!

This comes from Mrs. Yee: How does one convert from a Greek Orthodox to a Catholic?

Do you have to attend RCIA or a special program?

What is the process of converting?

I'm enjoying the show.

God bless you.

Well, I think basically to make a profession of faith, one of the problems that the Orthodox are discovering is their own theological confusion.

There are some Orthodox who think Catholics need to be rebaptized, or to be reconfirmed, or even to be reordained.

There’s some confusion concerning the sacraments among them.

But for Greek Orthodox people who want to be authentically Catholic, they should—well, they have to make a profession of faith.

Presumably, they should have some study of the faith with a good priest or in a good program.

Hopefully, the RCIA program will use the Catechism of the Catholic Church; that’s probably a good place to begin.

Yes, I think everyone should have a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and you notice one of its beauties, namely that it incorporates much of the witness of the Eastern Catholic churches.

The great Greek Fathers and the councils of the Church held in the East are all a part of that marvelous Catechism.

Let's take our next caller.

This is Pat from Texas.

Hello, Pat.

What's your question?

Hello, good evening, Mr. Lakoudis.

I have a question.

How does the Orthodox Church function effectively vis-à-vis doctrine and dogma without recognizing the primacy of Peter?

Thank you, Pat.

Well, the point is they can't, and they haven't. The dogmatic development has stopped since the schism.

Since they have no authoritative voice that can teach the entire Church, I mean, the function of the visible head of the Church is to be able to give a definitive judgment on faith and morals.

Among the Greek separated patriarchs and bishops, there is no one who has that divine commission to teach the entire Church and to settle doctrinal and dogmatic disputes.

So they go on and on.

There have certainly been a number of issues that have changed over the last thousand years in the churches, like maybe the involvement of women in their churches and maybe in liturgy.

Were those decisions made democratically?

Is that how the decisions are made as new changes are made, or do they just kind of evolve in the churches and they just accept their evolution?

You mean among the Orthodox?

Among the Orthodox, yeah.

Generally speaking, among the Eastern Orthodox, they like to work through synods, this conciliar principle, which is a very ancient principle.

The problem is you can't have an effective functioning of what you might call conciliarity, or what we would call collegiality, among the bishops unless they are with and under Peter.

In other words, collegiality only works where you have a center of unity and a visible head of the Church that can convoke councils, preside over councils, and confirm their decrees and declarations, which is what happened in Vatican II. All right, let's take this next email.

This comes from Marlene in Lakewood, Washington.

Dear Marcus and James, thank you for the interesting program.

Pope John Paul II has emphasized dialogue with the Orthodox throughout his pontificate.

I must admit I don't know much about these issues; however, I did hear about a Balamand statement.

Are you familiar with this, and could you briefly explain it?

Thank you very much.

That was a statement that came out of the Middle East and Lebanon, where a number of Eastern Orthodox bishops and Catholic bishops made a sort of a common statement, hopefully to advance the cause of unity.

One of the things they pointed out is we have to do away with proselytism, namely any kind of unfair tactics, you know, forcing people's consciences to become either Catholic or Orthodox.

We can't have any kind of genuine ecumenism with that sort of tactic going on, which was one of the sad legacies of the past.

So the Balamand statement has certain very positive aspects to it.

There have been a number of, among the Melkites especially, unfortunately, a certain anti-Roman complex, where they sort of want to get away from the doctrinal issues and just have discussions on charity and social working together, but not really coming to grips with the doctrinal issues involved.

The big one, of course, being today the papacy.

In the Middle Ages, there were about a hundred different issues that the Eastern Orthodox brought up on which they censured Catholics for heresy.

But of course, the best theologians today have gotten rid of all those medieval accretions and come down to the real issues.

That’s one of the things that dialogue accomplishes: where does the other fellow really stand?

Forget the psychological, the sociological, the historical accretions; let’s get down to the real things that divide us so we can discuss them dispassionately and calmly and in accordance with the apostolic tradition.

Thank you, Jim.

Let’s take our next caller.

This is Tom from New Jersey.

Hello, Tom.

What’s your question for us tonight?

Hi, Mr. Grodi.

You do invaluable work for the Church.

Thank you.

And Mr. Lakoudis, you’re a great witness to the faith as well.

I hope no one’s dissuaded by some of these issues that separate us from reading some of the great spiritual works of the Orthodox, from the Desert Fathers to Alexander Schmemann.

I’m thinking of For the Life of the World.

Their mystical component, especially with liturgy and the sacraments, tends to be something not often emphasized in the West.

I have two questions.

First, how much of the division between the churches do you think, for lack of a better word, may be attributed to snobbery by the Greek language against the Latin language?

I know certain Greeks consider anyone who doesn’t speak Greek to be almost a barbarian, and the Latin language in itself is much more legalistic and less rich than the Greek language.

That’s fine; that was the first question.

Well, I think there’s something to that.

It goes way back to the times of Aristotle and Plato, where if you were not a Greek, you were a barbarian.

There is this sense of intellectual pride and genuine pride in the achievements of the Eastern Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

But unfortunately, in the Middle Ages, it became a barrier to union.

We can't have that kind of intellectual pride which causes a sense of superiority, which can be very aggravating to the other side.

Well, you know, John Paul has called us to prepare for the Jubilee in these three years.

One of the things he's called us and the Church to do is to look at ways in the past that we're to blame as well—mea culpa.

So we look back on the areas of division.

Were there areas in which we look back and think, Well, maybe some of those things were caused by us?

We're all sinners, and that’s a very strong trend in the writings of Pope John Paul II, calling for the conversion of Catholics to be humble and not to have superiority complexes, and not to rail against our separated brethren, whether in the West or in the East.

There must be love, but always in the context of truth.

You don't sacrifice truth for the sake of going along to get along or capitulating to the mores of secular society, which is a tremendous temptation for any kind of Christian living in American culture today.

We're in a great culture war, and we're not going to win that culture war unless we restore unity among ourselves as believing Christians in the one visible Church that Christ established on the rock of Peter.

Well, we're running out of time quickly, but I want to get to a bunch more questions.

I know we have another phone call and another email, but we had one question I want to throw out real quickly, and that is—and this was a question that I saw on the monitor from one of our phone callers—and that is, why does it look like there are fewer problems in the Eastern Orthodox, let's say, in terms of the liturgy than we might encounter in the Latin rites?

Well, simply because they didn't go through what Catholics in the West have gone through in terms of the misinterpretations and distortions of the Second Vatican Council.

What is happening in many of our parishes—and I can speak from firsthand experience here—what you see in terms of clown masses and polka masses and some of these other atrocities taking place has got nothing to do with the Second Vatican Council.

But American Catholics, especially, have become victimized by the culture.

It's a decadent culture, and it's won its way into the Church, and that certainly is an impediment to union with some of our Eastern Orthodox friends who think that some Catholics have gone crazy.

Let’s take this next email.

This comes from Claire Olson.

She says, Dear Marcus and Mr. Lakoudis, because the Last Supper was a commemoration of the Passover, obviously there was unleavened bread at the meal.

Since Jesus used unleavened bread, why do the Orthodox churches use leavened bread, and when did they adopt that position?

That’s a very ancient practice.

Apparently, in the early Church, both kinds of bread were used: leavened bread or unleavened bread.

In the East, except for the Armenians, as early as the 6th century in the Armenian Church, you're going to have unleavened bread, and certainly by the 7th or 8th century, it became common throughout the West.

Unleavened bread, the wafer, came into common use.

There are some Orthodox who think that the use of unleavened bread is heretical, but that doesn't really represent an official position of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

That’s one of the great problems in the discussions on ecumenism today: what are the official positions of the Eastern Orthodox Church on the doctrinal issues at stake with Catholics?

Some Orthodox say the Filioque is heretical; others say it is acceptable.

Some say Catholics' baptisms have to be rebaptized; others say no.

You've got a whole host of these matters that the Orthodox have not been able to settle in any definitive way.

All right, we'll take our next caller.

Drew Wood, hello!

What's your name and where are you calling from?

This is Mark.

Yes, hello, Mark.

Hi, Marcus.

I saw you speak at St. Barbara's earlier in the week.

Oh, great!

Good to see you again.

We're always talking again.

What's your question for us tonight, Mark?

Just short and simple: we always hear about the waves of Protestants coming into the Church.

Just wondering, are there any tabs on how many Orthodox people are coming into the Catholic Church?

Thank you.

Thanks, Mark.

Well, what do you know from your experience?

There are some remarkable converts from the 19th century, and in our own time, Helen Izmulski, for example, was quite a well-known writer on Russian themes.

Helen Georgiades in England, Count Bennigsen, Ivan Puzina, and as I mentioned before, some of the followers of Vladimir Soloviev—oftentimes called the Russian Newman—who were active in Russia and very open to unity.

So there are some converts; a trickle is coming into the Church, and hopefully, as dialogue and genuine ecumenism increase, there’s going to be a softening of attitudes on the part of those Eastern Orthodox who just don’t understand the Catholic Church.

I think what I’ve talked to some in my work is that one of the issues that does come up is this craziness in the liturgy that they encounter.

It’s a serious problem, and I think our bishops should pay greater attention to this alienating factor, which is impeding real ecumenism with the Eastern churches.

The Catholics, for example, who attend Eastern Rite Catholic churches because they’re offended by what’s happening in their parishes are simply part of that picture.

How about some words of encouragement to the audience if they have Orthodox friends?

How might they reach out to them and introduce the fullness of the Catholic faith into their lives?

One of the things with Catholics on the American scene is oftentimes, you know, before I became a Catholic, I was going off to Korea.

I didn’t know whether I was coming back, so I decided to make that move.

But I never met a Catholic who said, Hey, you’re interested in the Catholic faith; why don’t you become a Catholic?

I never met one, and these were the good old days.

But there was a lack of apostolic zeal, at least as far as my own experience went.

My wife is also a convert to the Church from Episcopalianism.

She had a very good Catholic friend who spoke to her about the Church and interested her in the Church, and she became a Catholic as a result.

We need to do more of that—to reach out to others, to speak openly about our faith, ask them what they think about the unity of the churches or the union of the churches, ask them what they think about the Holy Father, ask them what the differences are, and get them to pray.

That’s interesting.

Is there a prayer that unites us?

I know they don't have, for example, the Rosary as their tradition as we do, but are there prayers that would unite us with the Orthodox?

Well, the beautiful Jesus Prayer: Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

To offer that up for the union of the churches, that the prayer of our Lord—that all may be one, that all His professed disciples will be one in His Church—there is no greater prayer that can be said in our time.

Our Lady of Fatima called upon us to pray for the conversion of Russia.

We need those prayers.

It’s interesting that the relics of St. Therese, Doctor of the Church, and she’s a saint who is particularly beloved by our Russian Orthodox brethren.

They like St. Therese, the Child Jesus, a Doctor of the Church who died at the age of 24. There’s something about her that matches the ascetic spirit of the Russian saints.

They like St. Francis; they like St. Therese.

So let’s talk about the saints and what we have in common and try to get more prayers offered for the union of the churches to fulfill the will of our Lord that all be one.

And it behooves us to make an effort to know their history too, doesn’t it?

Yes, go to their parishes, make friends.

As long as Christians are isolated from one another and we have false ideas and caricatures and stereotypes of one another, that impedes the unity of the Church.

So yes, the first step, the first stage in authentic dialogue is friendship.

Let’s reach out to these wonderful people.

The Greeks are wonderful people, the Serbs, the Russians—despite all that’s going on in Yugoslavia, the impact of communism among the Serbs has been a disaster, as you can see by recent events.

The Serbian Orthodox people have a great heritage of sanctity.

This is true in all the Orthodox churches; that living Catholic tradition of Eastern spirituality continues to live with them, as in the Eastern churches in communion with Rome.

Jim, thank you so much for being with us.

Thank you for sharing your journey and informing us so much about the Orthodox Church.

You've given us some good challenges and encouraged us to offer up the Jesus Prayer for the reunion of the churches and to ask for St. Therese's intercession for that reunion.

Thank you again, and thank you for joining us.

I look forward to being with you next week on The Journey Home.

Let’s pray.

Thank you.