Word: communion
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...symbolic center, the once mighty Patriarchate of the Byzantine Empire. There last week, sitting opposite the crowned and richly vested Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I, Pope John Paul II became the first Pontiff in nine centuries to join in an Orthodox Eucharistic service. Though the Pope did not partake of Communion, he quietly hummed along with the chants and made the sign of the cross Eastern style, right to left...
Words matched gestures. Dimitrios announced the establishment of a joint commission of theologians that will work to resolve differences. The first meeting is expected next spring. In a joint statement, the two leaders said the goal of the talks is nothing less than "re-establishment of full communion" between the world's 700 million Roman Catholics and more than a dozen self-governing branches of Eastern Orthodoxy that together include an estimated 125 million believers. A new spirit of warmth had begun when Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I met in Jerusalem at the Mount of Olives...
...some ways, though, the two churches are already united. The Second Vatican Council declared that the Orthodox "possess true sacraments, above all-by apostolic succession-the priesthood and the Eucharist." In other words it saw virtually no doctrinal barrier to joint Communion, which is not yet the case with any other Christian body. For the Orthodox, however, Communion should be shared only when full doctrinal accord is achieved...
...number of U.S. dioceses and parishes do quietly permit remarried Catholics to receive Communion, but official policy remains against it. Regarding the related matter of annulments, John Paul is reported to take a dim view of those now granted in the U.S. on markedly liberal grounds...
...Where have the last feelings of decency and self-respect gone when even our statesmen, in other ways a very unprejudiced kind of man and practical anti-Christians through and through, still call themselves Christians today and go to Communion?...A young prince at the head of his regiments, splendid as the expression of his people's egoism and presumption--but without any shame professing himself a Christian!...The practice of every hour, every instinct, every valuation which leads to action is today anti-Christian what a monster of falsity modern man must be that he is nonetheless not ashamed...