28 / 42
forgotten the Holy Father’s words when he said: “The elements that unite us are far greater
than those that divide us”? So we should take up those elements and use them to smoothen
up the way to a complete unity.
The Holy Eucharist and eucharistic sharing
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church it is said with reference to St. Augustine regarding
the Eucharist:
Before the greatness of this mystery [the Holy Eucharist] St Augustine exclaims:
“O
sacrament of devotion! O sign of unity! O bond of charity!”
The more painful the
experience of the divisions in the church which break the common participation in the
table of the Lord, the more urgent are our prayers to the Lord that the time of
complete unity among all who believe in him may return (CCC 1398).
The Lord urges us to reconcile and reunite. As a well-known Catholic cardinal said recently
to an Orthodox priest friend of mine from New York who attended the cardinal's mass in
Rome, so it is my conviction that it
must
be possible to obtain again that union around the
Lord's table between Catholics and Orthodox, as we share the same sacraments and have
virtually the same faith, albeit clothed in different expressions of faith and worship. I have
come to experience from the flaming love of Our Lord the depths of his desire for the perfect
union of his Body and believe He is in pain over our lack of love and communion. Therefore,
I have no bigger desire than to see his Body reunited and I am convinced that we, Christians,
if we really love Jesus Christ, must do all that is in our power to work for the reconciliation of
the separated members of Christ's body.
Meanwhile, I know this union will not come easy but only through a miracle of Our Lord.
Although we must do all we can to advance unity, He has promised to give us that union that
will be the Holy Spirit's work for, as I once said back in 1992, it will come as sudden as the
fall of the Berlin wall:
“Mercy and Justice is working with such wonders as has never
happened among many generations, and Unity shall come upon you like Dawn and as
sudden as the fall of communism - it shall come from God and your nations shall name it
the Great Miracle, the Blessed Day in your history.”
(10.01.1990)
The Church of Christ is one in the sense that Christ is one and only has one Holy Body. It is
the people of the church who are divided. If Christians are able to go beyond the negative
obstacles that separate them, obstacles that according to Scriptures are against the fulfilment
of the unity of faith, love and worship among us, the Father will hear the prayer expressed
already of his Divine Son, when he said:
“may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am
in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me”
(Jn 17: 27).
While waiting for this grace I follow as good I can the principles in the present state of affairs
and am convinced not to infringe on the conscience of the members of any church. In the
question, it says the following, “one sometimes gets the impression in reading your works,
however, that you stand above both churches without being committed to either…” There is
no ground in the written work to get the impression that I stand above both churches. As you
write it, it seems that it is more on the practical level.
As to the way I practise my faith, I am an Orthodox and am committed fully to my Church.
Whenever there is an Orthodox church nearby I never fail to follow its Sunday Mass, unless
of course there is none, like in Dhaka, Bangladesh where I lived. Just before coming to Rome,
where I live now, I lived 11 years in Switzerland. Every Sunday I went to our Orthodox
Church and the Greek priest of Lausanne, Fr. Alexander Iossifides is my witness as well as