Orthodox-Catholic Relations

Abstract

It is only in worship, with a keen sense of the transcendence of the inexpressible mystery ‘which surpasses knowledge’ (Eph. 3:19), that we will be able to see our divergences in their proper setting and ‘to lay … no greater burden than these necessary things’ (Acts 15:28), so as to reestablish communion…. It seems to me, in fact, that the question we must ask ourselves is not so much whether we can reestablish full communion, but rather whether we still have the right to remain separated. We must ask ourselves this question in the very name of our faithfulness to Christ's will for his Church, for which constant prayer must make us both increasingly open and ready in the course of the Theological Dialogue.¹