An Interview with Metropolitan Hilarion
Posted on February 28, 2012 http://palamas.info/
Crisis Magazine: In a recent interview following your visit with Pope Benedict XVI at Castle Gandolfo, you mentioned how encouraged you are by the pontiff’s attention to the dialogue between the Catholics and the Orthodox. What, to your mind, are the greatest theological and hierarchical hurdles that stand between our two churches? What role can we, as laypeople, play in the greatly-desired unification of the East and the West?
Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev: In dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church we proceed from the fact that this is a Church which has preserved apostolic succession in its hierarchy as well as having a doctrine on the sacraments which is very similar to our doctrine. It is also very important that both Orthodox and Catholics have the same moral foundations and a very similar social doctrine.
The theological differences between Rome and the Orthodox East are well known. Apart from a number of aspects in the realm of dogmatic theology, these are the teaching on primacy in the Church and, more specifically, on the role of the bishop of Rome. This topic is discussed within the framework of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue which has been taking place for several decades at sessions of a joint commission specially established for this purpose.
But today a different problem is acquiring primary importance – the problem of the unity of Orthodox and Catholics in the cause of defending traditional Christianity. To our great regret, a significant part of Protestant confessions by the beginning of the 21st century has adopted the liberal values of the modern world and in essence has renounced fidelity to Biblical principles in the realm of morality. Today in the West, the Roman Catholic Church remains the main bulwark in the defence of traditional moral values – such, for example, as marital fidelity, the inadmissibility of artificially ending human life, the possibility of marital union as a union only between man and woman.
Therefore, when we speak of dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church, I believe that the priority in this dialogue today should not be the question of the filioque or the primacy of the Pope. We should learn to interact in that capacity that we find ourselves in today – in a state of division and absence of Eucharistic communion. We ought to learn how to perceive each other not as rivals but as allies by understanding that we have a common missionary field and encounter common challenges. We are faced with the common task of defending traditional Christian values, and joint efforts are essential today not out of certain theological considerations but primarily because we ought to help our nations to survive. These are the priorities which we espouse in this dialogue.
I am convinced that the laity – both Catholic and Orthodox – can play and is already playing a most important role in this cause, each in his own place, to where the Lord has called him, by bearing witness to the values of the Gospel which our Churches preserve.
___________________________________________________________
09/29/2011 –From Vatican radio:
Metropolitan Hilarion shares ecumenical hopes
Pope Benedict on Thursday met at Castel Gandolfo with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s department for external relations, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. The Orthodox archbishop, a noted theologian, Church historian and composer, spent the past two days meeting with Vatican officials to discuss the ongoing dialogue between the two Churches.
Since he took over in this key post, Metropolitan Hilarion has met twice before with the Pope in September 2009 and again when he organised a concert in honour of the pontiff in May 2010. Though there was no official communiqué following the private encounter, their talks were part of the ongoing improvement in relations between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches, as Metropolitan Hilarion himself told Philippa Hitchen at the end of his two day visit to the Vatican…
Listen:
“His Holiness is a man of faith and whenever I meet with him I’m encouraged by his spirit, his courage and his dedication to the life of the Church worldwide. Of course I’m very impressed by his knowledge of the Orthodox tradition and the attention he pays to the dialogue between the Catholics and the Orthodox…I believe that this attitude of the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church will greatly help us in our way towards better mutual understanding
We do not have a very clear picture of what should be the role of the primate within the Orthodox tradition and without this clear and unified vision we cannot easily discuss how we see the role of ‘primus inter pares’ within the universal Church…
We believe that such a meeting (between Pope Benedict and Patriarch Kirill) will take place some time in the future but we are not yet ready to discuss the date or the place or the protocol, because what matters for us primarily is the content of this meeting….. It requires a very careful preparation and we should not be hurrying up . . .