[ALBSA-Info] From the Wall St. Journal

[Kreshnik Bejko]

(this appeared in today's Wall St. Journal. The reaction of the Greek 
Orthodox clergy to the Pope's visit should make us all aware of a 
conflictual mentality existing among Greek clergymen which I hope will not 
take root in Albania since its orthodox 'raya' are guided by a predominantly 
Greek clergy.)

May 8, 2001


When Will the Orthodox
Learn to Love the Pope?
By Rod Dreher, a columnist at the New York Post.

Over the course of his pilgrim papacy, John Paul II has endured hectoring in 
Sandinista Nicaragua, stared down Soviet-sponsored tyrants in Poland, 
suffered attempts by dictators to hijack his good will for their own malign 
agendas -- as Syria's Assad did on Saturday -- and braved all manner of 
threat to his dignity and safety in pursuit of his evangelical mission.

You'd expect that he'd get that from communists and Levantine strongmen, and 
indeed from non-Christian fanatics -- like the radical Hindus who vowed 
violence during his visit to India. You do not expect it from Christians, 
especially Christian clergy.


But in the days preceding the pontiff's arrival in Greece, the rank-and-file 
Orthodox clerical union denounced him as an "arch-heretic" and the 
"two-horned grotesque monster of Rome."

Mercy! Some of these arch-knotheads, particularly monks from Mt. Athos, even 
petitioned the Almighty to curse the bishop of Rome. Greece, presumably, is 
a modern European democracy. Yet its government had to deploy a large police 
presence to prevent Orthodox zealots from harming a stooped and trembling 
octogenarian Catholic priest.

It must be said that not all Orthodox feel as the Greeks do. The ecumenical 
patriarch in Istanbul welcomed the papal visit; and the Syrian Orthodox, who 
share a relatively close relationship with Syrian Catholics, were much more 
hospitable. Still, as a Roman Catholic admirer of Orthodoxy, I was saddened 
by the Greek hostility.

To my great relief, a (non-Greek) Orthodox priest friend shared my 
indignation. "John Paul II is the single person most responsible for the 
defeat of atheistic communism, and history will be very kind to him," he 
said. "Calling for him to be cursed is just embarrassing."

My friend went on to explain, though, that Americans cannot grasp the way 
the Crusader sack of Constantinople in 1204 shaped the Greek Orthodox soul. 
True, the Crusaders behaved like barbarians; and no Roman Catholic today 
would defend them. But eight centuries is a long time to hold a grudge. And 
it's not like the Orthodox have clean hands. The sack was preceded in 1182 
by a massacre of Western Christians in that city. A cardinal was beheaded, 
and 4,000 Western Christians were sold into slavery.

Does the pope ask the latter-day Orthodox to apologize? Of course not. Nor 
does he ask the Russian Orthodox hierarchy to apologize for collaborating 
with the Soviets to steal Ukrainian Catholic churches six decades ago. 
Unlike his Orthodox counterparts, this pontiff lives in the real world. He 
understands that if Christianity is to survive, much less thrive, in the 
third millennium, believers cannot afford quarrels over past grievances.

There are deep theological divisions between East and West, and any 
ecumenism that pretends otherwise is false. But isn't working more closely 
to combat the functional nihilism that accompanies the spread of consumerist 
values a more pressing concern than fussing over the fate of the Filioque 
clause?

The pope knows that the key question in the era of postmodernism and 
globalization is not what brand of Christianity the world will follow; it is 
whether the world will follow Christianity at all.

It is said that the Greek Orthodox regard John Paul as a symbol of the 
Westernization they despise. Who are they kidding? The pontiff who was the 
scourge of the militant atheist ideology that made martyrs of millions of 
Orthodox believers is the same man who is the fiercest enemy of the secular 
Western juggernaut. Have the Orthodox been paying attention for the past two 
decades? Do they read his stuff?

Maybe not. The late Alexander Schmemann, the eminent Russian Orthodox 
theologian, lamented his faith's "complete indifference to the world," 
claiming that official Orthodoxy lived in a "heavy, static, petrified" world 
of "illusion."

Orthodox consciousness "did not notice the fall of Byzantium, Peter the 
Great's reforms, the Revolution; it did not notice the revolution of the 
mind, of science, of lifestyles, forms of life," Schmemann wrote in his 
private journal. "In brief, it did not notice history." John Paul does.

Seizing the moment, he has not only asked forgiveness for the historical 
sins of Catholicism, but has also gone to astonishing lengths to accommodate 
the obstreperous Orthodox -- even putting the nature of the papacy on the 
table for discussion. He has suffered repeated insult from Eastern churchmen 
-- including a scandalous 1991 rebuke at a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica 
-- yet returned hatred with affection.

To little avail, alas. If the fathomless humility and charitable witness of 
this great and good pontiff (great because he is good) bear fruit in the 
East, it will almost certainly not be in his lifetime. Word has not yet 
reached Mt. Athos that the new Babylon is not Rome but Hollywood and the 
shopping mall. (How's that for a two-horned monster?) But it will.

By the time the Orthodox awaken from their self-satisfaction and grasp the 
true nature of the spiritual and moral crisis engulfing their respective 
cultures, what will they do to fight it? Perhaps they will consult 
"Veritatis Splendor" and "Evangelium Vitae," as well as other prophetic 
writings of John Paul II, an authentic Christian humanist who truly grasped 
the promise and the peril of the postmodern world. Too late, it may dawn on 
the Orthodox religious authorities what kind of wise and holy man they, in 
their narrow-mindedness and pride, rejected out of hand. Tragic? Yes. But in 
the Gospels, you'll find precedent for this sort of thing.


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