Page 298 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
development of relations between Old Catholics and Roman
Catholics. Once again, the bilateral dialogues cannot in the
end be separated from the Orthodox dialogue with Rome.
The dialogues with the Lutherans and the Reformed are
still too recent to evaluate. The same was, at the time, true of
the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church, though be-
cause of its central importance for all the other Western dia-
logues, it deserves particular attention.
Relations between Roman Catholics and Orthodox have a
long and painful history. In the Orthodox consciousness, the
attempts at reunion after 1054—especially Lyon, Florence, and
later Uniatism—appeared as efforts by Rome to subject the
Orthodox Church to its authority. This history burdened rela-
tions with deep mistrust, and no genuine dialogue could begin
without confronting that psychological reality.
Only recently did a radical change occur, due above all to
the courageous initiatives of Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope
Paul VI. Their meeting in Jerusalem in 1964, their exchange of
visits, and the lifting of the mutual anathemas opened the
period of the “dialogue of love” and made possible the “dia-
logue of truth.” In this new atmosphere, the two Churches
began officially to refer to one another as “sister Churches.”
The old suspicions did not entirely disappear, especially be-
cause of the continuing problem of Uniatism, but it was agreed
that such obstacles should not prevent the continuation of
dialogue.
This change of climate would have had only modest impor-
tance had it not been accompanied by serious theological
preparation. Fortunately, the preparatory work appears to
have proceeded in the same spirit of breaking with the past. A
joint document of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic prepa-
ratory commissions laid out a promising framework both for
298