While Orthodoxy in Dialogue considers the notion that one can be “Orthodox in communion with Rome” to be ecclesiologically indefensible absent Rome’s return to Orthodoxy, we fully support open, fraternal dialogue on this topic and the underlying issues.

The following should be read in conjunction with Father Alexander Schmemann’s A Response to the Vatican II Decree on Eastern Churches of 1966 and Brian A. Butcher, Liam Farrer, and Kevin Basil Fritts’ dialogical Can You Be Orthodox in Communion with Rome? of January 2018. (The latter ranks #4 among all guest articles that Orthodoxy in Dialogue has published in our two years of activity.)

Conference participants. Stuttgart. July 19-21, 2019.

International conference in Stuttgart opens the door for dialogue between Orthodox and Eastern Catholics

Christian unity has gained much through various bilateral dialogues. Indeed, today there is almost every possible combination of bilateral dialogue one could imagine. Yet, a rare exception and omission from the ecumenical table is the lack of dialogue between the Orthodox and the Catholic Eastern Churches (the so-called “Uniates”). Throughout their shared history, these two traditions have lived through a very complex and sometimes tense relationship—not only theologically, but also politically. In most cases these tense relationships remain to this day; indeed, some have increased in difficulty (e.g., in Ukraine).

One of the key stumbling blocks here concerns the widely differing perceptions of what Eastern Catholic Churches represent. Regardless of historical accuracy, many Orthodox refer to these churches as “stolen” (most of these churches did not emerge from so-called processes of “uniatism” or “proselytism”), while on the Catholic side they are seen as bridges to the Orthodox traditions (a perspective which, again, many Orthodox strongly reject). Read More

With thanks to God and to our hierarchs, priests, deacons, monastics, brothers, sisters, friends, enemies, readers, writers, supporters, Patrons, critics, and detractors around the world, Orthodoxy in Dialogue celebrates its second anniversary of service to the Church on August 22, 2019.

We have sought only to create a safe space to discuss some of the most difficult questions facing us Orthodox and other Christians in this first quarter of the 21st century.

We have not shied away from saying the hard things that we feel need to be said. 

Whether you love or hate Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s work, you’re talking about it. In the end that’s a very good thing. We believe that this is how Holy Tradition as a living dynamism “works” in the Orthodox Church of every era, our age being no different from that of the Ecumenical Councils.

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This deeply moving account has been added to our LGBTQI Listening Tour: An Open Letter to Our Bishops in the USA and Canada.

The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America

George Michalopulos over at Monomakhos has honoured the Dormition of the Theotokos by posting what, upon consideration by anyone reasonably acquainted with the Orthodox Church, amounts clearly to no more than gossip-mongering—Breaking: The OCA to Go under EP!

Michalopulos begins:

According to two different sources, Syosset [the headquarters of the Orthodox Church in America] has been in negotiations to cede its autocephaly and go under Istanbul [the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople]. One source says that this is “a done deal,” the other says that negotiations are “ongoing.”

Given the significant difference between done deal and ongoing reported by his two “sources,” and the fact that he relies on “word on the street” in his pentultimate paragraph, one might have wished that Michalopulos had exercised the responsibility of simply not publishing his piece at all. Even at the highly controversial and widely mistrusted Orthodoxy in Dialogue, we generally do not report news that cannot be corroborated by, and linked to, numerous other online sources.  Read More