Arrghh, just after I post my comment on the various Christian Ecumenical Councils held over a thousand years ago, I read the next few Digests in my ever-building stack and find that Nick has responded to Martin, Martin has responded to Nick, and Jim Chapon has also stuck his oar in! I must read my Digests faster (heck, I'm away on a school camp next week!)
Martin writes:
>Whether there have been many conferences is a point I'll concede;
what I meant to say was that only in the 20th century have we
seen conferences which included people who had formerly
excommunicated each other: that is, Eastern and RC churches, RC
and Protestant churches, mainline protestant and radical
protestant churches, etc. Point being: only recently have we
seen something comparable to your 7th Malkioni conference.
Not so! All the great Oecumenical councils as mentioned in my earlier post were attempts - largely unsuccessful - to bring rival churches together. The various churches (eg. Orthodox, Monophysite, Arian etc.) who persecuted each other 500 - 1,500 years ago - toppling emperors, removing or murdering Patriarchs and popes and excommunicating each other with relish - nevertheless tried to work out their differences from time to time.
Nick gave me a splendid book which features a copy of the Bull of Union, promulgated after the Council of Florence (1439). This council was convened to reunite the Eastern and Western Churches, and as this pathetic document suggests, was an utter failure: the price of western support for the beleagured Byzantine Empire was union of the churches, and most of the Eastern Clergy boycotted it, except a few who had already turned coat and had lucrative university posts in Italy already. In fact, on the Latin side of the document there are dozens of signatures; on the Greek side, only one, that of the Emperor. At least one of the clergymen who came with him, the platonic philosopher Plenthon, must've somehow absented himself from the room during the signing, as his name didn't appear anywhere. Four hundred years earlier, both the Eastern and Western churches had excommunicated each other, beginning the Great Schism. In 1439 union had come again - at least on paper (hmmm, sounds like HtWwO again, doesn't it?)
By the way, the main bone of contention between East and West was an obscure question on the nature of the Son and the Holy Spirit based around the translation of one word. As Martin says, " It's those people with the closest beliefs that hate each other the most."
Cheers
MOB
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