Precisely what sort of unity do you want?

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Because that term (reverse uniatism) is ridiculously ahistorical. It’s not “reverse” anything if people who used to be Orthodox go back to being Orthodox. What “uniatism” was, if you look up the history of the use of “uniat” in your church’s documents, was sections of Orthodox churches becoming Catholic. The Orthodox never had “uniat” projects to begin with, and those Western Rite parishes that have been set up have been on the individual initiative of Westerners being received into Orthodoxy via ROCOR and the Antiochians (or the British Orthodox and French Orthodox, for the OO), who wanted to preserve their liturgical practices while expressing Orthodox theology through them. That’s not “reverse” uniatism, either.
 
If we had union, then I think we’d see a case of churches merging together, not necessarily one becoming dominant. If they are all Orthodox it makes no difference where the hierarchy is from.

The issue comes into play when you have different rites in different churches in the same area (since there can only be one bishop in a territory), although I think that is solvable by making sure you have an auxiliary bishop of the rite the bishop is not a part of.
 
Nine_Two said:
The issue comes into play when you have different rites in different churches in the same area (since there can only be one bishop in a territory), although I think that is solvable by making sure you have an auxiliary bishop of the rite the bishop is not a part of.
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So if there are more Latin Churches (way more, as typical in America), the main bishop would be Latin, the auxiliary bishop would be byzantine?
 
dzheremi said:
Because that term (reverse uniatism) is ridiculously ahistorical. It’s not “reverse” anything if people who used to be Orthodox go back to being Orthodox.
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There’s the rub: they didn’t leave the Orthodox Church. The people who left the Orthodox Church via the Union of Brest, etc, all died hundreds of years ago. In fact many current Eastern Catholics switched from the Latin Church, or their parents or grandparents did. (Granted, by the same token some may have converted from Orthodoxy, but not via the Union of Brest, etc.)
Hesychios said:
One might call it counter-uniatism, or un-uniatism.
🙂
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In a way; but I don’t regard it as “uniatism” for Eastern Catholics to simply go about their own business (or, if you will “to exist and to act in response to the spiritual needs of their faithful”), so the idea of “un-uniatizing” doesn’t really make sense.
 
John_of_Patmos said:
So if there are more Latin Churches (way more, as typical in America), the main bishop would be Latin, the auxiliary bishop would be byzantine?
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It wouldn’t have to be by numbers. The bishop would be whatever, but you would have an auxiliary familiar with each of the other rites, who could understand the nuances.

But that is my own solution.
 
Nine_Two said:
It wouldn’t have to be by numbers. The bishop would be whatever, but you would have an auxiliary familiar with each of the other rites, who could understand the nuances.

But that is my own solution.
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It’s a worthy proposal! 🙂
 
dzheremi said:
Again, I don’t see how this could be the case if the idea of unity involves some level of re-absorption into their mother (Orthodox) churches.
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It’s really quite simple. Let’s say - and I know this is totally not going to happen; this is a mere hypothetical - that communion were restored between the RCC and the OOC, but neither one restored communion with the EOC.

The Coptic Catholic Church would simply be absorbed into the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church into the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Armenian Catholic Church into the Armenian Apostolic Church, etc. And each of the latter would now be in communion with Rome.

The Byzantine eastern Catholic churches, however, would remain as they are: Melkites, UGCC, Ruthenians, etc. They would all be in communion with the Latin Church and the six Oriental Orthodox churches, which would include what used to be the Oriental Catholic churches, and none of the above would be in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Moscow, etc.
dzheremi said:
So the problem of the Maronites in this scheme is that in order to be Orthodox, they either give up their traditional liturgical orientation to Syriac and become Byzantinized like the Melkites were (joining the Antiochian Orthodox, I suppose), or join the Syriac Orthodox Church, perhaps infusing their rite with much more Syriac identity, but giving up Chalcedonian belief in the process.
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If communion were restored between the RCC, the EOC, and the OOC - again, I know this is totally not going to happen any time even remotely soon and am speaking only hypothetically here - the Maronites would simply remain as they are. They have no counterpart, and there’s no reason for them to be absorbed into any other church. So they’re not really a problem at all…
Peter_J said:
I think anyone who said that would be criticized for “uniatism”.
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No, they wouldn’t. It doesn’t fit the definition.

“Uniatism” involved forging new autonomous churches, deliberately made to be counterparts of a particular autocephalous or autonomous Orthodox church, and comprised of former members of those Orthodox churches.

If an entire Orthodox church - say, the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch - were, as a whole, to acknowledge communion with the Church of Rome, and vice versa, that would not be uniatism at all, because no splinter group/church is formed.

It has never happened that way; no Orthodox church has in its entirety re-entered communion with Rome. But if it were to happen, it would not be “uniatism.”

It’s still not the ideal, though. The ideal is that as a communion we would restore communion: i.e. all 15 EO churches at once, or all 6 OO churches at once. I think the bishop of Rome would be very hesitant to restore communion with just one or two Orthodox churches, even if we were given the chance.
 
Fone_Bone_2001 said:
If an entire Orthodox church - say, the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch - were, as a whole, to acknowledge communion with the Church of Rome, and vice versa, that would not be uniatism at all, because no splinter group/church is formed.
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This reminds me of my own question, “Can a church “schism” from itself?”. In other words, would the, say, Georgian Orthodox Church, still exist if they joined Communion with Rome, possibly (probably) under a different name, or would the Georgian Orthodox Church cease to exist?
I hope this makes sense…🤷
 
John_of_Patmos said:
This reminds me of my own question, “Can a church “schism” from itself?”. In other words, would the, say, Georgian Orthodox Church, still exist if they joined Communion with Rome, possibly (probably) under a different name, or would the Georgian Orthodox Church cease to exist?
I hope this makes sense…🤷
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They would be in schism with the Orthodox Church.
 
Fone_Bone_2001 said:
No, they wouldn’t. It doesn’t fit the definition.

“Uniatism” involved forging new autonomous churches, deliberately made to be counterparts of a particular autocephalous or autonomous Orthodox church, and comprised of former members of those Orthodox churches.

If an entire Orthodox church - say, the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch - were, as a whole, to acknowledge communion with the Church of Rome, and vice versa, that would not be uniatism at all, because no splinter group/church is formed.

It has never happened that way; no Orthodox church has in its entirety re-entered communion with Rome. But if it were to happen, it would not be “uniatism.”

It’s still not the ideal, though. The ideal is that as a communion we would restore communion: i.e. all 15 EO churches at once, or all 6 OO churches at once. I think the bishop of Rome would be very hesitant to restore communion with just one or two Orthodox churches, even if we were given the chance.
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I think this conversation illustrates the difficulty in defining “uniatism” – and hence the corresponding difficulty in defining “reverse uniatism”. (You may recall my comment on another recent thread, that if seeing EC Churches as a “bridge” from Orthodoxy to Catholicism is decried as “uniatism”, then seeing EC Churches as a “bridge” from Catholicism to Orthodoxy should likewise be decried as “reverse uniatism”.) Just saying that the Melkite Church is the “mother church” of the Antiochian Orthodox Church would, in my experience, be criticized as “uniatism” (even without putting in something about a future union) although I don’t know how precisely that would fit into a definition of “uniatism”.
 
John_of_Patmos said:
This reminds me of my own question, “Can a church “schism” from itself?”. In other words, would the, say, Georgian Orthodox Church, still exist if they joined Communion with Rome, possibly (probably) under a different name, or would the Georgian Orthodox Church cease to exist?
I hope this makes sense…🤷
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The whole Georgian Orthodox Church?

If so, my answer is yes, of course it would still exist. They’d exist but be in schism from the communion of now 14 Orthodox Churches.
Peter_J said:
I think this conversation illustrates the difficulty in defining “uniatism” – and hence the corresponding difficulty in defining “reverse uniatism”.
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I honestly don’t think it’s difficult to define. I think people overuse the word. It shouldn’t simply mean whatever gives someone fodder for polemical ammunition; it should mean something specific. I stand by my above definition.
Peter_J said:
(You may recall my comment on another recent thread, that if seeing EC Churches as a “bridge” from Orthodoxy to Catholicism is decried as “uniatism”, then seeing EC Churches as a “bridge” from Catholicism to Orthodoxy should likewise be decried as “reverse uniatism”.)
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I agree with you, Peter.

I disagree with whoever said that regarding the Eastern Catholics as a “bridge” from Orthodoxy to Catholic Christianity constitutes “uniatism.”
Peter_J said:
Just saying that the Melkite Church is the “mother church” of the Antiochian Orthodox Church would, in my experience, be criticized as “uniatism.”
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If that happened, I’d ask my interlocutor exactly how the claim constitutes “uniatism.” Because - whether the claim is correct or incorrect, and it may indeed be incorrect; I don’t know - it surely does not constitute “uniatism.” It’s an historical and canonical question that shouldn’t inspire heated emotions, as which church is the “mother church” has no bearing on whether either one is orthodox.
 
Fone_Bone_2001 said:
The whole Georgian Orthodox Church?

If so, my answer is yes, of course it would still exist. They’d exist but be in schism from the communion of now 14 Orthodox Churches.
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So if the whole of Orthodoxy joined Catholicism (theoretically), would the Orthodox be in schism with themselves?
 
So it’s been a few days since anyone’s commented here on uniatism, and I thank you all for that. If I may, could I ask about the first-millennium unity that existed before the Schism, especially in terms of whether that was an autonomous union or autocephalous union? I called up an EWTN apologist and asked about this, but the in-depth distinctions between the two forms of union are impossible to address fully in a brief phone call.

As much as it would make sense to me for you guys to try and return to the last thing that was working well for you, it does seem to be the case that future efforts will be a bit more creative and original than that. (It also seems to be the case that little to no real progress will be made within the next few centuries, and the potential for a causative link between these two likelihoods is not lost on me). Nevertheless, an understanding of what that union really was like a thousand years back is pretty important- and here, I would cite the last two meetings between Orthodox and Catholic bishops during which they talked and wrote about this and nothing else. Ok, I guess it was more about the role of the papacy at a different time and under different circumstances, but it’s basically about the union that the East used to have with the bishop of Rome.

One thing that the aforementioned apologist brought up was the formation of and adherence to doctrine. What he said about the topic was astonishingly disrespectful, but he did help point out to me that the issue of doctrine and of orthodoxy (little o, of course) has tremendous bearing on what Rome meant to the East and what the East meant to Rome throughout the first millennium as they worked together on this stuff. So what I’m curious about is the specific kind of relationship that Rome and the East had with each other, how that played out during times of controversy, and where the present disagreements are between the two sides as far as what claims are historical, ahistorical, or otherwise disputed in all of this.

Once I get a better handle on what is and isn’t common ground on this matter, I do plan to ask for opinions on which of those things you’d like to see again and which were never a good idea in the first place. But first things first. Figure out where you guys have been relative to each other, then maybe I can get a better handle on where you’re going and how that can work.
 
I think as it now stands we are fine. We have bigger things to focus our time on like actually getting people to come to church.
 
Fone_Bone_2001 said:
The whole Georgian Orthodox Church?

If so, my answer is yes, of course it would still exist. They’d exist but be in schism from the communion of now 14 Orthodox Churches.
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The Georgian Orthodox church was once non-Chalcedonian. Later it accepted Chalcedon and essentially switched communions. I realize it was a long process, it did not happen in one lifetime.
 
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