Introduction

It is ten years since my wife and I left the Roman Catholic Church and were received into the Orthodox Church; it is six years since I wrote my first book, Two Paths: Papal Monarchy-Collegial Tradition. During that time I have come to feel that another book challenging the claims of the Roman Catholic Church from an Orthodox perspective would prove to be useful to Roman Catholics and Orthodox alike. There is a lot of fresh material in this book, especially regarding the Eastern saints and the papacy. Some in the Roman Catholic Church still insist that these giant saints of the Orthodox Church recognized the supreme universal jurisdiction of Rome-obviously a crucial issue in Roman Catholic and Orthodox dialogue.

It took an enormous amount of time and effort in reading and research before my family severed our ties with Rome. I hope this book will aid in some small way in lightening the burden of those who are seriously looking at the Orthodox Church. At all times I have attempted to use the best of contemporary scholarship. Much of this book focuses on the claim of the papacy to supreme universal jurisdiction, because this is the raison d'etre of the Roman Catholic Church-on this issue she stands or falls. The amount of coverage devoted to this subject is also a reflection of my own interest and concern, since allegiance to the papacy was a major stumbling block to my family in entering the Orthodox Church. Crucial to our change of heart was discovering the way Rome was viewed by the early Church, and her position relative to that of the other patriarchates in the Ecumenical Councils. The papal claims, of course, ultimately rest on the early Church's understanding of the role of St. Peter and the meaning of Matthew 16:18, which we will discuss in Chapter V.

Even though Roman Catholic claims are critiqued from an Orthodox perspective in this book, please do not take this as a display of rancorous dislike-nothing could be further from the truth. While much of my family had to part company with Rome, many of our dear friends and relatives remain within her fold. Her contributions to Western European civilization are enormous, and the haunting beauty of her ruined abbeys and monasteries still dotting the countryside of my native Protestant England is a reminder of a once-united Catholic Europe.

Rather, I am filled with infinite sadness at the path Rome felt compelled to take and the divisions she left in her wake. I have often wondered whether the West might have successfully preserved the collegial tradition, and thus her unity with the Eastern half of the Church, if Rome had been only one of several patriarchal sees in the West. The additional sees might have acted as a brake on the development of a papal monarchy with its enormous centralized power, and thus also averted the Protestant revolt. Instead, the rising floodwaters of Europe's spiritual disaffection lapped around the feet of powerful, overconfident Renaissance popes, too removed from their people to notice the danger.

In the last chapter of Two Paths, I mused about the possibility of an eventual reunion between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. My musings at that time led me to pessimistic conclusions, which the passage of time has unfortunately not erased. However, my pessimism is guarded because I pray that this scandal of schism will be healed. As a Christian, I recognize that one of the great lessons of history is that while many things are probable, nothing is inevitable; and with God, of course, everything is possible.

In human terms, the much-hoped-for reunion between our two churches can only be achieved by frankly and charitably discussing our differences. For over a thousand years, our churches enjoyed a common history, and this long-shared memory could provide the building blocks for eventual unification. It is the aim of this book to aid this process in some small way by focusing on the claims of the Roman Catholic Church, especially her claims of supreme universal jurisdiction-a jurisdiction, she insists, under which the Orthodox Church falls.

The Orthodox response to these claims includes the historical record of the giant Eastern saints in their relationship to the Church of Rome. My aim is to state the Orthodox case both frankly and charitably. At times this is difficult to achieve, and if I happen to bruise some feelings in the following pages, please be assured that it is not my intention.

Chapter I

My Anglican Beginnings

People come to their Christian faith in numerous ways. For some it is an immediate "Damascus Road" experience, usually precipitated by a major event in their lives, while for others it is a lifelong journey of turning their lives toward Christ. Then there are those like my evangelical friend who can tell me the time, date, and place they became Christian and received guaranteed salvation: "I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior at 1:30 p.m. on April 26, 1985, at the corner of Georgia and Hastings Streets, and from that moment I was saved."

As I grew up in England, there was never a time when I did not believe in God or was not aware of His presence. As a young boy, I sensed the world filled with the grandeur of God; His existence and moral order were things I never had to wrestle with. This was rather odd since I came from a warm, loving, nonreligious home where my mother and father never spoke of Christ or attended church. It wasn't that they were anti-religion; they were simply completely indifferent to it. They did, however, have me baptized in an Anglican church shortly after I was born. The Anglican Church (Anglican is the Latin term for England) has its origins in the sixteenth-century Reformation, when King Henry VIII repudiated the authority of the papacy and declared himself head of the Church of England (known in the United States as the Episcopal Church).

At the age of ten, I started to attend an Anglican church and soon became a choirboy. I loved singing from the old carved oak choir stalls, which on sunny days would be bathed in colorful hues from the stained glass windows. It was in the liturgy that I was able to give expression to the religious impulses I inwardly felt. One of my favorite hymns was William Blake's "And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time," because it appealed to my sense of patriotism and the goal of re-establishing Christian civilization in England:

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the Holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

. . .

I will not cease from mental fight:

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

On my twelfth birthday, being at a loss as to what to buy me, my parents gave me five shillings. With this I bought a small illustrated Bible, which I promptly showed my parents, thanking them. My mother could scarcely conceal her surprise at what she considered a rather odd choice.

By the time I reached my teens, I learned that the Anglican Church was legally forbidden to manage her own affairs. The queen, with a great deal of input from the prime minister, appointed all the bishops, and any revisions to the liturgy had to have the approval of Parliament-a ludicrous situation when one reflects that the British Parliament consists of, in addition to Anglicans, atheists, agnostics, Methodists, Baptists, Jews, and Muslims.

The inconsistencies within the Anglican Communion were beginning to bother me. For instance, the so-called "high" Anglicans would affirm the Virgin Birth and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, while the "low" or evangelical Anglicans would deny them. They would point to this grab-bag of orthodoxy and heresy as evidence of their wonderful inclusiveness. My ties with the Anglican Church were beginning to unravel, mainly due to these theological inconsistencies, which led to an embarrassing lack of doctrinal cohesion.

This position of so-called "inclusiveness" back in the 1950s and 1960s was perceived by many in the British Isles as slightly preposterous. Sadly, the Anglican Church lost respect, influence, and relevance, becoming the target of much satire and the butt of many jokes. One comedian declared, "In England we have a wonderful institution called the Anglican Church, and no one from Joseph Stalin to Mao Tse Tung can say with any certainty that he is not a member."

The Anglican Church is now wrestling with the issue of homosexual clergy and declining church attendance, as Britain's influential magazine, The Economist, attests:

Disagreement over the ordination of homosexuals (in Britain and America) and women have set the Anglican church's liberal and conservative wings at odds. Yet given that Anglicanism is founded on ambiguity, it is unlikely that the 77m-strong worldwide Anglican communion, of which Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is head, will be torn apart.

A far greater threat to the Church of England is instead posed by steadily falling church attendance, which is draining coffers and has led to the demolition or conversion of thousands of churches. (To reverse the trend, the church is importing missionaries from the developing world.) Britain's cathedrals, which have survived by redefining themselves as cultural and educational centres, now worry about being victims of their own success.

From our frequent trips to England, we can certainly attest to the closing and demolition of churches, as we have seen churches converted into antique shops, libraries, and community resource centers. From 1989 to 2000, Anglican church attendance in England plummeted twenty-three percent. Today, 995,700 Anglicans worship on Sundays out of a population of just over 49,000,000-about two percent of the population. When I look at this painful scene of religious collapse, I am reminded of the Lamentations of Jeremiah:

How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is the mistress of the Gentiles become as a widow: . . . there is none to comfort her among all them that were dear to her: all her friends have despised her, and are become her enemies. . . . All her gates are broken down: her priests sigh. (Lamentations 1:1, 2, 4)

The loss of the Anglican Church as a majestic, moral force in English life is poetically expressed by Brian Wicker:

What was before a narrow, deep, and clearly marked gully cut by a powerful and awe-inspiring torrent across the English landscape, has now become a much wider, gentler and shallower river with ill-defined banks and far less impressive scenery. This river is much more comfortable to row a boat in, but a good deal less exciting than the old stream was. . . . You will find yourselves boating with a crowd of other people who have come out for a lazy Sunday's enjoyment and from whom you are practically indistinguishable.

A few years ago while on one of our trips to England, my wife and I wandered into Salisbury Cathedral during Evensong. It is a beautiful, giant thirteenth-century structure that rises above the countryside of Wiltshire, and the full cathedral choir was singing when we entered. One of the world's most enduring traditions, English choral singing is renowned for its clarity and purity, and in this cavernous cathedral we were treated to a classic example of it. The exquisite soprano voices of the young boys with their purity of diction soared and floated above the full male choir, while the golden glow of the setting sun filtered through the windows. As an ex-Anglican, I found it tugging at my heartstrings. Sadly, there were not many people to witness it-a handful of regulars and some tourists.

The church spires and towers rising over the towns and villages of England played an important role in defining English culture-in fact it would not be England without them. The decline of the Anglican Church is one of the great tragedies of modern England, and the country is a great deal poorer because of it.

To me, by contrast, the Roman Catholic Church appeared to be an unassailable citadel of certitude: an uncompromising bastion of Christian orthodoxy. On the eve of my family's departure for Canada, I had contracted what Anglicans term "Roman Fever."