A Generous Orthodoxy

[kirk yacoub]

If I may jump in only having read extracts of what has gone on before, I believe that we have to acknowledge that, because the Church is the Body of Christ, then the Church can only be one. However, that does not mean that a particular denomination has the right to say "we are that One", rather, it has to be acknowledged that we human beings have set up internal barriers and behave as if the Church is disunited. This is, of course, a grave sin, trying to divide Christs's body, something that not even Pilate's soldiers tried to do.
The Church is a eucharistic community, we all partake of Christ's Holy Body and Blood. All those people in the different denominations who strive for ecumenical unity acknowledge this. When, for example I see HE Mor Athanasios Touma embrace an Anglican vicar with a friendly bear hug, then I see Christian love at work. St Polycarp reminisced about how St John the Theologian, when an old man who had to be carried to church, repeating tirelessly to the faithful, "love one another", we see the only antidote to schism, squabbles and ill-feeling, love. If we love those who have mistakenly taken us for enemies, then we will receive the help of the Holy Spirit. As Matta el-Maskeen stressed, Church unity will only be achieved through the grace of the Holy Spirit, a gift we receive only if we make ourselves worthy of it.
Kirk Yacoub