Undoing a Catholic and an Orthodox Christian Feud

There's an anecdote about twins still in their mother's womb. They argued about who should come out first. One of the embryos complained "I'm the most beautiful; I should be born first."

"Maybe you are beautiful," responded the other, "but I'm the strongest; I should ooze out first."

The pair pushed and shoved in their mother's uterus until their umbilical cords broke. The mother miscarried and both fetuses perished.

Divisiveness is a scoundrel who can't leave without being pushed and who won't leave without being forced. He is the star in his own drama.

How many times have Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians seen his film in the theater of Christian dispute?

Pope John Paul II has waged war against divisions within Christianity in hopes of hastening a curtain call to these stains on divine memory. We wish him well. Selfishness, theology, self-righteousness and conceit are the emcees that have broadcast disunity among Christian communities for centuries.

But the Pope took a welcomed step in his battle. He recently returned the bones of John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians. These honored ancient leaders' graves were looted from Constantinople, today known as Istanbul in Turkey, in 1204 by Catholic marauders during the Fourth Crusade.

In 1054, from Constantinople and beyond to Rome and beyond, division immigrated to Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox Church broke with the Catholic Church because the two branches of Catholicism differed over rites, the wording of prayers, the use of unleavened bread in the Catholic Eucharist, territory, church calendar and other matters.

Pope Paul speeded up his quest after Orthodox leaders accused Rome of trying to evangelize Eastern believers, especially in the Ukraine and Romania. To assure the Orthodox Church Rome had no intention of stealing Orthodox believers, the Pontiff offered to return the bones.

Matthew 5:23-24 says "If you offer your gift at the altar and there remember someone has something against you, leave your gift before the altar. First, go and reconcile yourself to that person, then come and offer your gift."

Despite the embargoes Catholics and Protestants have established between each other and within their own borders, we hope Christians worldwide will look downrange from their own hills and someday migrate toward the plains of unity, using this episode between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians as an example.

Mystery, not Myth: Jesus Christ is real!

In the children's section of any bookstore, books on the birth of Jesus stand next to Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk. The same parents who describe Santa Claus so convincingly also tell their children of Another who knows if they've been "naughty or nice." No wonder many children cast aside the Father and the Son at about the time they give up their belief in
the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

But the Gospel Story is not myth or fairy tale. It is history--as solidly believable as Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus. Look at any calendar. The prefixes Sept-, Oct-, Nov-, and Dec- should designate months 7, 8, 9, and 10, not 9, 10, 11, and 12. Why are they off by two digits? Because in their egotism two powerful men, namely Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, inserted months to honor themselves, pushing the succeeding months back in the year. The calendar's misnamed months testify to the two rulers' historicity.

The same is true with regard to the year on the calendar. Each passing year recalls the blessed moment when "The Word became flesh and pitched a tent among us" (John 1:14). And every stock market report and checkbook entry, every video camera's electronic brain and every letter's postmark, whisper in
unison, "He actually lived, truly and literally, in real space and time!"

John cannot be misunderstood: "We heard Him, we saw Him with our eyes, we looked at Him, and our hands touched Him" (1 John 1:1). Paul says Christ was raised and appeared to eyewitnesses, many of whom were still alive to affirm it 25 years later (1 Cor. 15:5-8).

For all of us who follow Him, the story can end, "and they lived happily ever after," because of this very reason: it does not begin with "Once upon a time," but "Once, for all time."