PROTRSTANT AND SCHISMATIC DELEGATED OBSERVERS AND GUESTS AT VATICAN COUNCIL II

 

On September 8, 1868, fifteen months before the opening of the First Vatican Council, Pope Pius IX sent an Apostolic Letter to all the patriarchs and bishops of the Orthodox Church, inviting them to end their state of separation. If they accepted, they would have the same rights in the Council as the other bishops, since the Catholic Church considered them validly consecrated. If they did not accept, they would have the opportunity to participate in special council commissions

composed of Catholic bishops and theologians to discuss the affairs of the Council, as in the Council of Florence in 1439. But the tone of the letter was offensive to the patriarchs and bishops. And it bothered them even more that the entire text was published in a Roman newspaper before they received their personal copy.

Consequently, no Orthodox patriarch or bishop accepted the invitation.  Five days after writing the previous letter, Pope Pius IX invited "all Protestants and other non-Catholics" to take advantage of the occasion of the Ecumenical Council "to return to the Catholic Church." Careful study, his letter asserted, would prove that none of his groups, nor all of them together, “constitute nor is in any way the only Catholic Church founded, constituted, and desired by Jesus Christ; nor can these groups in any way be called members or part of this Church, since they are visibly separated from Catholic unity ”. He invited them "to try to free themselves from that state in which they cannot be sure of their own salvation."

This letter was also considered offensive, and it obtained very meager results.

The failure of the First Vatican Council to achieve Christian unity hung like an ominous cloud over the second.

But Pope John XXIII, in his optimism, seemed to ignore it. When; I inform the world of his intention to convene an ecumenical Council, he immediately spoke of "a renewed invitation to the faithful of the separate Churches to follow us in a friendly manner in this search for unity and grace, desired by so many souls in all parts of the world. " And among the numerous commissions and secretariats that he instituted on June 5, 1960 to immediately tackle the work of preparing the Council, was the Secretariat for Christian Unity. Its purpose was to establish contact with the Orthodox, Old-Catholics , Anglicans, and Protestant Churches, and invite them to send official representatives to the Council.

The religious climate in the world of John XXIII was very different

than it had been in the days of Pope Pius IX. In the intervening years, the ecumenical movement, promoting Christian unity, had made a deep impression on Christian communities around the world.

Many factors contributed to the development of this truly providential movement. One was biblical research, which, to some Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Catholic specialists.

It was the first area of ​​collaboration between Christian churches. Then came the Ecumenical Council of Churches, founded specifically to promote Christian collaboration in all possible fields, which in less than thirty years saw membership grow to 214 full members and eight associated churches of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Christian communions. old-catholic women.

Another influential factor was the neo-pagan threat of Nazism in Europe during World War II, which united Catholics and Christians of other denominations in defense of religion. This explains why Catholic interest in the ecumenical movement first manifested itself in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Among the most active members of Catholic ecumenism were Dominicans and Jesuits.

The initial successes in these three countries received an additional boost when the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office promulgated its lengthy Instruction on the Ecumenical Movement of December 20, 1949. This Instruction urged bishops around the world “not only to diligently monitor and take care of these initiatives, but also to promote and direct them prudently, in order to help those who seek the truth and the true Church, and to protect the faithful from the dangers that could so easily result from the activities of this movement ”.

Therefore, it was not surprising that John XXIII chose Card. Bea (German, Jesuit, and Biblical teacher); the fact that the cardinal was seventy-nine years old seemed inconsequential.

With thousands of separate Christian churches around the world, it was impossible for all of them to be represented at the Council. The solution of Card. Bea consisted of contacting the major groups and inviting them to send delegations that could represent their affiliated churches. Thus, an invitation was sent to the World Lutheran Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches, the World Convention of the Churches of Christ (Disciples of Christ), the World Committee of Friends (Quakers), the World Council of the Congregationcites, the World Council of Methodists, the International Association for Liberal Christianity and Religious Liberty, the Ecumenical Council of Churches, the Australian Council of Churches and other groups.

Archbishop John C. Heenan of Liverpool, member of the Secretariat of Card. Bea, said in 1962: “It is no exaggeration to say that the personality of the Pope altered the disposition towards the Vatican of non-Catholics in England. In today's jargon, we could say that Pope John has given a new image to the Catholic Church in the minds of Protestants (...). Dr. Fisher [former Archbishop of Canterbury]

He told me that the attitude of Pope John inspired the initiative to propose a visit to the Vatican. That would have been unthinkable even just five years ago. "

Card. Bea invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to send a delegation on behalf of the Anglican Church. The invitation was accepted.

He then asked the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, to send a delegation representing the various branches of the Orthodox Church. But when the patriarch went to the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), it did not show any interest, considering the Ecumenical Council as an internal matter of the Catholic Church, which did not concern him. As, however, international interest in the Council grew, so did that of the Russian Orthodox Church, and when Bishop Nicodemus Rotow was asked at the New Delhi Assembly of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in November 1961, If the Russian Orthodox Church would send delegates to the Second Vatican Council, I replied that it was an embarrassing question, since he had not been invited.

Technically this was true, since the Russian Orthodox Church had not been directly invited by Card. Bea, but through the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which considered itself entitled to take the initiative to propose a common delegation to other patriarchs. And when Archbishop Jan Willebrands, secretary of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, visited the patriarchal headquarters of the Middle East to explain to the patriarchs and their synods the matters that would be dealt with by the Council, it was understood that they too were against being invited through the Ecumenical Patriarch of

Constantinople. In his view, no patriarch was superior to the others; they were all on the same level. Then Card. Bea invited each group from the Orthodox Church directly.

When Bishop Nicodemus met with Bishop Willebrands in Paris in August 1962, he told him that his Church would react favorably to an invitation if Bishop Willebrands traveled to Moscow and invited Patriarch Alexis personally. Bishop Willebrands did, visiting Moscow from September 27 to October 2. I explain to the Patriarch the program of the Council, and I offer him a verbal invitation.

However, he did not receive an immediate response, because the written invitation had not yet arrived. The issue of communism did not come up directly at any of the Paris or Moscow meetings. The Russian Orthodox Church did not make any request that the issue not be addressed at the Council, and Bishop Willebrands did not give any assurance that it would not be. In explaining the Council's agenda, Bishop Willebrands simply stated that the problem was on it. However, he made it clear that, once the Council was open, the Council Fathers were free to alter the program and introduce the topics they wanted.

The written invitation of Card. Bea arrived after the departure of Mons. Willebrands. On October 10, the day before the opening of the Council, Patriarch Alexis and his synod sent a telegram accepting the invitation. On the same day, Patriarch Athenagoras, of Constantinople, informed Card. Bea that he had been unable to assemble a representative delegation of the Orthodox Church as a whole, and that he was not in favor of sending a delegation exclusively representing his Ecumenical Patriarchate. (Neither their patriarchate, nor the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, sent representatives to the Council until the third session, and the Patriarchates of Antioch, Athens, and Jerusalem never did.) Among the Orthodox present at the first session, in addition to the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church, there were representatives of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia. 

 Taken from: THE RHINE LEASDS INTO TIBET