Fr. George Florovsky: Ecumenist?

Chronology of Fr. George Florovsky’s Ecumenical Activity

1. 1893-1920: in Russia
2. 1920-1939: in Europe before the Second World War
   • 1926-1935: the Berdiaev colloquium brought together Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants
   • 1928-1939: the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius
   • 1933-1935: Fr. Sergius Bulgakov’s proposition for inter-communion between the Orthodox and Anglicans in the Fellowship
   • 1931-1939: invited professor in many European universities and invited preacher in Anglican and Presbyterian churches
   • 1937-1939: member of the Faith and Order Commission and organizer of the World Council of Churches
3. 1945-1948: resumption of work for 2.2, 2.3, et 2.4. and preparation of the First Assembly of the WCC, Amsterdam, 1948

4. 1948-1979: in North America
   • 1948-1949: professor at St. Vladimir’s Seminary
   • 1949-1955: dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary
   • 1955-1964: professor at Harvard
   • 1964-1979: professor at Princeton

5. 1979: Dormition

I Introduction

Before talking about Fr. George as an ecumenist, we should look at the meaning of the word ecumenist. If we are wondering whether we can apply this term to someone, we first have to know what we are talking about. So how do we define the word ecumenist?

1. Life and Work or Faith and Order

First off, let us start with a well-established distinction in the ecumenical movement itself. There are at least two kinds of ecumenists: those who lean toward the Life and Work Movement and those who are interested in the Faith and Order Movement. The followers of each orientation have a different vision about how to promote Christian unity. Will the ecumenical movement move forward faster through cooperation on practical projects (Life and Work) or by reflection on the theological questions that divide the Churches (Faith and Order)? These two currents of opinion coexist within the ecumenical movement, and all ecumenists have their share of each one, in differing doses of course. If someone is mainly interested in Life and Work and «neglects»–so to speak–Faith and Order, can that person be called an ecumenist? And vice versa, can someone who is mainly interested in theological reflection and is not so concerned with Work and Life be called an ecumenist? So the word is applied to people with different sensibilities and outlooks.

2. An Ecumenical Theology

Is there a difference between attending ecumenical meetings, participating in prayers services with Christians of different Churches, and contributing as much as possible to the common work of Christian unity, on the one hand, and, on the other, having a very definite theological point of view as to the goal of the ecumenical movement and the means for reaching that goal? Can someone participate in the ecumenical movement, refuse any compromise regarding the specific character and theological claims of his or her own Church tradition, and at the same time claim to be an ecumenist? These are questions that must be asked to determine whether Fr. George was an ecumenist or not.

3. A Story

Here is a story that illustrates this point. I know an Orthodox Christian who attended an ecumenical prayer and work meeting. At the beginning of the session, a Roman Catholic leader announced that those who thought their Church to be superior to others had no place in the meeting. No one left the meeting, not even the Orthodox Christian, but he nonetheless felt ill at ease because in fact he believed that the Orthodox Church is the Church of Christ, period. So then, who in this story can legitimately call himself an ecumenist? The Orthodox Christian or the leader, or both? To be an ecumenist must someone have an “ecumenical theology” which leans in the direction of a kind of internal Christian syncretism where everyone accepts everyone as brothers and sisters in the Church of Christ and where all the Churches are judged to be fully Church? Apparently this is not the case because the World Council of Churches’ Toronto Statement, 1950, declares that among the fundamental assumptions on which the Council is based is the following: “The member churches of the World Council consider the relationship of other churches to the Holy Catholic Church which the Creeds profess as a subject for mutual consideration. Nevertheless, membership does not imply that each church must regard the other member churches as churches in the true and full sense of the word.”¹

So then, taking into account at the same time both the tension between the two tendencies of the ecumenical movement—Life and Work along side of Faith and Order—as well as the subtle, but real, pressure to abandon a “We-are-the-True-Church” mentality, let us now examine the concrete activities of Fr. George Florovsky as he promoted the healing of the schisms between the Churches.

II European Activities: 1926-1948

1. The Berdiaev Colloquium

In 1926 in Paris, Nicholas Berdiaev opened the door to Fr. George’s first inter-Christian, shall we say ecumenical, activity. Berdiaev had invited him to attend discussions between Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants. It was the beginning of the Berdiaev Colloquium where members met together each month to listen to a presentation and to discuss it. For two years, the participants from the three Christian families met together, but in 1928, Roman Catholic authorities forbade Catholic members to participate in the trilateral discussions. Nonetheless, from 1930 until 1934, Fr. George participated in bilateral meetings between Orthodox and Catholics, always on the initiative of Nicholas Berdiaev. These trilateral and later bilateral discussions, in which some of the brightest Christian lights of France participated, were a great stimulus for Fr. George’s theological thinking within an inter-confessional context.

2. The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius

In 1928, the Russian and English Christian Students Movements created a fellowship to promote good relations between the Orthodox and Anglicans. From that time till the beginning of the Second World War, Fr. George actively participated in the meetings of the Fellowship and discussed theological questions with Anglican members by presenting lectures on Orthodox theology and attending, alternatively, Anglican and Orthodox services. It was during one of these meetings of the Fellowship, in 1933, that Fr. Sergius Bulgakov made a very surprising proposal, one which severely tested Fr. George’s ecumenical vision.

Fr. Sergius was impatient. He wanted to achieve Christian unity right away; he felt a tangible, visible sign was needed to show that unity was possible. He therefore proposed to establish Eucharistic inter-communion between the Anglican and Orthodox members of the Fellowship. With a special, sacramental blessing, given to the Anglicans by an Orthodox hierarch, Fr. Sergius believed that it would not be necessary to wait for the Orthodox and Anglican Churches to arrive at a full theological agreement that would allow them to recognize each other as being fully orthodox and fully Church and thus to celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy together. According to Fr. Sergius, there already existed enough unity between the members of the Fellowship, and on the basis of that «spiritual unity,» as he called it, the members could establish Eucharistic inter-communion.

The bold proposal surprised all the members of the Fellowship. The Anglicans as well as the Orthodox were divided into pro and con groups. Fr. George was on the side of those who opposed the proposition, and he vigorously protested against it. “Florovsky, for example, spoke for many of the Russians when he said that the sacramental blessing could not absolve schismatics from the duty and obligation of submitting to the sacrament of penance before admission to the Church, for this was the essential rite for the reception of schismatics ‘in their orders.’”² The controversy surrounding the proposal continued for two years and created so many divisions and so much tension that the members of the Fellowship decided in 1937 not to decide anything, preferring to move on to other questions. The proposal died there, but Fr. George continued to attend nearly all the meetings of the Fellowship until WWII.

3. Invited Lecturer and Preacher

During the 1930’s, Fr. George’s star continued to rise, and he received many invitations to speak to non Orthodox, theological students. He accepted as many of them as possible. During his stays in England and Scotland, he often preached, by invitation, in Anglican and Presbyterian churches. He obviously did not believe he was going against the canons which prohibit “praying with heretics.” He obviously did not participate in any sacramental services. As far as I know, no one has ever accused Fr. George of not following them either. He accepted every chance offered to him to present the Orthodox vision on various subjects, believing passionately in the usefulness of making Orthodoxy known, especially but not exclusively, to Protestants.

4. The Faith and Order Commission and the World Council of Churches

In 1937, Fr. George attended the 2^nd conference of the Faith and Order Commission in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the president of the section that studied the question of the ministry and sacraments, and on such a delicate question, it is not surprising that there was little agreement. Fr. George did not see any advantage in subscribing to a statement that only masked the deep divisions among the participants. He insisted that before starting on the road to unity, everyone had to recognize the divisions, and where it seemed impossible to agree, such a deadlock needed simply to be stated. “…he argued [that] this was the only way to advance genuine, ecumenical dialog. From Edinburgh on, drawing attention to the real depths of the problem of the separations of the churches would be a Florovskian hallmark at ecumenical encounters.”³

At Edinburgh in 1937, the Faith and Order Commission had voted to accept the invitation of the delegates to the Life and Work Commission to unite and form the World Council of Churches (WCC). The project had been in the air for sometime, and the members of the Faith and Order Commission elected Fr. George as one of the fourteen directors who were responsible for preparing the first assembly of the new World Council of Churches. WWII was, however, imminent, and the fourteen directors were able to meet only once. Then, the war put the project off until 1948, at Amsterdam, but Fr. George’s position as a founding director of the WCC guaranteed that his strong voice would ring clearly on the international scene.

5. The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Amsterdam, 1948

In the nearly euphoric atmosphere of the Assembly, the delegates were very optimistic about the future. After all, the great dream of a World Council of Churches had become a reality. Many hoped that Christian unity was not very far off. Fr. George, as an eminent Orthodox representative, as well as one of the fourteen organizers of the Assembly, was chosen to address the delegates at the opening session. His speech left no one indifferent. Some even found it shocking and very much out of place. According to Fr. George, the essential problem about the divisions between Christians is that the Christians Churches are in schism, deeply divided. They have lost the common language necessary to carry on useful dialog that could lead to the healing of the schisms. “Christian divisions are an open, bleeding wound on the glorious body of Christ.”⁴ He went on to say that unity among the Churches was not for tomorrow morning, but nonetheless, every Christian is commanded by Christ to work for the healing of the wound. In all his public comments during the Assembly, Fr. George “…sought to depict in clear and uncompromising terms the Orthodox position on basic theological issues, often presented in contradistinction to other points of view.”⁵ And one of his opinions caused a lot of discontent. He saw Orthodox participation in the Assembly, in particular, and in the ecumenical movement, in general, as a missionary activity. Since there were at Amsterdam only Protestants, leaving aside the Orthodox delegates, some people felt this position was nearly a call to proselytism. Whatever one can say about this and other statements, no one can accuse Fr. George of being soft, bland, or indecisive.

III Activities in North America: 1949-1979

1. The meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC, Toronto ON, Canada, 1950

Among the 90 members of the Central Committee which directed the WCC’s affairs between assemblies, there was a current of opinion that sought to give ecclesiological characteristics to the the Council and promoted it as a model for the restored Church unity. Fr. George, and others in the Central Committee, vigorously opposed this movement, and this group produced the Toronto Statement, quoted above, which reaffirmed that the WCC itself has no ecclesiology, that each Church can maintain its own vision of the nature of the Church, and even that no member Church is required to recognize any other member Churches as being fully Church.

2. The Third World Conference on Faith and Order, Lund, Sweden, 1952

Fr. George called the attention of the Conference delegates to the necessity not only of “ecumenism in space,” that is visible unity today and tomorrow of the Churches, but also of “ecumenism in time,” that is doctrinal unity with the Church’s Tradition throughout the ages.

3. The Second Assembly of the WCC, Evanston, Illinois, 1954

At the Second Assembly of the WCC, the Orthodox delegates were not able to subscribe to two majority documents written for the whole Assembly, and they felt obliged to write their own statements on the subjects. The two statements of the Orthodox delegates, primarily written by Fr. George, clearly presented their point of view, without ambiguity or shades of gray: “We believe that the return of the communions to the Faith of the ancient, united, and indivisible Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, namely to the pure and unchanged and common heritage of the forefathers of all divided Christians, shall alone produce the desired reunion of all separated Christians.” And in the same vein: “ …we are bound to declare our profound conviction that the Holy Orthodox Church alone has preserved in full and intact ‘the faith once delivered unto the saints.’”⁶ It is not hard to imagine that these statements of the Orthodox position, made so directly and categorically, did not please everyone. Nonetheless, they were completely consistent with Fr. George’s often expressed point of view: The divisions among Christians are real, highly painful, and not easy to overcome. Despite the grumbling which these statements caused among non Orthodox delegates, the Assembly reelected Fr. George as a member of the Central Committee which, at its first meeting after the Assembly, chose him and thirteen others to form an Executive Committee to run the affairs of the Central Committee between its meetings.

4. The Third Assembly of the WCC, New Delhi, India, 1961

Having reached his 68^th year in 1961, Fr. George thought it best not to continue being part of the WCC’s governing body. And so his long career, during which he had help run the ecumenical movement at the highest level, slowed down considerably. His personal and theological influence remained high, but it too was diminishing. At New Delhi, the policy of separate Orthodox statements on questions discussed during the Assemblies, a policy largely inspired and perpetuated by Fr. George, was abandoned. A majority of the Orthodox delegates preferred to influence the final reports rather than to present specifically Orthodox statements. The wind had definitely turned. Most of the delegates of the New Delhi Assembly turn their backs on Fr. George’s main interest, that is the theological questions of ecumenism, and became principally interested in Life and Work questions. A majority of the Orthodox delegates also rejected his methodology, that is to influence the WCC by presenting separate, Orthodox statements.

5. The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order, Montreal QC, Canada, 1963

Once again, some Protestant members of the Conference wanted to give the characteristics of the Church as defined in the creed—one, holy, catholic, and apostolic—to the WCC, thus attributing an ecclesial nature to the World Council. Despite these efforts to «Churchify» the WCC, the Conference, thanks in part to Fr. George’s opposition, reaffirmed the Toronto Statement of 1950.

6. The Fourth Assembly of the WCC, Uppsala, Sweden, 1968

Fr. George was but a simple delegate at the Uppsala Assembly, and, in fact, he was not really very interested in the deliberations. Life and Work concerns completely dominated the deliberations. “The main interest of the Uppsala Assembly was centered not on the problem of Christian unity, but on the means to attain social justice in the world. I certainly do not ignore the urgency of seeking a solution to social ills, but I consider that theology did not receive at Uppsala the attention which should have been expected by Christians of various denominations in search of a rapprochement.”; “Uppsala had no distinctive religious character.”; and “You could imagine you had been at the United Nations or another meeting of this kind.”⁷

7. The Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order, Louvain, Belgium, 1971

At the age of 79, Fr. George attended his last, big Ecumenical event where he shined by his legendary reputation and the force of his personality rather than by his contributions to the debates.

8. Prestigious, Invited Guest

It would serve no purpose and would be tiring to note all the invitations that Fr. George accepted to teach, preach, lecture, etc. Let it suffice to say that he went all over the world representing as faithfully as he could the Orthodox vision of ecumenism, among the many other subjects he was qualified to talk about. And no doubt, they were legion.

IV Evaluation of Fr. George’s Career:

Was He an Ecumenist? If So, What Kind?

It seems to me hardly possible to refuse to apply the word ecumenist to Fr. George. One would have to have a very special definition of the word to hesitate to attribute it to him. All his life—his activities, writings, courses, lectures, sermons—bear witness to his deep and lasting interest in Christian unity. So the answer to the first question is an unqualified “yes.” But the second question: What kind of ecumenist was he? I will try to answer that with a series of descriptive adjectives.

1. Orthodox

So was Fr. George an Orthodox ecumenist? He certainly was Orthodox and an ecumenist, but obviously the word Orthodox does not simply indicate that someone belongs to one or another ecclesiastical structure or tradition. Does the word imply a particular attitude toward ecumenism, a doctrine? We know very well that there are and have always been divergent opinions on nearly every question in the Church—the heresies aside, and even there what is a heresy?—and we live with those divergent opinions, sometimes well sometimes not so well. Is it legitimate to claim that there is only one Orthodox attitude toward ecumenist? Except for those who define it as a heresy, even a pan-heresy, the answer is no. There exists a whole range of Orthodox opinions about ecumenism, and Fr. George certainly falls within the range, but where exactly should we place his opinions?

2. Favorable toward Ecumenism, Even Enthusiastic

It is not difficult to conclude that Fr. George had a positive, even enthusiastic, attitude toward ecumenism in general and especially toward Orthodox participation in the movement. He was a passionate ecumenist, not just as a personal interest, like chess, but he had a deep conviction that the Orthodox Church was obligated to participate in the ecumenical movement; it had an essential role to play. For him, it would be a serious error to refuse to participate. He therefore attended as many ecumenical meetings as possible and accepted to take part in the running of several worldwide, national (American), and local ecumenical organizations.

3. Faithful to Orthodoxy

It goes without saying that he did not see his participation in the ecumenical movement as a compromise, a weakening, or a betrayal of his faithfulness to Orthodoxy. He saw it rather as an expression of that faithfulness. Some may say that ecumenical activity is by it very nature a compromise of the faith, but very few, I think, would say that Fr. George himself compromised the Orthodox faith by his participation in the ecumenical movement. And even those Orthodox who have an unfavorable attitude toward ecumenism, I would think, can only admire Fr. George’s witness in the field.

4. “High Church”

Among non Catholic, Western Christians, the expression High Church historically designates those who give great importance to the Church and its role in the economy of salvation and who put a lot of emphasis on the sacraments and the priestly ministry. So by applying High Church to the content of Fr. George’s ecumenical witness, I want to indicate that he saw the goal of all ecumenical activity as the healing of the schisms between the Churches, the restoration of Eucharistic communion between them, and the common proclamation of a common ecclesial faith. It is quite natural then that Fr. George, all his life, was a member, even director, of the Faith and Order Commission, the theological wing of the ecumenical movement. Insisting on the healing of the schisms between the Churches through discussions of theological issues dividing them placed Fr. George, without any doubt, on the side of those who defined ecumenism as an ecclesiological question, one that has to do with the nature of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. According to him, discussions about the nature of the Church, the Churches, schism, schisms, and the ways of healing them must be the main subject of inter-Christian dialogs. He insisted also on the horror of schism, the scandal of it, and the reality of the deep divisions between the Churches. Christians have not gotten themselves into the present situation overnight. The path toward the ultimate goal will be long and difficult, but there is no other way to reach the goal except by a realistic understanding of our present divisions and patient and sustained dialog. Fr. George was not against the Life and Work Movement, but he did not see how “social work” which does not have any uniquely Christian character could in the long run bring about Christian unity as he envisioned it.

5. Intransigent

Many of Fr. George’s writings as well as the documents he helped to write leave no doubt about his point of view: The Orthodox Church, and it alone, has preserved the fullness of the apostolic faith; it is precisely the apostolic Church 20 centuries later. And the role of the Orthodox Church in the ecumenical movement is to witness to that faith which was in former times the common faith of everyone. He even said once, as I have already noted, that Orthodox witness on the ecumenical scene is a missionary activity. To the ears of Protestant ecumenists, such a vision of the Orthodox role in ecumenical organizations is practically a call to convert the non Orthodox. This was not however his position, but shades of meaning were lost in the discussions. He openly expressed the “exclusivist” position—which is nothing more nor less than that of Orthodoxy—in a milieu where it was in bad taste to hold such opinions and even worse to express them. Fr. George was thus assured of a reputation as a hardliner, a maximalist, someone who “was not very ecumenical,” in some people’s view. It is true that his personality did not make him sympathetic to compromise, to shades of gray, to nuances. He simply stated the Orthodox position, period. Non Orthodox were not obligated to accept it, but no one could say that Fr. George spoke in ambiguous tones. The language of compromise and ambiguity that only cover over deep, theological differences between Christians, according to him, is the greatest enemy of the ecumenical movement.

It is here that we should talk about a notion that the Orthodox adversaries of ecumenism often use to accuse other Orthodox who participate in the ecumenical movement: the Branch Theory. Is it possible to accuse Fr. George of believing in this ecclesiological theory? The classical expression of the Branch Theory comes from Anglicanism, specifically from the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, and says that the Church of Christ is today divided into three branches. One trunk of the tree existed for the first 1000 years of Church history when it divided into two branches, the Greek and the Latin. Then the Latin branch, at the time of the English Reformation, divided into the Roman Catholic and the Anglican branches, making three Greek, Roman Catholic, and Anglican. These three, despite their differences based on local traditions, compose the apostolic Church of Christ, the Protestant Churches being excluded. Every time the Orthodox Church has had to deal with this Anglican ecclesiology, it has rejected it; the Roman Catholic Church does not accept it either. So taking into account Fr. George’s reaction to Fr. Serge Bulgakov’s proposal for inter-communion between the members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius in 1933, as well as Fr. George’s own ecclesiological statements, it is not credible to accuse Fr. George of believing in the branch theory. He would no doubt have been even more opposed to the branch theory had it been enlarged to include Protestant Churches. As far as I know, he never commented on the expression “the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are sister Churches,” but knowing his allergy to ambiguous formulations, I find it hard to imagine that he would have remained silent on hearing it. In any case, whatever the definition we give to “the branch theory”–the Church of Christ is divided into two, three, or multiple branches—it is not an idea that we can attribute to Fr. George.

6. Honored but Left Behind

We have to admit that Fr. George’s reputation as a theologian and historian never stopped growing all through his life. His influence as an Orthodox ecumenist, however, tended to diminish toward the end of his life, and for two reasons: 1. the change in orientation in the ecumenical movement and 2. the change in attitude among the other Orthodox who joined the Movement in the second half of the 20^th century.

6.1 After the WCC Assembly in Evanston, 1954, a general change took place among ecumenists. Up to that time, during the first half of the 20^th century, most of them were interested in the theological side of the quest for Christian unity, that is the Faith and Order Movement. It was in the atmosphere of Faith and Order that Fr. George found his niche. There theological questions took first place, but during the second half of the 20^th century, especially after the 1960’s, ecumenists turned more to questions of social justice, war and peace, and other interests of the Life and Work Movement. We have already seen what Fr. George thought of this movement as a motor driving the divided Churches to the healing of the schisms among them. Since Fr. George had been such an eminent figure in the ecumenical movement right from the beginning, no one could ignore his prestige, and everywhere he went, he was always given a place of honor, but his voice carried less and less weight. He was no longer relevant to the concerns of the movement. Like a great, retired statesman, he became an ornament that everyone love, as long as he did not say much.

6.2 As the century went on, more and more Orthodox Churches, which had been rather suspicious of the ecumenical movement, joined the WCC and other ecumenical activities. The number of Orthodox voices was on the rise. Consequently, Fr. George’s voice and his vision of the role of Orthodoxy in the ecumenical movement lost influence. His methodology which sought to confront the discordant doctrines in dialog with others lost the favor of more and more Orthodox ecumenists. Not being able to endorse important documents on such and such a theological question, Fr. George had succeeded in persuading his Orthodox partners to present a report, often largely written by him, separate from the majority non Orthodox report. In the end, the Orthodox delegations abandoned this policy as not being very productive and too much oriented toward useless confrontation.

7. Conclusion: Disappointed?

Was Fr. George disappointed with the new orientation taken by the ecumenical movement? It is not difficult to say “yes” to the question. He had spent much of his time and energy promoting Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement, and when he saw the realization of his dream, the movement itself and the Orthodox decided to follow a path different from the one he had followed for decades. Humanly speaking, how could he not be disappointed? After all, Fr. George was a man.

Was he an ecumenist? Yes, without a doubt, but what kind of ecumenists? Orthodox? Certainly. Faithful to his Church? Above all. Enthusiastic? Again, certainly. Maximalist? Oh yes. Intransigent? We have to say “yes.” Combative, confrontational? That too. A believer in the branch theory? Not on your life. Honored, but left behind? Yes. Disappointed? Unfortunately, yes. Fr. George was all these things and more, for his own good and the good of many others, and some times for the not so good, but his witness as an Orthodox ecumenist remains and, in my opinion, will continue to be a model for us all.

Bibliography

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1 . Section IV, 4: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/central-committee/toronto-1950/toronto-statement.html

2 . Roger Lloyd, The Church of England in the Twentieth Century, vol. II (1919-1930), London, 1950, p. 281, quoted in Blane, p. 65.

3 . Blane, p. 73.

4 . “Determinations and Distinctions: Ecumenical Aims and Doubts,” Sobornost 3, 4, 1948, p.129, quoted in Fitzgerald, p. 40.

5 .Blane, p. 84.

6 . The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement: Documents and Statements 1902-1975, Constantin G. Patelos, ed., Geneva, The World Council of Churches, 1978, pp. 95-96.

7 . Blane, pp. 138-139.