One Lord, one oikoumene

(first published November 15, 2009 on Cebu Daily News and inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

After the Last Supper in the Cenacle or Upper Room in Jerusalem, Jesus conversed with our Heavenly Father. Within a sparkling spiritual mosaic of adoration, thanksgiving, and petition known as his High Priestly Prayer, our Lord prayed for the unity of all his followers.

“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me,” Jesus said. (John 17:20-21)

Since apostolic times, oneness marked Christianity. In the year 431 however, the absence of the Assyrian Church of the East from the gathering of the world’s bishops in Ephesus led to that church’s estrangement from the Catholic Church until the time of Pope John Paul II.

In 451, the Oriental Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church split apart. In the Great Schism of 1054, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church also parted ways. In the 16th century, Christians led by Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and England’s King Henry VIII left the Catholic Church. Theological controversies and human pride were at the center of all these divisions.

By 2001, over 22,000 Christian denominations existed, said Zenaida Ligan, one of my social science professors at the University of the Philippines (UP). Free internet reference site Wikipedia reveals that today, the figure has ballooned to about 38,000.

The good news, thanks be to God, is that we live in the age of ecumenism, when Christians acknowledge that “division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.” (Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism)

Ecumenism comes from the Greek oikoumene. It means “the inhabited world.” “Home” is Orthodox Church Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople’s preferred translation of oikoumene, so that Christians may understand ecumenism—against currents of division and in response to Jesus’ prayer for their unity—as rebuilding and restoring their broken home, the one Church of Christ.

Whenever I hear or read the word ecumenism, I remember clergymen, ministers, and pastors in assorted liturgical garb praying and working towards a common reading of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as Eastern Orthodox and Catholic theologians did in Cyprus last October 16-23 and as Catholic and Anglican clergymen did more recently.

Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are straining towards consensus on “The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium.” This, when resolved, will go a long way towards healing the Great Schism.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI has established, through the apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus" and for Anglicans converting to Catholicism, bishop-led groups of churches using Anglo-Catholic rites and liturgies. This is aimed at mending the brokenness begun by Henry VIII's protest.

Beyond these, the word ecumenism reminds me of friends I met in UP Cebu: Brian of Christ’s Commission Fellowship, Jimvic of the Living Christian Church, Jedaiah of the Bible Baptist Church, Geraldine of Victory Christian Fellowship, and Mischelle and Mary Ann of Maranatha Christian Fellowship.

From a sensational secular perspective that often claims to be dispassionate (hence true), since we go to denominationally disconnected churches, a modicum of civility concealing rancor, if not mere good will, is expected to hold sway over our association.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Many of us contributed to “Amazing!” – UP Cebu’s pioneering inspirational journal from 2002-2003. Some of us visited each other’s churches and ate at one another’s homes when we were in college. Some of us planted trees, selected pet fish, went Christmas caroling, or walked miles of beach together. Today, most of us meet once a month in any of Cebu’s restaurants, to catch up on the events of our lives, critique current affairs, mull over other joint activities like visiting museums, and of course, share generally joyful meals.

I say “generally” because we do not minimize our differences or pretend that these do not exist. Oftentimes as we eat, I have had to account for the Holy Writ behind Catholic traditions like the Chair of Peter or veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At such times, my joy turns into a deep hope for that day when our Lord, in the words of many a saint, shall be “all in all:” that day when, having partaken of the same Eucharistic sacrifice, Christians disagree at meals no more.

It is a fair hope. Come to think of it, the first celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the center of Christian communion, happened around a meal table, as our trysts do, and was surrounded by prayer – the act with which our meetings commence and by which our friendship is bound together, in the Name of the one and only Jesus Christ.