Browning Begins Ecumenical Tour
Episcopal News Service. January 15, 1987 [87007]
ISTANBUL (DPS, Jan. 15) -- Warm fellowship, ancient worship and frank conversation launched the first tour by Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning through the ecumenical centers of Christianity.
Browning began the month-long Christmas-Epiphany tour here Jan. 1 with visits to the spiritual center of eastern Christianity, then moved on to the Holy Land for a week. He was then to travel to Rome to meet with the Pope and senior officials of Roman Catholicism and later to Geneva for a meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches. His visit was scheduled to end in late January with a briefing with Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie. The primate of the Episcopal Church was accompanied on the tour by his wife, Patti, the Rev. William Norgren, ecumenical officer, and the Rev. Charles Cesaretti, deputy for Anglican affairs.
At each stop, Browning sought to advance the many bilateral dialogues and learn of the mission of the sister churches and also engaged a spectrum of civic and interfaith leaders in order to learn more of the circumstances of that mission.
The visit began with the chief pastor and primate as a guest of honor at a Greek Orthodox liturgy in celebration of the Feast of the Holy Name (Circumcision). At the conclusion, his All Holiness Dimitrios I, Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch, crossed the nave to embrace Browning. The Patriarchate is considered the spiritual center of Greek Orthodoxy, and its affairs are administered from here by the Patriarch and the Council of Metropolitans. Since the feast is one in which the Patriarch receives formal greetings from representatives of his Church throughout the world, his greeting to Browning was brief and formal -- a prelude to a more extended visit the following day.
The Patriarch greeted the Presiding Bishop's party the next morning in his sunny high-ceilinged office. Browning explained that he undertook this tour -- and made Istanbul his first stop -- after a year of traveling about the Episcopal Church where, he said, he had discovered the "deep desire of people for Christian unity" and their concern for peace in the world and in the nuclear and worldwide family. As he did throughout the visit, Browning presented to the Patriarch a large medallion bearing the seal of the Presiding Bishop on the obverse and a commemoration of the centennial of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral on the reverse.
Browning recalled the history of the Quadrilateral, which commits Anglicanism to shaping its ecumenical participation under the four points of the Holy Scriptures, the two Sacraments, the Creeds and the historic episcopate. This formulary, he said, guides the Church in all of its relationships and its quest for unity. It is to be a major focus of study this year, culminating in celebration by the House of Bishops meeting in Chicago, where the Quadrilateral was first accepted in 1886.
The Patriarch praised Browning for his efforts to seek the will of his Church and spoke of his deep affection for Runcie and for Archbishop Iakavos, the Greek Orthodox Primate of North and South America, with whom Browning has met.
After a 40-minute session with the Patriarch, Browning and his party adjourned to another room for more than an hour's talk with Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Myra, chairman of the InterChristian Committee; Metropolitan Bartholomew of Philadelphia, secretary of the Patriarch; Metropolitan Gabriel and Dr. Basil Istavrides, consultor to the Patriarch.
During the talks, Browning spelled out plans for the study and celebration of the centennial of the Quadrilateral, but the Orthodox leaders were primarily concerned with the future of Anglican-Orthodox dialogues. They cited what they felt were slow efforts toward implementing a commitment to eliminate the "filioque" clause from the Creeds (the clause that asserts that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son together.) They also reiterated their concerns and reservations over the ordination of women to the priesthood and the probability of the ordination of women into the episcopate within the foreseeable future and fear that dialogue with the Orthodox held only a very low priority with Anglicanism.
Norgren explained the process which Anglican provinces have launched to review the "filioque" and eventually remove it from the creedal statements. This, he said, is slow only because of the commitment to wide consultation and is expected to be resolved after the Lambeth Meeting of Anglican bishops next year.
The Presiding Bishop pointed out that women in orders were a reality in the Communion and reviewed the discussions at the Toronto meeting of the Primates and later at the Episcopal Church House of Bishops. He added that his feeling was that ordination of women to the episcopate was not likely before the Lambeth meeting.
Later that same day, at a dinner hosted by the Patriarchate, the same objections were restated by Archbishop Methodius of Thyatyra in a lengthy after-dinner speech. The archbishop, who is in charge of the Greek Orthodox Churches in the British Isles and co-chairman of the Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue, reminded the guests that Orthodoxy had a long history of friendships and doctrinal support with Anglicans but asserted that "there would be no further progress in the dialogues" until these matters were resolved.
In spite of that flat statement, the visitors got small hints that eastern Christianity has not fully settled the issue of women in orders for all time. Chrysostomos told Browning that there will be a large-scale examination of the issue by Greek Orthodox theologians later in the year. Further, in a visit to the Armenian Patriarch, his Beatitude Shnork Kaloustian, Browning learned that the Church had recently ordained a woman to the diaconate.
The visit with the Armenian Christians concentrated on issues of clergy training in general -- the Church is forced to send its ordinands overseas and fears that they will not return to the east -- and common interest in raising up the role of deacons in both Churches. The Patriarch and his U.S. trained vicar-general, Bishop Mesrob Mutafyan -- who served his own diaconate in an Episcopal parish in the Diocese of Tennessee -- spoke passionately of the difficulties of keeping Churches open and congregations active in the face of the strongly secular state of Turkey; a difficulty shared by all their Churches in that nation where clergy are not allowed to appear in public in clerical garb and church activity must be conducted privately.
The state claims impartiality in matters of religion, and the guests were received cordially by the governor of Istanbul, His Excellency Nevzat Ayaz, who seemed deeply interested in the training and preparation required for Episcopal Church ordination. He also praised the commitment of the Christian churches seeking world peace.
In the brief visit, Browning also met with Moslem scholars and made a quick pilgrimage to the Church of St. Sophia, one of the most ancient and holiest sites in Christendom and also, for centuries, to Islam. It is now run by the state, which is slowly attempting to restore some of its glory.