The Eastern Catholic Churches and the Restoration of Unity Theology

Abstract

The Church of Christ is unity in diversity. Around the great centers of diffusion, the rites have been gradually defined as “the liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary patrimony, culture and circumstances of the history of a distinct people, by which its own manner of living the faith is manifested” (Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches can. 28 § 1). At the same time, the necessity of the existence of the sacred ministry for the celebration of the Eucharist and the Sacraments is the basis for the establishment of the hierarchy of bishoprics that are formed ontogenetically and diachronically around the primary diffusion center, recognized as the Mother Church or, starting from the IVth–Vth centuries, as the Patriarchates. The tensions between dissident factions culminated in the Ecclesiastical Schism of 1054, which separated Eastern Christianity from the Roman Church. The restoration of the unity of the Constantinopolitan Churches of Central and Eastern Europe began with the Union of Brest–Litovsk (1595–1596), which generated a process of gradual entry of the territories of the Eastern Churches into unity, in 1700 reaching Transylvania. The Greek Catholic Churches fought a pioneering struggle in asserting their own traditions in order to restore the unity of the Church. The Eastern churches that re-entered the unity of the Catholic Church faced a change of ecclesiological paradigm, being in a permanent struggle to preserve their own specificity and to affirm the unity. The signatories of the Union Acts rejected “the Uniatism” from the beginning, a fact accepted today within the theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, the canonical evolution and the treatises of Greek–Catholic theology being the result of a process of experimentation “from within” of unity and catholicity in the context of the modern and contemporary era. The United Churches have paved the way for the restoration of unity between East and West, being obligated to grasp different forms of canonical manifestation of unity in the absence of a Patriarchate in communion with the Church of Rome, during which they offer a reflection that fully grows through a theology of restoring the unity of the Church, benefiting today from the ecclesiological paradigm shift of Vatican II and by the conceptual tools provided by the traditions and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

1. Introduction

In a few centuries of manifestation as ecclesial entities in the communion of the Church of Christ as unity in diversity, the Greek Catholic Churches affirmed the confession of apostolic faith, which they expressed in the apostolicity of their own tradition and of their own rite (doctrinal, liturgical, disciplinary heritage, etc.), as a plenary unity that materialized historically in the context of the confessionalization of culture and society of the European Modern Age (Barta 2003, p. 32).

Within the Catholic Church there are several schools of thought differentiated by their specific ways of dealing with issues, a single magisterial position, and more currents of thought that develop certain specificity or have a series of their own authors who translate the message of faith in historical–cultural and national language into the doctrinal orthodoxy specific to the Catholic Church in its universality as unity in diversity. The same thing happens in the heart of the Orthodox Churches, gradually distinguishing the nuances that define and delimit Greek theology from Russian/Slavic or Romanian theology, each with separate authors and distinct elements that develop the common core of doctrinal orthodoxy through nuances specific to their own rite and the sensibilities of the local national Churches they represent.

We distinguish two sources that feed Greek Catholic theology: the United Romanian Church is ontogenetically the Romanian Church, which confers unity in the Romanian Greek–Byzantine rite and common history until the year 1700, and the United Romanian Church affirms this historical identity in the theological dialogue proper to a unity in diversity of a One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, promoting Romanian specificity in the opening of universal theology, “translating” and “updating” at the same time theological thinking in the historical and cultural language specific to Romanian Christianity.

In the case of the same cultural and spiritual environment, there is no simple taking over as a grafting of another tradition onto its own common branch. In the case of the United Churches it is about a real return to the origins and the valorization of the elements that express unity in diversity, especially since the institutional appearance of the United Churches is not an arbitrary act of establishing an artificial ecclesial entity, but is the recognition—obviously with good and bad aspects at times—of an internal process specific to the living Church of Christ that tends towards its eschatological mission (Himcinschi 2020, pp. 17–18).

Ecumenical theology is a necessity of our days and one can find the convergences and reconciliation of the positions of each individual Church or Confession as the basis of a theological dialogue, which can become the foundation of reconciliation where there are misunderstandings or historical traumas in which Christian communities have been involved, critically recognizing the limits of the transposition in life of unity and the “unity in diversity” of the Church of Christ in its catholicity.

In order to situate Romanian Greek Catholic theology among the other schools of thought, we need to start from the definition of the rite according to the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium. We follow the delimitation of Romanian theology within the development of the Romanian rite in order to reach the specific difference which consists mainly in the reconciliation of points of dogmatic divergence according to the Florentine Council and some original positions.

2. Romanian Greek Catholic Theological School

Developed in the Romanian cultural-spiritual environment, ontogenetically, Romanian Greek Catholic theology has its origins in the Romanian Church as a common branch of the two ecclesial entities that were delimited after the year 1700 and that evolved in the last three centuries according to their own specificity and the conditions imposed by institutional–administrative hierarchical evolution. The Slavic Greek–Byzantine rite becomes “Romanian” through the introduction of the Romanian language into the liturgy, then through the theological, ascetic and mystical productions written in Romanian for the faithful of the Romanian Church.

The starting point for the delimitation of a theological school consists in defining the rite of a Church as patrimony.1 Thus, the Churches of the Greek–Byzantine or Constantinopolitan rite are nuanced differently depending on the culture, local history and sensitivities of the peoples. Especially, the spoken language leads to the delimitation of the Greek–Byzantine, Greek, Slavic, Romanian, etc. rites. Apart from nuanced peculiarities in the celebration of the Romanian liturgical rite compared to the Greeks, the South Slavs, from Central Europe or the Russians, the most important distinctive element for the Romanian Church, which is the basis of the construction of the theology of the Romanian Church, is the use of vernacular language in religious worship. Romanians had already translated the main liturgical texts at the end of the 17th century (Vanca 2018).

Starting in the 18th century with the Romanian liturgies that took over the translation of the orthodox Bishop Antim Ivireanul, the united Romanians promoted the Romanian liturgical language. The united Romanians could celebrate freely in the Romanian language, unlike its sister Church on which the Phanariots imposed the Greek or Church Slavonic language, despite the fact that the “sacred languages” were completely removed from the vernacular; if Slavic speakers understood the meaning of the words spoken in the Church Slavonic language, the vast majority of Romanians, the clergy and the people alike, did not always know the liturgical orders and expressed themselves intuitively, having little knowledge of the doctrine content. However, the educated elite were aware of these aspects, the printing of liturgies and prayer books that circulated throughout the Romanian Church, united or not, demonstrating the need to ensure worship in the Romanian language especially through the Holy Liturgy, the sacraments, and sacramentals, which are at the center of parish life (Goția 2006, p. 102).

For the sister Romanian Church, this process starts “from the bottom up, outside of the ecclesiastical authority, starting with the texts of first necessity: readings, sermons, prayers out of personal piety”, which “was claimed, assumed and, subsequently, controlled by the church hierarchy”, while the United Romanian Church assumed this desire from the top down, programmatically, becoming the letter of the law starting with the decisions of the Union Council under Theophilus (1697), taken over by Athanasius (1698), recorded in the Book of Testimony, clearly stipulating the desire to celebrate officially in the Romanian language, a unique request made by the Romanian unions in contrast to the Russian (Ukrainian–Belarusian) clergy (Buzalic 2021).

The Romanian language penetrated education and is institutionalized, especially in Transylvania, against the backdrop of the German Enlightenment (Aufklärung), which was not anti-clerical but, on the contrary, relied on the Church for the emancipation of the people, wanting the removal of feudal practices and the modernization of society. Despite the difficulties at the beginning of the Union in 1700, in a memorandum from 1732, Bishop Inocențiu Micu-Klein (1692–1768) defended the rights of Romanians and asked Emperor Carol VI to establish Romanian schools. The Romanian language is institutionalized and modernized through Bishop Petru Pavel Aron (1709–1764), the founder of the first systematic Romanian schools inaugurated on 11 October 1754, through the schools in Blaj (Public School—elementary school, Latin School—middle school, which became secondary school and high school, and School of Priesthood—higher theological seminary), true “fountains of gifts” which left their mark on the development of Romanian culture and theology. Even now, the foundations of the library are laid, a monastic seminary is established, the Blaj printing house appears, which, from now on, edits the texts necessary for the conduct of worship in the United Romanian Church, and the main theological productions of its own appear.

This qualitative leap that occurred in the 18th century is the consequence of the emancipation of the Romanians according to modern education, taken as a model after the European education of the time, but it is also the result of the training of the clergy and teachers in university centers from Buda, Vienna or Rome, and especially of the ability of the elites to develop and affirm the Romanian language among the philological studies of Romanistics, gradually laying the foundations of linguistic studies and “grammars” of the Romanian language. Gradually, the spiritual, political and social emancipation movement of Transylvanian Romanians will be achieved through the Transylvanian School, the most important contribution in the 19th century being the introduction of Latin script instead of the Cyrillic alphabet used in medieval writings.

These can be seen in the evolution of the liturgical language that best expresses the level of understanding of the theological content it expresses, as we have seen through the editions of the liturgies, the liturgy of the hours (horologion’s) and the prayer books (euchologions) in the Romanian language printed by the two Romanian Churches. If we compare the theological language of the 16th–17th century writings or the Books of Testimony—Acts of the Union, signed by the fathers of the union councils with the editions printed starting from the 18th century, we notice that the Romanian language is gradually becoming a mature language, capable of expressing the philosophical-theological, exegetical, spiritual literature subtleties, etc., which characterize the Romanian Greek–Byzantine rite differentiated by the culture and historical circumstances of the development of the Romanian people among other European nations (Goția 2006, pp. 5–11).

The Romanian Greek Catholic school of thought generates a theology of the Church of the Romanian Greek-Byzantine rite, expressed in the Romanian language, intended for the pastoral care and emancipation of the people (Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches can. 28 § 1). This development of theology affects the entire Romanian Church. We will continue to dwell on the specific differences in Romanian Greek Catholic thinking.

3. The Theology of Restoring the Unity of the Church of Christ

Romanian historiography focuses generally on the Romanian geocultural environment and on the 17th–18th centuries, when the United Romanian Church was formed as a distinct ecclesial entity from the non-united Romanian Church, which would later be defined confessionally as the Romanian Orthodox Church. Also, restrictively, in historical studies only the demand for social rights for the Romanian people and the geopolitical and military context of the time are mentioned as motivational, minimizing the doctrinal motivations and the events related to the movements to restore the unity in Europe of the Transylvanian space, the most important event being the Union of Brest–Litovsk (1595/1596) (Ghitta 2000, p. 109).

The situation of the Alba–Iulia Union in 1700 in the ecclesiastical context must be seen through an integral analysis that follows the main phenomenological and chronological milestones on the scale of the universal and local Church. The United Churches appear territorially in concentric circles that propagate starting with the Union of Brest–Litovsk, passing through the Union of Uzhhorod (1656), and reaching the Union of Alba–Iulia (Ghitta 2000, p. 110).

The Christian Church is a unity in diversity, there are several diffusion centers in Antiquity (the future Patriarchates of the Pentarchy) that generate the rites in which a whole liturgical, spiritual, disciplinary, and theological heritage of its own can be found. In the first Christian Millennium, the foundations of the main directions of the development of theological thought are laid, several schools are outlined circumscribed by methodologically ordered solutions that will shade eastern and western patristic thinking, from which the traditions of the medieval and modern schools of thought will later emerge. In the face of heresies, the magisterium of the Church began to institutionalize itself through the consensus of the Ecumenical Councils and the promulgation of dogmas that delimited doctrinal orthodoxy from erroneous interpretations. The orthodoxy of the doctrine is manifested in the catholicity of the Church of Christ, in the pluralism of the theological schools.

Ontogenetically, the polemic between the Latins and the Greeks begins with Patriarch Photius of Constantinople (†897), who raises the issue of the unilateral introduction by the Latins of the expression “from the Father and from the Son” (filioque) in the pneumatological article of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The question of the filioque, without a doubt, remains the thorniest of all the issues to be discussed and examined in the future by the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church (Alexopoulos 2021, p. 203).

Gradually will be added discussions regarding the term purgatory introduced by Latin scholasticism, the traditional differences regarding the matter of the Holy Eucharist in different local Churches, and especially the traditional use of unleavened bread in the Latin Church and the canonical issue of papal primacy. Pneumatology would not have become a conflicting issue between the Churches had it not been for the struggle for power and influence between Constantinople and Rome.

Apart from the philosophical nuances that led to the development of Western theology along the lines of defining the person as a subsisting relationship, the filioque is introduced as a theologoumenon (discussions, proposals, and speculative solutions in a concrete problem by a current of thought, without having the plenary authority of the Church), which was necessary for the environment of the Church in Spain against the background of the presence of migrants who received Christianity in an Arian form, hence the need for a clear catechetical explanation of equality in the deification of the three persons.

For the Latin Church, the expression filioque was introduced into the liturgical Creed only under Pope Benedict VIII in 1014, a gesture that aroused the protest of Mihail Keroularios (†1059), Patriarch of Constantinople, against the background of already existing tensions and controversies.

The schism of 1054 led to the separation of the Church of the Latin rite from the Constantinopolitan Church, with the Eastern Patriarchates and all the local Churches that were formed later, in the medieval period, being drawn into the schism and receiving the spiritual patronage of Constantinople. This is the situation of the Romanian Church (1359—Wallachia, 1391—Monastery from Peri/Maramureș, 1401—Moldova) (Prunduş and Plăianu 1994, p. 45).

The restoration of unity has remained a constant concern of the Church, but, concretely, Greek Catholic theology is the result of dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Constantinople regarding reconciliation around points of dogmatic divergence. The Ecumenical Council of Ferrara–Florence (1438–1439) succeeded for the first time in clarifying the “points of dogmatic divergence” based on theological, patristic, and scriptural arguments.

The adoption of a specific tradition or the prevalence of one over the other was not imposed, but there was a mutual recognition of the theological traditions that generated the Latin or Greek interpretive line in dogmatic matters (filioque, purgatory, and the matter of the Eucharist), the fourth point relating to the common ecclesiology of the Church of the first millennium, and the tradition of the order of precedence and the specific position of the successor of Saint Peter in relation to the main historical patriarchal centers. In this context, Greek and Latin theologians are the exponents of a few theological schools that throughout history develop complementary aspects in the speculative deepening of the mystery of a transcendent God who created and maintains creation in existence and governs through divine Providence. There are differing views whether the council of Ferrara–Florence succeeded in clarifying “points of dogmatic divergence”. Even though the Counter Council convened by Mark Evgenikos rejected and de facto annulled the Union of Florence, the solution of reconciling theological positions between Western and Eastern schools of thought was the only path of reconciliation accepted by the future United Churches. Unions of Eastern Churches with Rome were established repeatedly and in different ecclesiastical and cultural contexts, both on the level of national/local communities and on the personal level (Avvakumov 2021, p. 26).

Basically, God remains unchanged, the cultural language of historical man and the horizon of his knowledge evolves, imposing a permanent process of “translation” of the divine message into a language that is accessible and acceptable to the concrete man living in history. Added to all this are the cultural models and the evolution of European civilization, with Christian roots, in the direction of the secularization of society and the desacralization of life, which raise new barriers between God—the Author of the message of salvation—and man—the beneficiary and audience of this message. This desire to restore the unity of the Church of Christ is a constant of the Greek Catholic school of thought as the theology of restoring unity.

4. The Evolution of Greek Catholic Theological Thought

With the Union of Brest–Litovsk (1595/1596), Greek Catholic theologians, together with Roman Catholic missionaries, published the first works of catechetical nature, then, controversially, reached true theological treatises of an ecumenical character, promoting the specificity of the patristic and liturgical traditions of the East against Western theology, and critically popularizing Western theology in its own cultural environment. In general terms, the Union of Brest of 1595–1596 denotes a decision of the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Kyiv to switch its jurisdiction from the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Bishop of Rome under the condition of preservation of its ecclesial autonomy and Byzantine liturgical practices (Wooden 2021, p. 44).

The first stage is the period of catechisms and apologetic literature. The first theological productions from the Greek Catholic environment of the Polish–Lithuanian European space are of a polemical nature, being generated by the discussions on the four points of dogmatic divergence that led to the schism of 1054. The beginning of the revival of Russian spirituality in the unity of the Catholic Church benefited from the contribution of the theological writings of Piotr Skarga (†1612), Ipatie Potie (†1613), and Iosafat Kunţevici (†1623). The spirituality of Eastern Christianity, in crisis due to the incisive growth of Calvinism and oppressed by civil laws that favored only citizens of the Roman Catholic denomination and the nobility that had adopted Protestantism, could be saved, in their view, by restoring the Christian unity around Rome, destroyed by the schism of 1054, and by guaranteeing to remain in doctrinal orthodoxy to what is common to the spirituality of universal Christianity (Minea 1990, p. 68).

We meet the same ideas in the spiritual environment of Transylvanian Romanians, with Greek Catholic theologians offering a rich native production, in accordance with magisterial positions and faithful to their own spirituality, qualitatively at the level of the development of theology in the universal Church, starting in the 18th century and lasting until 1948.

The period around the moments of the “Union” is dedicated to catechisms intended to make up for the lack of university theological training of the clergy of the Greek Byzantine rite and especially to expose the concordance of the statements of the Greek or Latin theological schools in relation to the “points of dogmatic divergence”. The Catechisms, the Instruction of Faith, the Confessions of Faith, etc., go through special development after the invention of printing. They have a didactic role, being primarily intended for the initiation of children in the doctrinal content of the faith.

The publication of the Catechisms in the vernacular languages in Transylvania was made during the rule of the Calvinist Princips. The conversion of Orthodox Christians and Catholics to the ideas of the Reformation was desired, but in the Romanian Orthodox environment only the idea of liturgical celebration and Romanian education was inoculated. From a historical perspective, the first modern catechisms are printed by Martin Luther in the language of the people (Der Kleine Katechismus—“Small Catechism” and Deutscher Catechismus, also called Der Große Katechismus—“Big Catechism”, both published in 1529), the most important reformed catechism being printed under the name of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563). The ideas of Lutheranism, Calvinism, or Zwinglianism are promoted by preachers and by means of translations of “catechisms” into the vernacular languages. To counteract the ideas of the Reformation, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) decides to publish in the spoken languages the instructions of faith that become the Roman Catechism, a work addressed to parish priests: Catechismus, ex decreto Concilii Tridentini, ad parochos, Pii Quinti Pont. Max. iussu editus, Romae, 1566. Unlike the catechetical literature of the patristic period, Reformed or post-Tridentine Catholic catechisms reflect confessional theological aspects (Bonda and Ghişa 2009, p. 36).

The modernization of theology and the Catholic Reformation triggered in the Western Catholic environment produced a change of vision on Roman centralism and on canonically expressed unity and, looking from within the Roman Catholic Church to extrapolate to the level of the entire Catholic Church, a change of ecclesiological vision was produced that differed from the model of restoring the unity of the Church expressed in Ferrara–Florence, the latter much closer to the ecclesiological model of the first Christian Millennium. However, in the dialogue between East and West, the starting point of a process of restoring unity remained the reconciliation regarding the four points of dogmatic divergence exposed at the Schism of 1054.

In the Greek Catholic theological environment of the Union of Brest–Litovsk, in the 17th century, the Catechisms of Archbishop Iosafat Kunţevici and Metropolitan Iosif Veliamin Rutski were printed and they addressed most of the clergy in matters of dogmatic moral theology and sacraments in the absence of a modern philosophical–theological and spiritual training program. After the Synod of Union in Brest, we are gradually moving towards the emancipation of the Eastern clergy through the elites trained in Western universities and scholars who know and live the spirituality of Greek Byzantine Slavic or Romanian Christianity.

Influences from the politics of the Catholic Reformation are inevitable; in the Polish–Lithuanian space, the Jesuit Piotr Skarga (1536–1612) stands out as a preacher, apologist and polemist, the first rector of the Vilnius Academy founded in 1579 by Stepfan Báthori (Alma Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Iesu), where the united clergy was initially formed. The Vilnius theologians studied patrology in a particular way in a spiritual environment where the Oriental and Eastern worlds naturally intertwine, a pressing necessity being the defense of the orthodoxy of the faith in the face of the spread of Calvinist theology.

The same effort to counterattack Calvinist proselytism is made in the non-united Church by the Metropolitan of Kiev, Petru Movilă (1596–1646). In the polemical spirit of the Catholic Reformation, but also with the anti-Catholic accents generated by the tensions within the Polish-Lithuanian State and the Ukrainian territories where the Cossack Hetmanates were manifested, Petru Movilă is concerned with the emancipation of the clergy and the people, leaving to posterity a Small Russian Catechism (intended for the “Ruthenian” population, actually Ukrainian–Belarusian, later translated into Russian) and especially the work The confession of the Orthodox faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church of the East, in which he eruditely addresses the theological controversies of the time (Ghibu 1975, p. 213).

This Catechism of Petru Movilă will also be translated into Romanian; after that, the text was discussed, “corrected”, and accepted by the Orthodox world at the Synod of Iași (15 September–27 October 1642). The struggle for the preservation of doctrinal orthodoxy is a constant of the time, the elites of the Greek, Russian, or Romanian non-united Churches being aware of the danger of distorting theology through the penetration of false modernization trends promoted by the Calvinist catechisms, as also observed in the 22 points of the “Instructions” given by Patriarch Dositej of Jerusalem to Athanasius Anghel in 1698 (Săsăujan 2010, pp. 196–98).

Polish, Ukrainian, or Romanian specialized literature mentions the fact that one of the motivations for restoring unity according to the Florentine model was the desire to reject the heterodox practices brought by Calvinist proselytism through the policy of principles favorable to the Reformation. In the first stage, the unity took the model of the Catholic Reformation and the Catechisms, through which the main landmarks of the Confession of Faith and its own liturgical and spiritual specificity are expressed, in apostolic continuity.

The first “Greek Catholic” theological production intended for Romanians is the translation from Latin into Ukrainian and into Romanian of the Catechism of Joseph de Camillis (Mârza 2002, p. 8). It outlines the methodology of the subsequent theological works from the Greek Catholic environment, starting from the reconciliation of the points of dogmatic divergence in Florentine expression. The arguments and the general structure adopted by the Catechisms and edited in the spirit of the Catholic Reformation are taken up in order to reach the problem of the unity in diversity of the Catholic Church or the definition of the “law” that would only be promulgated three centuries later through the Code of Canons of the Eastern Church’s definition given to the “rite”. De Camillis asserts the legitimacy and dignity of the Eastern Rite, speaks of “Our Church of the East” or “Our Greek Church”, but also of the complementarity of the evolution of Latin or Greek thought, appealing to the arguments of the Florentine Council (Mârza 2002, p. 183).

We will find this starting point of what we can call the “theology of the Confessions of Faith” in the documents of the Union, from Brest–Litovsk to Alba–Iulia, and it best expresses the essence and specificity of Greek Catholic theology. Theophilus (†1697), in the document of union, expresses simply, without theological arguments, the Florentine resolution in a form that has primary legal value (Cipariu 1885, p. 183).

The Declaration of Union or the Book of Testimony made by the Great Council under the pastorate of Athanasius (†1713) reflects a series of concerns related to the concordance of the Eastern synodal tradition with the evolution of post-Tridentine Roman centralism and the civil legislative evolution specific to modern states, best expressing the anchoring in the tradition of the Romanian Church through the heritage of the Romanian Greek Byzantine rite (Bârlea 2000, p. 27).

At the present time, we can adopt an objective position on the events that followed in understanding the complexity of the historical–ecclesiastical context. In the first stage, the “united ones” face the contradictions between the Florentine expression, specific to a medieval ecclesiological vision, and the reality of a modern society in the full process of modernizing the relationship between political power and society, including through the “confessionalization” of civil society. For Greek Catholics today, in a historical–theological analysis, the term filioque is recognized in the spirit of the Florentine Council, in recognition of the meaning of the Latin theologoumenon in the sense of the origin of the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Symbol (Buzalic 2021, p. 287).

Octavian Bârlea (1913–2005) introduced into theology the theory of “the two unions”: the “first Union”, the one signed and accepted by the Romanians in the spirit of the ecclesiology of the Florentine Council, and the “Second Union”, called “uniatism”, imposed by the Viennese court with the ratification of the Union (1701), which applied the canonical adaptations provided for by the Council of Trent (Bârlea 1983, pp. 29–30).

We must view in the same way, objectively, the personal errors and excess on the part of Kollonitz and the conditional re-ordination of Atanasie Anghel, a gesture that generated polemical discussions related to the “change of the ancestral law” and about “uniatism”, as well as the context of the practical transposition of an ecclesial unity in the unilateral evolution of the canonical legislative body in the wake of Roman centralism in the absence of a united Patriarch who could exercise administrative levers in the leadership (Bârlea 2000, p. 22).

Also, in the absence of Eastern theological educational institutions at the level of modern education, except for a few scholarship holders in the main European university centers, the clergy was initially formed according to ancestral customs, the brief training in matters of faith and liturgy and letters of recommendation from the deacons being sufficient for the ordination of priests. Like the Union Church of Brest, the bishops receive an adviser on doctrine and canon law through what goes down in history as the “Jesuit theologian” (Bărbat 2022, pp. 15–20).

Contrary to preconceived ideas, in fact the Jesuit missionaries were obliged to comply with the provisions of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide which referred to the observance of four dogmatic points. In addition to this requirement, they added: the union to be accomplished in faith; to respect the rite and discipline of the Eastern Churches in all their integrity and purity; and, with respect to fasting, feasts, customs, ceremonies, and private prayers, not to urge believers to switch to the Latin rite. These transitions, exceptional and argued for regarding certain concrete needs for the good of believers (primarily for political reasons), being authorized only by the Holy See.2 These are explicitly provided in the Monita ad misionaries in partibus orientalibus from 1669 (Nilles 1885, p. 113).

Generally the Jesuits supported the interests of the united Romanian clergy. They sought to reconcile the positions of the authorities in the case of tense situations that required recourse to the canonical provisions of the time, in establishing the institution of “directors” they ensured de facto interim leadership during the vacation period of the episcopal seat, and they supported the schooling and training of candidates for the priesthood, but above all they ensured the publication of the Catechisms, which I mentioned previously, which ensured the first stage of the transmission of key theological knowledge in matters of faith and morals and the emancipation of the clergy and the people.

After the death of Atanasie Anghel, on 9 November 1713, the electoral synod initially proposed the Jesuit Francisc Szúnyog to take over the episcopal chair, but he refused due to the provisions of the rules of the Society of Jesus. Without idealizing the entire period of operation of the “Jesuit theologian” institution (1701–1773), this fact proves the sympathy and trust that the united Romanian clergy have towards their activity during the period of the modernization of the Romanian Church (Pâclișanu 1923, pp. 149–50).

There follows the period of polemical writings intended to generate real Disputationes for the purpose of the critical development of autochthonous theology, the argumentation being anchored in Eastern theology and Romanian spirituality by Grigore Maior, Silvestru Caliani, Atanasie Rednic, and Gherontie Cotore (Buzalic 2005, pp. 75–76).

In the 19th century, in the development of Romanian Greek Catholic dogmatic theology, Simion Micu’s works of compilation of Western theology (Fundamental or General Dogmatic Theology—1876 and Special Dogmatic Theology—1881, both processed after Joanne Schwetz), as well as the work of Bishop Iosif Papp Szilagyi (Enchiridion Juris Ecclesiae Orientalis Catholicae—1862), which popularized Eastern ecclesiology in order to facilitate adaptation, are noteworthy in the development of Romanian Greek Catholic dogmatic theological, canonical, normative provisions, with the traditions and Churches of other rites.

The beginning of the 20th century brings with it the expressions of conceptual maturity, both the methodological lines and especially the nuance of Greek Catholic theology, being quantified in reference volumes for any researcher in the field of dogmatic history. One of the most representative works is the theological compendium of Metropolitan Vasile Suciu (Fundamental Dogmatic Theology—1907 and Special Dogmatic Theology—1908, vol. II in 1927). Vasile Suciu’s treatises are unique as an approach to the environment of Romanian theology, for systematizing and using the complementarity of meanings in the East and the West, with related explanations, for their originality for Catholic theology in representing the application of the starting point specific to the Council of Ferrara–Florence and adopted by all the Greek Catholic theological schools (the concordance of the statements regarding the “points of divergence”), but especially for the introduction of some arguments taken from the Byzantine liturgical texts and from the spirituality of Eastern Christianity (Buzalic 2008, pp. 90–103).

In all these works, as well as in the publications of theology teachers from the first half of the 20th century, the content of the arguments is taken from the tradition of the Eastern Church. There are examples that cite the works of Greek Patrology and liturgical texts specific to the Greek–Byzantine rite, in methodological continuity with the works of predecessors. In the interwar period, the Romanian Church clearly expressed the main landmarks of a theology specific to the Romanian Greek Catholic school of thought, which was the fruit of the critical reception of the authors who published the first works of a catechetical, apologetic character, or specific to Romanian theology, starting from the 18th century.

At the same time, the foundations of a modern pastoral care are laid by training the clergy, as demonstrated by the works of Nicolae Fluieraș (Moral-pastoral treatise on the use of the sacraments—1932) or the many publications of Nicolae Brânzeu.

The outlawing of the Romanian Church United with Rome in 1948 and, implicitly, the abolition of educational institutions, interrupted the continuity of specialized books, the Church in Romania being called “to practice” a true “theology of martyrdom” and to organize itself in the catacombs. The clandestine training of future priests and their ordination, in addition to the aspect of resistance, also ensured the “red thread” of preserving and passing on their own tradition. This situation led to the absence of debates generated by the works of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council of the appearance of a critical reflection that could enter the public sphere. However, the contact with developments in the Catholic Church continued through the specialized literature of Roman Catholic theologians and through the personal study of Greek Catholic priests and theologians from the catacomb period.

The most important achievements concerning the Romanian Greek Catholic Church are the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the fruit of the work of the commission chaired by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger since 1986, in which the Episcopal Conferences and the theological and catechesis institutes expressed themselves in the way of work projecting in the collegial nature of the Episcopate manifested in the full catholicity of the Church.3

The Catechism of the Catholic Church became a working tool for all in 1992, and in 1993 the Romanian translation published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest appeared. This work preserves the traditional structure of catechisms but goes beyond the framework of a catechism for didactic use, representing a complete and complex theological synthesis of the truths of faith with doctrinal value. Very many have expressed the desire that a catechism or compendium of all Catholic doctrine regarding both faith and morals be composed, that it might be, as it were, a point of reference for the catechisms or compendiums that are prepared in various regions. The presentation of doctrine must be biblical and liturgical. It must be sound doctrine suited to the present life of Christians. After the Synod ended, I made this desire my own, considering it as “fully responding to a real need both of the universal Church and of the particular Churches”. For this reason, we thank the Lord wholeheartedly on this day, when we can offer the entire Church this reference text entitled the Catechism of the Catholic Church, for a catechesis renewed at the living sources of the faith! Following the renewal of the Liturgy and the new codification of the canon law of the Latin Church and that of the Oriental Catholic Churches, this catechism will make a very important contribution to that work of renewing the whole life of the Church, as desired and begun by the Second Vatican Council.

The second document that directly concerns the Romanian Church United with Rome, but also the Romanian Orthodox Church to the extent that it wants to launch into a sincere ecumenical dialogue to understand the new ecclesiological bases, promoted by Vatican II, the current Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches was issued by Pope John Paul II in 1991. The current Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches affirms, in the spirit of post-Vatican II, the thinking that the Romanian Church United with Rome is a sui iuris Church. (Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, can. 28 § 1)

Within the Catholic Church, leadership is collegial, headed by the Roman Pontiff who has the spiritual primacy granted to Saint Peter, following the model of Christ and his Apostles. The College of Bishops, the entire episcopate in communion with the Roman Pontiff, regardless of rite and membership to one Church sui iuris or another, is the subject of supreme and full power over the Universal Church.4

5. Conclusions

To be in the unity of the Church means to manifest oneself with full rights through what is proper in a Church of Christ in which all nations are called to salvation and to praise God: unity in diversity, equality in dignity, sister Churches that each individually guide through pastoral care the Church redeemed by the blood of our Savior.

The theological vision was common to the entire Central and Eastern European geocultural environment. The metropolitans and bishops who signed the Unions with the Church of Rome accepted the complementarity of the statements of the Latin and Greek schools of thought, wishing to remain anchored in the Eastern traditions. Philosophical–theological training in the great university centers of the West and the spiritual formation in the Romanian Church generated a synthesis that is reflected in the publications edited in the 18th–20th centuries (Barta 2003, p. 153).

First, the so-called Catechisms through which were presented the first arguments were presented in support of the position of the Council of Trent, then followed a period of apologetic and polemical literature. Starting in the second half of the 18th century, emerged a theological literature in which Greek Catholics constructed their own arguments, incorporating both Florentine positions and patristic traditions and the analysis of liturgical texts from published religious books, common to the Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholics (Buzalic 2005, p. 77).

After the re-establishment of Greek Catholic education in the 1990s, the Romanian Greek Catholic theological school is placed in the situation of taking over the tradition of its predecessors and, at the same time, is obliged to outline its own theology in the light of the documents of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and the specialized research of the post-conciliar period.

In the spirit of the Act of Union of 1700, according to the works of Greek Catholic theologians throughout the centuries, what constituted the four points of dogmatic divergence are recognized as complementary visions of Western and Eastern theology. What is required is not the unilateral taking of a position or statement, but the mutual recognition of the validity of the evolution of theology in the apostolic continuity of the legitimate local traditions of each Church sui iuris.

Thus, papal primacy is unanimously accepted as “primus inter pares”, the Latin Church’s openness to synodality allowing for new approaches that concern canon law rather than ecclesiology. Full communion means not only a primacy of honor, but also a juridical one, but adapted to the traditions of the first Christian millennium. (Blanco 2014, pp. 371–72).

The validity of the matter of the Holy Eucharist (its host being leavened bread) is mutually recognized, the differences not touching the essence, the differences being specific to the evolution of local, legitimate traditions, in apostolic continuity. The term “purgatory”, introduced in the scholastic theology of an Aristotelian–Thomist argumentative system, is found in the vision of the eschatology of Eastern theologies that is expressed in traditional biblical–patristic language; therefore we can have a constructive and not divergent critical reception, especially since both traditions are anchored in doctrinal orthodoxy. The unilateral introduction of Filioque into the Latin tradition must be understood as a theologoúmenon necessary for Latin theology, especially since in sealing the Unions, Popes Eugene IV in Florence, Gregory XIII for the Greeks, Urban VIII for the Orientals (Bullarium Romanum, tom. 3, § 6), and Pope Benedict XIV in Etsi Pastoralis (Bullarium Romanum, tom. 1, Pars I) do not impose a change in the liturgical creed specific to their own traditions. For example, the liturgical books of the Romanian Church published from the 18th century until today have never introduced the term Filioque into the text.

More than 30 years after the “exit from the catacombs” of the Romanian Church United with Rome, a specific direction of the Romanian Greek Catholic theological school was already taking place, which was reflected in the context of contemporary discourse. It is necessary to continue the research and especially the critical perception of the results, thereby consolidating the school of thought specific to Greek Catholic theology, both internally, by knowing the connection between the past and present, and especially externally, by popularizing the real contributions that Romanian Greek Catholic theology has brought during three centuries of existence in communion with the Romanian Church.

This is what the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council essentially expresses in the Decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum: “The Eastern Churches in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome have a special duty of promoting the unity of all Christians, especially Eastern Christians, in accordance with the principles of the decree, “About Ecumenism,” of this Sacred Council, by prayer in the first place, and by the example of their lives, by religious fidelity to the ancient Eastern traditions, by a greater knowledge of each other, by collaboration and a brotherly regard for objects and feelings” (Orientalium Ecclesiarum Decree 1964, n. 24).