Catholics without Rome: Old Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and the Reunion Negotiations of the 1870s by Bryn Geffert and Leroy Boerneke (review)
- Catholics without Rome: Old Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and the Reunion Negotiations of the 1870s by Bryn Geffert and Leroy Boerneke
Russian theologian and historian Georges Florovsky opined that Christian historians would do well to approach historical sources just as one encounters living people—with a "spiritual and intellectual sympathy." Geffert and Boerneke (who died in 1983 but whose 1977 dissertation formed the foundation for this study) reveal themselves to be trusted mentors who themselves treat their sources with respect, critical acumen, and perspicacious contextual awareness. They focus on the 1874 and 1875 Bonn Reunion Conferences involving Anglican, Old Catholic, and Orthodox divines. The study's intent—skillfully fulfilled—was to demonstrate that Conference interests had much in common with contemporary ecumenical initiatives, thus belying the common notion that the aspiration to unify the church of Christ first germinated in the early twentieth century.
The first half of the book provides with clarity and appropriate breadth and depth the historical framework and preparation for the Conferences. Key to the foundation of course were the Tractarian publications and Vatican I's 1870 definition of the pope's infallible teaching authority that spurred Ignaz von Dōllinger to assume a leadership role in the "Without Rome" movement.
Regarding Sacred Scripture, Anglican and Old Catholic participants in the Conferences forged resolutions regarding the primacy of the Hebrew Canon in the First Testament, primacy of original texts over translations, and support of publication in vulgar tongues (as with liturgy). Faith, working by love, is the means and conditions for justification. Salvation cannot be by "merit of condignity." The overflowing merits of saints cannot be transferred. Seven as the number of sacraments was the result of theological speculation. [End Page 291] Baptism and Eucharist are "principalia, praecipua, eximia salutis nostrae sacramenta." With Holy Scripture being the primary rule of faith, genuine authoritative tradition from Christ is partly found in ecclesial consensus in continuity with the primitive church, and it is partly gathered by scientific method from historical documents. Orthodox representatives objected to the conviction that the Church of England and its derivatives maintain unbroken Episcopal succession.
All agreed that the Roman doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was contrary to genuine tradition. Confession before the congregation or priest—together with the power of the keys—is rooted in the practice of the primitive church, though subject to cleansing of abuses and constraints accrued through time. "Indulgences" can only refer to penalties imposed by the church itself. Commemoration of the faithful departed unto ever richer outpourings of Christ's Grace upon them is also from the primitive church and thus likewise should be preserved. That invocation of the saints is not a saving duty did not reach a vote because the Orthodox insisted that it was. A resolution positing the Eucharist as identical with the eternal sacrifice that Christ offers us in heaven won acceptance.
Topics such as life after death, confirmation, anointing of the sick and dying, the use of leavened vs. unleavened eucharistic bread were discussed; after judgment that they required no uniform stances, they yielded no resolutions. (The sides would not contest divergent canonical and ritualistic differences that existed from before the eleventh-century schism.) Praying for the dead garnered no clear consensus. No agreement could be reached regarding the primacy of Peter. Old Catholics judged themselves to be not yet fully prepared to discuss historic ecclesial primacy on earth or ecclesiastical marriage. (The authors ascribe to the Old Catholics an insufficiently developed foundational ecclesiology.)
Striking is the extent and ("stormy") intensity with which both Conferences debated questions regarding Filioque (the Western creedal "and the Son" clause), as explicated through more than fifty of the book's pages. In the end, Bonn II members accepted without objection the following about the Holy Spirit: Issuance from the Father Who is the Beginning, Cause and Source of the Godhead; Issuance out of the Father (in accord with Orthodox teaching) through the Son; Imaging of the Son...
