THE
P RTAL
May 2016
Page 21
Patrimony - Use - Rite - Church
“Uniate”? Surely not!
Fr Mark Woodruff continues his series
Eight years
ago, someone from Lambeth Palace told me and an Orthodox priest that he hoped the
Church of England could unite with Rome as Western, Anglican-rite “uniates”, under Archbishop Rowan
as patriarch, “just like some Orthodox”. My usually eirenic friend was astonished, because many Orthodox
use “uniate” as an uncomplimentary term for Eastern Catholics who “broke ranks”, dividing whole Churches
for the sake of union with Rome for just a few.
To Eastern Catholics this misrepresents their history
and witness to the Church’s essential Catholic unity.
So “uniate” is pejorative and best avoided. I pointed
out that there is already an English Catholic Church
United with Rome and its head is the Archbishop
of Westminster. I could have added that so-called
“uniates” are not a semi-subsidiary, a separate brand
(rite) merged under one overall board (Rome).
It remains the language of liturgy across most of
the Russian Orthodox Church. Cyril and Methodius’
evangelisation across eastern Europe bore fruit
for the Rus’ in 988 when Grand Prince Volodymyr
sought baptism on the Crimean shore of the Black Sea
and settled a new Church at his capital up the river
Dnieper at Kyiv. From this “Baptism of the Kievan
Rus’” descended the entire spiritual tradition of the
Churches in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia - Catholic as
well as Orthodox - to this day.
They are Churches in their own right, with all that
implies for fullness of life and faith, a distinctive
mission to culture and society, their own liturgical
Founding this new Church - not Latin, not Gr YZ