Manifesto for the restoration of the Orthodox Church of the Gauls
In order to proclaim the Good News of the risen Christ, to
teach and baptise in the Name of the Holy Trinity, to “persevere in the
apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers”
(Acts 2:42), we intend to participate in the restoration of the Western Orthodox
Church, and more specifically in that of the Orthodox Church of the Gauls in
its institutions, its spirituality and in its uses, in particular in its liturgical
uses, most notably in the use of the local rite, called the “Rite of the
Gauls”, because, as Saint Gregory the Great says: “Wherever the
unity of faith reigns, different liturgical uses cannot be harmful to the church.”
(1)
Our activity is located at present in the French-speaking world and we are directly
carrying on the work undertaken by Bishop Jean Kovalevsky and his brother Maxime;
this work was sanctioned by Metropolitan Sergius of Moscow in 1936, and was
blessed and presided over by St. John of San Francisco from 1959 until his death,
and we count ourselves among their spiritual heirs.(2)
Our spiritual line of descent is the one we received from the tradition of the
Saints of Provence, the martyrs of the Gauls, from our Father Saint Irenaeus
of Lyons, from the Fathers of Gallican monasticism: Saint Martin, Saint John
Cassian and the Fathers of Lérins: Saint Honoratus, Saint Vincent, Saint
Caesarius…. the holy Fathers of the Jura: Saint Romanus, Saint Lupus…,
the Irish missionaries: Saint Columbanus, Saint Gall…, the missionaries
of Belgium: Saint Amand, Saint Servais, Saint Lambert…, without forgetting
the Father of the monks of the West, Saint Benedict of Nursia and all the others…
We confess the primitive faith of the Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople
(381), and Ephesus (431). By this confession we take as our spiritual reference
point the so-called “Oriental” Orthodox Churches, rejecting any
charges of “monophysitism” which have been wrongfully linked to
this confession.
We are happy to accept all the definitions of the four further Ecumenical Councils,
believing in particular that the Christological formulations of Chalcedon explicitly
render the doctrine of the Undivided Church complete.
We also accept the Councils of Constantinople of 1341 and 1351 which confirm
the teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas on the Divine Light and the Uncreated
Energies, as well as the whole doctrine and practice of Hesychasm.
While we accept the true theology of the holy councils named above, we reject
all the unjust condemnations of people(3) which may have been pronounced in
the fiery heat of human passions. We state that there are no fundamental differences
of faith between the Orthodox Churches in spite of the misunderstanding of the
Council of Chalcedon. For us, the unity of the Orthodox Church is defined by
its common faith and not by jurisdictions, institutions. Thus we are, in effect,
in communion with the Orthodox Churches.
Following the example of the Undivided Church, our faith does not primarily
mean adhering intellectually to truths to be believed, but experiencing the
mysteries which the Church confesses. At the heart of everything and above all
there is Someone: the active Presence of the paschal Christ, dead and risen,
Who gives life, energises and gives meaning to every aspect of our daily lives.
This means clearly affirming the primacy of the spiritual, the concrete practice
of a Way of transformation and access of the heart (body-soul-spirit) to reality.
We recognise our own position completely in this powerful assertion by Father
Alexander Schmemann: “The first Christians did not provide any programme,
any theory, but wherever they went the seed of the Kingdom germinated, the flame
started to burn, their whole being was a living torch of praise for the risen
Christ; He and He alone was the sole happiness of their life, and the Church
had no other aim than to make present in the world and in history the Joy of
the Risen Christ, in whom all things have their beginning and their end. Without
proclaiming this Joy, Christianity is incomprehensible!”(4) We wish to
be the witnesses to this reality at the heart of human distress in a world searching
for God, going as far as loving our enemies according to Christ’s commandment.
Not out of moral laxity, nor out of spirit of relativism, nor in order to proselytise,
but out of obedience to Christ who said: “I have compassion on the crowd,
because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and
I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.”
(Mt 15:32) (5), we welcome into Eucharist Communion all Christians who have
been baptised into Christ in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit.
Concerning the liturgical calendar, we follow the Gregorian Calendar, because
we are a Western Church living in the midst of Christians who, for the greater
part, follow this calendar. (6) However, we support the proposals of the Aleppo
Consultation of 1997, which was convened under the auspices of the World Council
of Churches and the Middle East Council of Churches, and we shall accept, when
the day comes, the new calendar to be decided by common consent by these Churches.
In conclusion, we make our own the declaration by Bishop Kallistos Ware: “Neither
an Ecumenical Council, nor the Patriarchate of Constantinople or of Moscow,
nor any other Mother-Church can create a new local Church. The most that they
can do is to recognise such a Church. But the act of creation must be carried
out in situ, locally, by the living Eucharistic cells which are called to gradually
make up the body of a new local Church.” (SOP 302, Nov. 2005, given at
the St. Serge Institute of Theology in Paris). This is even more so since it
is not a new local Church which is being created here, but the restoration of
an ancient local Church, faithful to the spirit of the Undivided Church, poor,
mystical and ecumenical.
1. Saint Gregory the Great, Ep I, 43 (PL 77, 497C)
2. This work was also encouraged and blessed on several accounts by the Patriarchs
Athenagoros of Constantinople, Justinian and Justin of Romania.
3. such as those of Saint Dioscorus or Saint Severus of Antioch.
4. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, Ed. Desclée
5. (see also Mt. 26: 28 and Lc 11:9-13)
6. (following the example of the Orthodox Church of Finland which depends on
the Ecumenical Patriarchate)
home