Conciliarism Conciliarism is one of the oldest and most essential means of decision-making in the history of the Christian church. Indeed, as a leading Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann, stated: Before we understand the place and the function of the council in the Church, we must, therefore, see the Church herself as a council. tells the story of councils and conciliar decisionmaking in the Christian church from earliest times to the present. Drawing extensively upon the scholarship on conciliarism that has appeared in the last half-century, Valliere brings a broad ecumenical perspective to the study, and shows how the conciliar tradition of the Christian past can serve as a resource for resolving conflicts in the church today. The book presents a conciliarism that involves historical legacy, but which leads us forward, not backward, and which keeps the church s collective eyes on the prize the eschatological kingdom of God. paul valliere is Professor of Religion and McGregor Professor in the Humanities at Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of Holy War and Pentecostal Peace (1983), Change and Tradition in Russian Civilization (1995), Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov (2000) and editor and translator of Finding God in a Tangled World: Thoughts & Parables (with Juris Rubenis and Maris Subacs, 2007).
CONCILIARISM A History of Decision-Making in the Church Butler University, Indianapolis
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Information on this title: /9781107015746 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Valliere, Paul. Conciliarism : a history of decision-making in the church /. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-107-01574-6 1. Conciliar theory History. I. Title. bv720.v35 2012 262.5 dc23 2011044365 isbn 978-1-107-01574-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
To Daniel, Eleanor and John
Contents Acknowledgments List of abbreviations page ix xi Introduction 1 By schisms rent asunder 2 Conciliar fellowship 7 The Anglican case 16 1 The conciliar testament 20 Early Christianity as a proto-conciliar network of churches 20 Early Christian cosmopolitanism 30 Diversity and unity in early Christianity 34 The New Testament as a conciliar phenomenon 38 Acts 10 15: decision-making in the church 42 2 The conciliar tradition 49 The origin of councils 49 Conflicts, councils and catholicism 55 Conciliarism and the Christian state 69 Councils as a tradition 90 Conciliar spirituality 104 3 The conciliar theory 119 Councils and the papacy in the early Middle Ages 119 Legal rationality and papal lawgivers 123 Eastern conciliarism in the Middle Ages 132 The Conciliarist challenge 137 Catholic concordance 149 4 Conciliarism in Anglican experience 162 Conciliarism in the English Reformation 163 Conciliarism and the making of the Anglican Communion 176 The problem of authority in Anglicanism 197 vii
viii Contents 5 The Pan-Anglican Council 221 Councils and conscience 221 Councils and constitutionalism 226 The Pan-Anglican Council 232 Conclusion 245 Bibliography 252 Index 271
Acknowledgments This study was supported by a generous grant from the Alonzo L. McDonald Family Agape Foundation to the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University and was prepared by the author as a Senior Fellow of the Center. I wish to thank especially Ambassador Alonzo L. McDonald, Peter McDonald and the other McDonald Agape Foundation Trustees for their support and encouragement. The opinions in this book are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation or the Center. I am indebted to all who collaborated in the 2005 10 Christian Legal Studies Project of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. The project was a model of academic collegiality. My deepest thanks go out to the moving spirits of the Center, John Witte, Jr. and Frank S. Alexander, for their breadth of vision, their critical acumen and their unfailing hospitality. I am also grateful to Linda King for her excellent facilitation of the project. To the President and Trustees of Butler University I am grateful for a sabbatical leave that allowed me to begin work on this book. I thank Lewis Miller, Dean of Libraries, for facilitating my research and for providing the opportunity to present my work at the Celebration of Scholarship at Butler in 2009. I am particularly indebted to my faculty colleagues Scott Swanson and James McGrath, who read and commented on portions of my draft, and to Susan Berger for her invaluable assistance. Many other members of the Butler community helped me, including Linda Willem, Chris Bungard, Eloise Sureau-Hale, Chad Bauman, Judith Cebula, Marguerite Stanciu, Mary Proffitt and many students, especially those who studied the history of Christianity with me in 2007 and 2009. I am also grateful to the staff of the Christian Theological Seminary Library, particularly Lorna Shoemaker and Cheryl Maddox. ix
x Acknowledgments I owe a special debt of gratitude to Francis Oakley, who kindly read and commented on a partial draft, and to J. Robert Wright, who corresponded with me about my project and shared materials. I also thank Thomas Baima and Vera Shevzov for their help. My work on conciliarism has been greatly enriched by friendships and theological conversations in Russia, Ukraine and Latvia. The Kiev Summer Theological Institute, with which I have been associated since 2004, has been an endless source of inspiration. I am grateful to the Institute s leaders, Konstantin Sigov and Father Filaret Egorov, for their powerful example of what it means to love theology and the church in our time. I am also indebted to Yurii Vestel, Aleksandr Filonenko and many other friends in Kiev and Kharkov. I thank the Synodal Biblical- Theological Commission of the Moscow patriarchate and its chair, Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk and exarch of Belarus, for the opportunity to present my work at several of the Commission s conferences. I am especially grateful to Father Vladimir Shmalii, Father Georgii Kochetkov, Aleksandr Kyrlezhev, David Gzgzian, Svetlana Shtadgauz and Juris Rubenis for their help, advice and friendship. The clergy and people of my church home, the Episcopal diocese of Indianapolis and Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, have helped me in countless ways. I appreciate the leadership of Bishop Catherine Waynick, Stephen Carlsen, Gray Lesesne, Charles Allen and Anne Jones. In the wider Episcopal and Anglican community, I thank Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison, Mary Tanner, Stephen Noll, Kevin Francis Donlon, Scott MacDougall and Robert Solon. Robert Giannini made a special contribution to this book by reading and commenting on the entire draft. For his criticisms and suggestions, and his good humor and friendship, I am forever in his debt. I am grateful to Laura Morris and Anna Lowe at Cambridge University Press for their professionalism and good counsel. I also thank the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA for permission to quote from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (copyright 1989, all rights reserved). Finally, I thank my family for our many conversations about this project and for all kinds of assistance with its demands. My thanks go out to Dan and Joanna, Eleanor and Ryan, John and Katja, Ellen, Alex, Arch, Seppi and most of all to Marjo.
Abbreviations ACC anglican Consultative Council ARCIC anglican Roman Catholic International Commission BEM Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982) COCU Church of Christ Uniting CUV Towards a Common Understanding and Vision of the World Council of Churches (1997) ELCa evangelical Lutheran Church in America Ep. Epistola(e) GAFCON Global Anglican Future Conference (2008) H.e. eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica Lutheran CORE Lutheran Coalition for Renewal LWF lutheran World Federation PG Patrologia graeca. Patrologiae cursus completus, ed. J.-P. Migne, ser. gr., 161 vols. (Paris, 1857 66) PL Patrologia latina. Patrologiae cursus completus, ed. J.-P. Migne, ser. lat., 221 vols. (Paris, 1878 90) ROCOR Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia Socrates, H.e. socrates Scholasticus (of Constantinople), Historia ecclesiastica UCC United Church of Christ V.C. Vita Constantini WCC World Council of Churches xi