The Official Dialogue: Ravenna, Chieti, and the Primacy Question

Since 1980 the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church has worked through sacraments, uniatism, and — its mature agenda — primacy and synodality, producing the Ravenna (2007), Chieti (2016), and Alexandria (2023) documents. This file reports what the dialogue has and has not agreed, the jurisdictional fractures that shadow it, and the live intra-Orthodox dispute over whether the dialogue itself is faithful — presented per §4.2 with both positions named and unadjudicated.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Commission and Its First Phase

The “dialogue of charity” of 1965 (see From 1848 to 1965) became a “dialogue of truth” when Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Dimitrios I announced a theological commission (November 1979), which first met on Patmos and Rhodes in 1980, composed of representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and of all the autocephalous Orthodox churches (the history and texts in Borelli and Erickson, eds., The Quest for Unity: Orthodox and Catholics in Dialogue, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996; Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, final chapters). Its first phase produced three agreed statements on the sacramental structure of the Church — Munich (1982) on Church, Eucharist, and Trinity; Bari (1987) on faith and the sacraments; Valamo (1988) on ordained ministry — texts of genuine theological quality that deliberately postponed the hard question of Roman primacy (the statements in Borelli and Erickson, The Quest for Unity, 1996).

The collapse of communism forced the postponed grievance of uniatism to the table: the revival of the Eastern Catholic churches in Ukraine and Romania, with bitter property disputes, nearly ended the dialogue. The Balamand Statement (1993) declared uniatism unacceptable as a method or model of unity while affirming the existing Eastern Catholic churches’ right to exist and serve their faithful (Balamand Statement, 1993, §§12, 30; see The Unia and Brest 1596); the follow-up session at Baltimore (2000) deadlocked on the same subject, and the dialogue was suspended until 2005–2006 (Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 2017; Borelli and Erickson, The Quest for Unity, 1996, for Balamand). Balamand itself is contested among the Orthodox: Mount Athos and other critics rejected its “sister churches” ecclesiology as conceding what the Church has not agreed, while participating churches defended it as a practical condemnation of proselytism — an early instance of the intra-Orthodox dispute recorded below (the Athonite and other objections surveyed in Siecienski, ibid.).

Ravenna 2007 and Chieti 2016

The dialogue’s mature phase addresses the schism’s core (see Filioque and Papal Primacy): the relation of primacy and synodality.

Ravenna (2007) — “Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church” — agreed that conciliarity and authority operate at local, regional, and universal levels; that at each level there is a protos (a first); and that “in the canonical order (taxis) witnessed by the ancient Church,” the bishop of Rome was “protos among the patriarchs” — while recording that Catholics and Orthodox “disagree on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as protos, a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium” (Ravenna Document, 13 October 2007, §§10, 41, 43–44). Ravenna’s authority is qualified by a fact of Orthodox politics: the Moscow Patriarchate’s delegation withdrew before the session began — over the seating of the Constantinople-sponsored Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church — and has never subscribed the document; Moscow subsequently published its own position paper on primacy (2013), insisting that at the universal level primacy is one of honor only, without prerogatives of power analogous to the local bishop’s (Moscow Patriarchate, “Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Problem of Primacy in the Universal Church,” 26 December 2013; the Ravenna walkout in Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 2017).

Chieti (2016) — “Synodality and Primacy during the First Millennium” — adopted with Moscow participating, describes how, in the first millennium, the bishop of Rome exercised a primacy of honor within the communion of the churches, with appeals functioning canonically (Sardica’s provisions cited) and never the exercise of authority over an Eastern synod; the document offers the first millennium as the common reference for any future model (Chieti Document, 21 September 2016, esp. §§15–21). Alexandria (2023) — “Synodality and Primacy in the Second Millennium and Today” — carried the joint reading into the divided millennium, candidly registering the divergent developments (Vatican I included) without resolving them (Alexandria Document, 7 June 2023). The unresolved core is unchanged: whether the first-millennium primacy was of divine institution with jurisdiction (Vatican I) or a primacy of honor in synodality (the Orthodox confession) — the two readings recorded side by side in Ravenna §41 remain side by side (Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 2017; the doctrinal statement of both positions in Filioque and Papal Primacy).

The dialogue’s context also includes gestures outside the commission — the Havana meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill (12 February 2016), the first pope–Moscow patriarch meeting, with its joint declaration on persecuted Christians and uniatism (Havana Declaration, 2016) — and a shadow within Orthodoxy itself: since the Moscow–Constantinople rupture over Ukraine (Moscow unilaterally broke communion with Constantinople in October 2018), the Moscow Patriarchate has withdrawn from commissions co-chaired by Constantinople’s hierarchs, including this dialogue; the commission continues without Russian participation. As of mid-2026 that rupture stands unhealed, and every statement here about pan-Orthodox participation must be read with that qualification (the rupture and its ecumenical consequences per the synodal acts of October 2018 and subsequent Moscow statements; per METHODOLOGY §4.2, this live jurisdictional dispute is reported with both-jurisdiction sourcing in the hub file The Ecumenism Debate and dated notes).

The Intra-Orthodox Dispute over the Dialogue Itself

Whether this dialogue is a faithful obedience or a betrayal is a genuinely open dispute within canonical Orthodoxy, and per METHODOLOGY §4.2 it is presented here with named proponents and no adjudication.

The pro-dialogue position. Its theologians argue that the Church, precisely because she is the one Church, owes the separated West a serious account of the faith and must test whether Rome can receive the first-millennium order; that the dialogue has conceded no dogma while obtaining real admissions (Balamand on uniatism; Chieti’s first-millennium picture); and that refusal to speak is not a dogmatic position but a temperament. Its principal figures include Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, Orthodox co-president of the commission through the Ravenna and Chieti phases, whose eucharistic ecclesiology shaped the documents; Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware), who defended engagement while cataloguing what divides (Ware, The Orthodox Church, new ed., Penguin, 1993, ch. 16); and the Council of Crete (2016), whose document “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World” blessed the dialogues while affirming that the Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church (Crete 2016, “Relations,” §§1, 16–21; Zizioulas’ ecclesiology in Zizioulas, Being as Communion, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985).

The anti-ecumenist position. Its theologians argue that the dialogue’s method — treating the Church and a confession she has judged as symmetrical “sister churches” seeking a lost unity — is itself the ecclesiological error, regardless of documentary content; that decades of dialogue have produced no Roman movement on any defined dogma while habituating the Orthodox to a false parity. Its principal witnesses include St. Justin Popovic (The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism, Thessaloniki, 1974, calling ecumenism a “pan-heresy” — a formulation now embedded in the debate), the ROCOR Synod’s 1983 anathema against ecumenism so defined, the standing critiques of the Athonite communities (from the 1965 protests through the objections to Balamand and Ravenna), and Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos among contemporary hierarch-theologians; the churches of Antioch, Russia, Bulgaria, and Georgia declined to attend Crete, and Georgia and Bulgaria had earlier withdrawn from the bilateral dialogue (the dossier surveyed in Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 2017, and in the hub file The Ecumenism Debate, where the positions are set out at length).

Between these positions this collection does not judge (§4.2). It records the fact that both are held by canonized saints’ disciples, ruling synods, and serious theologians within the one Church — and the further fact, awkward for polemics on both sides, that the dialogue’s own best documents (Chieti above all) describe as the common first-millennium inheritance almost exactly what the anti-ecumenists insist is non-negotiable (Chieti, 2016, §§15–21; cf. The Council of 879–880).

See Also

References

  • Borelli, John, and John H. Erickson, eds. The Quest for Unity: Orthodox and Catholics in Dialogue. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996. (The commission’s history and the Munich, Bari, Valamo, and Balamand texts.)
  • Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue. Ravenna Document (13 October 2007), esp. §§10, 41, 43–44; Chieti Document (21 September 2016), esp. §§15–21; Alexandria Document (7 June 2023); Balamand Statement (1993), §§12, 30. (The agreed texts.)
  • Moscow Patriarchate. “Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Problem of Primacy in the Universal Church” (26 December 2013). (The Russian counter-statement to Ravenna.)
  • Holy and Great Council of Crete. “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World” (2016). (The conciliar blessing of dialogue and its contested reception.)
  • Joint Declaration of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, Havana (12 February 2016). (The Moscow–Rome meeting.)
  • Zizioulas, John (Metropolitan of Pergamon). Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985. (The ecclesiology behind the Orthodox side of Ravenna.)
  • Justin Popovic, St. The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism. Thessaloniki, 1974. (The theological indictment of ecumenism.)
  • Ware, Kallistos (Timothy). The Orthodox Church. New ed. London: Penguin, 1993. Ch. 16. (The pro-engagement case with the differences cataloged.)
  • Siecienski, A. Edward. The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. (The dialogue’s history; Ravenna, the Moscow walkout, Chieti; the Orthodox oppositions.)