My Journey from Orthodoxy to Catholicism: the Role of Social Teaching

My story is a bit different, though the Papal Social Magisterium did play a large part in my conversion experience, deepening my faith in the Church especially in my "Tradversion" to Traditional Catholicism.

From One Peter Five

By Greg Cook

Pope John Paul II, a Slav, spoke often of his desire for healing the breach between Rome and Orthodox Christians. In his 1995 Apostolic Letter Orientale Lumen, he wrote:

The sin of our separation is very serious: I feel the need to increase our common openness to the Spirit who calls us to conversion, to accept and recognize others with fraternal respect, to make fresh, courageous gestures, able to dispel any temptation to turn back. We feel the need to go beyond the degree of communion we have reached (17).

Of the many tragic effects of the East-West schism, one not often considered is the lack of a well-developed social doctrine amongst the Orthodox. In most places touched by Catholicism (absent government restrictions), the Church’s extensive body of social teaching is manifested in hospitals, schools, and charities. It would be unfair to assert that nothing comparable exists in traditionally Orthodox lands, for anywhere Christians are living the Faith will see works of charity and compassion. The Russian Orthodox Church has published its own “Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church.”However, for several reasons, Orthodoxy’s doctrines and policies have not paralleled Rome’s when interacting with political and social structures. Those reasons are as follows:

• An over-reliance in theological/canonical/intellectual matters on patristics;
• The lack of true unity amongst Orthodox jurisdictions and patriarchates;
• A reflexive anti-Westernism;
• An emphasis on monasticism and asceticism to the detriment of social action; and finally,
• The longstanding problematic and unhealthy Church-state relationship in the Orthodox world.

All this is not just a matter of theory for me. Catholic Social Teaching helped open the door for me to first appreciate and then embrace Rome and come in from the cold of one of the Greek schisms. My point is to advocate for the sharing of Catholic Social Teaching with the East as part of the basis for a healthy, re-united Church. That will require an appraisal by the concerned parties to see the compatibility of that teaching with Eastern ways, an appraisal that has a number of obstacles to overcome in theology, Tradition, and praxis.

In Orthodox teaching there is an over-reliance on patristics—the teachings of the Fathers—and a dearth of formulations from more recent figures who have had to engage with Modernism and modernity. The twentieth-century Greek Orthodox author Father George Mastrantonis acknowledges this fact in a booklet on the Fathers of the Church.

The Fathers themselves, probably without their intention, had established a tradition well-implanted on the cornerstone of the Church of Christ, which had a validity of its own. Unintentionally, this recognition of the validity of the tradition of the Fathers thereafter has prevented a free biblical and systematic research..[1]

While the Orthodox stress loyalty to the Fathers – which is itself a good thing – that loyalty is stressed to the point of neglecting the application of patristics to the state of the world today. Developing a social doctrine to confront the modern world would require research into this current world, not only the world of the Fathers.

On the organizational and hierarchical side, the lack of true unity amongst Orthodox churches hinders broad approaches to post-modern problems. There is nothing approaching Rome’s magisterial teaching office with its encyclicals. Greek Orthodox theologian Timothy (Metropolitan Kallistos) Ware, in his acclaimed book on Orthodoxy writes:

Rome and the east give somewhat different answers [on unity]. For Rome the unifying principle in the Church is the Pope whose jurisdiction over the whole body, whereas Orthodox do not believe any bishop to be endowed with universal jurisdiction. What then holds the Church together? Orthodox answer, the act of communion in the sacraments.[2]

However, this communion is indeed tenuous if Orthodox churches disagree about who is baptized and, as the Orthodox schism of 2018 has shown, the centuries-old debate between Moscow and Constantinople requires agreement of universal primacy to resolve.

Related to that answer is a reflexive anti-Westernism still extant in Orthodox circles and nations. Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, made numerous criticisms of the West in his novels, and those views still reflect sentiment in Russia and other historically Orthodox nations. Early in his monumental novel The Brothers Karamazov, he features this passage in a conversation:

‘Understand, the church is not to be transformed into the state. That is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the devil. On the contrary, the state is transformed into the church, will ascend and become a church over the whole world—which is the complete opposite of Ultramontanism and Rome, and your interpretation, and is only the glorious destiny ordained for the Orthodox Church. This star will arise in the east!’

This view is later given more explication in the well-known chapter “The Grand Inquisitor,” Ivan Karamazov’s fever dream of the Latin West selling out Christ and Gospel for a Christless Church feeding the masses their daily bread.[3]

Next, Orthodox theology places a higher emphasis on monasticism and asceticism than on acting as a leavening agent in society. Orthodoxy is replete with literature and images extolling the heavenly qualities of Mount Athos, the Jesus Prayer-praying pilgrim, the Russian lavras, and other cenobitic endeavors. Fasting rules are much more severe than anything found in the Latin West. And bishops are drawn solely from monastic ranks. All of these things are good in themselves, and many Latin Catholics would do well to learn from them. However, as Fr. Alexander Schmemann, an influential émigré Russian Orthodox theologian remarks, an excessive adherence to the past can be detrimental.

In modern Church thinking, the past frequently oppresses and enchains rather than being creatively transformed into faithfulness to genuine tradition. This reveals an inability to evaluate the past, to distinguish the truth in it from mere bygone history and custom.[4]

We might discuss here the legacy in Russia of the non-possessor controversy, but that is beyond the scope of this essay. The point is that monasticism and asceticism are good, but the reality is that thy neighbor is here and now and he is poor, hungry, and destitute, and our final judgement is based on our treatment of Christ in the least of these my brethren. Therefore if asceticism does not lead to a greater and more perfect love of neighbor, then it is merely the false prayers and false fasts of the Pharisee against the Publican. The Orthodox churches have not applied their asceticism to a systematic body of social doctrine and practice in the changing world of modernity, as has happened in Rome.

And finally, there is the problematic Church-state relationship in the Orthodox world, which carries on a trajectory from the time of the eastern Roman Empire through the Russian Empire and the days of the Soviet Union. Historian Steven Runciman writes:

The Byzantine Church was indeed an admirable State Church. Its rich ritual enhanced the majesty of the Empire, its saints and its icons brought it down to the level of the people, its obstinate refusal to submit to foreign dictation built up the sentiment of nationality, and there was enough freedom in its theology not to stifle the intellectual activity on which the Empire prided itself.[5]

But it is precisely this close Church-state relationship that is a major hindrance to Orthodoxy. In post-Soviet Russia, the Orthodox Church has resumed its dependent status vis-à-vis the quasi-imperial Putinist state. Meanwhile, in Muslim-dominated nations, the Orthodox are often not better off than they were in the era of dhimmitude. I wrote about this relationship in an American context in a 2008 article (when I was still Orthodox):

America… offers a level playing field for all religions. This is a new situation for the Orthodox to find themselves in—we have always been either an oppressed group, typically a minority, or closely connected to the ruling power. These two conditions have masked the true aim of Orthodoxy, which is to transfigure all of creation.[6]

The ongoing binary mindset of ascendence or subjugation continues to distort Orthodox approaches to society.

My Personal Journey Away from Orthodoxy

The preceding examples and analysis lead to a personal look at the issues. In 2008, after finishing a three-year course in Orthodox theology offered by the Antiochian Orthodox House of Studies, and tonsured as a Reader, I decided to study public administration at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a campus later connected to the ongoing culture wars. Exploring the historical unfolding of public administration, I soon saw that its roots were in the Western Church, especially in the monasteries and administrative apparatus. Since the Benedictines pre-dated the east-west schism, I thought maybe they could supply some faith-related material for presentation at a later point in the program. In the mean-time I took the core classes and some electives.

And that is where I first got hooked by Catholic Social Teaching. In a summer class on the “Political Economy of Sustainability,” I wrote an initial paper on sustainability which included a closing section considering the ideas of E.F. Schumacher, Catholic Social Teaching, and Pope Benedict’s just-published 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate. For a final paper, I delved deep into the life and teaching of economist Schumacher, author of two well-regarded books: Small is Beautiful, about appropriately-scaled economics and technology (economic subsidiarity), and A Guide for the Perplexed, a more explicitly philosophical book akin to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Schumacher, lo and behold, converted to Catholicism late in his life, but Catholic thought was already percolating in him. He found great appeal in papal encyclicals such as Rerum Novarum (Leo XIII, 1891) and Quadregesimo Anno (Pius XI, 1931) and quoted them in his work.

Intrigued by these discoveries, I continued examining the subject. In a subsequent class on “International Administration” I wrote a paper with the title “The Roman Catholic Church as an International Organization.” I asserted that by many criteria the Church is an international organization par excellence; I also had to conclude that the Orthodox Churches, due to their ethnic and national separations and squabbles, were not. The Orthodox did not share a worldwide mission of philanthropy and charity. Ironically, my presentation to the class was met with derision from students and teacher alike, even though I was not Catholic at the time.

The logical question to ask about these matters is, can Catholic Social Teaching be reconciled with eastern Christianity, or is it one more example of attempts to “Latinize” the East? Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin declared that “Roman Catholicism believes that without universal state power the Church on earth cannot stand” before warning that “socialism is also a product of Catholicism and the Catholic essence!”[7] Ukrainian Greek Catholic Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk shows that Eastern Catholics with their own rich culture and religious practices can adapt and make full use of Catholic Social Teaching. Shevchuk has, for instance, praised the work of the Knights of Columbus and explained why the situation in Ukraine is different than in neighboring Russia.

According to the social doctrine of the Church and our own historical tradition, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church never was a Church of the state. It was always a Church of the simple people. And we understood the Church in Ukraine as an integral part of civil society, not of the state system, not of business, but of civil society….[8]

The genius of Catholicism is that it is a Faith for all places, all people, and all times. The Church’s social teaching is the application of Christ’s message for the world. Justice and charity know no borders. Catholic Social Teaching could be the machinery to get both lungs of the Church working together again.

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[1] Rev. George Mastrantonis, The Fathers of the Church and Their Ecclesiastical Literature (St. Louis: OLOGOS, n.d.), 4.

[2] Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin, 1964), 250.

[3] Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Constance Garnett (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2005), 56, 223-240.

[4] Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (Chicago: Logos, 1962), 341.

[5] Steven Runciman, Byzantine Civilization (NY: Meridian, 1956), 108.

[6] Greg Cook, “Words We Live By: Orthodox & American Ideals in Foundational Texts,” The Word, Volume 52, No. 5 (May, 2008), 5. For more about Orthodoxy in America, see Nichalas V. Belcher, From Symphonia to Federalism: Towards an American Orthodox Political Culture, M.Div. Thesis, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, April 20, 2005. Belcher includes a chapter on Catholic Fr. John Courtney Murray.

[7] Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (NY: Everyman’s Library, 2002), 543-544.

[8] John Burger, At the Foot of the Cross: Lessons from Ukraine. An Interview with Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2023), 181.

Pictured: His Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), Major-Archbishop (Patriarch) of Kyiv-Galicia, Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.