The document was adopted on June 7, 2023 in Alexandria, Egypt during the 15th plenary session of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. This is the seventh document adopted by the Commission during its existence since 1980.
It is logically related to the previous document which was adopted in Chieti, Italy in 2016 and was called “Synodality and primacy in the first millennium. Towards a common understanding in the service of the unity of the Church”. The Alexandria document is built according to historical stages and has four chapters: “From 1054 to the council of Florence (1438-1439)”, “From the Reformation to the 18th century”, “19th century developments” and “The 20th and 21st centuries: ressourcement and rapprochement”.
It is important to note that in the Western Church the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was developed in opposition to the encroachments of the secular authorities to appoint bishops and abbots. An alternative to the concentration of church power in the hands of the Popes existed not only in the Eastern Church, but also in the West, in particular due to the development in the 15th century of the thesis on conciliarism.
Actual for the current Ukrainian context is the doctrine of the “perfect society”, developed by the papacy in the 19th century, which predicted that the Church can be “an independent, autonomous, and sovereign society in her own sphere of competence, just as the state [is] sovereign in temporal affairs” (§3.1.).
The “Conclusion“ of the document notes that „The Church is not properly understood as a pyramid, with a primate governing from the top, but neither is it properly understood as a federation of self-sufficient Churches“. To this is added that „for Roman Catholics synodality is not merely consultative, and for Orthodox primacy is not merely honorific“ (§5.1.).
It is worth noting that such an emphasis on the Orthodox side became possible because the Russian Orthodox Church refused to participate in the work of the commission – since 2007 it has not participated in the meetings of the commission through ecclesiastic- political reasons. In addition, from the Orthodox side, the local churches of Bulgaria, Antioch and Serbia did not participate in the commission meeting. In total, representatives of ten local Orthodox churches were present. Fr. Iwan Dacko, president of the Institute of the Ecumenical Studies of UCU, is the sole representative of Ukraine in this commission.
The general list of adopted documents during the commission’s existence in English can be found here – http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo.html.
The full text of the Alexandria document can be read in English here – http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/document-d-alexandrie—synodalite-et-primaute-au-deuxieme-mille.html.
Interview with Fr. Iwan Dacko, which he gave in Ukrainian after the meeting of the commission in Alexandria, is located here – https://risu.ua/brak-yednosti-mizh-pravoslavnimi-cerkvami-u-sviti-ne-spriyaye-uspishnomu-katolicko-pravoslavnomu-dialogu–o-ivan-dacko_n140244.
