In Christ there is no East or West...

Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist (right) made history when he invited Pope John Paul II to Bucharest in 1999. The two attended an Orthodox Mass in Bucharest's Unirii square. (1999 file/ap).

Patriarch Teoctist, the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, who made history when he invited the late Pope John Paul II to his Orthodox country in 1999 but was criticized for being too close to former Communists died Monday, July 30 at the age of 92. Patriarch Teoctist died of a heart attack following surgery on his prostate gland...Patriarch Teoctist was appointed to head the church in November 1986, but briefly stepped down after anticommunist protesters in 1989 said he had been too conciliatory toward former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu...

Although he was often criticized for failing to take a stand on thorny issues such as the rights of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church in Romania, the patriarch won praise when in 1999, the pope visited Romania at Patriarch Teoctist's invitation. It was the first invitation extended by an Orthodox Church leader to a Catholic pope since the churches split in the Great Schism of 1054. The two leaders called for the healing of divisions within Christianity.

Patriarch Teoctist also won the respect of Romanians after he confessed that he had felt abandoned by God for years, from the time when he briefly resigned as patriarch until the pope's visit...

Born into a poor family in northeastern Romania in 1915, Patriarch Teoctist was the 10th of 11 children. He became a monk when he was 20.

Last month, Patriarch Teoctist condemned a Vatican document in which Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, describing it as "brutal" and saying it made interchurch dialogue difficult.

Many Catholics have little understanding of the differences between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The Patriarch's death might provide us a moment to learn about those differences and to pray for unity between these two ancient traditions. Here's a prayer written by Most Rev. John Elya of the Melkite Diocese of Newton. (The Melkite Church is a Catholic Eastern Rite in union with Rome.)

Let us pray...

Abba, Father,
We your children come before you
broken, hurt and spintered.
We need your healing.
Give us the courage to take responsibility
for the harm we have caused by our divisions.
Give us the strength to make amends
to our brothers and sisters.
Give us the grace to forgive those who have harmed us
and bring us all to full unity
with you and with each other.
In the depths of our spirits
we rejoice in the prayer of your Son our Lord Jesus:
“I have given them the glory that you gave me,
that they may be one as we are one.

Amen.

Changes in West Concord

On July 8, I was at West Concord Union Church for the 10:00 Service at which Pastor John Hudson preached and led the people of WCUC in prayer for the last time before moving on to become pastor of Pilgrim Church in Sherborn, Massachusetts. I was grateful that this coincided with the weekend when we had a visiting missionary priest at Holy Family, freeing me to worship with a church community who were so much a part of my first 10 years in Concord.

John's sermon on his last Sunday was, as usual, well-crafted and challenging. All faith communities face challenges of one kind or another and John was direct in calling the people of WCUC to face theirs and to continue to become the church the Lord calls them to be. I was grateful to have a moment in the service as a visiting pastor to voice a prayer for John and for the people he served so well in West Concord.

Only days later I would be reading the most recent document from Rome which deals with the question, "Who is the Church of Jesus Christ?" The Vatican's answer is very defined and, unfortunately, its effort to lift up important truths may have been obscured by a vocabulary easily read as denigrating of other Christian faith communities. What I know from my experience two Sundays ago is simpler and more easily simply put: the people of West Concord Union Church are the body of Christ, gathered for prayer and worship and committed to proclaiming and living the message and justice of the gospel. In their sanctuary that morning the Spirit of God was alive and well and filling the hearts of believers who had gathered to bid farewell to a man they loved, a man who had served them so very well. My prayer goes with John as he moves to Sherborn and to the people of WCUC as they begin the process of searching for a new pastor.