wfn.org | WCC - How should we pray together in future? (Special

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

Commission, part 3)

World Council of Churches
Feature, Feat-02-05
For Immediate Use
17 May 2002

How should we pray together in future?
The Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC is
preparing its final report (part 3)

cf. WCC Press Feature, Feat-02-03, of 15 May 2002
cf. WCC Press Feature, Fea-02-04, of 16 May 2002

The Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the World
Council of Churches (WCC) has consistently underlined the need
for careful theological and practical guidelines for common
prayer.  

The focus of the discussion is interconfessional ecumenical
worship, i.e., worship services at ecumenical gatherings which
draw from a variety of prayer traditions. For innumerable people,
the pastiche of interconfessional ecumenical worship is an
element of liturgical and spiritual ecumenical life which they
would not want to give up; others feel alienated or even offended
by it.  

"Orthodox Christians must wrestle with the question of whether
or not the canons even permit us to pray together with
non-Orthodox at all. Once that question is dealt with, and it is
dealt with differently by different people, we have to grapple
with how downright foreign interconfessional worship can seem to
us," writes Peter Bouteneff of the Orthodox Church in America. In
his essay, Bouteneff describes his own inner development, that
led him finally to reconsider his original attitude.  

As they are for Bouteneff, the tensions surrounding common
prayer services are a cause of sadness for Bishop Rolf Koppe of
the Evangelical Church in Germany as well. Koppe writes that "The
reality that we cannot freely and joyfully go to meet one
another, and assemble naturally for prayer as children of God
before the face of the Father of us all, is and remains an open
wound in the Body of Christ."  

How, then, should we pray together in future? In his essay,
Father K.M. George of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Malankara,
India, offers some concrete proposals to try to advance the
discussion of guidelines for common worship.  
This is exactly what Peter Bouteneff has in mind when, at the
end of his essay, he comes to the optimistic conclusion that "the
Special Commission has led some of us to re-think some of our
long-held convictions, to take matters deeper, to find solutions
which might make an enduring difference for the better."  

-------------------------------------

Confessional versus interconfessional worship: 
One person's struggle
Peter Bouteneff

When Christians of different traditions gather to pray together,
feelings get stirred up.  It cannot be otherwise.  To pray is
human nature, and it is right to want to pray together as
Christians.  It is also natural to feel strongly about how we
pray, because prayer comes from and penetrates to our deepest
core.  It is probably easy enough to assemble Christians of the
same tradition, nationality and language together for prayer. 
But the more variety one brings into the mix, the more
challenging it can be.  

Challenge is both positive and negative.  On occasions I have
found worship in ecumenical settings to be a moving, inspiring
and God-praising experience.  I also have witnessed less
successful examples, such as when ecumenical worship is
misdirected into a political statement, or when its attempts at
diversity and inclusiveness approach absurdity, or even
syncretism.  

My aim here is to reflect on these matters both objectively and
subjectively, as a life-long member of the Orthodox Church, as a
decade-long observer and participant in ecumenical meetings, and
as an erstwhile member of the World Council of Churches (WCC)
staff and its worship committees.  

Interconfessional worship - a hit-and-miss endeavour

Ecumenical worship, or more accurately interconfessional
worship, is by nature something of a hit-and-miss endeavour for
several reasons.  Part of what we do in assembling diverse
Christians for prayer is celebrate the very fact of that
gathering.  Sometimes we mark this by drawing from a variety of
sources, across confessions and traditions.  The problem is that
it is very difficult to be at the same time broadly diverse, and
also to achieve a prayer service that is inwardly consistent and
coherent.  The results can sometimes feel like eclecticism for
its own sake.  

Interconfessional worship tends to be prepared ad hoc by
committees rather than emerge out of single traditions.  This
very fact contributes both to the assets - diversity, broad
ownership, freshness - as well as to the liabilities - a
potential for incoherence, superficiality, hackneyed trendiness -
of the worship life of ecumenical gatherings.  

The built-in nature of these problems has raised some basic
objections to the way in which the WCC conducts the worship life
at its meetings.  These objections are voiced within a variety of
traditions, but Orthodox participants raised such concerns from
the outset, and more or less across the board.  Orthodox
Christians must wrestle with the question of whether or not the
canons even permit us to pray together with non-Orthodox at all. 
Once that question is dealt with, and it is dealt with
differently by different people, we have to grapple with how
downright foreign interconfessional worship can seem to us.  

Often when we raise such discomforts with aspects of the WCC's
worship life, we are told that everybody feels discomfort with
it.  It is by nature something new, and also something eclectic. 
We are told that this very fact guarantees that there will
inevitably be elements that feel foreign - to everyone.  But this
isn't really true.  There are a great many ecumenists who not
only feel comfortable with the way interconfessional ecumenical
worship tends to be done, but thrive on it.  They say that if the
WCC were ever to decide to worship and to pray together in a way
that loses the variety, the newness, and the eclecticism, they
would opt out of it altogether.  Hence, the great momentum is to
keep the worship life of ecumenical meetings as it now is: as
primarily interconfessional in character.  

The alternative most commonly proposed by Orthodox and other
contingents of Christians of similar leanings is to structure
worship life in ecumenical settings along confessional lines: let
"interconfessional worship" give way to "confessional worship". 
Enough fruit salad: let us enjoy each fruit in its turn.  Give
place to the different traditions, each of which has an inwardly
consistent worship tradition with its own gifts and integrity.  

Speaking now subjectively, my thoughts over the years on this
question have undergone a certain evolution.

Pros and cons of interconfessional worship

The following points have informed my objections to
interconfessional worship:

In my (Orthodox) tradition, corporate prayer is not composed ad
hoc; it is fixed.  An integral part of our spirituality is
knowing where you are and where you are going at every point in a
worship service: it is this very groundedness which frees the
spirit to pray in an ever-fresh way.  And since our prayers are
also grounded in theology, often very explicitly - what we pray
is what we believe, and vice-versa - this dependability of our
prayer services is something vital to us.  

"Ecumenical" or interconfessional worship is by nature an
artificial enterprise.  It means putting prayers and rites which
were never intended to be together side by side.  This can work
brilliantly.  But at its worst it can be a Benetton-esque
melting-pot, where we throw things together arbitrarily, all the
while congratulating ourselves for our expansive inclusiveness,
our broad-mindedness, our post-modernity.  

Furthermore, ecumenical prayer has begun to develop into a
tradition of its own. And once the WCC has an ecumenical prayer
tradition, a worship tradition, it risks behaving like an
"ecumenical church", which is something dead-against the
sensibilities of many of its constitutive traditions, including
the Orthodox.    

As to "confessional worship", it could be a vital way of "giving
place" to each other's traditions.  It lets prayers breathe
within the context that produced them.  It tends to guarantee an
integrity - a flow and consistent sensibility which has stood the
test of time within a particular context.  Furthermore, it is one
of the best ways that we can experience each other's Christian
life and tradition.  And finally, if we pray "confessionally" at
ecumenical meetings - one morning at a Lutheran service, one
morning at an Orthodox matins, one morning as do the Baptists -
it may be a safeguard against some of the excesses, the
syncretism and politicization which can arise in ecumenical
worship.  

These were the arguments which led me to advocate confessional
worship as the norm in ecumenical settings.  And many of these
concerns remain valid and even vital.  But experience - and some
very perceptive and thoughtful people - have helped me to raise
some significant questions and qualifications to the above
impressions.  

For example, confessional worship in ecumenical settings can be
as artificial as "ecumenical" worship.  Staging an Orthodox
matins service, or a Quaker meeting, could easily become just
that: staged, like a show in a theatre, not at all conducive to
prayer.  And who is to say that such experiences would be any
less strange and foreign to the people gathered?  Then there are
questions such as, who decides what constitutes confessional
integrity?  Who decides what constitutes a "tradition"?  

Moreover, once we give a morning over to this or that tradition,
we cannot place restrictions on the theological or spiritual
content of their prayers and rites.  Within a group-designed
ecumenical worship service, the Orthodox, together with other
theologically conservative representatives, would reject, for
example, the inclusion of prayers that name God as "Mother", or
convocations which address the assembled Christians as the
"Universal Church".  But if the beliefs which would engender such
formulations are held within the confessional tradition that is
responsible for a prayer service, would it be possible or
reasonable to censor them?  

Interconfessional worship: the "prayer of divided Christians" 

Such questions have made it increasingly evident to me that the
problem of how to conduct our common prayer services will not
find simple solutions.  More importantly, it has become clear to
me that the question is not whether to structure worship in
ecumenical settings exclusively along either "confessional" or
"interconfessional" lines.  The point is rather to be as clear as
possible as to what you are doing.  If you are celebrating
interconfessional worship, there ought to be no sense that this
is the worship of an ecumenical church: it is the prayer of
divided Christians, or of divided bodies of Christians.  If you
are celebrating the worship of your own confessional tradition,
then name it as such.  

Aside from such clarity, many kinds of guidelines could be
helpful.  For example, worship in ecumenical settings should be
focused on God - in the language of the WCC Basis, on "Jesus
Christ as God and Saviour ... to the glory of the one God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit."  Then, both theologically and in
all other dimensions, common prayer services should make every
effort not to offend those who are gathered to pray.  Finally,
whether confessional or interconfessional, prayer services should
strive to avoid artifice and achieve a wholeness, a
self-consistency, a harmonious flow.  

The Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC is
in the process of formulating recommendations on a broad spectrum
of issues, including the worship life of the Council.  If it can
produce some universally acceptable guidelines for that worship
life, it would be a most useful contribution to the ecumenical
movement as a whole.  But already, the Special Commission has led
some of us to rethink some of our long-held convictions, to take
matters deeper, to find solutions which might make an enduring
difference for the better.  

_______________________
The author Dr Peter Bouteneff served for five years on the staff
of WCC Faith and Order, and now teaches systematic theology and
spirituality at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, in
Crestwood, New York. He has followed the work of the Special
Commission as a consultant.  

----------------------------------

The issue of ecumenical worship - an open wound in the Body of
Christ
Rolf Koppe

The interim report of the Special Commission on Orthodox
Participation in the World Council of Churches (WCC) was
presented to the WCC Central Committee meeting in Potsdam,
Germany, in January 2001. There it met with a generally positive
reception. The Central Committee's impression was that the
Commission's 60 members had gone through a mutual learning
process and reached agreement on a whole series of problems.  

But the Orthodox decision to stay away from shared acts of
ecumenical worship had not been reconsidered. Taken at a
conference in Thessaloniki, Greece, in May 1998 before the WCC
Assembly, this decision was thus in need of further theological
clarification. As the Steering Group said afterwards, "If we
can't pray together we can't stay together." Why, we asked,
should we be thinking so hard about membership, procedures and
ways of voting, when the spiritual question of why we are joined
together as Orthodox and Protestant churches in a council of
churches remains unanswered?  

After 11 September 2001 Jews, Christians and Muslims in New
York, Brussels or Assisi could participate in interfaith
celebrations and address their prayers to God in sequence or side
by side. Yet it is still not clear whether Christians can pray
together to God the Three in One, in whose name they have been
baptized, in whose name they hold worship services, and in whose
name they pray for the coming of Christ's Kingdom.  

However incomprehensible it may be for outsiders, the fact is
that for those who know the tradition and the present situation,
the differences between the various doctrines of the nature and
mission of the church are a fundamental cause for disagreement. 

In the history of the Church and of the churches ever since the
councils of the early centuries, this question has divided the
Church, and later the churches of East and West. For the
Protestant churches which came into being in the 16th century,
the earlier condemnations were not directly relevant. Yet despite
Protestant declarations that they go back to the early church and
biblical tradition, they are not exempt from these issues.  

Some in the church have experienced spiritual closeness and a
theological rapprochement via dialogue which enables them to hold
joint worship services and pray together almost as a matter of
course. But as soon as the question is posed in its strict sense,
we find that these practices based on living together are not
covered either by the theology of liturgy or, and especially not,
by that of the ministry.  

It must be noted that not all Orthodox representatives support
this strict interpretation, so that there is hope that ways may
be found out of this theological dead end.  

But voices asking how long such a process of clarification still
needs to go on have been growing louder. Some of them, including
mine, are Protestant. Would it not be more honest to admit that
we cannot bridge this essential gap and, after 50 years together,
to agree to an amicable separation? After which we could still
meet as friends, for example, in the form of an Orthodox world
alliance on one hand and a Protestant world alliance on the
other?  

But again, many have not given up hope that we can come together
in "lay worship services", that is, in a form recognized by all
confessions and in which the church is not represented by the
ordained clergy but rather by representatives of God's people who
gather together to praise God with prayer and singing.  

Whatever is proposed to the Central Committee in August after
three years of consultation on this matter by the Special
Commission, the reality that we cannot freely and joyfully go to
meet one another and assemble naturally for prayer as children of
God before the face of the Father of us all is and remains an
open wound in the Body of Christ.  

_________________________
The author, Bishop Rolf Koppe, has been head of the Department
of Ecumenical Affairs and Ministries Abroad of the Evangelical
Church in Germany (EKD) since 1993.  From 1984 till 1988 Bishop
Koppe was press officer of the EKD and publications adviser in
the Church Office of the EKD.  Thereafter he served as regional
superintendent for the Gottingen district of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of  Hanover.  Bishop Koppe is co-moderator of the
Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC.   

---------------------------

How should we pray together?
Some comments regarding "Guidelines  for Common Prayer"
K.M. George

Worship and prayer

It is certainly useful to make a distinction between 'worship'
and 'prayer', as was suggested at the Cairo meeting of the
Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the World Council
of Churches (WCC) in November 2000, since these words are
sometimes interchangeably used in current practice. It might also
be helpful if a distinction is made between sacramental worship
and common prayer.  

The Orthodox Tradition makes some basic distinctions in the
matter of "prayer". It distinguishes between sacramental liturgy
or worship, canonical Prayer of the Hours, and personal prayer
and devotional practices. An example of the first is the Holy
Eucharistic celebration of the community. Other sacramental
celebrations derive their meaning from the Eucharist. An example
of the second is morning and evening prayers conducted in parish
churches, monasteries and seminaries. Shortened forms are used in
family prayers in certain places. And personal prayer and
devotional practices may draw from a broad range of canonical
prayers, spiritual writings of the Fathers, and various practices
like, for example, the "Jesus Prayer".  

The Common Prayer in current "ecumenical settings" may be
loosely considered along with canonical Prayer of the Hours,
because 

- the Prayer of the Hours is non-"sacramental" in the technical
sense (in a theological sense, sacrament implies a far broader
spectrum);

- though it follows some liturgical principles in its ordo, it
is more flexible than sacramental liturgy;

- it is public common prayer, and there is no theological reason
why anyone who is willing to participate in this form of prayer
should be excluded;

- it does not necessarily require an ordained person, since lay
communities can use this prayer;

- it is used by women, as practised in women's monasteries in
some churches.  

Ecumenical Prayer

Ecumenical Prayer is something relatively new for our churches.
The idea probably arose with the formation of the WCC. In the
physical realm, our churches have coped with the "new" in
technology -from microphones to internet in the communication of
the gospel. But how do we deal with a new spiritual question
related to our ultimate goal of visible unity?  

The answer is that we may deal with the "new" challenge of
common prayer on the basis of the principles of liturgical wisdom
received from the Christian Tradition. From an Orthodox
perspective, I would consider the following as basic elements in
any common prayer:

- doxology or glorification of the Triune mystery of "Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, one true God"
- the Lord's Prayer as taught by Christ
- the gospel reading
- the confession of faith, preferably the Nicene Creed
- the intercessory prayer, or Litany, bearing in mind the
context of our life today
- the commemoration of the saints and martyrs, or "the cloud of
witnesses"
- benediction using one of the biblical expressions of blessing,
preferably the N.T. Trinitarian blessing.

Symbols

Symbols are a must in any prayer or worship, since words
communicate only partially and inadequately. Cross, candles,
incense, vestments, colours are all traditional symbols in common
prayer.  

Sobriety and general acceptance should be the guiding
principles. For example, the cross is a unique symbol
communicating the mystery of God's incarnation and our salvation.
The liturgical books often call it "the tree" and tell us that
"Jesus was hanged on a tree". From created nature to the tree of
life, from Jacob's ladder to the axis mundi, this unique
cross-tree symbolizes the personal and cosmic dimensions of our
Christian faith and salvation. Suppose that some
eco-cosmic-enthusiasts, while disregarding this traditional
symbol of the cross, uproot a whole young tree and bring it into
the chapel for worship (as has happened in some places). This
would violate the principles of ecology, sobriety and general
acceptance, and embarrass a lot of people! Yet we should be open
to new symbols as our contexts are constantly changing.  

The common prayer par excellence

The common prayer par excellence is nothing other than the
Lord's Prayer. The beauty and universality of this prayer, taught
by Christ, is unparalleled. I have seen Hindus and Muslims
praying it together with Christians, without necessarily
subscribing to the Christian doctrines. Does any Christian have
the right to exclude them from the prayer our Lord gave to
humanity? 
 
It further illustrates a principle that Christian prayer is for
all and on behalf of all. A church which prays "with the sun and
the moon and the stars, with the earth and the oceans, with the
angels and archangels, with the Seraphim and Cherubim..." (Syriac
St. James Liturgy) can only pray inclusively.  
	
Any elaboration of common prayer should take the Lord's Prayer
as its principle. One should also be aware of certain groups who
manipulate occasions of ecumenical prayer in order to cater to
their sectarian agendas. This sort of manipulation may be the
reason for a strong negative reaction to common prayer in some
circles.  
_______________________________
Father Kondothra M. George is a lecturer at the Orthodox
Theological Seminary in Kottayam Kerala, India. He is an ordained
minister of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Kottayam. He
was a member of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute at
Bossey, outside Geneva, from 1989-94, has been a member of the
WCC Central Committee since 1998, and is moderator of the
Programme Committee of the WCC Central Committee.  

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