Реферат: Catholic

concludes with downright rejection not only of the Balamand Document, but also of

all other fruit brought by the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue on Unia, saying this : “The

Rumanian Church in communion with Rome accepts none of the texts, signed on

Rhodes, in Freising, Ariccia and Balamand, and declares the signatures under the

texts invalid” (Ibid.) That was the reaction of the Rumanian Uniates. Some critical

comments to the Balamand Document, though in milder words and without denying

its usefulness, came from the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics Cardinal

Miroslav Lyubachivsky too.

Paradoxically, some Russian Orthodox periodicals, claiming to serve the interests

of Orthodoxy, were found “on the same side of the barricades” with the critics of the

Balamand Document and of the Orthodox- Catholic dialogue as such. Thus, in regard

to the reproduction of the Balamand text in the Sovetskaya Rossia (Appendix Rus’

Pravoslavnaya – Orthodox Russia, No 43) one could not help noticing the tendentious

tone of the comments to the document, and the text itself is not reproduced

carefully, but with cuts distorting the message, though the author/s affirm that

unabridged text is offered. The first five paragraphs making up the introductory part

are left out, whereas these five paragraphs precisely, approaching by way of

principle, give an assessment of Uniatism as a method, as follows:

“2. Already in June 1990, the meeting in Freising, with regard to the method

called uniatism, said: “we reject it as a method for the achievement of unity

because it contradicts the common tradition of our Churches.”

(…)

“4. The document worked out by the joint coordinating committee in Ariccia (June

1991) and adopted in Balamand (June 1993) specifies what methods could be

employed by both sides for the achievement of full communion today, and explains

why uniatism as a method is absolutely inadmissible.”

In addition to that, the reproduced text in par.10 (par.5 in Sovetskaya Rossia) after

the word “tendency” omits “a source of proselytism” of the original text. Likewise,

par.12 (7) after “missionary apostolate” fails to reproduce “called ‘uniatism’”.