Monday, January 30, 2006
McManus joins Orthodox service

By Kathleen A. Shaw TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
kshaw@telegram.com

WORCESTER— Catholic Bishop Robert J. McManus received a warm welcome from Eastern Orthodox Christians yesterday as he answered their invitation to help celebrate with them the Feast of the Three Hierarchs.

Both Orthodox and Catholic Christians venerate Sts. Basil the Great, John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian. They are considered by both traditions to have been great scholars of the early Christian church. Orthodox Christians, who sometimes refer to them as the “Earthly Trinity,” celebrated their feast day at St. Spyridon Cathedral yesterday.

Bishop McManus, accompanied by the Rev. Robert K. Johnson, who directs the diocesan Office for Worship and the Rev. Peter R. Beaulieu, pastoral care director at St. Vincent Hospital, entered the cathedral on Russell Street, which had standing room only, and were greeted at various times by Metropolitan Methodios of Boston, who officiated at the Divine Liturgy, members of the parish council and the Rev. Dean Paleologos, cathedral dean.

Bishop McManus, as a Christian hierarch, was seated to the left of the altar on an equal basis to Bishop Methodios, who was seated to the right.

Bishop McManus, who was applauded by the congregation, told them he was present in St. Peter’s Basilica two years ago when the late Pope John Paul II turned over to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew relics of these saints. He noted that Pope John Paul II had a “great passion” to see unity of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians.

The relics were taken from the Orthodox Christians by Western Christian Crusaders and eventually were taken to St. Peter’s in Rome, where they remained for hundreds of years. Return of the relics was considered by both Catholics and Orthodox Christians to be a major step on the road to better dialogue and understanding.

The Catholic Church, which is centered in Rome and drew its Christians from Western Europe, and the Eastern churches, which eventually was centered at Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), were once one church, but through a series of differences split in 1054 in what is known as The Great Schism.

Pope Paul IV and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras made the first attempts at reconciliation in 1964. The process was spurred on a year later when predecessors of Bishops McManus and Methodios held the first Catholic and Orthodox dialogue in the United States. Rev. Paleologos said that Catholic Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan and Archbishop Iakovos held the meetings in St. Spyridon.

Yesterday’s gospel was the story of Zacchaios, a tax collector in Jericho, who climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus as he passed through town. Zacchaios, who as a collector of money for the Romans, would have been despised and vilified by the people in Jericho, but he was willing to repent of his sins, told Jesus he would make restitution to all he had harmed.

Bishop Methodios said with Great Lent coming soon it is time for all people to repent and do what they must do to ensure their salvation. He said that perhaps yesterday’s liturgy — attended by Bishop McManus and Catholics of the Worcester diocese — might be their attempt to “climb the sycamore tree” to repent past differences and overcome the past.

Rev. Paleologos asked Bishop McManus to pray for their bishop and church just as the Orthodox will be praying for them.

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