O Ουνίτης «Ορθόδοξος» Μητρ. Καλιφόρνιας «κ.» Γεράσιμος, τον οποίον μνημονεύουν τα ελληνικά Ορθόδοξα Μοναστήρια, στην συλλειτουργία του με τον Αρχιεπίσκοπο Salvatore J. Cordileone της Παπικής παρασυναγωγής, μεταξύ άλλων εδήλωσε: Καθώς ο Απόστολος Παύλος ρώτησε τους Κορίνθιους διαιρείται ο Χριστός; Εν τούτοις, ένεκα της υπερηφανείας μας και του εγωϊσμού μας μπορούμε να διαιρέσουμε τον Χριστό έτσι ώστε να Τον έχουμε όλον δικόν μας.

Archbishop, Orthodox prelate pray for unity

April 16th, 2014
By Valerie Schmalz

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone asked that both Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics join together in praying for the intercession of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to achieve unity between the two churches.

“She is our most powerful intercessor before his throne. So let us ask her to intercede for us with her son,” Archbishop Cordileone said in his homily at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross April 8 in Belmont.


“She is our mother, whom we both venerate. She wants her children, her son’s disciples, to be one,” Archbishop Cordileone said.

On May 25-26 Pope Francis and Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will meet in Jerusalem and issue a joint declaration, following Patriarch Bartholomew’s historic decision to attend Pope Francis’ first Mass as pope a year ago.

Partly to pray for that meeting, Archbishop Cordileone joined San Francisco Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Gerasimos at the evening Service of Salutations to the Holy Cross at the invitation of the metropolitan and of Church of the Holy Cross pastor Father Peter Salmas. The church possesses a relic of the true cross and for eight years has held the ecumenical service with neighboring Catholic parish Immaculate Heart of Mary during Lent, IHM pastor Father Steve Howell said.

“As St. Paul asked the Corinthians, ‘Is Christ divided?’ (1 Corinthians 1:13), yet in our pride and ego we believe that we can divide Christ so that we can have him all to ourselves,” said Metropolitan Gerasimos in remarks introducing Archbishop Cordileone.

The metropolitan and the archbishop both stressed the importance of the cross in the work of salvation and in achieving unity between Christians.

“With the relic of the precious and life-giving holy cross before us this evening, we are called to reflect on the lifesaving work of Jesus Christ that was accomplished through it,” said Metropolitan Gerasimos. “For Orthodox, for Roman Catholics, indeed for all Christians, the cross was that instrument of death that became the trophy of life.”

“There is no unity without the cross,” Archbishop Cordileone said in his homily.

Retired San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, Portland Archbishop Alexander Sample and numerous San Mateo County pastors and priests, the rector of St. Mary’s Cathedral and seminarians joined Orthodox priests and Catholic and Orthodox faithful for the Orthodox service.

This year the event took on greater significance as it commemorated the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting of Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in 1964 and subsequent lifting in 1965 of the two churches’joint excommunications of each others’ faithful. The Great Schism of 1054, largely over the primacy of the pope, divided the two churches for 900 years. The schism gradually hardened because of political divisions, atrocities on both sides and Orthodox objections to the “filioque” addition to the Nicene Creed which changed the original creed from saying the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” to the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son,” the Catholic News Service stylebook states.

Both churches recognize the others’ sacraments.

“We have traveled so far closer since that moment in 1964,” said Metropolitan Gerasimos, expressing hope for the meeting of pope and patriarch in Jerusalem next month. “Yet there are still miles to go.”

“Thus, our hope is that when Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis meet next month in Jerusalem to commemorate a historic meeting they will inaugurate their own historic event,” the metropolitan said. “Not just a celebration of the past, but present to us an icon of the future that our two churches must paint together.”

In a sign of the friendship between both the two parishes and between metropolitan and archbishop, the archbishop was asked to preach the homily that concluded the prayer service and in a demonstration of shared belief, the archbishop and the metropolitan together led the congregation in reciting the Nicene Creed as professed by the Orthodox, the prayer which states the core beliefs of both churches.

In his homily, Archbishop Cordileone quoted Jesus’ words in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John: “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me … and that you loved them even as you loved me.”

“This is the wish of a dying man, but not any dying man; it is the last wish of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Cordileone said, noting those words were part of Jesus’ farewell address to his Apostles the night before he died. “Our Lord’s dying wish was for the unity of his believers, that their unity would reflect the unity he has with the Father.”

From April 18, 2014 issue of Catholic San Francisco.

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