All Greek To Me

I have been asked about my contention that it is the Greeks, not the Turks, who are the bridge between the West and the Middle East. Of course, Maronites and other Eastern Catholics have important missions in this regard, as have Latin Catholics, and as have Protestants. But there is a particularly obvious role for Greece, for Cyprus, and for those who adhere to the Orthodox Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria, or to the Melkite Catholic Patriarchate.

In the Diaspora, Semitic Orthodox who speak Arabic at home, or whose immigrant forebears did so, may call themselves Antiochian Orthodox, and may organise as such, in order to distinguish them from Caucasian Orthodox who speak Greek at home, or whose immigrant forebears did so. But in the Middle East, the call themselves Greek Orthodox, just as the Melkites, in common with many Byzantine Rite Catholics of various origins, call themselves Greek Catholics. Those communities are thus described in the Lebanese Constitution, in the arrangements relating to their family courts in Israel, and so on. They celebrated the Liturgy in Greek at least until very recently, and they greatly emphasise the Levant's Hellenistic and Byzantine heritage.

This is true even of the Melkites, whose withdrawal from the three Greek Orthodox Patriarchates in the region was initially motivated at least in part by the appointment of Greeks in the more usual sense instead of Arabs as bishops, leading them to approach the Jesuits in order to secure the Episcopate for their Arab candidates. (There is a contemporary parallel, the secession of the greater part of South Africa's Order of Ethiopia to the Traditional Anglican Communion in order to secure the consecration of Xhosa bishops, a journey now within sight of Rome.)

Greek Orthodox have marked pan-Arabist tendencies, counting among their number both the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It would be interesting to know if they had Orthodox funerals. I rather expect so. And their parties continue to attract significant Christian support. Meanwhile, even one of the co-founders of Amal was the Melkite Archbishop of Beirut.

There are many other examples, such as the simple geographical position of Cyprus, and the continued appointment of members to the Holy Synod of Constantinople by the naming of them to Sees in present-day Turkey from which the Greeks have been expelled.

In view of the very traditional liturgical life maintained by Eastern Catholics, are they - on the lex orandi, lex credendi principle - less prone than are their Latin brethren to liberalism in the West, or to the heterodox expressions of Liberation Theology in the Latin America where they have a considerable presence? Are they less prone to the opposite extremes? If so, then we can see why. But if not, why not?

And what of those Evangelicals in North America, and to a much lesser extent in Britain, who have in recent decades been received into the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch? Have their views on Middle Eastern matters been affected? Again, if not, why not?