§ 227. Religious Toleration

In Western literature the term toleration (tolerantia, sufferance, forbearance) has come into use, to designate the relation among the various Christian confessions and the relation of the state toward them. This expression has become technical, and general. Yet, according to the fundamental idea of the relation between the Church and other faiths (§226), that expression is the least fitting for this question, since it excludes altogether the thought of Christian love. When one speaks of toleration in the sphere of the Church, this generally denotes some relation of one confession toward other confessions, in which, owing to certain external circumstances, indulgence is shown to those confessions, they are judged with indifference, and no attention is paid to the erroneous teachings which they contain within themselves. Here there appears, on the one side, a confession which in a given state holds a privileged position and considers itself the sole orthodox one, and, on the other side, stand the remaining confessions, which that privileged confession merely tolerates alongside itself, because it chooses to tolerate them, but which it could also choose not to tolerate. Granting that even from the noblest motives one confession’s toleration of others in a given state may arise, still, once the very notion of toleration is in play—namely the notion that some confession is merely being suffered—this suffered confession can never be certain that its position will not be altered tomorrow, and that it will not be turned from a tolerated into a persecuted one. And this is the logical consequence of the notion of toleration in the Church, a consequence which clearly shows how contrary that notion is to the fundamental Christian teaching of love. This all the progressive states have today come to understand, states which, by the historical law of development, have arrived at being penetrated by that same spirit with which the Church of the apostolic age was penetrated, so that in them there is no longer any mention at all of some religious toleration. Of toleration, then, in the sphere of the Church there ought not to be any talk at all; and if we ourselves make use of that expression, we do so only because it is in general use in Western literature and because that expression still today designates the relation among the Christian confessions, and the relation of the state power toward them.

Religious toleration is usually divided into a) dogmatic, b) ecclesiastical or Christian, and c) state.

The question of dogmatic toleration does not belong to ecclesiastical law. Orthodox theologians judge it differently from Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians.

Ecclesiastical toleration consists in loving conduct toward the adherents of other confessions, extending to them all that brotherly help to which Christian love enjoins. It is a duty which reason imposes and which the Gospel commands, that boundless love is to be cherished toward every man, whatever his faith may be. But in the exercise of this evangelical commandment, and with regard to everyone’s duty sacredly to keep the prescriptions of his own Church and not to expose them to possible violation, there have been established, by ecclesiastical law, the relevant boundaries in this conduct toward the adherents of other confessions, and in particular the boundaries within which fellowship in sacred rites (communicatio in sacris) with them may move.

With unbelievers all fellowship in their sacred rites is forbidden. The numerous canons which speak of this, and which threaten spiritual penalties against every Christian who enters into such fellowship with pagans, and in particular with Jews, give as the reason that by such fellowship the Christian faith is debased and thereby exposed to the danger of being violated by the religious customs of those whom the preachers of Christianity must always strive to convert.[1]

With regard to persons of other faiths, Orthodox ecclesiastical law makes a distinction, in this question too, between those Christian confessions which teach differently with regard to the fundamental dogmas of the Christian faith, and those which, on these questions, present no essential difference, but have only a different teaching on particular points of church constitution and church life. This distinction in Orthodox ecclesiastical law with regard to the one and the other Christian confessions is reflected in the manner of receiving into the Church the adherents of those various confessions, in her judgment of their ordination, in her institutions concerning mixed marriages, and in prayer for the adherents of those confessions. Of all this we have already spoken (§§78, 171, 204, and elsewhere), so it is superfluous to repeat the same here.

Apart from unbelievers and persons of other faiths, Orthodox ecclesiastical law recognizes no one else with whom the Church, outside her own domain, could stand in religious relations. Toward the members who compose her domain, she knows no distinction whatsoever with regard to the observance of ecclesiastical prescriptions. Whoever belongs to the Church is bound in everything to obey her prescriptions, nor can there be a case in which one or another local church is permitted, still less recognized as having the right, not to fulfill some of the fundamental church prescriptions, and to consider itself exempt from them, having instead certain particular ordinances which the whole Church does not have. This holds as much in dogmatic and liturgical questions as it does in questions of church constitution and church life. Accordingly, by Orthodox ecclesiastical law there can be no so-called uniates, who would be equal with the rest belonging to the Church only in some questions, while in other questions being wholly different from them.[2]

In external religious relations with persons of other faiths, the following fundamental prescriptions hold today, by general Orthodox ecclesiastical law: a) The Church exercises no external jurisdiction whatsoever with regard to other Christian confessions, nor with regard to the members of those confessions. b) Within her own domain the Church administers only her own law; and it is by that same law of hers that she resolves all inter-confessional matters which the parties concerned submit to her judgment. c) Whether or not the validity of some church rite performed by persons of another faith can be recognized by the Church depends on the character of the confession in question and on the type of the rite itself, in the sense of the relevant canonical or church-civil prescriptions. d) The position of the various confessions within the state depends on state law.