Healing a great schism

Could the 953 year old schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches be coming to an end? It sure sounds that way. The Times of London reports:

The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches took tentative steps towards healing their 950-year rift yesterday by drafting a joint document that acknowledges the primacy of the Pope.

The 46-paragraph “Ravenna Document”, written by a special commission of Catholic and Orthodox officials, envisages a reunified church in which the Pope could be the most senior patriarch among the various Orthodox churches.

In its article on the Eastern schism (which, predictably, is somewhat biased), the Catholic Encycolpedia states, "Schisms are easily made; they are enormously difficult to heal." Healing them, though, can alter the course of history in enormously important ways.

Today, both East and West find it increasingly in their interests to end their age-old conflict, which is usually dated to the mutual excommunication of pope and patriarch in 1054 AD. The main forces feeding this ecumenical impulse are 1) unprecedented levels of immigration by Muslims to the West, 2) the rise of radical and militant forms of Islam and the various threats that poses to church and society, 3) the revitalization of Orthodoxy, made possible by the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, 4) the widespread abandonment of Christianity in post-modern Western Europe, and 5) a renewed interest in union with Rome on the part of many Protestant Christians in the West, most notably among conservatives in the Anglican Communion. These five forces have now converged to create a "perfect storm" in favor of greater unity between Catholics and Orthodox.

East and West are undoubtedly yielding to the simple maxim that there is strength in numbers. More importantly, they now seem to agree that continued division is an evil that produces weakness at the very time that an unparalleled spiritual crisis demands strength.