In Rome, symbols are important. And the synod organizers know it. Sixteen representatives of other Christian Churches and communities are taking part in the Synod on Synodality during the month of October.
A few days ago, an ecumenical prayer vigil was held in the Vatican’s Courtyard of the Protomartyrs. The location was not chosen at random: Tradition has it that the Apostle Peter was crucified here, in the middle of what was then the circus of the emperors Caligula and Nero.
At dusk, Peter’s Successor, in his wheelchair, made his entrance into the paved courtyard lined by the walls of the immense St. Peter’s Basilica. With him came representatives of other Christian Churches and communities, accompanied by the melodies of Taizé songs. Each equipped with a candle, all came to pray for peace and unity.
Guided by intentions and readings from Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, the vigil was also intended to show that the current Synod is not an inward-looking Catholic process, but a further step in the communion of the baptized.
A place at the table
This is a particular concern for Anne-Cathy Graber, pastor of the Mennonite World Conference, which brings together 1.45 million baptized believers worldwide. Like 15 other representatives, she takes part every day in the Synod. The event is taking place in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, just a few dozen meters from the Courtyard of the Protomartyrs.
While she won’t be able to vote on the assembly’s final document, she does have a place at one of the round tables where the other 368 Catholic members of the assembly gather, and the Mennonite can take the floor.
“The Catholic Church doesn’t need our voice, which is very much in the minority… But being invited says a lot about synodality, it shows that every voice counts,” she told the press, not hiding her pleasant surprise at this broadly inclusive process.
Orthodox Metropolitan Job Getcha of Pisidia, who belongs to the patriarchate of Constantinople, is equally grateful. The metropolitan, whose diocese covers southern Turkey around the city of Antalya, sees this Synod as an opportunity to implement the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council.
The synodal process that the Catholic Church has been undergoing since 2021 is not, in his view, an “innovation,” but a “learning process” that also nourishes the Orthodox and their great tradition of synodality.
The question of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome
In front of journalists, His Eminence Job Getcha returned to one of the sensitive points in the dialogue with the Catholic Church: the articulation between the concepts of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and synodality.
The question of the place and role of the Bishop of Rome — the cause of great historical dissension among Christians — is on the pile of subjects discussed during this synodal month. A specific working group dedicated to ecumenism and linked to the assembly is also due to deliver its conclusions in June 2025.
Dominican Hyacinthe Destivelle, one of the experts at the Synod, has been working particularly hard on this issue. He was one of the driving forces behind the recent document titled: “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in the Ecumenical Dialogues and in the Responses to the Encyclical Ut unum sint.”
Published before the summer by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, this landmark text, which provides an overview of the reflections carried out over several decades, has been welcomed by other Churches, and serves as a reference for the assembly.
According to Fr. Destivelle, today there is a kind of consensus on the need for primacy in the whole Church, for a ministry of unity at the universal level, and therefore for a certain “primacy” of the Bishop of Rome over the others. Far from the polemics of the past, this question is becoming for some an opportunity to better understand the nature of the Church and its mission.
On the road to Nicaea?
In recent days, whether in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall or outside the closed doors of the assembly, the desire to march towards unity is palpable. At an event organized at the French St. Louis Center Institute, Metropolitan Job, Pastor Anne-Cathy Graber, former Taizé prior Brother Alois, and Dominican Brother Destivelle agreed: “the synodal path is ecumenical; and the ecumenical path can only be synodal.”
Next year’s anniversary of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea will be another concrete opportunity to demonstrate the movement that is taking place. A large-scale ecumenical gathering organized with Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople, could take place next May on the shores of Lake Iznik — formerly Nicea — in Turkey, in the presence of the Pope.
The aim would be to celebrate the “Nicene Creed,” the great text professing the Christian faith and summarizing it in several fundamental points.
And today we celebrate...