Orthodoxy and Western Christianity

This article by Jean Besse examines the persistence of the heritage of the undivided Church within Western Christendom, from the eleventh-century schism to the twentieth century. Proceeding through a vast historical and theological study, the author surveys several centuries of Latin, Hispanic, Germanic, and English Christian thought in order to identify currents that remained close to the Orthodox tradition. The central idea is that the growing distance between Rome and Orthodoxy results less from an irreducible opposition between Hellenism and Latinity than from the influence of the Germanic world on Western ecclesiology. The article sheds light on theologians, mystics, and philosophers — from Duns Scotus to the Cambridge Platonists, from Döllinger to Amor Ruibal — whose thought bears witness to an underground continuity with the theology of the Greek Fathers, thereby opening the way to an ecumenical recapitulation of the common Christian heritage.