The Modern Agreements
Theologians of both families have already met, examined the question, and concluded that we hold the same faith in Christ. Most of the faithful have never been told.
Why this page matters more than any other
Everything else on this site could be dismissed as the opinion of a layman. This cannot. In the twentieth century, unofficial consultations and then official Joint Commissions of theologians appointed by the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches examined the Christological question directly over many years, and produced signed agreed statements concluding that both families have always held the same faith in Christ, expressed in different terminology, and recommending the lifting of the mutual anathemas.
The record
The unofficial consultations, 1964 to 1971
Four meetings of theologians from both families, held with the blessing of their Churches but without a synodical mandate: Aarhus in Denmark, 11 to 15 August 1964; Bristol in England, 25 to 29 July 1967; Geneva, 16 to 21 August 1970; and Addis Ababa, 22 to 23 January 1971.
They established the thing everything since has rested on, that the difference between the two families is one of formula and not of faith. Bristol affirmed the union of the natures in Christ “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation”, the four words both families had always used. Geneva reaffirmed “our agreements at Aarhus and Bristol on the substance of our common Christology” and turned to the harder questions of the anathemas, the councils and the saints.
Full texts: the archive of the Joint Commission.
The First Agreed Statement, Egypt, 1989
Anba Bishoy Monastery, Wadi El Natroun, Egypt, 20 to 24 June 1989. The official Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue, co-chaired by Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland for the Eastern Orthodox and Metropolitan Bishoy of Damietta for the Oriental Orthodox.
It set out a common confession of Christ in the language of St Cyril of Alexandria together with the four adverbs, and condemned both Nestorius and Eutyches. On the point that divided the two families it says: “Those among us who speak of two natures in Christ, do not thereby deny their inseparable, indivisible union.”
Full text: First Agreed Statement, 1989, also published by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate.
The Second Agreed Statement and Recommendations to the Churches, Geneva, 1990
Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Chambésy, Geneva, 23 to 28 September 1990, signed on 28 September, under the same two co-chairmen. This is the document that matters most.
Its ninth paragraph states that “both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition.” Its tenth states that “all the anathemas and condemnations of the past which now divide us should be lifted by the Churches”. The recommendations attached to it ask each side to lift them at the same time, and leave the manner of doing so to each Church individually.
Full text: Second Agreed Statement, 1990, also published by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate.
Proposals for lifting the anathemas, Geneva, 1993
Chambésy, 1 to 6 November 1993, about thirty representatives from seventeen countries. This meeting set out how the lifting would actually be done: “unanimously and simultaneously by the Heads of all the Churches of both sides, through the signing of an appropriate ecclesiastical Act”, after which full communion would be implemented and no past condemnation of either side against the other would apply any more. It also continued the joint sub-committee on pastoral issues and created one on liturgical questions.
Full text: the 1993 communiqué, published by the Coptic Orthodox Church.
The bilateral agreements
Two pairs of Churches did not wait for the rest.
Damascus, 12 November 1991. Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazim of Antioch and Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas of the Syriac Orthodox Church signed a pastoral agreement under which, in places where only one priest is available from either Church, he serves the faithful of both. The same document states that this “is not applicable to the concelebration in the Divine Liturgy”. Full text.
Cairo, 2001. Pope Shenouda III and Patriarch Petros VII of Alexandria agreed the mutual recognition of baptism, and of a marriage celebrated in either Church where the partners belong to the two Patriarchates. The text itself records that the restoration of full communion is not yet reached. Full text.
The dialogue reconvened, Egypt, 2024
After 1993 the Commission was dormant for thirty years. Representatives of both families met again at the Monastery of St Bishoy, Wadi El Natrun, on 16 and 17 September 2024, co-chaired by Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon and Metropolitan Thomas of Quosia and Mir. They agreed that the liturgical and pastoral sub-committees should continue and that the co-chairmen would visit the heads of the Churches to gather their responses to the statements already signed. No new doctrinal act was made and no anathema was lifted.
What the agreements did not do
Honesty here is essential to the credibility of everything else. The agreed statements were conclusions of theological commissions. They have not, to date, resulted in full sacramental communion. Reception by the Holy Synods has been uneven; some hierarchs and monastic communities in both families have raised serious objections; and the canonical questions of the councils and anathemas remain formally unresolved.
Those objections are on the record and can be read. The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church stated in December 1994 that the Second Agreed Statement “cannot be considered as a definitive text”, and returned to it in 1997, finding ambiguities in some of its Christological formulations. The Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church declared the Chambésy documents unacceptable on 8 October 1998. The Sacred Community of Mount Athos issued a memorandum on 27 May 1995 opposing the lifting of the anathemas. Russian statement, 1994. Georgian synodical decision, 1998. Athonite memorandum, 1995.
So: the theological work is largely done, and the pastoral and canonical work is not. That is not cause for despair. It is a precise description of where the effort now has to go, and it is exactly why prayer and fasting, not more argument, is what this site calls for.