On February 12, 2025, Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute (GEII) hosted a group of leaders from the Roman Catholic Church, Episcopal Church, and Greek Orthodox Church at the Interchurch Center in New York City, for a candid dialogue and collaborative workshop on “polarization in the churches”: a topic of urgent contemporary concern in all three communions (and beyond), at a time when fissures within our communities—over loadbearing moral, cultural, or ideological differences—are widening and giving rise to antagonistic factions, each believing itself the most authentic expression of the truths and commitments we claim to hold in common. The multi-confessional group came together with the hopeful assumption that we are faced with a challenge that we can meet and deal with together. This approach—a vivid example of the much-neglected Lund Principle (churches should act together in all matters except those in which deep differences of conviction compel them to act separately)—is in itself cause for hope.
Participating in the gathering were both bishops and ecumenical officers (responsible for cultivating and maintaining inter-church relationships) from each denomination: Bishop James Massa and Rev. Ryan Muldoon (Roman Catholic Dioceses of Brooklyn and New York), Bishop Mary Glasspool and Rev. Margaret Rose (Episcopal Diocese of New York), Bishop Anthony Vrame and Rev. Dr. Nicolas Kazarian (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America). The dialogue was hosted by Fr. Elias Mallon, SA (Franciscan Friar of the Atonement and Special Assistant to the President, Catholic Near East Welfare Association) and Dr. Aaron Hollander (Executive Director, Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute).
The dialogue was wide-ranging, but it focused on four core questions:
- What are the incentives to fragmentation in your communion?
- What are the effects of fragmentation in your communion?
- What are some possible causes of fragmentation in your communion?
- What are some signs of hope for this difficult moment and some resources with which your communion is addressing fragmentation?
Over two and a half hours, the eight participants learned from one another’s diagnoses of the challenges we face, identified signs of hope and possible resources in their own and one another’s traditions toward the healing of broken relationships and soured moralities, worked collaboratively to assess where and how our church communities can respond most fruitfully to the incentives for polarization that inflame the churches today, and engaged with timely questions from invited observers who joined the conversation from Ireland, Germany, Canada, and around the United States.
As Bishop Massa put it, “One of the benefits of ecumenical dialogue is that we can apply the tools of building Christian unity to our own churches and local communities. Healing the Body of Christ ad extra and ad intra go together.” Bishop Glasspool agreed, noting especially the importance of preserving a theological perspective on the challenges we face in common “despite differences in, for example, our social or ecclesiastical standpoints. I’m holding on to an incarnational sense of reality,” she said, “and a shared sacramental belonging to the Body of Christ in the world.”
An edited transcript of the dialogue, featuring its most significant insights, is being prepared and will appear in Ecumenical Trends, GEII’s bimonthly journal of public scholarship on interchurch and interreligious developments.