We in the Christian West sometimes speak of the “age of the undivided Church,†the time before the Great Schism divided Greek East from Latin West. But such a phrase shows a certain provincialism in our historical study. The first large and unresolved schism happened after the council of Ephesus in 431, when the Church of the East (the Assyrian Church) was separated from the Roman-Byzantine Church. Not long after, the Roman Christians were separated from the Oriental Orthodox Christians when the latter could not accept the decision of the Council of Chalcedon.
This history of the Church could, in some ways, be understood as the history of division. And yet the Holy Spirit—the spirit of the crucified Jesus—continues to work in spite of the scandalous wounds of Christ’s body.
Episcopalians have long been generous in understanding what makes for a saint, or at least the way the Episcopal Church utilizes calendar observances. Lesser Feasts and Fasts includes a great many saints who were not Anglican. But the great Roman and Eastern communions have been more hesitant—at least officially—to recognize saints who were not in their full communion. There are exceptions, of course. I have been in an Orthodox church in which votive candles were burning before an icon of St. Francis of Assisi, though this certainly is an aberration. Among Eastern Rite Catholics, in some places, post-Schism saints—such as Seraphim of Sarov, Serigius of Radonezh, or even Gregory Palamas—are venerated. In 1964, during the canonization of the Martyrs of Uganda, Pope Paul VI said in his homily, “Nor indeed, do we wish to forget the others who, belonging to the Anglican confession, confronted death in the name of Christ,†but he refrained from including them with their Roman counterparts in the Roman martyrology.
In more recent years, however, Rome has become a bit more generous, and this is a logical outgrowth of the ecclesiology expressed in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio. “These [separated] Christians are indeed in some real way joined to us in the Holy Spirit for, by his gifts and graces, his sanctifying power is also active in them†(LG 15). The final document of the Synod on Synodality stated: “The example of the saints and witnesses to the faith from other Christian Churches and Communions is also a gift that we can receive, including by inserting their memorial—especially that of the martyrsinto our liturgical calendar†(No. 122). Pope Francis broke new ground when, in 2023, he added the Coptic Martyrs of Libya (+2015) to the Roman calendar.
But there is one person who seems to be recognizable as a saint across all major communions: St. Isaac of Nineveh. Briefly the Bishop of Nineveh in the seventh century, he soon retired to live as a hermit. While his life and homilies are worth exploring, what I want to consider here is the recognition of his sanctity.
Having served in an Eastern Church for some time, St. Isaac had long been on my liturgical radar in a sort of general way, but I confess that I initially had not given him much thought. A few years ago, I decided to look into his life a bit more. I discovered to my surprise that he lived in the seventh century, long after the Assyrian Church had been separated from the Byzantine and Oriental communions. And yet every reference to him I had seen up to that point had been from Eastern Orthodox sources. Upon further investigation, I found that he was venerated in Oriental Orthodox circles as well. Once Francis added him to the Roman Calendar in 2024, he became—as far as I know—the most widely venerated saint in the Church. I am unaware of any other post-Ephesus figure who is officially canonized in Orthodox, Oriental, Assyrian, and Roman Churches.
While he is not yet officially on the Episcopal calendar, there is nothing keeping our faithful from commemorating him with the Common of Saints (BCP 18) and Lesser Feasts and Fasts provides instructions for the crafting of local commemorations, of which St. Isaac could be one.
During my lifetime, the zeal of the ecumenical movement in the 1960s and ’70s seems to have cooled into a polite but not particularly hopeful dialogue. My lifetime has also coincided with further significant disintegration of the body of Christ, as churches have split over the controverted questions of our own day, namely women in holy orders and our approaches to same-sex attraction. In many ways, the crucible of tomorrow’s ecumenism may be dialogue across the liberal/conservative divide as much as it will be across Calvinist/Arminian, Catholic/Protestant, Reformed/Wesleyan or East/West divides.
“Is Christ divided?†(1 Cor. 1:13) It is said that the 19th-century Orthodox Saint Philaret of Moscow asserted, “The walls of our divisions do not reach all the way to heaven.†It is good that we have reminders that God’s work is not limited to our provincial corners of the Kingdom or our particular approaches to theology or spirituality. I propose the veneration of St. Isaac of Nineveh as the patron saint of Christian unity, to be commemorated by all as a reminder and witness that God is calling us to unity.
The Rev. Geoffrey Mackey is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, Parkersburg, West Virginia. He spent over 20 years in Christian college and seminary contexts in administration, teaching, and student pastoral care. He studied at evangelical, Catholic, and Anglican seminaries and previously served as a parish priest in the Catholic Church’s Byzantine Rite.
