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OBIT-LONG Sep-21-2005 (1,000 words) xxxn
Father John Long, leading ecumenist, dies
By Catholic News Service
NEW YORK (CNS) -- Jesuit Father John F. Long, a leading ecumenist and one of the world's foremost Catholic experts on Orthodoxy, died in New York Sept. 20 following hospitalization for emergency cardiac surgery. He was 80 years old.
Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore was to preside at his funeral Mass, scheduled to be celebrated Sept. 24 at the Fordham University chapel in New York.
As a member of the Vatican Secretariat (now Pontifical Council) for Promoting Christian Unity, in the 1960s, Father Long participated in the drafting of the Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism, Declaration on Religious Liberty and Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
From 1969 to 1980 he headed the secretariat's section for relations with the Orthodox churches and from 1981 until his death he was a consultor to the secretariat and the subsequent council.
He was on the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church from 1981, shortly after it was formed, until his death.
He was a member of the U.S. (later renamed North American) Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation from 1980 until his death. He was also a longtime member of the U.S. Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation.
He participated in a number of other dialogues as well and represented the Holy See in contacts with the World Council of Churches, attending various meetings of the council and its Faith and Order commission as a Vatican observer. He was on the commission that wrote the Vatican's 1993 Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism.
Paulist Father Ronald G. Roberson, an associate director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, called Father Long "the grand old man of Catholic-Orthodox relations."
"He was a tremendous resource and he will be sorely missed," Father Roberson said.
Bishop Dimitrios of Xanthos, chief ecumenical officer of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, said Father Long "was respected by all Orthodox theologians."
"He was a good scholar. Many times he knew more than we did about Orthodox history," Bishop Dimitrios added. "He was a delight for all of us to work with."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 5, 1925, John Francis Long entered the Jesuit novitiate in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 1941 and did his philosophical and theological studies at Woodstock College, the Jesuit seminary in Woodstock, Md., where he earned advanced degrees in education, philosophy and theology.
He went on to special studies in Russian language and history at Georgetown University in Washington and at Fordham.
Father Long's ordination in 1956 made national news in the Catholic press. He was part of a corps of Jesuits around the world preparing for possible missionary work in Russia in the event of the downfall of communism, and he was the first American Jesuit to be ordained in the United States as a priest of the Slavo-Byzantine rite.
Following ordination he spent a year in spiritual and ascetical studies in Belgium. From 1958 to 1961 he did advanced studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, earning degrees in Eastern Christian studies.
After a year of research in Greece, he returned to Rome for further studies in Byzantine church history and was appointed in 1963 to the staff of the Christian unity secretariat as a specialist in Orthodox relations. Vatican II was then in its second year and the secretariat was playing a crucial role in the development of several of the council's most important documents.
With the church's entry into the ecumenical movement, Father Long put his years of carefully cultivated expertise in the churches of the East at the service of ecumenism, especially the advance of Catholic-Orthodox relations.
From 1967 to 1987 he was a member of Catholic delegations to theological conversations with the Russian Orthodox Church. He participated in six extended joint meetings held during that period and was Catholic co-chairman of the drafting committee for the documents produced from those meetings.
He visited the Soviet Union 16 times, mainly to meet with Russian Orthodox leaders, but also with officials of the churches of Georgia and Armenia.
He helped write Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter marking the 1,000th anniversary of the baptism of King Vladimir of Rus-Kiev and was part of the Vatican delegation attending celebrations of the anniversary.
He was part of the International Commission Between the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church and helped draft several common statements the commission issued. He also took part in the five Catholic-Oriental Orthodox consultations between 1971 and 1988 sponsored by the Pro Oriente Foundation of the Archdiocese of Vienna, Austria. He was Catholic co-chairman of three of those meetings.
From 1964 to 1980 Father Long was also an instructor at the Rome Center of Loyola University of Chicago, teaching one or more courses each semester in areas of church history, theology, ecumenism and the history of the Byzantine Empire.
After leaving his Vatican post, from 1981 to 1985 he headed Fordham University's Pope John XXIII Ecumenical Center, which had a pioneering role in educating U.S. Latin Catholics about the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches. He was also editor of its periodical, Diakonia.
He returned to Rome in 1986 as vice rector and associate professor at the Oriental Institute and a visiting professor at the Gregorian University, posts he held until 1995. From 1990 to 1995 he was also rector of the Pontifical Russian College, commonly known as the Russicum.
Following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, he helped lay the groundwork for more Orthodox students to do graduate studies at the Russicum and the Oriental Institute as a means of promoting greater Catholic-Orthodox understanding.
Following his retirement in 1995, he moved to America House, a Jesuit residence in New York. He continued his active role in national and international dialogues and served as a visiting professor at several institutions, including St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore and The Catholic University of America in Washington.
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Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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