Tidings

> The tiny community of Uniates in Greece, who follow Orthodox practices but accept the supremacy of the Pope, has long been an irritant to the Greek Orthodox primate. When the Uniate bishop died earlier this year, Greece's Archbishop Seraphim, whose church's relations with the Vatican have been improving, let it be known that he wanted the Pope to appoint a mere administrator rather than a bishop to head the Uniate church. Last week, however, Pope Paul rejected the idea and named another bishop to the office. The furious Seraphim declared this to be an "ecclesiastical scandal" and suspended all relations with the Vatican "until such time as I see evidence that Rome respects the Church of Greece." Seraphim has authority only over the Orthodox Church in Greece, not in any other nation. Nevertheless, Vatican officials expressed concern that the dispute would strengthen the hand of other Orthodox elements that oppose the recently improved ecumenical relations with Rome.

> Just short of herem (excommunication) in the Judaic tradition is niddui (ostracism), the shunning of a wrongdoer by the whole community. Some extreme Orthodox sects still engage in the practice, but it has otherwise fallen into disuse. Last week, however, niddui was proclaimed against Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz, a member of parliament, by Israel's Chief Rabbinate.*

Lorincz's offense was that during a parliamentary debate he had compared the chief Ashkenazy rabbi, Shlomo Goren, to Uganda's President Idi Amin, a notorious anti-Semite. "We are sitting in Jerusalem, the city of the Torah, and not in Kampala," remarked Lor-incz as he accused Goren of autocratic tactics in appointing religious judges. The rabbinate's decree cited the 12th century philosopher Maimonides' advocacy of a ban against "he who shames a scholar." Lorincz offered a Talmudic citation in reply: "Where God's name is put to shame, there is no obligation to pay respect to the rabbi." The decree orders the "whole House of Israel" not to eat, drink, talk or pray with the outcast. But far from being ostracized, he was soon receiving a stream of well-wishers. Said one member of parliament: "Declaring someone ostracized today is just empty mouthing. The rabbinate is behaving as if it were living a hundred years ago."

* The Chief Rabbinate consists of the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazim (descendants of Middle European Jews), the chief rabbi of the Sephardim (descendants of Jews from the Iberian peninsula), plus other high-ranking rabbis.

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