Church of the Nativity, Jerusalem

I don't remember where I heard this, so it's legendary -

The reformers approached the eastern Christians with their ideas for Reform of The Church, with an eye toward unity. The eastern Christians replied with great interest, indicating that the reformers should get back to them once the Reform was accomplished.

Still waiting.

The tragedy of the Reformation is in its misnomer, for we have truly failed to reform. Even if we could claim to have reformed our part of the Church, such reform has come at the cost of schism, which is a price too high. We have not reformed The Church.

We genuinely wish that Rome had not used excommunication on the reform movement, but had instead, perhaps, allowed continued debate in unity. Would that their response had been similar to that given to Galileo, which went something like this: Those are interesting ideas, but the church and world are not ready for them yet. Let's discuss them further before teaching them as fact.

Similarly, we genuinely wish the reform movement had stronger desire for unity. Luther's hard-headed responses were not helpful. The result is that it is all too easy to form another "Church" at a moment's notice. Simply excommunicate everyone else, and the job's done.