With all due respect Father, which part do you think upsets the Lord more? The division that exists, or the attempts to heal it? Also, weren't the canons written prior to 1054? I have also been told that a certain amount of oikonomia may be applied to the canons, and that they are more guidelines than rules. For example, isn't it against the canons for Christians to get piercings, yet women with pierced ears approach the chalice all the time.
The service was not a Eucharistic service. It was just a prayer service.
Dear Handmaiden,
I believe that the division that the entire Western patriarchate caused when it left the Church was one of the most traumatic things to ever happen to the Christian world.
I believe that these ecumenical events do nothing to "heal" that rift. I used to be an ecumenist, went to ecumenical gatherings, took classes on ecumenism at seminary, etc. I believe it is counter-productive, and gives the impression that individual Roman Catholics and others do not need to convert to Orthodoxy, since our Churches are "working on it at an official level." So I think these events are as equally problematic as the division in the first place, because they avoid the reality of division.
There are different types of canons. There are disciplinary canons, and there are canons that have a dogmatic nature to them. All canons, even the disciplinary ones, additionally reflect the underlying "canon" or rule of faith as well, so even those that are "no longer relevant in our modern world" reflect principles that are unchanging. In fact, the reason that there are canons against praying with heretics is to preserve the faithful--not because praying with a non-Orthodox person could "do anything" to an Orthodox per se. But the powerful impressions (which are carefully coordinated by the Masters of ceremony) which are given are damaging to the faithful, and to the heterodox that are not told to become Orthodox.
The distinction between Eucharistic and prayer service is not made in the canons dealing with this type of scenario.