The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, also known as the Pan-Orthodox Council, is set to be held on the Greek island of Crete on June 19-26, after more than 50 years of preparations.
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A spokesman for Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I says the leaders of 10 out of the 14 Orthodox churches that were supposed to convene on the Greek island of Crete will seek to resolve the issues that made the four churches decide not to attend.
He said the church leaders met earlier on Friday and would later in the day send an official request for the other churches to attend.
By the grace of God and, under the presidency of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarchate Bartholomew, the Holy and Great Council will go forward and light the way to a brighter future for Orthodoxy, Christianity, and indeed the entire world. The four churches pointed to disagreements over the Council’s agenda and the documents drafted for the meeting. A fifth, the Serbian Orthodox Church, had made such an announcement, but decided June 15 that it would, in fact, participate. For example, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is head of the world’s largest Orthodox Church, with about 100 million faithful, but is considered equal to other patriarchs regardless of the size of their flock.
He added that the Russian Orthodox Church did not lose hope that the Pan-Orthodox Council would take place despite the current hard situation.
His All Holiness emphasized that the “world is turning its attention with great expectations to the Orthodox Church, the ark of the pure Christian tradition, in order to find support and consolation, because Orthodoxy has managed to preserve, up to today, regardless of the rapid technological and scientific developments, the mystical experience of a personal communion in respect of God”.
One of these, notes Arjakovsky, is the council’s condemnation of war when the Russian church has recognised Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.
The Russian church said Monday the council should be postponed until differences could be resolved, and that, in the absence of the churches of Antioch, Bulgaria and Georgia, it would not take part. “There are a certain number of priests and some bishops who share that view”. Unity of the Orthodox churches is considered a key prerequisite to any reconciliation with the Vatican. Much of the squabble over the pan-Orthodox Council may then be seen as part of a power play between Moscow and Constantinople. The most immediate preliminary meeting was held in Switzerland in January, but preparations have stretched back to a pan-Orthodox Conference held at Rhodes in 1961.
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“We aren’t inclined to dramatize it or see it as some sort of catastrophe”, Moscow Patriarchate’s spokesman Vladimir Legoida told the AP.
