Pan-Orthodox Council

The Pan-Orthodox Council, officially referred to as the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church[1] (also sometimes called the Council of Crete), was a synod of set representative bishops of the universally recognised autocephalous local churches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity held in Kolymvari, Crete. The Council sat from 19 to 26 June 2016.

The Pan-Orthodox Council, Kolymvari, Crete, Greece, June 2016

In March 2014, the Primates of local Orthodox Churches convened in Fener, the residence of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, and reached a decision: "The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church will be convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople in 2016, unless something unexpected occurs."[1][2]

In January 2016, at the invitation of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Synaxis of Primates of the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches was held at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, Switzerland.[3] The Primates of the local Orthodox Churches and three official delegations representing the Church of Antioch, the Church of Greece, and the Church of Poland, convened to finalise the texts for the Holy and Great Council.[3] Due to the heightened tensions between Russia and Turkey, a decision was reached to hold the Synod in Greece.[4][5]

Agenda, decisions and reception
Official logo

The items officially approved at the 2016 Synaxis for referral to and adoption by the Holy and Great Council were:[6][7]

  • The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World;
  • The Orthodox Diaspora;
  • Autonomy and the Means by Which it is Proclaimed;
  • The Sacrament of Marriage and its Impediments;
  • The Importance of Fasting and Its Observance Today;
  • Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World.

Elizabeth Prodromou, an American professor who is on the team advising Patriarch Bartholomew at the Council, stated that the Council will enable the Orthodox church to express a "robust theology of global engagement".[8]

The Council in Crete approved, with minor amendments, the documents that had been elaborated by all the Churches in the course of their consultations prior to the Synod, and adopted the Message and the Encyclical.[9]

In view of non-attendance by the four Churches, the Synod's official spokesman Archbishop Job Getcha stated that all the documents adopted by the Council in Crete would be binding to all the Orthodox Churches.[10][11]

On 27 June 2016, the Synod of the Church of Antioch issued a statement concerning the Crete Council that stated that the documents adopted by in Crete were not binding for the Patriarchate of Antioch; the Church of Antioch recognized the Synod as "a preliminary gathering on the way to a Pan-Orthodox Council", while the documents it adopted as not final and open for discussion.[12][13]

The Synod of the Russian Church (the Moscow Patriarchate) in July 2016 passed a resolution that designated the Crete Council as a "an important event in the history of the synodal process in the Orthodox Church that was begun by the First Pan-Orthodox consultation in Rhodes in 1961", but the Russian Church Synod refused to recognise the Synod as pan-orthodox and the documents thereof as "reflecting pan-orthodox consensus".[14] The Russian Church Synod decided to have the Crete Synod's documents examined for further conclusions.[14][15] In early December 2017, the Bishops′ Council of the ROC approved the previous resolution of the ROC Synod that stated that the ROC did not recognise the Council in Crete as Pan-Orthodox, nor its decisions binding for all the Orthodox Churches.[16]

On 18 November 2016, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople sent a letter to the Archbishop of Athens asking him to admonish some of the Greek Orthodox clergy who reject the Holy and Great Council. According to the document, Patriarch Bartholomew reserved to himself the right to sever ecclesiastical and sacramental communion with those clergymen if Greek ecclesiastical authorities decide not to act on the patriarch's request to discipline them.[17] As Dr. Ines Murzaku, professor of Ecclesiastical History and Founding Chair of the Department of Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University, elaborated in her email interview to Crisis Magazine, such "interference and pressure to excommunicate might sound more as rules/jurisdiction that apply in the West“, and for this reason the Patriarch Bartholomew "might be viewed by many as ‘the Pope of the East’ or ‘Orthodox Pope’”.[18]

However, other Catholic scholars such as Ludwig Hertling, would disagree as he says in his book, Communio: Church and Papacy in Early Christianity, anyone could and did break communion when the parties felt necessary. The most prominent example is the excommunications between Patriarch Michael Kerularios and Cardinal Humbert (a representative of Pope Leo, but not Leo himself) when the latter excommunicated the former. That is still practiced in the Church today. The Patriarch's request for admonishment concerning the clerics in question is not based on their rejection of the Council per se, since others also disagree, but with the manner they conduct their activities as well as their allegations and charges, including that of heresy (both type of actions denounced by the Holy Synods of other autocephalous Churches).

Participants and delegations

Churches that attended

Churches that did not attend

Notes
  1. The delegation of the Church of Russia that had been approved on May 4 had included the following bishops:[38]
    • Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
    • Metropolitan Onufriy (Berezovsky), of Kiev and All Ukraine.
    • Metropolitan Juvenal (Poyarkov) of Krutitsy and Kolomna.
    • Metropolitan Vladimir (Cantarean) of Kishinev and All Moldavia.
    • Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, head of the Metropolitan Region in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
    • Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, head of the Central Asia Metropolitan Region.
    • Metropolitan Varsonofy of St Petersburg and Ladoga, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate.
    • Metropolitan Paul (Ponomaryov) of Minsk and Zaslavl, Patriarchal Exarch for All Belarus.
    • Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations.
    • Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail.
    • Metropolitan Alexander of Riga and All Latvia.
    • Metropolitan Tikhon of Novosibirsk and Berdsk.
    • Metropolitan Sergiy of Ternopol and Kremenets.
    • Metropolitan Kirill of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye.
    • Metropolitan Mercurius (Ivanov) of Rostov and Novocherkassk.
    • Metropolitan Mitrofan of Lugansk and Alchevsk, chairman of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church department for external church relations.
    • Metropolitan George (Danilov) of Niznniy Novrogod and Arzamas.
    • Metropolitan Anthony of Borispol and Brovary, chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
    • Archbishop Mark (Arndt) of Berlin-Germany and Great Britain.
    • Archbishop Innokenty of Vilna and Lithuania.
    • Archbishop Guriy of Novogrudok and Slonim.
    • Archbishop Seraphim of Sendai.
    • Archbishop Ioann of Magadan and Sinegorye.
    • Archbishop Lazar of Narva and Prichudje.
    • Bishop Anthony of Bogorodsk.
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References
  1. Message of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches §6: «Ἡ Ἁγία καί Μεγάλη Σύνοδος τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Ἐκκλησίας θά συγκληθῇ ὑπό τοῦ Οἰκουμενικοῦ Πατριάρχου ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει ἐν ἔτει 2016, ἐκτός ἀπροόπτου.»
  2. "Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches (Phanar, March 6-9, 2014) Message - Messages - The Ecumenical Patriarchate". Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  3. "Photo Galleries - The Ecumenical Patriarchate". Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  4. Last-minute politics overshadow historic pan-Orthodox council Washington Post, 18 Dec 2015.
  5. AsiaNews.it. "ORTHODOXY - RUSSIA Patriarch of Moscow: pan-Orthodox Synod to be held in Crete". Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  6. Council to Address Six Major Themes in Orthodoxy - OFFICIAL ADVANCE DOCUMENTS. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Retrieved: 25 May 2016.
  7. COMMUNIQUÉ. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. 27/01/2016.
  8. Why Orthodox patriarchs are meeting after centuries, The Economist, Jun. 22nd 2016
  9. Official Documents of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church
  10. Pan-Orthodox Council goes ahead without Russians; decisions 'will be binding'
  11. Church officials say Orthodox Council decisions will be binding
  12. "Statement of the Secretariat of the Holy Synod of Antioch, Balamand, 27 June 2016". Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East. 1 July 2016. Archived from the original on 5 December 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2016.
  13. "Statement of the Secretariat of the Holy Synod of Antioch". The Self-Ruled Antiochan Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. 27 June 2016. Retrieved 12 August 2016.
  14. ЖУРНАЛЫ заседания Священного Синода от 15 июля 2016 года See ″ЖУРНАЛ № 48″.
  15. HOLY SYNOD OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH EXPRESSES ITS POSITION ON THE COUNCIL HELD IN CRETE
  16. Постановления Освященного Архиерейского Собора Русской Православной Церкви (29 ноября ― 2 декабря 2017 года) // §§ 38, 39.
  17. "Admonishment Is Not the Same as Excommunication". Orthodox Christian Network. 2016-12-21. Retrieved 2017-02-14.
  18. "Anti-Catholic Critics Oppose Orthodox Council on Unity - Crisis Magazine". Crisis Magazine. 2017-01-23. Retrieved 2017-02-14.
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  20. Churches. ORTHODOXIA. Ostkirchliches Institut Regensburg OKI and Institute for Ecumenical Studies ISO, University of Fribourg. Retrieved: 27 June 2016.
  21. Delegations: Holy and Great Council, Pentecost 2016. Official Site - Holy and Great Council. Retrieved: 26 June 2016.
  22. THE PATRIARCHATE’S PARTICIPATION IN THE DELIBERATIONS OF THE GREAT SYNOD OF ORTHODOX CHURCHES – ARRIVAL IN CHANIA Archived 2016-08-15 at the Wayback Machine. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem - Official News Gate. 16/06/2016.
  23. Serbian Orthodox Church refuses to participate in Pan-Orthodox Council. Interfax-Religion. 09 June 2016, 12:37.
  24. Serbian Church changes its decision not to take part in Pan-Orthodox Council. Interfax-Religion. 15 June 2016, 15:52
  25. Serbian Church says will leave forum on Crete if position of those who refused to participate in it is ignored. Interfax-Religion. 15 June 2016, 16:58.
  26. (in Greek) Πρώτη Συνεδρία της Ιεράς Συνόδου της Ιεραρχίας της Εκκλησίας της Ελλάδος. ECCLESIA.GR. 8.3.2016.
  27. (in Greek) Δώδεκα Μητροπολίτες παραιτούνται από τη Μεγάλη Σύνοδο των Ορθοδόξων. ΠΡΩΙΝΟΣ ΛΟΓΟΣ. 24 ΜΑΙΟΣ 2016.
  28. (in Greek) H Αντιπροσωπεία της Εκκλησίας της Ελλάδoς στη Μεγάλη Σύνοδο. Greek American News Agency. 31 Μαΐου 2016.
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  30. Delegacioni i Kishës Orthodhokse Autoqefale të Shqipërisë për Sinodin e Shenjtë dhe të Madh. Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. Enjte, 09 Qershor 2016 17:49.
  31. Metropolitan Rastislav of Czech Lands and Slovakia, on first irenic visit to Constantinople. Basilica.ro. 17.05.2016.
  32. "Amid shrieking family rows, the Christian east strives to find its voice". The Economist. 18 June 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  33. "Statement of the Secretariat of the Antiochian Holy Synod, on the 6th of June 2016". Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  34. "Statement of the Secretariat of the Holy Synod of Antioch, Balamand, 27 June 2016". Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East. Archived from the original on 10 November 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  35. Damick, Andrew Stephen; Noble, Samuel (20 June 2016). "The Great Orthodox Council: Antioch Is Different". First Things. Retrieved 12 August 2016.
  36. Russian Church insists on rescheduling Pan-Orthodox Council. Interfax-Religion. 13 June 2016, 19:16.
  37. MINUTES OF THE HOLY SYNOD SESSION OF APRIL 16, 2016. The Russian orthodox Church - DECR. 04.05.2016 16:57.
  38. (in Russian) ЖУРНАЛ заседания Священного Синода от 16 апреля 2016 года. Patriarchia.ru. 4 мая 2016 г. 13:37.
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  41. Lambriniadis, Elpidophoros (2 December 2014). "First without equals: A response to the text on primacy of the Moscow Patriarchate". The Ecumenical Patriarchate. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  42. Clive Leviev-Sawyer. Bulgarian Orthodox Church withdraws from Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete. The Sofia Globe. June 1, 2016.
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Criticism

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