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ROME
The meeting at Lake Geneva is an important litmus test for the unity of the quarrelsome Orthodox Churches. It finds a supporter like no other in Pope Francis with his respectful and “syntonic” approach to Orthodox synodality
The meeting is due to take place tomorrow in Chambésy. In the very midst of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Primates of the autocephalus Orthodox Churches are to meet at Lake Geneva, the Swiss outpost of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, to decide several things: whether the Great Holy Orthodox Council will indeed go ahead; whether it will really start next 19 June and whether the unprecedented global meeting of Orthodox Christianity will really take place in the Turkish city of Istanbul, in the patriarchal see on the Golden Horn or whether there will have to be a change of venue so as not to cause any problems for representatives of the Patriarchate of Moscow, whom Erdo?an sees as “unwelcome” guests following the tensions between Russia and Turkey, which reached breaking point.
The Orthodox “synaxis” at Chambésy is a delicate step along Orthodoxy’s path. In the end, all Primates have confirmed their attendance except for those of Antioch and Poland - who are unable to make it for health reasons – and except for Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens who said he was not able to attend for “personal reasons” which he did not go further into (probably linked to a recent quarrel with the Patriarchate of Constantinople). There will be authorised legates representing these Churches too.
The Great Orthodox Council has been in the incubator for decades. The Patriarchate of Constantinople took a prophetic risk and decided to speed things along, calling the meeting in order to address the problems that have been hounding the Orthodox Church today. According to the Metropolitan Pergamon, Ioannis Zizioulas, considered by many to be the greatest living Christian theologian, the whole of Orthodoxy risks becoming “introverted” and is in need of a wide-reaching synodal experience if it does not wish to retreat into the ghettos of its own self-exclusion. But in the run-up to this big ecclesial event, there are mounting signs of unrest and uncertainty regarding its actual reach and whether it will even go ahead.
Russia’s Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, informed that the Council’s preliminary phase is moving at a slow pace: of the eight preparatory documents put together for the summit, only three have been unanimously approved, while the one that addresses the delicate issue of autocephaly has been removed from the agenda for now. There is also disagreements over the procedures to be followed during the work of the assembly. Top it all off, there have recently been tensions that have complicated relations between two Churches, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In recent days, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Bulgaria alluded that it may bail out of the meeting in Chambésy, pointing to the Orthodox Primate of the Czech Lands and Slovakia’s possible attendance at the meeting as a reason for the unease, because he is not recognised as such by other Orthodox Churches.
The fragile organisational structure of the pan-Orthodox Council being prepared, exposes it to small and big pressures, fuelled by the traditionally tense relations between Orthodox Churches. Meanwhile, the most astute observers are adamant that no Church wants to be responsible for upsetting the applecart, sabotaging an event that has been awaited since time immemorial, just in order to settle old scores or to cast an even greater shadow over the primus inter pares role of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Problems could lead to delays or to the see of the Great Council being moved to Patmos, Thessaloniki or Chambésy. The Great Council may have to cut back on its demands and limit its goals to a common declaration of consensus on a few points (in this sense, any comparison with the Second Vatican Council seems inappropriate so it seems unlikely that far). For the time being, however, a complete failure of the great Orthodox synodal initiative seems unlikely. The heads of the Orthodox Churches, will, despite their fractious “way of doing things”, attempt in their own way to give a concrete demonstration of the communion of faith and doctrine that has kept them united for 2000 years, despite temporary suspensions of bilateral relations and any conflicts of a “jurisdictional” nature.
One figure who is definitely all for a successful Holy and Great Orthodox Council, is the Bishop of Rome (former “Patriarch of the West”) and the Holy See as a whole. The Roman Catholic Church has been following and accompanying the process its sister Orthodox Churches are going through, in a spirit of friendship and fraternity. Pope Francis continues to weave a web of plural relationships with each and every one of them – including the smallest among them – as well as with their Primates, adopting an approach that is fully in tune with Orthodox synodal ecclesiology. The Successor of Peter’s steady relations with his “brother Bartholomew”, the Successor of Andrew, continue manifest themselves in striking ways. The contact maintained and the words exchanged with the Patriarchate of Moscow reveal an increasingly intense relationship between the Church of Rome and the largest of the Orthodox Churches. This relationship goes beyond the usual pleasantries of “ecumenist” etiquette, partly thanks to the fact that “Tsar” Putin seems to have taken a liking to Francis. In 2015, Metropolitan Hilarion, the Patriarchate of Moscow’s “number two” man, visited Rome four times, attending two long private audiences with Pope Francis. Last April, Patriarch Kirill praised the Holy See’s approach to the Ukrainian crisis, recognising that “Pope Francis and the Secretariat of State “have taken a considered position on the situation in Ukraine, avoiding unilateral assessments and calling for an end to the fratricidal war”.
For its part, the Roman Catholic Church is not trying to take advantage of the chronic rivalry between the Patriarchate of Moscow and the “mother Church” of Constantinople: in this way too then, Rome also acts as a “fluidizer”, aiming to foster the unity of its Orthodox brothers. Pope Francis has shown that he does not want to narrow relations with Orthodoxy down to gestures of attention and accord aimed solely at the “big fish”, Kirill and Bartholomew. Neither does he seem to be a supporter of oligarchic structures, the kind of structure preferred by enthusiasts of “ecclesiastical politics”. Fraternal relations have recently been deepening with Romanian Patriarch Daniel. Meanwhile, Serbia’s Patriarch Irinej welcomed the Pope’s choice to create a mixed working group in charge of studying the history of relations between Croats and Serbians during World War II and the role held by Croatian cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in that context. Almost a year ago, Patriarch Irinej had expressed his reservations regarding the potential canonization of the Blessed Stepinac. According to the Dominican Hyacinthe Destivelle, who, in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, is in charge of relations with Orthodox Slavs, the purpose of the study commission which has the Pope’s backing, is not to “interfere in a canonization process, which is internal Church issue, but to promote the purification of his historical memory, necessary for the reconciliation between churches and peoples”. Destivelle pointed out that it was partly thanks to a similar process of a common re-reading of history, that it was possible to remove the mutual excommunications of 1054 between the Roman Church and the Church of Constantinople, with a joint act sealed by the Blessed Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras on 7 December 1965. Last 16 January, a delegation representing the Orthodox Church of Serbia visited to Rome to present some proposals to do with the future composition of a mixed work group. One of the members of the delegation was Professor Darko Tanaskovic, a prominent scholar and until 2007 Serbia’s unforgettable ambassador to the Holy See.
Thus, Pope Francis is willing to risk being misunderstood by Catholic circles in the Eastern Europe, just in order to suggest to the Orthodox Churches what the Second Vatican Council had pointed out and what the Bishop of Rome also reiterated in the letter he sent to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the occasion of the last Feast of St. Andrew: that Churches need to recognise the fact that “there is no longer any impediment to Eucharistic communion which cannot be overcome through prayer, the purification of hearts, dialogue and the affirmation of truth”. This realisation must be shared with all Orthodox Churches and acted upon.
