To view or sign the petition, click HERE.
Source: Patricia Bouteneff on change.org
The Pan-Orthodox Council will meet in
Crete at Pentecost. Its voting members will consist of hierarchs from
each of the fourteen autocephalous churches. Those delegates will be
accompanied by non-voting consultants that may include clergy, monastic,
and/or lay participants, with no guarantee that any of them will be
female.
As a result, the Council is structured in such a way that
women—who comprise at least 50% of Orthodox congregations—will have
virtually no opportunity to make a substantive contribution on matters
that affect the entire body of the Church.
Formal ecclesiastical councils,
organized around bishops, have never represented the Church’s actual
male-female demographics. But the Secretariat for the Preparation of the
Council can take steps to redress the near-complete absence of women’s
voices at this important gathering of our Church. We the undersigned
support the creation of a special delegation of women, three from each
of the fourteen autocephalous churches, to constitute a constructive
consultative body at the Pan-Orthodox Council. The Ecumenical Patriarch
is including women in his team of consultants; we encourage the other
patriarchs to follow his example.