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While the Russian Orthodox Church, by far the largest Orthodox church in the world, wants a "Holy and Great Council" set to open June 19 on Crete to be postponed, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople will arrive in Crete Wednesday determined to press ahead.
MOSCOW
- The Russian Orthodox Church is waiting for the Istanbul-based
Ecumenical Patriarchate to respond to its proposal to delay a historic
meeting of all the world’s Orthodox churches, its spokesman said
Tuesday.
Moscow Patriarchate’s spokesman Vladimir Legoida said the church’s
Holy Synod has asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to postpone the
Holy and Great Council in order to settle differences that have prompted
four of the world’s 14 independent Orthodox churches to declare their
refusal to participate.
Legoida said the Moscow Patriarchate made it clear it won’t attend
the council, which was set to open later this week in Crete, Greece, if
it’s not postponed.
Meanwhile, the press office of the Holy and Great Council released a
statement Tuesday indicating that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of
Constantinople would arrive in Crete on Wednesday in view of opening the
council as scheduled on June 19.
The Patriarchate of Constantinople, traditionally considered “first
among equals” in the Orthodox world, is the official host and convener
of the council.
“Items on the agenda have been under discussion for more than 50
years by Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commissions and Pan-Orthodox
Pre-Conciliar Conferences,” the statement said, which also contained a
reminder that Bartholomew had convened a meeting of all the heads of the
Orthodox churches in Geneva in January.
During that session, a decision was reached to go forward with the gathering.
Orthodox church leaders haven’t held such a meeting since the year
787, when the last of the seven councils recognized by both Orthodox and
Catholics, was held. The “great schism” then split the Roman Catholics
and the Orthodox in 1054 amid disputes over the Vatican’s power.
The Moscow Patriarchate said it can’t attend the meeting because
other Orthodox churches, the Bulgarian church, the Georgian church and
the Syria-based Antioch Patriarchate refused to take part and the
Serbian Orthodox Church also called for the council to be postponed.
The four churches pointed to disagreements over the Council’s agenda and the documents drafted for the meeting.
Since it has been agreed that all Council decisions should be made by
consensus, the Russian church argued that the withdrawal of several
churches means there is no reason to hold the council.
Legoida noted that the Moscow Patriarchate on June 3 proposed
convening a meeting of all Orthodox churches to try to sort out the
differences before the council begins. “The Constantinople Patriarchate
has effectively ignored the proposal,” he said, adding that it’s now
necessary to postpone the gathering to settle the problems that have
emerged.
“We don’t see the difficulties that have emerged as insurmountable,”
Legoida told the AP. “We aren’t inclined to dramatize it or see it as
some sort of catastrophe. But it’s also clear that these aren’t
difficulties we can simply turn a blind eye to.”
(Crux Staff contributed to this report.)