MOSCOW
— After 55 years of preparation, a landmark effort to promote unity
among the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians turned into a showcase
of disarray on Tuesday after the Russian church,
the biggest of 14 Orthodox jurisdictions, announced that it would not
take part in a historic conclave of church leaders scheduled to start
this weekend.
The gathering, known both as the Holy and Great Council
and as the Pan-Orthodox Council, is scheduled to begin Sunday on the
Greek island of Crete and to run through June 26. It had been under
discussion since 1961 and has been billed as the first council of its
kind since the eighth century.
While it did not rule out participating in a future gathering, the Moscow Patriarchate, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church,
said late Monday that it was “impossible to participate” in the council
because not all Orthodox churches would be present. At least four
branches of the Orthodox faith, mostly with historically close ties to
Russia, like the Serbian Orthodox Church, had complained about aspects
of the Crete council and indicated that they might stay away.
The
Russian decision threw into doubt the opening of the gathering and
highlighted longstanding doctrinal disagreements among Orthodox
Christians as well as a struggle over the direction of the church
between the Moscow Patriarchate and a rival leadership based in
Istanbul, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew I in Istanbul, as Constantinople is now called,
has been the driving force behind the Crete gathering, which some
priests in Russia view as an attempt to diminish or usurp their
authority while elevating the standing of their rival.
Unlike
the Roman Catholic Church, which has a single, undisputed leader in the
pope, the Orthodox or Eastern branch of Christianity is divided into
self-governing provinces, each with its own leadership. As heir to the
traditions of the original Orthodox, or Byzantine, church, based in
Constantinople before the 15th-century Muslim conquest of the city, the
Istanbul-based patriarch has traditionally been viewed as the “first
among equals” by the Orthodox faithful, a role that has long nettled
Russian church leaders.
The
Russian Orthodox Church, which also controls affiliated branches of
Orthodoxy in much of the former Soviet Union, has many more followers
than the Istanbul-based hierarchy. Headed by Patriarch Kirill, a close
ally of President Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian church has increasingly
sought to assert itself as the pre-eminent voice of the Orthodox faith,
in tandem with a push by Mr. Putin to assert Russia’s influence as a
global power.
Sergei
Chapnin, the former editor of the Moscow Patriarchate’s official
journal, said that the disarray leading up to the Crete gathering flowed
in part from genuine disagreements over draft texts on theology and
other issues, but that it also “showed serious lines of tension between
Moscow and Bartholomew.”
The
Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople are
embroiled in a long struggle over property, notably in France, where the
Russian Orthodox Church has won court orders to gain control of a
cathedral in Nice previously controlled by and loyal to the Istanbul
archbishop. They have also squabbled over efforts by Orthodox churches
in some former Soviet territories to break their links with the Moscow
church hierarchy and to establish their own independent Orthodox
churches.
While
delivering a heavy blow to Bartholomew by pulling out of the meeting,
the Moscow Patriarchate sought to avoid criticism that it wanted to
sabotage the Crete gathering. The Russian news agency Tass quoted
Vakhtang Kipshidze, a deputy chairman of the Synodal Department for
Relations Between the Church and Society and Mass Media, as saying the
Russian church wanted the council to be held at some point and was
offering a “soft way out of the crisis” by merely postponing the
conference.
Planning
for the Crete meeting has been dogged by doctrinal and political
disputes. The Orthodox church, which broke from the Catholic Church in
the so-called great schism of 1054, has held several smaller councils
over the centuries. But the Crete gathering, at least as originally
conceived, would have been the first full council since 787, when church
leaders resolved a bitter dispute over whether icons could be used for
liturgical purposes. (Those favoring icons won.)
But
decades of planning began to unravel in recent weeks, as Orthodox
churches in Bulgaria, Serbia and several other places threatened not to
attend.
The
gathering was originally to be held in Istanbul, but the Russian
church, among others, asked that it be moved for security and other
reasons. Russia has also complained about representation in Crete,
asking that all 700 Orthodox bishops be invited to attend, instead of
small delegations from each church, according to Mr. Chapnin. The
Russian Orthodox Church has nearly 400 bishops, many more than other
Orthodox churches have.
Metropolitan
Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s external
church relations department, told Russian television that the Crete
gathering should be postponed because “there are many problems among
various Orthodox churches.” He added that the “disagreements might seem
small but, for historical churches, these are important issues.”
The
disagreements include arguments over seating arrangements at the Crete
conference, squabbles over the cost of the Holy and Great Council, and
substantial discord over how Orthodox churches should interact with Christians in the Catholic and other Christian churches.
Mr.
Chapnin, the former journal editor, said the Orthodox church, divided
into what are essentially national church hierarchies, had always been
prone to infighting and power struggles. “For Orthodoxy, this is a very
traditional mess,” he said.
Correction: June 14, 2016
An earlier version of this article misstated the day the
Russian Orthodox Church said it would not take part in a historic
conclave and the day that its opening was cast into doubt. The
announcement was on Monday, not Tuesday, and the disarray emerged on
Tuesday, not Wednesday.