A historic gathering of Orthodox leaders has opened in Crete with
a pledge by its convenor to "bring truth, genuineness and hope" to the
world, despite recent inter-church tensions and disputes.
"Each Orthodox church and every faithful Orthodox Christian are
joined to one body, each with his own gifts -- we should not look to
others with suspicion or anger, but rejoice as if they were our own,"
said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, honorary
leader of world Orthodoxy.
"A very large number of errors are circulating, especially in our
time, and the arguments used by the deceivers are particularly
sophisticated. This means a coordinated effort is required by shepherds
of the Orthodox church to inform the faithful -- the religious factions
attempting to lead the Orthodox faithful astray are numbered in the
hundreds."
The 76-year-old patriarch was preaching on Sunday, the Orthodox
Pentecost, at a divine liturgy in the Cathedral of St. Minas in
Heraklion, at the start of the Holy and Great Council, attended by 170
bishops and metropolitans from 10 separate Orthodox churches.
He said the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians were "united in
faith and sacraments," although each church had "its own treasure"
though its distinct history and patrimony.
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He added that church leaders also had their own "different opinions"
and faced "personal weakness and unworthiness," but were called to
"deliver the human race from manifold suffering" and give the world "a
message of truth, genuineness and hope."
"It is not enough when this remains on a theoretical level -- it
requires a response on the practical level, where we are unfortunately
greatly lacking," the patriarch said at the service, which was also
attended by Greek president Prokopis Pavlopoulos and other government
officials. "As leaders of the church, we are obliged to provide a good
example and embrace the entirety of the truth we have received, because
our opponent tries to scatter misguided ideas in our hearts which negate
the truth of our faith."
Plans for the week-long Council, widely believed the first on such a
scale for more than a thousand years, were finalized by Orthodox leaders
in January around a five-point agenda covering mission, diaspora
affairs, church autonomy, fasting, marriage and ties with other
Christian churches.
However, final preparations were overshadowed by the withdrawal of the Antioch Patriarchate and Orthodox churches in Georgia, Bulgaria and Russia, citing disagreements over the Council's procedures and working documents.
Patriarch Kirill of Russia, whose church represents around half of
all Orthodox Christians, told Council participants in a June 17 message
the latest "fully revealed" differences should not be allowed to "grow
into an inter-church conflict" or "bring division and trouble." He added
that churches had "made their decisions in good conscience" about
whether to attend the Crete gathering, and cautioned that the absence of
the four also meant "we have not reached pan-Orthodox consensus."
However, spokesmen for the Ecumenical Patriarchate accused the
Russian Orthodox church of violating previous agreements, and said
absent churches "should have no influence" on the Council deliberations
nor "invalidate" its proceedings.
"Further delays should not intimidate the overwhelming majority of
Orthodox leaders that wish to carry out the commitment to have the
Council on this year's Feast of Pentecost," Fr. John Chryssavgis and Fr.
Paul Gavrilyuk, from the Patriarchate's press office, wrote in First Things.
"The official position of all local churches is that the Holy and
Great Council is desirable. Those who sabotage the Council today are
letting petty squabbles and impulses towards ethnic self-isolation
prevail over walking together towards unity."
June 20 speeches and proceedings were live-streamed on the official Council website
from the Orthodox Academy in Kolymbari, where the Catholic church is
being represented as an observer by Cardinal Kurt Koch, chairman of the
Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, alongside
observers from the World Council of Churches and non-Orthodox
denominations.
In a June 19 noon prayer in Rome's St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis
told Catholics he hoped the Council would achieve a "successful
outcome."
Church leaders present in Crete appealed during a June 17 meeting, or
"Small Synaxis," for absent churches to "reconsider their decision" and
attend the Council. In a June 20 commentary, Russia's Interfax
news agency said the Russian church's withdrawal meant the Council
would "represent a minority of the episcopate, clergy and Orthodox world
of believers," and could not be considered "a Pan-Orthodox Council."
Speaking over the weekend in Heraklion's Church of St. Titus,
Patriarch Bartholomew said the Council was tasked to "decide together on
a synodal level about the problems and issues plaguing local churches
and their interrelations" at a time of "violent and disruptive changes
in all areas of life."
"When communion with God disappears from social life and also does
away with the communion with others which is propelled by the communion
with God, then the moral system and political life -- that is, the
entire conduct of man -- is driven to destruction and disintegration,"
the Patriarch said.
"This materialistic spirit has selfishly reigned and still reigns,
while the Christian spirit and spiritual values have been pushed aside,"
he continued. "Persons have turned to numbers and have been treated as
biological units. The personal relationship of man to God has been
ignored, feelings of brotherhood weakened between the faithful, the
traditional spirit of co-operation crippled, and now everything revolves
around a secularism that is fleeting, passing and devoid of
perspective."
[Jonathan Luxmoore's two-volume study of communist-era persecution,
The God of the Gulag, has just been published by Gracewing in the U.K.]