Thaddée Barnas, Le Saint et Grand Concile de l’Église orthodoxe Crète, juin 2016, Irenikon, TOME LXXXIX 2016, p.246-275.
Summary of Thaddée BARNAS
The idea of convoking a gen-eral council of the Orthodox Church was mooted as early as 1930, but world disorder did not allow the Orthodox Churches to take concrete action before 1961, when Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I called the first Panorthodox Meeting at Rhodes. Subsequent panorthodox meetings took place at varying frequen-cies, until 1976 when the first formal pre-conciliar assembly met at Chambésy (Switzerland). A list of questions to be treated was elaborated, and by March 2014 a “synaxis” of Orthodox Primates announced that it was at last possible for the Council to meet, and this was to take place in June 2016. In January 2016, the Primates of the fourteen autocephalous Orthodox churches agreed to submit six preliminary documents to the Council, concerning the following topics:
The idea of convoking a gen-eral council of the Orthodox Church was mooted as early as 1930, but world disorder did not allow the Orthodox Churches to take concrete action before 1961, when Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I called the first Panorthodox Meeting at Rhodes. Subsequent panorthodox meetings took place at varying frequen-cies, until 1976 when the first formal pre-conciliar assembly met at Chambésy (Switzerland). A list of questions to be treated was elaborated, and by March 2014 a “synaxis” of Orthodox Primates announced that it was at last possible for the Council to meet, and this was to take place in June 2016. In January 2016, the Primates of the fourteen autocephalous Orthodox churches agreed to submit six preliminary documents to the Council, concerning the following topics:
1) the mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World;
2) the Orthodox Diaspora;
3) autonomy and the means by which it is proclaimed;
4) the sacrament of marriage and its impediments;
5) the importance of fasting and its observance today;
6) the relations of the Orthodox churches with the rest of the Christian world. In the weeks preceding the opening of the Council, four of the fourteen churches — those of Antioch, Bulgaria, Georgia and Russia — announced that for various reasons, they would refrain from taking part. While this was deeply regretted by the other churches, it did not — according to most commentators — invali-date the canonical authority of the gathering.The Council finalised and adopted all six documents, and added an Encyclical and a Message. The wish was expressed by many participants that the Orthodox conciliar process will continue with the convocation of further such gathering
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