 |
Archbishop
Anastasios, the primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church, will not attend
the Synaxis of the Primates in Jordan proposed by His Beatitude
Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem for the discussion of issues of Church
unity surrounding the ongoing Ukrainian Church crisis.
In his letter to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, dated January 8 and
published on the official site of the Albanian Orthodox Church
yesterday, Abp. Anastasios expresses his opinion that “the Council of
Primates will complicate the situation rather than help it.”
The Albanian primate recalls that he also recently pointed to the
urgent need to convene a pan-Orthodox council to resolve the Ukrainian
crisis, though he believes that “the initiative to heal the new reality
undoubtedly belongs to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”
“But all Local Orthodox Churches, without exception, are responsible for promoting reconciliation,” he adds.
“The proposal of a meeting in Jordan, as is now obvious, instead of
contributing to healing, will complicate the situation beyond the
prescribed treatment. We cannot participate in the proposed meeting,”
the Albanian primate writes.
Abp. Anastasios met with a delegation from the canonical Ukrainian
Church late last month, where he emphasized that Church crises are
solved not by letters but by Ecumenical Councils.
However, rejecting Jerusalem’s invitation and insisting that only
Constantinople can convene a council ensures that the crisis will
continue indefinitely, as Patriarch Bartholomew has made it clear that
he has no intention of convening a council to discuss the Ukrainian
crisis.
Though he will not attend the council, Abp. Anastasios has been among
the more vocal critics of Pat. Bartholomew’s actions in Ukraine,
sending him two letters (here and here) last year in which he outlined
the many serious problems with creating an autocephalous church on the
basis of unordained schismatics and refuting many of his erroneous
historical justifications for his actions.
To date, only two Churches—of Russia and of the Czech Lands and
Slovakia—have officially and publicly supported Pat. Theophilos’
initiative, while Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens declared his official
rejection at a session of the Greek Holy Synod, and Archbishop
Chrysostomos of Cyprus stated that he did not even intend to answer
Jerusalem’s letter of invitation, making the same argument as Abp.
Anastasios—that only Pat. Bartholomew can convene such a gathering.
Greek media reported that His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Poland
had rejected Patriarch’s invitation, though the Metropolitan’s assistant
later refuted such reports, though His Beatitude has also not publicly
accepted the invitation.
orthochristian.com