THE COUNCIL OF CRETE IN THE HOPE THAT WE MAY LEARN FROM IT

 Assaad Elias Kattan, Volume72, Issue3, The Ecumencial Review, July 2020, Pages 422-428

Abstract

This article offers a critical assessment of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church that took place in Crete in 2016. It argues that the situation facing the Orthodox churches after the Council of Crete is far more important than everything that directly preceded it, and that the Orthodox are only at the beginning as far as the important questions and challenges of the world today are concerned.

More than four years after the Holy and Great Council of Crete, it would seem that more questions remain unanswered than were asked in the first place. For instance, what do the Orthodox Christians propose to do to heal their internal breach? The council fathers expressed their intention to hold a “great” Orthodox council every seven or ten years – will this become a reality or remain just a pious hope? However, the conclusions which can be drawn from the Council of Crete are far more important than these questions. It cannot be denied that if the Orthodox fail to support this process, the fragmentation which burdens them today will not lessen but will probably become firmly entrenched in a real schism. The recent conflict over the jurisdiction in Ukraine, which is still sweeping through the Orthodox Church, and which threatens to become a never‐ending breach, heightens and consolidates this impression.

The Lessons to Be Drawn from Crete

The first lesson we learn from the Council of Crete is that Orthodox synodality, to which Orthodox theology so often refers, is in need of corrective surgery. In fact, the Orthodox have so far failed to lay the foundations for the unifying structures it requires. The problem of the Orthodox is that they talk a great deal about Orthodox synodality and the diversity it reflects; however, their words do not correspond to any clear ecclesiastical structure that would be a foundation and an anchor for unity. This statement is, of course, not new. Orthodox thinkers have recognized the problem and drew attention to it when preparations for the great Orthodox council were still at a very early stage. But the experience of the Council of Crete, preceded as it was by the refusal of some Orthodox churches to take part and the decision of the other churches to meet on the Greek island without the brothers, makes it clear that Orthodox synodality in its present state is dysfunctional. It lacks the ecclesiastical structures that are essential to maintain unity in view of the problems which arise. Is there any sense in synodality if it does not possess the structural mechanisms that would enable the Orthodox to overcome their conflicts? And the conflicts are legion. The Council of Crete should really have been preceded by an honest and serious discussion on these mechanisms. Furthermore, it is possible that if such a discussion had taken place, it would have saved the churches from drifting away into the debate that has been going on for decades, concerning the prerogatives of the patriarch of Constantinople and the possibility of justifying them by some of the ancient holy canons.1 The Orthodox have insisted on adhering firmly to the Byzantine discussion on whether the church of Constantinople should retain the primacy or whether it would be better to transfer it to the patriarchate of Moscow. This adherence has meant that the Orthodox Church has missed the opportunity to conduct a serious discussion about the relationship between synodality and unity. This discussion is the very essence of the problem, not only within the Orthodox Church but also as concerns its relationship with the Roman Church of the West.2 The Council of Crete pointed out this problem, for which we Orthodox Christians have been unable to find a solution in our modern times, that is, since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. And so now history is taking its revenge on our first serious attempt to close our ranks and speak with one voice before God and humankind.
The second lesson that can be drawn from the Council of Crete is that it was an attempt to convene a modern council, unfortunately using an antiquated agenda. And one can quite honestly say that this is the greatest scandal. Anyone who reads the documents published by the Council of Crete on subjects such as fasting, marriage, and family is bound to see that most of them say nothing, or at best only touch on the real challenges facing Orthodoxy today. And in those cases in which the authors have analyzed these challenges and tried to find answers, this was done in a manner which showed no readiness to acknowledge people’s experiences in today’s world or to deal with them constructively. In fact, the texts of the Council of Crete are essentially written in a concise, Orthodox‐ecclesiastical style which is in sole possession of the truth and intends to teach and evangelize the world, instead of making use of and benefiting from the experiences of the people who live in it. All that can be said about these texts is that they try to deal with certain problems of the modern world using the attitudes of past centuries, as if there existed in the Orthodox view one single model for society that should be neither questioned nor changed, namely, that of rural societies, which were the predominant form in pre‐modern times. Some examples follow.
These texts emphasize, for instance, the family as the ideal social structure,3 without considering the thousands of Orthodox women in Russia or in the Balkan states who bring up their children alone. They do not tell their readership whether this new model for society conforms to the depiction of family or whether it is abnormal. Similarly, the council documents do not concern themselves with the question of those who live together and bring up their children outside the institution of marriage – except to reject it all (and damn it) as sin.4 This ignores the fact that thousands of young Orthodox Christians committed to church life in Europe, Russia, and the United States live today in partnerships outside the state of holy matrimony. We should also mention that certain of the council texts show a rather ambivalent attitude to freedom. On the one hand, they express themselves in favour of human dignity and religious freedom5 ; on the other hand, they seem to forget that this dignity includes freedom of thought and social freedom. This ambivalence culminates in the question of human rights.6 There we can find an obvious tendency to limit individual human rights and replace them with an undefined “social content” of freedom. There is even one passage that regards individual human rights as a threat to the family, religion, and the nation. I consider these words to be extremely dangerous, since they contain the germ of a glorification of collective entities, such as the family, religion, and the nation at the expense of the individual and contribute to the growth of the cancer of nationalism that still afflicts a large proportion of Orthodox peoples. It must be emphasized that this sort of ambivalence is not restricted to the above‐mentioned areas but extends to others, for instance, secularization and the sciences. “Secular civilization” is on the one hand represented as the result of the “diachronic contribution of the Church,”7 which is not detailed any further; and on the other hand, it is described as a great evil that has to be combatted.8 It is claimed that natural science is not able to solve ethical problems,9 and this is certainly correct. However, the council documents completely disregard the contribution made to our knowledge of the world by the human sciences such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history – as if these sciences did not exist or as if they represented no challenge to the church’s view of itself.
These are only a few examples of many. The texts of the council make contradictory statements about young people and the part they play, despite their insistence that these young people are not only “the future” of the church but also “the active expression of its God‐loving and human‐loving life in the present.”10 Furthermore, when they speak of co‐operation between church and state,11 they ignore the critical role the church ought to play in opposition to a tyrannical state that perpetrates injustice or tries to solve ethical problems by inhuman means.
It follows from all this that the situation facing the Orthodox churches after the Council of Crete is far more important than everything that directly preceded it. The Orthodox are only at the beginning as far as the important questions and challenges of the world today are concerned. In this sense, the Council of Crete was necessary to enable us to learn from it – hoping, of course, that we really do learn from it.
This means that the Orthodox Church as an institution is doomed to remain in the state of lethargy it was in before the Council of Crete if those responsible do not learn from the mistakes of the past and develop a common vision for the future in order to overcome the divisions among the Orthodox; it is also essential to take energetic measures to invigorate church life. Some may think that this is an exaggeration. However, the events of the last two years have shown beyond any doubt that the Orthodox, 20 years now into the third millennium, still remain far behind the synodal spirit of which they are always so proud. There is no doubt that they are a long way behind the spirit shown by the Catholic Church during the Second Vatican Council, which changed the face of Catholicism and forced the church to concern itself seriously with the present‐day situation of the people, that is, with all their hopes and cares.
The Council of Crete had hardly come to an end when it was declared to have been a resounding success by some Orthodox voices. They downplayed the fact that at least half of the Orthodox Church was not represented in Crete and that those delegations who took part, with the exception of the churches of Romania and Serbia, were essentially Greek in character and adhered to the Greek language tradition: not only in the form of a cultural universality – all Orthodox Christians do this – but often also as the basis of a hypertrophic and pathological nationalism. The cancer of nationalism mentioned above, which is tearing the Orthodox world apart, can certainly not be cured by the substitution of a different but no less pathological and hypertrophic Russian, Romanian, Serbian, or Arabic nationalism. The best treatment is honest criticism, opposition to nationalistic tendencies, and a return to the true spirit of the gospel. Orthodox theologians have repeated this relentlessly for many years.12 The other evil that is undermining the life of the Orthodox Church is the yawning gap between its leadership and critical theology; to an observer, the Orthodox Church appears to be composed of fragments, namely an ecclesiastical authority that regards itself as the church, a largely indifferent population, and a group of theologians who often feel torn apart between the authoritarianism of the church leaders and the general lack of interest of the people.
The church of Constantinople, as patron of the Council of Crete, is of course eager to depict it as a great achievement. This may be understandable, although it also serves to reinforce the impression that certain circles in this church were keen to make, especially as concerns the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch.13 It is not my intention here to discuss the extension and the framework of this role. The Orthodox will have to deal with this question together and find an acceptable solution, disregarding all thoughts of competition and without quarrels and clamour. But this is not the problem here – the real problem is the contempt shown for human intelligence in describing the Council of Crete as a success when anyone can see the shortcomings in the published documents and the above‐mentioned arrogant style of their message to the world. It is obvious that the ostensible “opening” to other churches and religions was nothing more than an attempt to pour oil on troubled waters – and all this while the council fathers were labouring under their lack of agreement on the major questions related to modernity, globalization, and the relationship to the non‐Orthodox. There was no time even to start a real dialogue about these questions. Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, who was present in Crete, admitted that the role of the council fathers was usually limited to accepting prepared documents which left much to be desired, apart from making slight alterations, some of which may be reasonable but are unlikely to satisfy the desire of millions of Orthodox Christians for a word of life.

What Comes after Crete?

The significance of the council – whatever mistakes and deficits became apparent during the course of it – lies in the ability of the Orthodox to receive it in a positive sense. This does not mean simply accepting the council documents in their present form, for history shows that the reception of the great councils was a fruitful process involving criticism, inquiry, and modification, sometimes even resulting in agreement on a reformulation. Some might expect that the church of Constantinople would be keen to send the documents to all Orthodox churches with the request to study and acknowledge them. It must be remembered that this applies not only to those churches that decided to boycott the council, but also to those who were represented there, since the reception is not restricted to one delegation but concerns the entire church and, more than anything, all the faithful.

But who says that this role can be played only by the church of Constantinople? And what would happen if this church were to delay to act? Who says that the problems of the Orthodox world can be resolved by merely endorsing the documents of the Council of Crete? Is not the rupture in the body of the Orthodox Church much deeper than anything that was discussed in Crete? And is that which was not said there, or which at best was only touched upon by the fathers of the council, not far more important than that which was explained and set down in writing?

The future of the Orthodox Church is more important than the Council of Crete. The challenges facing the church are far greater than the texts accepted by the council. And the really important questions, which put Orthodox identity to the test, were not dealt with at all on the Greek island. Where was the question as to what can be changed in tradition and what is unchangeable? Where was the question about the role of the charisms in the church, including monasticism and the role of women? Where was the question of the liturgy and its reform? Where was the question of theological education and training? Where was the question of the rehabilitation of the deaconate? Where was the question concerning the relations between church and state after the fall of the Byzantine Empire? Where was the question of the church’s attitude to the modern world with all its challenges, above all the questions of the freedom of the individual, the freedom of thought, and the achievements in the human sciences?

The significance of the Council of Crete lies not in the fact that it took place, nor in the documents it produced, but rather in the fact that it showed all too clearly the extent of the crisis which is damaging the Orthodox Church today. Finding a way out of this crisis is not only the responsibility of the church of Constantinople, nor is it the sole responsibility of the Russian church – and incidentally not of the Romanian church either, even though some might wish that it could act as “mediator” between Istanbul and Moscow. In fact, it should be the common task of all Orthodox Christians and all those whom the Spirit of the Lord has called upon to play an active and positive part and help to free their church from its blockade and its backwardness.

For the same reason my own church, the church of Antioch, is called upon to overcome the seemingly inevitable withdrawal that resulted from the boycott of the Council of Crete, despite its partly legitimate position and the seriousness of its critical questions put to the council. This will only be possible if a plan for the future can be worked out, for which one must stake out the guidelines at once. It goes without saying that this plan requires the participation of all the intellectual resources of this church, including the theological and the juridical, and not forgetting the arts and humanities, each according to their own charism. This is not yet the case despite the frequently repeated promise to revive the charisms in Antioch. It is obvious that such a plan must include a clear vision as to how the deadlock generated by the boycott can be broken, and how new and more effective channels of communication can be created between all Orthodox churches.

Even more important than the Council of Crete itself ought to be the planning and preparation for a future council, which should inspire the churches to deal earnestly with the really important questions, and to bear living and unique witness to the gospel of Christ crucified and risen from the dead, which is hardly the case today. More particularly, it is the duty of those Orthodox who were the first to offer justifiable criticism of the Council of Crete and point out its failings and deficiencies to implement this vision. They are invited to transform themselves into a buzzing hive of activity, to say what has to be said to all Orthodox Christians, and to point out what has to be done. For what is at stake after Crete is first and foremost the unity of the church. And the lack of unity which resulted from the boycott of the council can only be healed by a genuine and proactive commitment to more and deeper unity. This is, as far as I can see, what the Spirit says today to the Orthodox and what they are summoned to do if they were to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus.

Biography

• Assaad Elias Kattan is professor of Orthodox theology at the University of Münster (Germany). His research interests include Byzantine history, hermeneutics and Christian–Muslim dialogue.