By Klara GUDZYK, The Day
World Orthodoxy is preparing for an extraordinary event, a Holy and Great
Council of the Orthodox Church expected to be convened at the start of
the third millennium.
This assembly will involve all the Orthodox churches and its resolutions
will be binding on them. The need to hold such a pan-Orthodox gathering
with such authority has long been evident, because the world has undergone
radical changes since the last ecumenical council, with new churches appearing
in the Orthodox world and acute problems accumulating. Suffice it to say
that the last, Seventh, Ecumenical Council was held in Nicaea in 787, in
other words 1,212 years ago, at a time when Christianity was a single whole,
so that among the Seventh Council's active participants were Roman Catholic
hieararchs.
Preparations for this worldwide assembly are anything but easy and hence
slow. It is necessary to single out from the long list of pressing problems
the most important, affecting all the interested parties; resolutions must
be drafted to satisfy all the churches. Some believe this practically impossible,
because the universality of Orthodoxy has long turned into an abstract
notion as every Local Church has its own lifestyle, problems, and religious
practice. Thus, services celebrated at the temple of Jerusalem's Orthodox
Patriarchate have considerably more differences from those in Moscow than
from a Catholic Mass. On the other hand, it is evident to many that the
Orthodox community will preserve its identity only if it really unites.
Skeptics maintain that the Ecumenical Council will never happen. And
even if it does take place no decisions will be made truly binding on one
and all. Most likely they will be in the form of recommendations. They
further believe that, should any resolutions be passed, no one will adhere
to them. Regrettably, there are solid grounds for such expectations, one
of the reasons being that today's domestic and foreign policy waged by
certain Orthodox churches has too many differences. Thus, Patriarch Bartholomew
I supports the Ecumenical movement - rapprochement of different Christian
confessions - while many clergymen of the Greek, Georgian, Serbian, and
Russian Orthodox churches vehemently oppose it. There are also other essential
divergences.
One of the sharpest, most painful topics to be discussed by the Council
is formulated as follows: "Autocephaly and Autonomy within the Orthodox
Church and Methods of Achieving it." The fact remains that in Orthodoxy
there are no universally recognized canonical rules and procedures whereby
by a church subordinated to the "Mother Church" can receive independence.
In the meantime, over a thousand years since the last Ecumenical Council
the number of Autocephalous churches has doubled (7 in the eighth century
and 14 now). Almost all the newly established independent churches, like
the ones in Moscow and Greece, fought for this status over decades, even
centuries, and it was quite some time before they were accepted by other
churches, meaning that until then they were uncanonical or illegal.
At long last, if and when the Ecumenical Council is convened, it will
adopt such clearly formulated rules and procedures, allowing subordinate
churches to become independent. It does not take an ancient sage to realize
that big churches are not interested in such rules and procedures, and
this is especially true of the Russian Orthodox Church, because among its
member churches one finds a number of candidates for absolute autocephaly,
including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Belarusian Exarchate, and the
Church of Moldova. Thus, far from all churches would really want to witness
another Ecumenical Council after an interval of 1,212 years.
Evidence of this is found in recent church developments. A regular Inter-Orthodox
Conference was to take place in Switzerland to discuss preparations for
the Ecumenical Council and deal with autocephaly and church autonomy in
particular. Representatives of all Orthodox churches arrived, and then
it transpired that the Moscow Patriarchate's delegation would not attend
the sessions. Why? Because of the presence of the "dissenting" Estonian
church (part of that church broke away from Moscow and placed itself under
the Ecumenical Patriarch's omophorium. Metropolitan Chrysostom of Ephesus
presiding over the session did his best to settle the conflict but failed.
Finally it was decided to adjourn the discussion, although no date was
set and most other delegates spoke for completing Council arrangements,
the sooner the better.
It is interesting to note that the Moscow Patriarchate's external church
relations department headed by Metropolitan Cyril offered no comment. In
fact, what happened in Switzerland became known through the media and as
reported by other Orthodox churches, particularly the Serbian newspaper
Orthodoxy. In a word, it is difficult to say whether the beginning
of the third millennium will be marked by the Ecumenical Orthodox Council
or not.
