Day Two of the Holy Synod's Meeting

The Arabic original can be found here. This translation is of course not in any way official, but it's worth noting that with regard to the discussion of North American bishops, the word 'auxiliaries' was given in English and Arabic.

[Update: This report is no longer posted on the Patriarchate's website. However, it can still be found on the website of the Archdiocese of Tripoli here.]

The Holy Synod continued its work schedule, and approved a text which it will publish to be a pastoral guide for priests, to help them to carry out their apostolic, pastoral, and sacramental service.

The guide includes texts includes texts discussing the pastoral reality that priests live today in addition to various other subjects. It is in a simple style and treats in depth situations that every priest faces.

The guide pays close attention to the steadfastness of the Antiochian tradition and reflects modernity. It calls for reliance on the principles of performing the sacraments in the Church but also proposes reliance on economy in dealing with all pastoral concerns.

The Fathers also studied the state of youth work in the See of Antioch and the integration of the various gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Church, which strengthens the harmony between the fatherhood of the bishop and the sonship of the faithful within the one Church.

With this in mind, the Fathers decided, with the commission of His Beatitude Patriarch Ignatius, to form a committee concerned with the organization of pastoral and educational work on the level of the whole Patriarchate.

They then listened to a report from His Eminence Metropolitan Phillip (Saliba), metropolitan of the Archdiocese of North America, about the state of the archdiocese and aspects of the apostolic and pastoral work there, where His Eminence explained the development of the archdiocese in all fields.

The Fathers affirmed, after careful and lengthy deliberation, that the bishops of the Archdiocese of North America are auxiliary bishops, raised up by God and dependent upon the metropolitan who has complete authority over the entire archdiocese. This is on the basis of the study prepared by His Eminence Basil (Mansour) about the position of the bishop historically in the Orthodox Church.