George Ghandour: Is there a Need for the Council Today?

This is the final chapter of George Ghandour's book The Road to the Great Orthodox Council, published (in Arabic) by the Patriarchate of Antioch in June, 2015.

The Final Chapter: Is there a Need for the Council Today?

 Having reached the closing chapter of this book, I am unsure how to evaluate the preparatory work of the council that has been accomplished up to now and on which I have attempted to shed some light in the book's previous chapters. I am at even more uncertain when I try to answer this question, which I and many others have posed: will the Great Orthodox Council convene at the specified time or will "extenuating circumstances" once more cause to be delayed? I am at yet even more puzzled when I think about the need for convening the council in these circumstances and the prospects that await the Church after it meets, which is to happen soon.

As I try to respond to these questions in an analytical and scholarly manner, my memory is crowded with images of the people I have known closely, some of whom I have studied under, people who worked hard and diligently and employed their knowledge, capabilities, time, talents and money so that this council might be held, that the Orthodox Church might be able to speak her unified word about the challenges that the world is facing and that she is facing, that she might be able to rise up from the prevailing inertia and deadly petrification and speak to the hearts of her children and the world in a living language comprehensible to the people of this age who are anxiously searching for true life.

As I ponder the lives of those fathers who burned the midnight oil preparing for the Great and Holy Council, crisscrossing the Orthodox world to overcome difficulties, opening avenues that no one had previously taken, patiently working so that the Church may speak Christ in the language of the age in which they lived and not in the language of bygone eras, I realize the importance of this conciliar work and what it has realized until today for the universal Orthodox Church. I likewise feel in the lives of these people who "sowed in hope" a call to not waste what has been achieved up to today, to work to preserve the conciliarity of the Church, and to faithfully express it here and now, despite all the difficulties. The fathers who worked until the last moment to prepare for the council's meeting and who passed before it could meet after fighting the good fight so that it might meet, teach us to not turn back and to continue to strive faithfully for the unity of the Orthodox world. As for those whose dreams were dashed against the rocks of the Orthodox world's current petrified state, they went back to prayer and teaching and were content to work within their local churches or their narrow circles in order to work for the hoped-for renewal, so they too  teach us the necessity of serious, local work to prepare minds and hearts to bear witness to Christ who is risen and victorious over death and who gathers us into one union, that they may perhaps accept the renewal brought by the Great Council when the time for holding it has come.

I see myself concluding that holding a general council remains necessary for the Orthodox Church because the difficulties cannot affect the nature of this Church, which remains the conciliar church par excellence and because ecclesial conciliarity can only be expressed through practicing it because it is not a theoretical system, but rather life in Christ and in His Church. Perhaps the past preparatory stage, with all the reversals and difficulties that it witnessed and despite the amount of time that it took, made it unambiguously clear that the Church has been able, through the preparatory and preliminary meetings for the Great Council, to undertake joint work of a conciliar nature in matters pertaining to a great number of the questions that one wanted on the Great Council's agenda.

So with a quick but not hasty glance, it is possible to conclude that the relationship of the Orthodox Church to the rest of the Christian world is no longer an issue of dispute, even if some voices have been raised here and there in objection to some of the practices of other communities and some local churches have from time to time refrained from participating in this or that dialogue. Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement has, despite some of the difficulties opposing it-- for which work is ongoing to create joint solutions according to the logic of dialogue and acceptance of others, insofar as there is no escaping working with other Christians to ready the environment for the hoped-for unity. As for the principles related to Christian witness nowadays, such as freedom, justice, brotherhood, equality and ending racial discrimination, confirmation of their Orthodox understanding has been reiterated and the agreement has been implemented in the world without entering into direct conflicts with the regimes that violate these teachings.

In the matter of fasting, the preparatory work has explained its spiritual and ascetic importance and has stressed the necessity of keeping to its rules, lightening them when the need demands, relying on the principle of economy, in which the Orthodox Church is distinguished. The very same principle of economy was applied in the matter of impediments to marriage, especially mixed marriages.

As for the issue of the calendar, the Orthodox agreed not to argue over it and affirmed that for them, celebrating Easter together remains more important than scientific precision, without shutting the door to future efforts that would permit all Christians to celebrate Easter together.

In the matter of autonomy, the Orthodox agreed that this is an issue that remains tied to the local churches themselves and they defined the conditions and manner of announcing it. They likewise reached an agreement on the concept of autocephaly without agreeing on how to sign the tomos of autocephaly and the content of this tomos. The preparatory work was likewise unable to reach an agreement on the issue of the Holy Diptychs.

Finally, with regard to the issue of the Orthodox diaspora, an agreement was made for a provisional solution requiring the establishment of episcopal assemblies in the countries of the diaspora that come together with the goal of cooperation and coordination under the leadership of the first among the bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in anticipation of the Great Council endeavoring to find a final solution for this issue that is not contrary to Orthodox ecclesiology, which states the necessity of there being one bishop per city.

All these topics that we have reviewed above prove that the preparatory work has realized tangible results and that the universal Orthodox Church, in all the local churches that constitute her, has accepted that which has already been agreed upon at the level of the local synods and at the level of the believing people in general. This leads us to believe that there is no need to convene the Great Orthodox Council in order to adopt decisions that have been accepted in principle by all the churches, but rather, it is possible for the decisions issued by the preparatory conferences to be accepted by the local synods of the autocephalous churches only.

If we pause over the content of the final decision of the Promates of the autocephalous Orthodox churches (March 2014) to convene the council, where it was agreed that each church will be represented by its head and 24 bishops, that the council will treat issues not agreed upon during the preparatory work, and that those issues that have not been agreed upon will be left to a later stage, our conviction grows that there is no need to hold this council at the present time and that convening it will be only a formality for the sake of a commemorative photo and nothing else. This causes enormous disappointment for the generations of Orthodox who have waited for it to be held because it will be incapable of speaking to them or of addressing their concerns and pastoral needs. It will constitute a betrayal of the vision of the successive generations that have prepared so that this council might be a stop along the way to renewal and for leaping forward towards a living Orthodoxy that takes the future by storm, makes it, and renews the world.

It should be added that a lack of participation by all Orthodox bishops in the work of this meeting and reliance on the principle of one vote for each autocephalous church runs contrary to Orthodox conciliar tradition and Orthodox ecclesiology, which states that each bishop is head of the local church (diocese) to which he was consecrated and that the council is the meeting of the churches where the bishops sit in their capacity as pastors of a specific people and guardians of the upright faith of the universal Church. Perhaps this solution, which was invented to maintain the balance between Constantinople and Moscow, constitutes a grave danger for Orthodox ecclesiology, as it effectively cancels the theology of the local bishop, replacing it with a theology of the collectivity of bishops of a single autocephalous church, which is presumed to have homogenous opinions-- indeed, one opinion-- and this is something that Orthodoxy has absolutely never known in its history.

Perhaps the above, if it is added to the ecclesiological crisis that the Orthodox church is suffering from with regard to the issue of organizing the diaspora, will inevitably lead to postponing the Great Council to a later time and settling at the present time for holding a meeting of the heads of all the churches and their accompanying bishops to declare in celebration what has been agreed upon during the past preparatory period and to launch new mechanisms for activating joint Orthodox cooperation with regard to the issues that are still outstanding on the agenda as well as other issues that may confront the Church in the future.

As for the Great Council, let the matter of its convening be left for a stage when the Orthodox Church is prepared to witness to her faith and her ecclesiology in a manner far removed from considerations of nationalism, politics and power.

 

George Ghandour: The Great Orthodox Council between Rhodes and Crete

Arabic original in an-Nahar here. George Ghandour is the author of The Road to the Great Orthodox Council (in Arabic), published by the Patriarchate of Antioch and is the foremost expert on modern Antiochian canon law.


The Great Orthodox Council between Rhodes and Crete

After the eyes of the world have been directed toward Crete for the period from June 19-26, 2016, where it was decided that the Great Orthodox Council will be held after sixty years of preparatory work, inaugurated by Patriarch Athenagoras I in 1961 on the island of Rhodes, developments have occurred that presage either postponing the council, cancelling it, or holding it with whoever attends. The Church of Bulgaria has asked the Ecumenical Patriarch to postpone holding the Great Council until a later date or it will not participate in its work on the set date. The Patriarchate of Antioch has decided not to participate until "peaceful relations between the autocephalous churches prevail, and Orthodox unanimity about the Council’s agenda, regulations and executive and practical procedures are guaranteed" and "until the reasons, which prevent participating in the Holy Eucharist during the Council, disappear." That is, until a solution is found for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem's violation of its territory. Likewise, the Church of Serbia has stated that it will not participate in the work of the council on the set date in light of the differences over the topics on the agenda and the absence of a number of autocephalous churches. As for the Church of Russia, it has not yet specified its final position with regard to participating in the council, but it has stressed "the necessity of respecting the principle of unanimous consensus through the participation of all the autocephalous churches in this council" in order for it to be present on Crete.

It is noteworthy that none of the churches mentioned above requested the council's cancellation, but all of them proposed postponing  it until a later date, pending work to remove the obstacles related to its organization, working mechanisms and agenda. Each of them made proposals in this regard to His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch in order to avoid cancelling the long-awaited council. The Church of Bulgaria proposed continuing the preparatory work for the council without proposing any mechanism in this regard. The Patriarchate of Antioch did likewise, proposing that work be done in the period left before the council is held to build agreement and ensure unanimous consensus about the topics without specifying any detailed mechanism for this. As for the Moscow Patriarchate, it has proposed that there be an invitation for holding "a preparatory conference ahead of the date for holding the council," while the Church of Serbia has proposed converting the upcoming meeting on Crete into "a consultative rather than conciliar gathering" or into "a preliminary session for the conciliar process."

In response, however, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has stressed that the Great Council will be held on the date set and has asked the autocephalous churches to come to Crete according to the agreed-upon program with a view to examining all the issues at the council. The Church of Romania has stated that it will participate in the council, while the Church of Albania regards it as unacceptable for the call to postpone the council to be made by any church on its own and that the decision to delay or cancel cannot be taken except by a summit of the heads of the Orthodox Churches, which made the decision to call for it by a majority of its members, with one member (that is, the Church of Antioch) not agreeing. The Archbishop of Cyprus has issued a communiqué in which he called upon all the churches to participate and to leave secondary disagreements between themselves aside, because the decision to hold the council was made by the unanimous consensus of the heads of the Orthodox churches and the council can directly address the controversial issues. The Church of Greece has not officially expressed its position, but the bishop assigned with following up on the dossier of  the Great Council has stated that everything that is happening was planned ahead of time and is intended to weaken the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch in order to give the Russian Church the role of arbiter of decisions made in the Orthodox world.

There is no doubt that all the above proves that even before it is held, the Great Orthodox Council may become a factor for disagreement and fragmentation among the Orthodox. In the case that it is held by those churches that show up, this will lead to the splintering of the Orthodox world and its decisions will not be accepted by those churches that are not participating. It will provide an opportunity to the opposition movement within the churches that do participate to also reject these decisions and will inevitably lead to weakening the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch, who for a long time in the future will no longer be able to head gatherings of the leaders of the Orthodox churches. All of this will open a new stage in the history of the Orthodox Church that will not be without difficulties, disputes and divisions.

The most dangerous thing, however, is that holding this council without the participation of all the autocephalous Orthodox churches in its activities will be a sad and disappointing conclusion to the promises initiated by Patriarch Athenagoras I in 1961, when he was able to unify the Orthodox world at the First Rhodes Conference, which launched the preparatory work for the Great Council on the basis of a golden rule that he and his collaborators called "holy unanimity." Though this unanimity, he intended allow the Orthodox Church to avoid divisions like those that the Orthodox world knew after the pan-Orthodox summit that was held in 1923 in the absence of certain churches. Throughout his time of leadership, Patriarch Athenagoras followed this golden rule and worked intently to preserve Orthodox unanimous consensus as the guarantor of the unity of the Orthodox world under difficult and complicated historical circumstances. This rule was subsequently consecrated in the internal statute of the Orthodox preparatory conferences that was unanimously agreed upon by the  autocephalous Orthodox churches in 1986 and which expressed "traditional Orthodox practice and canonized it in writing" when Section 2 of it stipulated that the Ecumenical Patriarch calls for the preparatory conference after "the consent of the heads of the local Orthodox churches through patriarchal letters addressed to all the heads of the autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox churches." Section 15 stipulated that "the Orthodox preparatory committee will undertake the work to ensure Orthodox consensus on each topic placed on the agenda for the following Orthodox conference and for preparing a joint text on each topic." Section 16 of this statute stated that "all texts regarding the topics placed on the agenda of the Orthodox preparatory meetings will be adopted by unanimity."

However, with the renewal of preparatory work for the Great Council in 2014, certain facts emerged indicating that His Holiness the current Ecumenical Patriarch would not apply this "traditional Orthodox practice" mentioned above and that he is inclined to hold the Great Council with whoever attends and relying on the principle of "agreement" of those churches participating in it and not the principle of "the unanimous consensus of all the autocephalous churches." The Church of Antioch has rejected this proposal, stating that the Great Council cannot be held unless all the autocephalous Orthodox churches participate in its activities. This is in accordance with the clear and precise internal statute of the council that was agreed upon by all the autocephalous churches before the call to hold the council. During the work of the committee in charge of establishing an internal statute for the Great Council, it proposed adding a section stipulating that "announcing the inauguration of the sessions of the Great Orthodox Council will take place in the presence of all the heads of the autocephalous Orthodox churches. The attendance of the heads of the churches or those designated by them must be secured throughout the work of the council. Otherwise, the work of the council will be suspended until the presence of all the heads of the autocephalous churches is again possible." However, this Antiochian proposal was met with fierce opposition from the head of the session, the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch, who came back and rejected the formula stating that "the Ecumenical Patriarch must ensure (safeguard) the participation of all the heads of the universally-recognized autocephalous Orthodox churches or their representatives in all conciliar procedures and deliberations." This is despite the presence of a representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the commission that formulated it, which also included representatives of the Patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Moscow. This led to suspending the meeting designated with setting the internal statute and referring the issue to the summit of the heads of the Orthodox churches that met at Chambésy in 2016 and formed a committee to set the internal statute, where again the Ecumenical Patriarchate refused to include the rule of unanimity in the text of the statute. The Ecumenical Patriarchate's abandoning the golden rule upon which all the preparatory work for the Great Council forced the Patriarchate of Antioch to refrain from signing the internal statute and the decisions of the aforementioned summit, which lost the unanimity of the Orthodox Churches. In another sense, the Church of Antioch has never agreed to hold the Great Council on the aforementioned date, so long as there is no unanimous consensus on its topics and peaceful relations are not guaranteed between all the autocephalous churches. This is in order to safeguard the unity of the Orthodox world and preserve the inheritance left for the Orthodox world by Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras.

However, contrary to all the norms governing joint Orthodox work, His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew undertook to call for holding the Great Council. This led the Church of Antioch to take the unanimous synodal decision to affirm its previous position of not participating in the Great Council "so long as there is no agreement" about all its mechanisms and topics, so that the council will not be a cause for fragmentation and for wasting what has been built by joint work over the past sixty years, especially given that the council would be held in the shadow of disagreements over the documents being referred to it and the breaking of communion between two apostolic churches (that is, Antioch and Jerusalem).

Historical experience over the past century has proven that the Istanbul summit that was called by Patriarch Meletios (Metaxakis) in 1923 led to the splintering of the Orthodox because it made important conciliar decisions in the absence of apostolic churches. The Orthodox world suffered from the results of this summit until God sent Athenagoras, who worked to build unity calmly and without haste or hurry, respecting the specificities and situations of all the autocephalous churches. He patiently worked to build up Orthodox agreement about the topics of the great council. The path that was begun in 1961 has realized palpable results, whether on the level of the unity of the Orthodox world or on the level of dialogue with the rest of the Christian world.

But today, so that the Orthodox Church may preserve its unity, it is needed of the Ecumenical Patriarch that he read the signs of the time clearly, especially the restlessness resulting from the Ecumenical Patriarchate's management of the latest preparatory stage, which was not without heavy-handedness and ignoring the positions of the other churches which, whenever they raised a voice in objection to the direction taken by the preparatory work for the Great Council, their concerns fell on deaf ears.

Perhaps what is also needed, so that the Great Orthodox Council on Crete will not turn into another Istanbul summit, destroying what the Rhodes Conference built and wasting all the joint work among the Orthodox churches that followed it, is for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to recover the experience of Patriarch Athenagoras. That is, to not understand its primacy as rigid leadership and to regard its patriarch as the first among equals, not primus sine paribus!

Perhaps the opportunity has not yet passed for Patriarch Bartholomew himself to be this savior. Is anyone listening?!