The Great Synod of the Orthodox Church will Convene in Crete in June

BOSTON, MA – The Great Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church will be convened at the Orthodox Academy in Chania, Crete in June instead of Constantinople, its original venue. It is scheduled for the Holy Pentecost weekend, June 18 to 20.

The Synaxis of the Prelates of the Patriarchates and the Orthodox Churches who gathered in Geneva from January 21st to 28 rendered the decision.

The reason for the change was that Patriarch Kyrillos of Moscow could not travel to Constantinople due to the political and diplomatic tensions between Russia and Turkey since latter’s shooting of a Russian airplane.

For the same reason the Synaxis was convened in Constantinople in which 11 out of 14 Prelates participated and the rest 3 were represented by designated delegations. Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece refused to participate due to the crisis that exists once again between the relations of the Church of Greece with the Ecumenical Patriarchate due to the ordination of Metropolitan Amfilochios of Andrianoupolis. Specifically, Patriarch Bartholomew who was connected with a close friendship with Amfilochios (Stergiou) attempted unsuccessfully to impose his election to the Metropolis of Ioannina a year ago. The Hierarchy of the Church of Greece rejected Bartholomew’s attempt, giving his candidate only seven votes which was extremely embarrassing for the Bartholomew and the Patriarchate. Two weeks later, Bartholomew led his Synod of the Phanar to elect Amfilochios Metropolitan of Andrianoupolis and he also appointed him Director of the Office of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Athens, contrary to Ieronymos’ wishes. The latter wrote to Bartholomew asking him to remove Amfilochios, but Bartholomew did not do so.

Patriarch Ioannis  of Antioch refused to participate due to the dispute over the creation the Archdiocese of Qatar by the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Metropolitan Savvas of Poland did not attend due to illness.

His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America participates in the Synaxis as a representative of the Patriarchate.

In his introductory speech, Bartholomew said that “as we know, this Synaxis of ours was to be held at our see, but extraordinary objective circumstances that prevented some of our brothers from traveling there imposed the relocation of our meeting here. We thank all of You for understanding the necessity of this change and for agreeing to come here in order to realize the sacred purpose of the present Synaxis.”

Speaking about the agenda the Patriarch said that “as known, the agenda of the Council was determined by Pan-Orthodox decision of the First Preconciliar Pan-Orthodox Consultation (1976) and includes the following ten items according to the order in the Acts of the Consultation:

1. Orthodox Diaspora
2. Autocephaly and its manner of proclamation
3. Autonomy and its manner of proclamation
4. The Diptychs
5. The matter of a common calendar
6. Impediments of marriage
7. Adaptation of church regulations on fasting
8. Relations of the Orthodox Churches with the rest of the Christian world
9. Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement
10. Contribution of the local Orthodox Churches to the prevalence of the Christian

ideals of peace, liberty, brotherhood and love among peoples, and the lifting of racial and other discrimination.

“According the prevailing by-Laws, each of the above items should pass through the stage of preparation in order to be examined by an Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Committee, which would repeatedly convene until it achieves unanimous formulation of the text in question, which should consequently be approved by a Preconciliar Pan-Orthodox Consultation in order finally to be referred without further ado to the Holy and Great Council.”

The patriarch also said that “of the above items, eight have already passed through the stage of preparation and approval by Preconciliar Pan-Orthodox Consultations, while two of them – pertaining to Autocephaly and the Diptychs – have not received unanimous acceptance in the recurrent meetings of the Preconciliar Committee in order to receive final approval by a Preconciliar Consultation and comprise items for discussion at the Holy and Great Council.

“In light of the situation that has developed in this way, we were faced with the dilemma of either postponing the realization of the Holy and Great Council until agreement is also reached on these two items or else proceeding with its convocation contented with the eight items.

“On this question, there was a Pan-Orthodox decision to proceed with the convocation of the Council contented with the eight items, which received unanimous approval by Preconciliar Consultations.

“Subsequently, our Synaxis in March 2014 unanimously decided to convene the Holy and Great Council in 2016 after a Special Inter-Orthodox Committee has previously undertaken the following actions by Pascha 2015:

1. a) the revision of the texts agreed by the Third Preconciliar Consultation on the items: Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement; Relations of the Orthodox Churches with the rest of the Christian world; and, Contribution of the Orthodox Churches to the prevalence of peace, etc.
2. b) the editing of texts from the Second Preconciliar Consultation regarding: Adaptation of church regulations on fasting; Impediments of marriage; and, A common calendar.
3. c) If possible (“it is desirable”), the discussion of the items of Autocephaly and the Diptychs by the Preparatory Committee in order to achieve unanimity.”

   Синаксис

   Patriarch Kyrillos of Moscow greets Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

    

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