Natallia Vasilevich, The Social Teaching of the Holy and Great Council: Towards Being a Church for the World, transl. from German: Ökumenische Rundschau 66 (1/2017), S. 12-28. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Hts Theologiese Studies, 2019
An important moment in the history of the Orthodox Church is despite the withdrawal of local churches like the Bulgarian, Russian, Georgian and Alexandrian ones and the fear of Serbian Church to take part in it, the Pan-Orthodox Council of Crete remains an important meeting that influenced the history of Orthodoxy and shifted its conception to the world. The relevance of some of the topics discussed there explains why it can be found inside the important theological journals from the entire world chronicles of the event and articles dedicated to some of the topics investigated. Noticing this fact, we have tried to see the way the social thinking of the Orthodox Church is reflected in the documents released by the participants and its encyclical letter. Because of the fact that, until today, only the Russian Orthodox Church has a document that defines in an articulate way its social thinking and this one was published in 2002, when many challenges were not present in society, the ideas presented there are not only important for their relevance and actuality (because there are approached topics like fundamentalism, terrorism, nuclear weapons, family crisis, persecution of Christians of migration crisis), but also for the fact that they became the official document that articulates the landmarks of social thinking of the Eastern Orthodox Church, seen as a federation of local churches that are in Eucharistic and doctrinaire communion. Therefore, we have tried to see how the bishops presented to the Pan-Orthodox meeting, the way they understood and approached these topics and what represented the motivations of their conclusions.
The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church & the Ecumenical Movement
ANTONIOS STAMOULIS, 2013
The issue of the Orthodox participation in the Ecumenical Movement in general, and in the WCC in particular, remains always a timely and challenging topic for discussions and deliberations, not only among the Orthodox specialists, clergy and professors, who are directly involved in that matter, but also among the Orthodox faithful. The variety of divergent opinions1 extends from a wholehearted support of a complete and active Orthodox participation in the process of searching for Christian unity to a more cautious and critical stance on it. Some conservative Orthodox circles have expressed even an absolute and fundamentalist opposition to any kind of rapprochement among the Christian Churches. These alignments constitute the scope of the Orthodox understanding and interpretation of Ecumenism, not only during the previous decades, but also nowadays. It is generally acknowledged that the last decade of the 20th century was the most problematic and painful period concerning the Orthodox participation in the WCC. The Orthodox Church, which, under the relevant initiatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, had a pioneering role in the formation of the Ecumenical Movement from the very beginning of the 20th century, found herself in difficulties relating to her position in the WCC. Indeed, the Churches of Georgia and Bulgaria withdrew their membership from the WCC and the Conference of European Churches (CEC); Georgia in 1997, followed by Bulgaria in 1998. 1. Archbishop Iakovos of America, “The Orthodox Churches vis-à-vis the Ecumenical Movement”, in The Catholic World, vol. 201, no. 1, April 1965, 237- 239. Moreover, a significant and perilous rekindling of anti-ecumenical Orthodox circles was manifested during the 1990’s, especially in the former Soviet countries after the fall of communism. That crisis in the relations of the Orthodox Church with the Ecumenical Movement led the 8th General Assembly of the WCC in Harare (1998) to appoint a Special Commission on Orthodox participation in the WCC. Motivated by that reality, due to the fact that I was studying between 2004 and 2005 in the official Institute of the WCC, at Bossey, and the Autonomous Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Geneva, I considered it important to study further the issue and deepen my understanding of the Orthodox involvement in the Ecumenical Movement. More specifically, in this dissertation I try to explore the official Orthodox position vis-à-vis the Ecumenical Movement as it had been formulated by the official synodical bodies of the Orthodox Church in her process of convoking the Holy and Great Council. The convocation of the Holy and Great Council was envisioned as an attempt of the Orthodox Churches to come closer and deal on a Pan- Orthodox level with the main issues that confronted them in the 20th century. After many centuries of mutual isolation and alienation, the process of meeting of the Orthodox Churches was only put into practice during the 1960’s, even though this issue occupied the thought of the Orthodox leaders from the very beginning of the 20th century. Among the themes of the agenda of the Holy and Great Council, the issue of Ecumenism and inter-Christian relations had a primary place. While dealing with the issue of the Orthodox participation in the Ecumenical Movement, I will try to answer the following questions: Is the participation of the Orthodoxy in the Ecumenical Movement and in its institutional forms, such as the WCC, based on firm principles logically applied? Are there any divergences or shifts in the attempt of the Orthodox Church to articulate her official position concerning her presence in the Ecumenical Movement? If so, how can they be explained? How can one analyze the changing attitudes of Orthodoxy vis-à-vis the orientation of the Ecumenical Movement and of the WCC after a common decision (1986) has been reached on a Pan-Orthodox level? Has that common decision a binding character for the autocephalous Orthodox Churches? In my attempt to answer to those questions, I focused my research on studying the formal decisions taken by the Orthodox Churches on a Pan-Orthodox level. My study was based on the Encyclicals, official Church documents and minutes of Pan-Orthodox Conferences and Ecumenical Assemblies and Consultations, as well as on related articles and essays. In addition, influential personalities involved in the WCC activities and in the Pan-Orthodox Preconciliar process have been interviewed. Despite the fact that this topic also touches ecclesiological aspects, my purpose was to deal with all these sources by limiting myself to a historic point of view until the work performed by the well known Special Commission on Orthodox participation in the WCC (1998-2002) was completed. The chronic limit (2002) is exclusively related to the time when this Master’s thesis was written (2004-2005), namely before the convocation of the Porto Alegre 9th General Assembly of the WCC, where the proposals of the Special Commission on Orthodox participation in the WCC were adopted and put into practice.
Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu, 2021
The document titled For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Ortho dox Church, authored by a special commission of Orthodox scholars appointed by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is a document that can be definitely understood as a political manifesto of Eastern Orthodoxy for the 21st century, namely for this period of history and not for a by-gone historical setting or a Christian utopia (either the Byzantine Empire or Holy Russia), a period of time with urgent problems and challenges that call for our attention. Therefore, bringing to the fore the personalist anthropological view inherent in the document itself, an attempt has been made in the text to critically reflect and highlight certain relevant aspects of the document (a positive reception of liberal democracy, human rights language, solidarity to the poor, etc.). The goal is to show how theologically important this document is for the Church witness to our pluralistic world.
Th is conference under the title "Th e Forthcoming Council of the Orthodox Church: Understanding the Challenges" has broached the most important questions and issues for the Great Council in preparation, such as the common liturgical calendar, autocephaly, autonomy and diptychs, the future of the supposed Orthodox "diaspora, " relations between Orthodoxy and other Christian churches, and also ethical and social questions and the contemporary practice of fasting. For all of these major questions, this conference has benefi ted from the presence and the analyses-both penetrating and stimulating-of ecumenical observers, Roman Catholic and Protestant, which has itself permitted a fruitful interaction in a spirit of openness and ecumenical understanding. As Peter De Mey indicated in his presentation:
Reflection on the Mission of the Orthodox Church after the Holy and Great Council of Crete
Orthodox Theology ind Dialogue, 2018
The Orthodox Church has been given the fullest of truth by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, truth honored and valued in the communion of the Saints. For men, to grasp divine truth is a progressive process part of a permanent development. Each and every person walks along this path together with other people, without being the same as the others. Every person is offered and understands truth according to their own religious experience and skills to understand. Ultimate truth exists and it has been revealed completely, but the way in which it is grasped varies from one person to another. “This is not a narrowly doctrinal vision of theological truth. However, it is an essentially spiritual vision for worldly reality, one that removes arrogance from authority and opens new ways of approaching believers of other religions. It presupposes magnanimity and charity, faith and hope, tolerance and reconciliation. It opposes forceful conversion and conflinct, imposition and intolerance, aggression and violence”.85 This approach prevents us from assigning to God intentions and plans which are exclusively ours. Thus, whenever we have a dialogue with those of different beliefs and ideologies, we must always start from God’s sacrificial love for all men.
RELIGIONS, 2023
In this study, I will analyse the position of the Orthodox Church(es) towards the ecumenical dialogue in accordance with the documents approved by the Synod of Crete (2016), but also with the social document For the Life of the World of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (2020). After a brief presentation of the important moments of the historical journey for the meeting of the Synod, I will present the most important internal and reception issues of it. In the following, I will present the reason for the publication of the social document and the relation with the Synod of Crete. In the last part of the study, I will deal critically with a theological synthesis on the following topics: ecclesiological self-identity, Trinitarian baptism, the quality of being a Christian, the Orthodox Church and the Churches, ecumenism for dialogue, for witnessing, and cooperation. Of course, in the end, I will present the most important conclusions.
Often and for a good reason, commentators have noted that whereas Western Christianity was quick to realise and consider the challenges posed by the modern, brave new world, Eastern Christianity proved to be far slower in its reactions. There is no point in arguing otherwise. A series of factors conditioned, and still do, Orthodox Christianity’s slowness to respond to contemporary challenges. For one, its eschatological and transcendent figure proved to be a double-edged sword. This figure kept it out of the maelstrom of any rushed desire to fit in the nontraditional narrative of our time, but at a cost: it lost track of time, so that the last major overhaul it has undertaken was with reference to the nineteenth century nationalist ideologies, which have become its narrative ever since. Another factor is, of course, its geographical position, traditionally the Orthodox Church being confined to lands where the brave new world itself has penetrated slower than in the west, making impossible an earlier encounter. No wonder therefore that, against this backdrop, only more recently did Orthodox Christianity arrived at grasping some of the challenges of our time, through the reflection of the Orthodox living in the west. In turn, the Roman Catholic Church was there from the outset, witnessing the emergence of modernity. Getting quicker its historical bearings than Eastern Orthodoxy, it engaged a critical conversation with the brave new world from very early on. For instance, it held two major councils in modern era, where it assessed the impact of modernity on Christian faith and life. John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor continues this conversation on ethical grounds, preceding by more than two decades the concerns recently expressed in the Encyclical of the first major gathering of the Orthodox Church in modern times, the 2016 Holy and Great Council of Crete. In my talk, I look at the ethical dimension of the two documents, pointing out how, despite the historical and cultural gulfs between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, both encyclicals illustrate similar concerns about the moral dilemmas of our age. The Splendour of Truth: A Symposium on St John Paul II's Encyclical Veritatis Splendor: 25 years on, held at School of Philosophy and Theology, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney (Broadway campus). 18-19 October 2018 Audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clXCRrbjKkI&t=209s