The Witness of the Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement (original) (raw)
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SOTER: Journal of Religious Science
Involvement of the Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement in the Context of the Orthodox Participation in the World Council of Churches SUMMARY. The main concern of the ecumenical movement is to overcome the problem connected with the schism and division among Christians. The position of the Orthodox Church is very important in this process, because of historical and other reasons. Orthodox Churches have participated in the ecumenical movement from the very beginning. The purpose of this article is to review the historical context and to examine the main difficulties that exist in the modern ecumenical movement in relation to the Orthodox Churches. As far as the structure of the Orthodox Church differs from that of the Roman Catholic Church, it should be mentioned that the documents and the encyclicals on which the article is based are from autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches. Autocephalous means that there are seventeen self-governing Eastern Orthodox Churches that recognize each other as canonical Churches. The highest-ranking bishop is called a patriarch, archbishop, or metropolitan. These seventeen Orthodox Churches share a eucharistic communion, they recognize common dogmas and common ecclesiastical traditions. Therefore, when the article attempts to express the position of the Orthodox Church, it refers to the official documents of the Orthodox Churches announced at inter-Orthodox gatherings or as the encyclicals. The article examines when and why the Orthodox Churches became involved in the ecumenical movement and what challenges the Orthodox Church faces in modern ecumenical organizations.
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.
Introduction: “Inward Being and Outward Identity: The Orthodox Churches in the 21st Century”
Religions, 2017
As the title indicates, taken together the thirteen papers in this Special Issue of Religions give a broad view of what might be called the inner and outer life of the Orthodox Church, with each of the papers focusing on a particular area of research and reflection. In recent decades, there has been an explosion of books and articles on the Orthodox Churches, both Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox (the articles in this issue focus on the former). There is widespread interest in the spiritual life of the Orthodox Church: prayer, worship, theology, saints, art, music, ascetic practices and ways of living, monasticism, and how its self-understanding as a repository of ancient Christian tradition is interwoven and evolving in what Charles Taylor calls the cross-pressures of the secular age. At the same time, the quarter-century following the collapse of the Soviet Union has seen the Orthodox Church emerge from persecution and martyrdom to rebuild the infrastructure of churches, monasteries and Christian social services decimated by the Communist years. In that process the Orthodox Churches have also become powerful public, political, nationalist and cultural forces in Russia and Eastern Europe. They are now frequently perceived as closely aligned with restrictive government policies, suspicious of democracy, freedom, human rights and minorities. In contrast, Orthodox Christians in the Middle East live a tenuous existence-often shared with Muslims-in the face of war, sectarian violence and official and unofficial duress and persecution. Meanwhile, in areas of emigration and mission in Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, parts of sub-Saharan Africa and other regions outside its traditional homelands Orthodox Christianity is also taking hold as a self-consciously distinct minority religion that is attracting a steady stream of converts while struggling for its identity in a secular environment increasingly hostile to traditional Christianity. In the midst of these competing global forces, and an Orthodox world dominated by Old World Churches, the leaders of the disparate and often quarrelsome branches of Eastern Orthodoxy, led by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople as "first among equals," have been attempting to bring a measure of unity as they seek to remain true to the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3) while also confronting the challenges of the 21st century. An important step in that direction was taken at "The Holy and Great Council" of the Eastern Orthodox Churches which took place on Crete in June 2016 during the week of Pentecost (https://www.holycouncil.org). Patriarch Bartholomew presided, and although the Council's status and authority are disputed by several of the Orthodox Churches which did not send delegations (Antioch, Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria) the fact remains that this council was decades in preparation and was the largest and most diverse council of Eastern Orthodox bishops in many centuries. The agenda was modest and did not attempt to address some of the most pressing issues facing the Orthodox Churches, but it provoked some valuable discussion (see for example Nathanael Symeonides 2016). At the very least it demonstrated awareness of questions that the Orthodox must consider and act upon. The Holy and Great Council has opened our horizon towards the contemporary diverse and multifarious world. It has emphasised our responsibility in place and in time, ever with
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In the framework of the World Council of Churches and in the bilateral theological dialogues between diverse Churches and denominations, the question of a common missionary testimony is a quite often topic. Since 2016, when the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church was held, a new perspective showed up regarding the Orthodox point of view. The following study tries to underline the ecumenical perspective of how Churches and denominations may or may not work together in the spirit of missionary testimony into the world. The newest documents provided by the Orthodox Church may give some new hopes in this respect.
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: