The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church & the Ecumenical Movement (original) (raw)

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.