GENERAL SUMMARY
The Convening of the Holy and Great Council of
worldwide Orthodox Christianity – the first in
over one thousand years, is a sign of hope and
reassurance for not only Orthodox Christians,
but for all people of faith around the globe.
The remarkable and relentless pursuit of this
Spirit-filled event is a signature
characteristic of the life, mission and
leadership of His All-Holiness Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew. In convening the Great
and Holy Council this June, during the holy
celebrations of Pentecost, His All-Holiness is
bringing to fulfillment the vision of his two
predecessors, Athenagoras and Demetrios, both
of blessed memory.
But more than the completion of a more than
fifty-year dream, Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew has transformed the process beyond
the mere structural process of the last fifty
years, by adapting to the radically changed
reality of Orthodoxy in the 21st
Century.
When the road to the Holy and Great Council
was embarked upon, World War II was only
fifteen years in the past, the atheist Soviet
Union controlled the lives of most Orthodox
Christians and the church institutions that
struggled to minister to them, and the world
was deep into the winter of the Cold War.
Orthodox Christianity in the Diaspora was
profoundly segmented, if not outrightly
fragmented. The Ecumenical Patriarchate had –
only five years before – suffered a massive
and systematic persecution in Constantinople,
displacing hundreds of thousands of its
communicants. Mount Athos was turning one
thousand years old, and though life on the
Holy Mountain had scarcely changed over the
centuries, the world at-large was bracing to
change at a pace unknown in history.
The need for dialogue, thinking together,
interconnection, and new perspectives was
everywhere. At the same time the Orthodox were
commencing a process that is now taking place
on the Island of Crete (a sacred
topos of Apostolic visitation!), Pope
John XXIII was convening the Second Vatican
Council, a council that would radically push
the Roman Catholic Church – in many ways quite
unprepared – into the latter half of the
20th Century. Although the process
has been much slower for the Orthodox Church
to convene such a similar process, in
retrospect we can see that the deliberate and
slower pace has been more of an advantage,
rather than the reverse.
Nearly half of the time that it has taken to
finally arrive at the Holy and Great Council
has occurred under the patriarchy of His
All-Holiness Bartholomew, which coincided with
the dissolution of the former Soviet Union and
the resurgence of the Moscow Patriarchate
under the autocracy that currently governs the
Russian Federation. As the national
aspirations of the Ukrainian, Estonian, Czech,
and Slovak peoples have created conditions for
national and autocephalous or autonomous
Churches, it has been Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew who from a position of
only spiritual strength, has steered
the Ark of Salvation through the dangerous
shoals of self-interest and power-seeking.
From the Phanar, despite and perhaps because
of the difficulties as a religious and ethnic
minority that continue unabated, His
All-Holiness seeks only the benefit of
all the local (autocephalous)
Churches, putting the good of all above the
ephemeral desires of any one. This has
manifested as the kind of leadership that
leaves a legacy of unity and conciliarity in
its wake, even as the naysayers and gainsayers
give rise to fear and even paranoia.
The significance of this Holy and Great
Council cannot be overstated. The fact that
all the Autocephalous Churches have agreed to
meet, to dialogue, to exchange view and
position – this in itself is an accomplishment
of historic proportions. There are those who
would contradict the former statement, but let
us remember, that this has not happened in
centuries, and for Orthodoxy, there have been
no serious doctrinal disputes in over six
hundred years, since the Hesychast
controversies of the 14th Century.
Inasmuch as Orthodoxy is based in model of
conciliarity under the aegis of the Holy
Spirit, Hierarchy must be as much horizontal
in its orientation as it is vertical, with
consensus and unanimity forming the core of
the process of adaptation. This is precisely
why the Holy and Great Council is so necessary
and so timely. As long as the local,
autocephalous Churches are only speaking among
themselves, each Church’s local culture,
economy, language, and local traditions will
limit its scope and perspective on is own
mission. The Bishops must be in dialogue with
one another in order to see the world from a
differing perspective and consider the needs
of their flocks from the holistic sense of the
whole Body of the Church, whose Head is
Christ.
The six preparatory documents: Autonomy,
Diaspora, Ecumenical Relations, Fasting,
Marriage, and Mission, address contemporary
concerns of all the faithful. In doing so, the
Bishops of the Church, under the guiding hand
of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew, are demonstrating the living,
breathing vibrancy of the Spirit of God, that
infuses the Church to be the living Body of
Christ.
SUMMARY OF INDIVIDUAL DECISIONS
Autonomy
The Council will address the institution of
Autonomy, which is a canonical status of
relative or partial independence of an
ecclesiastical segment from the canonical
jurisdiction of the Autocephalous Church to
which it belongs. The initiation and
completion of the process for granting
Autonomy is the canonical prerogative of the
Autocephalous Church, which governs the area
considering autonomy that must be within the
boundaries of its own canonical geographical
region. Note that Autonomous Churches cannot
be established in the area of the Orthodox
Diaspora, except by a pan-Orthodox consensus,
secured by the Ecumenical Patriarch in
accordance with prevailing pan-Orthodox
practice. Currently, there are six Autonomous
Churches: The Church of Crete, the Church of
Finland, and the Church of Estonia under the
Ecumenical Patriarchate; The Church of Sinai
under the Jerusalem Patriarchate; and the
Church of Japan and the Church of Ukraine
under Moscow Patriarchate.
Diaspora
All of the most holy Orthodox Churches desire
to resolve the problem of overlapping
jurisdictions within the Orthodox Diaspora as
swiftly as possible. Furthermore, the common
will is to organize the Diaspora in accordance
with Orthodox ecclesiology, as well as the
canonical tradition and practice of the
Orthodox Church. In the present circumstances,
an immediate transition to the strictly
canonical order of the Church – namely, the
existence of only one bishop in the same place
– is unachievable for well known historical
and pastoral reasons. In order to address
this, the Churches decided to create a
transitional situation, namely Assemblies of
Bishops in various regions, that will prepare
the ground for a strictly canonical resolution
of the problem. Each Assembly is charged to
prepare a plan to present to the Holy and
Great Council of the Orthodox Church, in order
that the latter might proceed to a canonical
solution of the problem.
Ecumenical Relations
The Orthodox Church, as the One, Holy,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church, firmly
believes that it has a central place in the
matter of promoting unity among Christians in
the modern world. The Orthodox Church has
always cultivated dialogue with those
estranged from it, both far and near. It has
even pioneered to restore unity among those
who believe in Christ, and participated in the
Ecumenical Movement since its inception,
contributing to its formation and further
development. While participating in ecumenical
relations, the Church never sacrifices Her
principles, and the positions She does take
all have as their end the ultimate restoration
of unity in true faith and love, the final
goal of the process of all theological
dialogues.
Fasting
Like a nurturing mother, the Orthodox Church
has defined what is beneficial for salvation
and established the holy periods of fasting as
divinely-given “protection” for believers’ new
life in Christ. In Her pastoral
discernment, the Church has also established
boundaries of philanthropic dispensation for
the institution of fasting. This is why, in
cases of physical infirmity or extreme
necessity as well as of difficult
circumstances, it has preordained an
appropriate application of the principle of
ecclesiastical dispensation, in accordance
with the responsible judgment and pastoral
care of the body of bishops in the local
Churches. It is left to the discretion of the
local Orthodox Churches to determine how to
exercise philanthropic dispensation and
clemency, relieving in these special cases any
“burden” of the holy fasts. All this should
occur within the aforementioned context and
with the objective of not at all diminishing
the sacred institution of fasting.
Marriage
The Orthodox Church proclaims the sacredness
of marriage as a fundamental and indisputable
teaching of the Church. Defending the
sacredness of the mystery of marriage has
always been especially important for the
preservation of the Family, which radiates the
communion of the persons yoked together both
in the Church and in Society at large. Those
members of the Church who contract a
civil marriage must be approached
with pastoral responsibility, which is
mandatory in order for them to understand the
value of the sacrament of marriage and the
many blessings that result. The Church does
not recognize same-sex unions or any other
form of cohabitation for its members other
than marriage. The impediments for marriage
follow the canonical norms of the Church
throughout history, with some allowance made
for pastoral reasons.
Mission
The Church, drawing from the foretaste of the
Heavenly Kingdom and the principles embodied
in the entire experience of the patristic,
liturgical, and ascetical tradition shares the
concern and the anxiety of contemporary
humanity with regard to fundamental
existential questions that affect the world
today, in its desire to contribute to these
issues so that the
peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding (Phil 4:7), reconciliation, and love may
prevail in the world. As such, the Church is
concerned with the dignity of the human
person, the limits and implications of human
freedom and responsibility, the nature of true
peace, the cessation of war and violence, and
social, political and economic justice. In
service to the human family, the mission of
the Church encompasses the full breadth of the
human experience, ministering where necessary
to the needs of each.
