An ecclesiological approach on the road to the Holy and Great Synod – 6

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The rekindling of fundamentalism within the Orthodox Church, with anti-ecumenism as its main feature, had already been addressed as early as March 1992 by the Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches in Fanari, and in particular by the Inter-Orthodox Conference which met in Thessaloniki in 1998 and examined the issue: ‘Assessments of the modern developments in the relations between Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement’. It was also addressed by the Russian Episcopal Synod of August 2000, which published the Declaration: ‘Basic principles of the relation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the other Christian Confessions’. More recently, the Ecumenical Patriarchate released the Patriarchal and Synodical Encyclical on this matter on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, 21 February, 2010.

The decision of the 5^th Pre-Synod Meeting quite rightly underscores this serious problem and raises it for the Holy and Great Synod, because this far from constructive state of affairs demonstrates the responsibility of the Synod to manifest and defend unity and the truth, heading off those who are lurking in order to wound the body of the Orthodox Church, to make it a corpse to be preserved.

Source:Wikimedia commons

Of course, the solution to the above problem is linked to and presupposes the members of the Church being properly informed about what has happened, is happening and is being planned in the realm of the Ecumenical Movement. This need is quite rightly stressed in paragraph 11 of the decision. It has been repeatedly noted on an inter-Orthodox level that any attempt to seek Christian unity and reconciliation will not bear fruit unless it begins with the ‘base’. The contribution of the Orthodox Church to the ecumenical vision ‘can be structured and fulfilled only when it involves the base’, and that its contribution would be more effective if ‘greater attention were paid to updating the clergy and laity, men and women, in ecumenical matters’. Disregard of a large portion of the people and the clergy and the failure to update them are the main reasons which have led to indifference to and rejection of the Ecumenical Movement. This is also the reason for the paralysis of any effort to put into action and implement what has been agreed. It is an opportunity for the Great Synod to change things and for self-correcting measures to be taken on this issue. Otherwise, as the Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios said as early as 1983 (as Metropolitan of Philadelphia) ‘by holding the people back from the relevant proceedings, those who wish not to take the bold and decisive steps towards Christian reconciliation and unity will be able, most conveniently, to invoke the “alibi” of the “immaturity”, “ignorance” and “unpreparedness” of our people’. Is this not what is being claimed today by extreme circles about the convening of the Holy and Great Synod?

To conclude: on the basis of what has been said above and with an eye to the Great and Holy Synod allow me to note the following points, as regards its mission:

It is a mission of modern Orthodoxy, through its approaching Synod, to confirm the Orthodox wish to proceed together with other Churches and Confessions on the path which leads to Christian unity.

The approaching Synod has a mission to define more convincingly and more clearly the position of the Orthodox Church within the current ecumenical dialogue and to tell those with whom it is in discussions how Orthodoxy experiences the relationship with them and what they are for Orthodoxy.

The approaching Synod has a mission to reaffirm the obligation of Orthodoxy to talk to the ‘other’, with those other cultures, as well as with other Christians and with people of different religious persuasions, because otherwise it will fail in its mission and will be transformed from a Church which is ‘universal’ and ‘for the whole world’ into an introverted and complacent grouping, into a ‘ghetto’ in the margins of history, a stranger to the anxieties which concern the modern world and indifferent to showing this world the true message of the Gospel.

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