Crete Council in the context of today’s world: efficiency factor and further prospects

The Pan-Orthodox Council, which had been waited for with big tension, came to an end. This event was interpreted differently in all parts of the Orthodox world. Somebody believed it will be an omen of the Apocalypse, in view of which there were organized various anti-council cross processions and other meetings. Others expected the Council to come up with some extraordinary decisions to bring along a certain innovation in Orthodoxy.   

Personally, being a Christian and a clergyman, I can fell bitterness from the Pan-Orthodox Council: from the way it was prepared, the way it was held, and from the outcome of work of Local Churches’ representatives in Crete. I think my opinion is shared by lots of people who anticipated that this Pan-Orthodox Council, in its spirit and essence, will be similar to the previous Councils. However, the whole process, from the very beginning to the very end, was spoilt by a number of factors. 

Unsuccessful claim of its being ecumenical

Not that an idea of convening a Pan-Orthodox Council was bad… No. Personally, I fully support the initiative of the Patriarch of Alexandria to make such meetings regular. Perhaps, every 5 years would seem too frequent yet the necessity to have them is out of question. 

The thing is everything began crumpling down from the moment when the Crete Council, before it started off, was compared with Ecumenical Councils. I mean not when it was said something like “Patriarch Bartholomew – a new born Antichrist! For the 7^th Ecumenical Council was said to be the last and not to be followed by anything similar!” The point is about those, who long before the beginning of the Council, idealized it with ecumenical.   

It would not be correct to compare the Crete event with Ecumenical Councils. Intrinsically, there are a lot of reasons amid which I’d like to distinguish two. Firstly, the issues, raised at Seven Pan-Orthodox Councils, are fundamental and crucial, and form a cornerstone of Orthodoxy. Secondly, the holiness of all Seven Ecumenical Councils is a generally accepted and unquestionable fact in the history and dogmatism of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, in more sensible circles the meeting in Crete is not referred to as either “holy” or “ecumenical”.  

Finally, the Pan-Orthodox Council failed to appear as ecumenical de-facto because, as we know, four Local Orthodox Churches withdrew from it, with another Local Church not having been invited at all. By the way, the history of Seven Ecumenical Councils has it when these or those Local Churches were not represented there.   

Yet, unlike the Crete Council, we attribute “Holy” to all previous Seven Pan-Orthodox Councils, since they formed the Church dogmata which have been fundamental and creedal at all times. Besides, we recognize them as “ecumenical” because all decisions which were taken by the saint fathers are binding for the whole Orthodox World without any exception. It means over the last 500 years there has been elaborated and worded a peculiar Constitution of the Orthodox Church. 

As regards the Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete, due to many aspects there is an impression this meeting was supposed to become a peculiar declaration of unity. Taking into account the fact that 5 Local Churches refused to participate in the Council for certain reasons should not mean there is no unity within the Orthodox Church. There is! And it has to be proved, first and foremost, by praying and Eucharistic communication, which was the case in Chambesy several months before the beginning of the Council.    

Orthodox conflicts of interests

There are certain conflict-ridden moments though, stipulated by the purely human factor in the Church. Among them – refusal of some Churches to take part in the Crete Council. Unfortunately, a number of mass media and representatives of particular organizations struck the right chord with believers, manipulating with these nuances.   

For instance, when representatives of the Patriarchate of Antioch refused to participate in the Council, mass media began to throw in false information about the plot theory of Syrians with the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin was alleged to have a huge influence on Asad and, respectively, the Church of Antioch was forced to refuse from the trip to the Council.  

However, a real reason for the Patriarchate of Antioch to opt out has been evident for more than a year. It lies in that Jerusalem Patriarchate, without agreeing it with the Antioch one, spread its activity on the Qatar territory, which has been under canonical jurisdiction of Damascus since the dawn of time. It is namely this controversy, and nothing else, explains why the Antioch party refused to participate in the Council.   

After all, one can and should understand the Patriarchate of Antioch. How could the Council be convened, considering this on-going conflict between Jerusalem and Damascus? Most probably, issues related to canonical territories were even not on agenda at the pre-council meeting in Chambesy, which became the last straw.

That is why the conflict at hand between Jerusalem and Damascus determines why Syrians actually withdrew from the Crete meeting. In the context of this situation it’s quite easy to refute all other legends, thought up around opt-outs of Local Churches. Whatever the development of the information campaign might be, it’s ridiculous to accuse the ROC of all faults.    

It would be more relevant instead to criticize “ecumenical mind” that made so much haste in organizing the Council it failed to pay attention to all disputes which have been steaming in the inter-church pot. Presumably, such things should be a priority in decision-making. 

Outcome of the Pan-Orthodox Council in the topicality context

The biggest disappointment of the Council in Crete was its output. It remains absolutely vague who they results were accepted for and where they are to be applied. Most of the decisions taken, being remote from the church needs of today’s world, challenge the necessity of the Council itself.

For example, the Council’s decision on “Autonomy and the way of its proclamation”. At first sight, this topic could have become one of the most important ones to be considered in Crete, yet everything was leveled by the fact that the way of its proclamation was worded a long time ago. What cannot be said about the way to proclaim autocephaly.  

Let me cite one of the paragraphs: “By applying this institute (autonomy ed.) there have been formed in the church practice different degrees of dependence of Autonomous Church on the Autocephalous Church it belongs to”. That’s all. There is no need to continue, since the first paragraph already points to the fact the autonomy is granted only upon the decision of the Autocephalous Mother-Church and on the terms, defined by the latter. All other things, described within this topic, fully comply with those mechanisms of existence of autonomous Church which successfully worked before without decisions of the Pan-Orthodox Council.   

But the most acute issue of aucephality in the Orthodox environment was not even raised. It means we have to further ponder on the phenomenon of “autocephality”. For in contemporary world it sounds nearly mythical; as regards to how autocephaly has to be formed and proclaimed - they were unable to determine even at the Pan-Orthodox Council…Or just didn’t want to.

Why is autocephality issue so important? It’s not that somebody says ‘yes’ and somebody says ‘no’ to it. But that there are a lot of schismatic groups which have proclaimed their independence, manipulating with canonical norms and historic precedents and misleading a great number of people. Hasn’t we just once heard the phrase like “An independent Church to an independent state!”? 

It appears the Church remains vulnerable before such phenomena and the only saving grace hereby is the conciliarity and canonicity principle. Otherwise it’s irrelevant to speak about topicality of autonomy proclamation. 

Further on it’s worth lingering on a paragraph “Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World”. The first to catch an eye is not a single definite sentence behind high-flown expressions and quotations from the Gospel. There are no guidelines to build the roadmap of the Church mission in modern age. 

Here we are confronted with the problem which can be called a “scourge” of Orthodoxy. Compared with Rome-Catholics and Protestants of various denominations, the mission of the Orthodox Church is often initiated by one person or a group of persons who, to make matters worse, undergo inner resistance and sabotage. Outstanding missioners of the Orthodox Church can be counted by ten fingers, while the mission itself is commonly interpreted by the Orthodox representatives as a populist thing, and to talk about it is even to show bad manners.    

Let’s take, for instance, African continent. Despite the fact the Orthodox Church is represented in this part of the world by a few patriarchates, the main share of Christian missionary outreach belongs to namely Rome-Catholics and Protestants. Hereby the activity of alien missioners is quite versatile: from basic humanitarian aid to medical treatment of the ill and wounded in civil conflict zones. Even though there a lot of activities not directly related to religion, they all pursue the key target – conversion into Christianity.

Can at least a single Local Church boast of anything similar to what has been said above? The question is purely rhetoric. The truth is those divisions of the missionary corpse of our Orthodox Church are taken as either fools for the sake of Christ at best, or punished for their own initiatives at worst. Such situation testifies to a zero mission institute within the Orthodox Church and, consequently, zero missionary activities as a phenomenon.  

Conclusions? Let’s hope for the better…

Are meetings for the sake of meetings result-oriented? Make your own judgments… Somebody is happy already by the fact such a large-scale event took place. Others, on the contrary, are happy the Council has left a long tail of conflicts and controversies. Yet the Council in Crete might be considered a peculiar “test of the pen” to be followed by the serious error correction work.  

In the event a Pan-Orthodox Council becomes a regular administrative body of the Orthodox Church, an original round table, one will expect it to deliver more constructivism and less destructivism. It would be good to attract to agendas more topical issues in order to prevent them from falling into the state of “you’re neither hot nor cold”.

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