Those of you who follow religious affairs will know that this past June, Orthodox leaders world-wide met in June in Crete at a Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church. I should qualify that it was supposed to be a meeting of the leaders of all fourteen “canonical” Orthodox Churches, however, at the last moment four of the churches, namely those from Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria and Antioch chose not to attend because of various disputes over procedures as well as disagreements with the ruling church authorities. So much for Church unity!
As it was, hundreds of Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Archbishops, Bishops, Archbishops, Archimandrites, Protopresbyters and other clericals as well as lay people met in the little town of Kolymvari, Crete to deal with the pressing issues that had been accumulating for the many decades since the last such great Synod. Needless to say, I was curious to know who attended from our own Ukrainian Orthodox Church here in Canada. I was more than a little surprised to find out that there was no one there from Canada – not one Priest, Bishop or Metropolitan. I was told that no one from the Canadian church had been invited and that our interests were covered by representatives of the Orthodox Church attending from the U.S.A.
I found this most curious. Metropolitans from the Orthodox churches in Korea, Kenya, Uganda and Guinea were in attendance. There were Metropolitans from places I had never even heard of, such as Kissamos, Selyvria, Cyrene, Lefkara and Morphou. There were no fewer than seventeen Metropolitans and Bishops from the little island of Crete.
Metropolitan Joseph (Charkiolakis) of Prikonnisos was there representing a miniscule island in the Sea of Marmara that has virtually no Orthodox faithful left after the expulsion of the Greek inhabitants by the Turks in 1923. But, there was not one representative there from our Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada. That should tell us something about how our Church here is viewed by the “canonical” Orthodox hierarchy.
Be that as it may, and setting aside any real or perceived slights, I was hoping that this mighty assembly of pious and learned theologians would make some progress in addressing the many serious issues that the Orthodox Church faces today. Alas, the official statement that came out of the Synod at its conclusion indicates that the Church is not prepared to make even token changes to either its practices or its dogma. As it states – “Through this dialogue, the rest of the Christian world is now more familiar with Orthodoxy and the authenticity of its tradition. It also knows that the Orthodox Church has never accepted theological minimalism or permitted its dogmatic tradition and evangelical ethos to be called into question.”
One example of this “dogmatic tradition” was the Synod’s reaffirmation of the sanctity of marriage as being exclusively the union of man and woman. As its concluding encyclical states – “Pressure to recognize new forms of cohabitation constitutes a real threat for Orthodox Christians.” Other important issues such as the acceptance of women into the clergy did not even make it onto the agenda. Nor, of course, did the issue of an autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, separate from the oppressive domination of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Synod did discuss and agree to a process for granting a local church autonomy, but left it as a prerogative of the Patriarchate to which that church belongs. In other words, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church could only become autonomous if the Moscow Patriarchate agrees to grant it autonomy, as if that would ever happen with the dubious cast of characters that currently run Russia as well as the Russian Orthodox Church.. As for the needs of the “diaspora” and diasporan churches, an item that was on the agenda, nothing of substance was decided upon, and the church hierarchy and organizational structure remain as they are.
There were other proclamations such as on the importance of fasting, as well as the importance of ecumenical dialogue with other Christian churches, though the Synod made it clear that this “does not signify that she accepts the notion of the ‘equality of Confessions’”. Bottom line, after many decades of planning and prolonged discussions, the holy fathers of the Orthodox Church, basically decided to not rock the boat and to leave everything as it is now.
There is one more postscript to this synod worth mentioning. The attendees recognized that it had been too long since the last such synod and perhaps it would be a good idea to have them more often, say every decade instead of once a century. I hazard to say that leaders of the Orthodox Church obviously live in a different world from us common believers.
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