RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Location of 2016 world meeting of Orthodox churches in doubt

SOURCE IN RPTs: PREPARATION OF PAN-ORTHODOX COUNCIL CONTINUING

by Olga Lipich

RIA Novosti, 25 November 2015

 

Preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council, which local Orthodox churches of the world have been preparing to conduct for more than a half-century now and which about two years ago was scheduled for 2016 in Istanbul, is continuing. However it is premature to speak about the precise place of its occurrence, considering recent events on the Turkish-Syrian border, a source in the Moscow patriarchate told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

 

On Tuesday in Syria, a Russian SU-24 bomber suffered downing. Russian President Vladimir Putin reported that the airplane was destroyed by an air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16 over Syrian territory and fell into Syria four kilometers from the Turkish border.

 

In the evening of 24 November a decision was made to cancel a visit to Istanbul by a delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church, headed by Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Ilarion. The delegation was supposed to go to Istanbul on Wednesday and as part of the visit annual conversations were planned with the Office for Affairs of Religions of Turkey along with the presentation of the Turkish translation of a book by Patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus Kirill, Freedom and Responsibility, and a meeting with Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew.

 

"What had happened does not signify in any way a breaking of communication between churches. Work on preparing the Pan-Orthodox Council will continue regardless of political circumstances. As regards the question of the place for holding the council, along with events preparing for it, then it is difficult for now to say with certainty how the tense conditions arising around Turkey and in the neareastern region as a whole will impact the prospects of conducting the council of the territory of the Turkish republic," the source in the RPTs told RIA Novosti.

 

In March 2014 in Istanbul there was a meeting of primates and representatives of all local Orthodox churches of the world at the invitation of Patriarch Bartholomew (the head of the Constantinople patriarchate traditionally is listed in the Orthodox world as the first in the list of primates of churches and is also called the ecumenical patriarch). At the meeting the decision was made that "the sacred and great council of the Orthodox church will be convened by the ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople in 2016, if insurmountable circumstances do not prevent it."

 

The source in the RPTs said that one cannot rule out that such insurmountable circumstances will arise, judging by recent events on the Turkish-Syrian border and the general growth of tension in the Near East.

 

"According to available information, an initiative to select another place for holding the Pan-Orthodox Council, for example, the Holy Mountain of Athos or the city of Thessalonika, has already been promoted, specifically by the Serbian Orthodox Church," the news agency's interlocutor noted.

 

Observers also express doubt that it would be possible for the patriarch of Antioch, whose see is located in Damascus, to get to Istanbul, considering the current character of relations between the Syrian and Turkish governments. (tr. by PDS, posted 27 November 2015)

 


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