The Holy and Great Council: Expectations and Worries

Father Demetrios Bathrellos

Lezing gehouden op het Congres van de Fraternite 2015 in Bordeaux

God willing, in 2016 the Orthodox Church will convene its Holy and Great Council. This
will be an important event, and many Orthodox Christians look forward to it with joy and
hope. But what exactly can we expect from this Pan-Orthodox Council?
I think that we may expect mainly three things. First, a reinforcement of the unity of the
Church. According to the Creed, unity is one of the marks of the Church (in one Church).
But in practice, things are not always smooth. Quite often the autocephalous Orthodox
Churches think, live, and act as if they were alone, namely without considering, consulting, or
cooperating with any other Orthodox Churches. This council will give to all Orthodox
Churches an opportunity to express, realize, symbolize, and strengthen their unity, which goes
far beyond an understanding of the Orthodox Church as merely a confederation of
autocephalous Churches.
Unity however and this is my second point is inconceivable without conciliarity. The
Churches have to find ways to talk, think, decide, and act together. Conciliarity presupposes
that all have the right and the duty to express their views and that all opinions must be heard,
appreciated, and assessed in the light of the faith and the experience of the Church. The
convocation of this Council will hopefully boost the idea and the praxis of conciliarity on all
levels of Church life.
My third point concerns the agenda of the Council. Ideally, a Council should have something
significant to say first for the Orthodox Christians, second for all Christians, and third for all
people. Thankfully, the Councils agenda covers all three areas. Issues such as the question of
how autocephaly and autonomy must be granted, fasting, the liturgical calendar, wedding
impediments, and, perhaps most importantly, the problem of the so-called diaspora affect, in
one way or another, all Orthodox Churches. Wise decisions regarding these issues will make a
difference to the lives of Orthodox Christians around the world. The council, second, will also
discuss the question of ecumenism and the relationship between the Orthodox Church and
other Christians Churches, which is of interest for all Christians. And third, the Council will
encourage the promotion of peace, equality, and love between all people. This is of
paramount importance, not only because it concerns every human being on the globe, but also
because it gives Christians the opportunity to reclaim these principles, which originate in the
Christian teaching, although this is often either forgotten or even denied.
These are the hopes. But what are the worries and the fears? I will refer to some of them
following the same pattern as before. So, first comes Church unity. Unfortunately, as we all
know there sometimes occur either competition or serious disagreements among
autocephalous Orthodox Churches. A result of this is, among others, that the autonomous and
some autocephalous Churches will probably not take part in the Council. In fact, it is quite
possible that even the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch will not participate in it. All this will
strike a real and also symbolic blow on the unity of the Church.
But the most numerous and significant deficiencies of the Council have to do with
conciliarity. This is so primarily because conciliarity is crippled on the most fundamental
level of Church life and structure, namely that of the diocese. In a typical Orthodox diocese,
all the important decisions are taken by the bishop as an individual. The ancient tradition of
the Church, according to which decisions are taken after consultation of the bishop with the
presbyters and sometimes also with the laity has been largely given up. The result is that
when a bishop goes to an episcopal council, he speaks and votes as an individual rather than
on the basis of the faith, the experience, and the opinion of the clergy and the laity of his
diocese. In this way, the bishop makes almost everyone else in the diocese redundant, and this
undermines the conciliar identity of the Church in a most drastic way. Further up, on the level
of the episcopal synods, primates also tend to take significant initiatives and decisions without
always following proper conciliar processes. In this regard, it is noteworthy that it is the
primates who decided that only a minority of bishops (twenty five bishops at most, including
the primate, from each autocephalous Church) will participate in the Council the others will
be excluded. What is perhaps worse is that even these bishops will not go to the Council as
pastors of their dioceses but as representatives of the autocephalous Church to which they
belong. And, to cap it all, they will not even have a vote. Only the autocephalous Churches
will have a vote. But again, the significance of the Churches votes will be limited to ratifying
and vindicating decisions already reached by technical, preparatory committees. The prospect
of an open and inclusive Council, with priests, deacons, laity (including women) as well as
even observers from other Christians Churches, is totally out of the question. All these
constitute traumas to the conciliar identity and function of the Church and reveal a great crisis
in her conciliar consciousness. Whereas the unanimity which is required for taking any
decision may paralyse the council, its exclusivenesss may well affect negatively its reception.
Last but not least comes the Councils agenda. If one sees how the agenda has shrunk in the
last fifty years or so, one will feel rather disappointed. Many of the issues that constitute this
agenda are of a canonical and administrative nature. We would expect a more open,
interesting, challenging, and Church-changing agenda. Some of the issues that may have been
included therein are: the recovery of synodality on all levels of Church life; the active
participation of the laity in the Churchs life and mission; criteria for the selection of clergy,
their education, and their mission in the Church and the world; the recovery of the ancient
tradition of the election of bishops by the clergy and the laity of the diocese; the
reintroduction of married episcopacy; the invention of a new synodical structure of
cooperation between all autocephalous and autonomous Churches on a permanent basis; the
codification of canon law; the promotion of mission; the clarification of the meaning of
tradition and its sharp distinction from fundamentalism; the reorganization of the parish as the
heart of Church life; the place and role of monasticism; the question of the reformation of the
liturgy; a new emphasis on family life; decisions and guidelines on important bioethical
issues; the Church and the modern State, etc. An agenda along these lines would have turned
the Council into an event comparable to Vatican II.
However, the aforementioned remarks should not make us lose hope; not only because the
convocation of the Council will be an important event by itself, with numerous positive sides,
but also because the Holy Spirit may well take us by surprise. And at any rate, this Council
may well be only a first step. We have every right to pray and hope that more and better steps
will follow in the future.