Source: DECR Communication Service
February 2, 2016
The forthcoming Pan-Orthodox Council is to consider a draft document on
Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World adopted by
the 5th Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conference on October 10-17, 2015, in Chambesy,
as reported by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to the
Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church which has opened in Moscow.
In his report about the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council, the Primate
of the Russian Orthodox Church noted that this document was drafted on the basis
of two texts elaborated as far back as the '80s, with one of them devoted to the
so-called ecumenical movement and the other mostly to the bilateral dialogues
conducted by the Orthodox Church with non-Orthodox communities. "The need for a
considerable revision was dictated by the changes which have occurred in a
number of Protestant denominations in the last decades," His Holiness stated,
"influenced by secular ideology, many of them embarked on the path of revision
of not only their own doctrine but also the very foundations of Christian
morality."
This is what compelled the Orthodox Church to reconsider her relations with
such communities, His Holiness reminded the bishops.
"Our criticism was taken into account in the revision of this document,"
Patriarch Kirill stressed, noting that in its basic affirmations it takes into
account the principle provisions of the Basic Principles of the Russian Orthodox
Church’s Attitude to Non-Orthodoxy adopted by the Jubilee Bishops’ Council in
2000. Thus, the draft document of the Pan-Orthodox Council clearly states that
the relations of the Orthodox Church with non-Orthodox churches "should be built
on the speediest and most accurate clarification of all the ecclesiological
topics, especially in the area of teaching on the sacraments, grace, priesthood
and apostolic succession as a whole." In a separate note it states that the
Orthodox Church, while participating in the work of the World Council of
Churches, “does not accept the idea of ‘equality of confessions’ and cannot
perceive the unity of the Church as some inter-confessional compromise."
"Certainly, no union of the Orthodox Church with the non-Orthodox is even
mentioned in the document," Patriarch Kirill stated.
DECR Communication
Service
03 / 02 / 2016
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