ON THE HOLY AND GREAT COUNCIL OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
Dr. Tatuna Grdzelidze
The Embassies of Georgia and Romania to the Holy See organized a meeting, hosted by Centro Pro Unione in Rome, on the documents of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church.
It was a very successful meeting, which attracted many participants, including a great number of our colleagues, heads of missions, Catholic theologians, students and other interested people. I wrote a long blog entry about the event, and I would like to share a short summary of my entry in English, without details on the Council itself.
We were six presenters at the meeting: Ambassador Bogdan Tataru-Cabazan commented on the diaspora document; Dr Dimitriod Keramidas on Mission of the Orthodox Church today; I gave a commentary on relations of the Orthodox to other Christians. There were also three Orthodox students speaking: from Greece, Nikos Papachristou, editor of the website amen.gr, who spoke about methods of communication in the preparation period. A Romanian student of dogmatic theology, Marius Alexandrou, commented on the marriage document; and the Georgian student of liturgical theology Deacon Leonidas Ebralidze commented on the document on fasting. Despite being from four different jurisdictions and three different cultural contexts, the spirit of Orthodox unity was tangible and was a remarkable symbol of hope in the meeting.
All of us spoke in favour of the Council and the principle of conciliarity. When I planned the meeting two months ago, it was difficult to imagine that the spirit of unity at this meeting would be so highly appreciated.
In my Georgian blog I gave more details about the papers and added a few paragraphs of my own comments which I translate here.
“I would like to express my personal concern about the fact that the Orthodox Church of Georgia will not attend the pan-Orthodox meeting, whatever will be its status at the end, a Holy and Great Council or a small Synaxis of hierarchs.
I retain my position expressed in my blog article published in January that I am very much in favor of the Council. I believe that for the sake of Orthodox unity, the leading principle of Orthodox ecclesiology – that is synodality or conciliarity – must be renewed. I say ‘renewed’ because during the last 1,200 years the Orthodox have not come together with the common purpose of making common decisions, to face one another without confronting each other, to listen carefully, to evaluate their national interests through a pan-Orthodox prism, to make responsible decisions while discussing with the Church teaching in the background and find responsible solutions for which all feel equally responsible. That can be achieved only through mutual respect, love and prayer.
A particular pattern of behavior has been noticeable through the latest refusal of the Orthodox Church of Georgia to participate in the Holy and Great Council. In 1997 when the Orthodox Church of Georgia withdrew its membership from the ecumenical organizations, the preparatory process of the pan-Orthodox council was in such a critical situation that it was frozen between 1999 and 2008.
The issue at stake was partly caused by jurisdictional disputes and partly by disagreement on the application of Church teaching to its mission in the world. The Church of Georgia dealt with the crisis by unilateral withdrawal from the ecumenical movement, which directly affected their contribution to Orthodox unity. And now, unexpectedly, two weeks before the Holy and Great Council, when the Orthodox unity was in a critical situation, the Church of Georgia withdrew from the meeting. The question arises, why did this ancient and wise Church develop a withdrawal reflex when confronted with critical circumstances? Withdrawal and non-participation are not approved of either in the essence of church teaching or in a democratic society.
The reason for the absence of the Church of Georgia in Crete is disapproval of the documents under discussion, which have not been fully evaluated either by the church authorities or lay theologians. The themes of these documents were selected precisely as they were easiest to start a responsible inter-Orthodox dialogue aimed at making responsible decisions and start a new stage of conciliar experience.
I know that some groups in Georgia do not agree with my approach and vision. I request these people to understand and accept that I am also a child of this Church, and I care about its well-being as much as those who have different views on the subject.
We have to learn to lead a conversation even when we do not agree. It is Divine providence that we were born under the same sky but the difference in our world views is due to our choice. Let us respect our choices.
On the 19th June, on the day of Pentecost, the primates of ten autocephalous churches celebrated the Divine Liturgy together in the Cathedral of Saint Minas in Heraklion, Crete. The Council started its working sessions the following day. It is very interesting how this meeting will develop, taking into account that a jurisdictional dispute between the Church of Antioch and the Church of Jerusalem continues, that the Churches of Bulgaria and Georgia did not participate because of rejection of the documents and that the Moscow Patriarchate did not participate officially because of the non-participation of other local churches.
In spite of this complexity, I believe that the Ariadne’s thread can take us out from the Cretan labyrinth towards the light.
Dr. Tatuna is Georgian ambassador to the Vatican and former staff member of the World Council of Churches (WCC)
