Reflections . . . The Recent Great And Holy Orthodox Council In Crete

By JAMES LIKOUDIS

Various observers and writers have commented on the proceedings and outcomes of the recent meeting in Crete in June 2016 of the primates of 10 of the 14 autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches, which resulted from 100 years of gestation and 50 years of preparation.
This article will confine itself to focusing on the fundamental and irreconcilable divide in ecclesiology evident among Orthodox prelates and theologians professing to be “followers of uncorrupted truth.”
Some Orthodox had early expressed hopes that it would be a true Ecumenical Council, like the first Seven Ecumenical Councils held in the first thousand years of the history of the Church when the Byzantine Greco-Slav Churches were in unity with Rome. An Ecumenical Council could then definitely settle the many quarrels and doctrinal questions which have troubled the union of the Pan-Orthodox world made up of 14 autocephalous national churches.
Such hopes for an Ecumenical Council were soon dashed as various primates such as the Russian Orthodox patriarch of Moscow made clear that the conference could not have an ecumenical status as lacking the consensus of all the churches and with four of the 14 autocephalous churches not attending (Bulgaria, the patriarchate of Antioch, Georgia, and the Russian patriarchal Church). Any question of the council being “ecumenical” was quickly put to rest.
Underlying the usual canonical and jurisdictional conflicts and quarrels between the Orthodox hierarchs which early threatened the existence of the council, was the longstanding geopolitical rivalry between Constantinople and Moscow for leadership of Pan-Orthodoxy. Constantinople has repeatedly referred to its post-1054 medieval role in the Byzantine Empire as the “first among equals” but exercising a real jurisdiction over the other patriarchates and churches and acting, in effect, as the “center of Pan-Orthodoxy.” It clearly seeks to reassert that role in the 21st century.
The response of the Russian Orthodox Church (constituting two-thirds of the membership of Eastern Orthodoxy) to such claims has been to regard itself as the natural leader of Pan-Orthodoxy and to accuse Constantinople of “Papism” and violations of “sobornost/conciliarity.”
Even before the Council of Crete met, various Greek Orthodox theologians and prelates (hostile to the ecumenical efforts of the patriarchate of Constantinople with the World Council of Churches and marked by the historic meeting of Blessed Pope Paul VI and the patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople), had proceeded to criticize various documents that had been prepared for the conciliar hierarchs.
Accusations of serious fractures in Orthodox ecclesiology were made concerning the document “Relations of the Orthodox Church With the Rest of the Christian World.” Intransigent critics accused it of “theological contradiction and inconsistency,” and seeking the “institutional and official ratification of Christian Syncretism-Ecumenism by means of a Pan-Orthodox Synod.” Such criticisms continue after the council.
For Catholics, the most serious conflict disclosed in the discussions and debates (pre-and post- Council of Crete) involved the nature of the Church itself and its relation to non-Orthodox Christians.
Ultra-traditionalists, hyper-Orthodox, fundamentalists, and rigorous “purists” are found in sharp opposition to the “realists” and reformers seeking to adapt the Church to modern conditions unknown to the ancient Fathers.
Ultra-traditionalists opposed to “heretical ecumenism” especially refused to accept the document’s acceptance of the expression “sister churches” or any language signifying the “churchiness” of heretical bodies (such as the Catholic Church). As Professor Demetrios Tselengidis of the Aristotle University of Thessalonica wrote:
“If the Church is ‘One’ according to our Creed and the Orthodox Church’s own self-identity, then how is there mention of other Christian Churches [when they are] heterodox?…The text deliberately ignores the historic fact that the contemporary heterodox of the West (Roman Catholic and Protestant) have not one, but heaps of dogmas, that differ from the Orthodox Church (besides the Filioque, created grace in the sacraments, the primacy of the pope, papal infallibility, [and with regard to Protestants] the rejection of icons, and the rejection of the decisions of Ecumenical Councils, etc.”
Similar voices of a “purist” theological stance frankly declared: “Heterodox confessions cannot be called ‘Churches’ precisely because they accept other heretical doctrines, and, as heretics, cannot constitute ‘Churches’” (Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus). These are the same “purist” voices, e.g., zealot monks on Mt. Athos long regarded as the (“guardians of Orthodoxy”) who for centuries have rejected Catholic sacraments as “without grace” and the Pope as needing to be baptized.
The documents issued by the Council in Crete evidence, however, greater favor for a more “realistic” and “positive” ecclesiology defending “dialogue” with other confessions, and accepting “the historical name of the heterodox Christian Churches and Confessions that are not in communion with her.”
The “realist” theologian Dr. Gregory Larentzakis of the University of Graz has replied to the objections of “purists” (termed “reactionaries”):
“The theory of exclusivity of our Church and the complete rejection of heterodox Churches, canonically and charismatically, and even of the name ‘Churches,’ is a novelty and has no relation to the Ecclesiology of Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers of our Church….We cannot ignore the existence of heterodox Churches and the scandalous state that we are in by not being in communion.”
It is fascinating that the “realistic” school of ecclesiology manifests convergence with the teaching of Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism which sets forth the unicity of the true Church while at the same time acknowledging as Churches those bodies preserving the apostolic succession and as “ecclesial communities” those groups of Protestants preserving elements of the faith “which can exist outside the boundaries of the Catholic Church” (n. 3).
Bishop Christopher of Karpasia in a recent article has also explained to the hard-liners rejecting any Orthodox admission of other “churches” that “the Council’s adopting the text was not to present the position of the Orthodox Church as to whether or not other Christians consist of a Church or not, but to determine the conditions under which theological dialogue with the heterodox will take place.”
Do Catholics constitute a Church? The Council of Crete leaves it disputed. Bishop Christopher also took pains to “dispel any suspicion that the Holy and Great Synod met with the purpose of theologically establishing the Roman Catholic Church as an equal Church with the Orthodox and establishing an unbridled and uncritical ecumenism.”
A regrettable distancing from the Catholic Church was further manifested in Crete’s issuing an “encyclical” confirming the Palamite Synods of 1341, 1351, and 1368 which sanctioned as “truth of faith” the theological errors of Gregory Palamas regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit and “uncreated divine energies.”
The unionist Council of Florence (1439) was again roundly rejected by the encyclical. Catholics may perhaps find some consolation in the considered opinion of many Orthodox that the Council of Crete is without dogmatic authority and that its documents do not bind either the primates or the governing synods of the individual 14 autocephalous churches.
Patriarchate of Moscow spokesmen have made clear that the Crete meeting “failed” since it was the view of a numerical minority, ignored urgent questions, and “did not have Pan-Orthodox authority.”
It is interesting that the Council of Crete again reasserted the 1872 condemnation of “ethno-phyletism as an ecclesiological heresy.” (Ethno-phyletism is the subordination of the Church to its people’s ethnic, linguistic, and national character resulting in independent national Churches since the 1800s.)
However, there is widespread admission among the Orthodox that Pan-Orthodoxy is riddled with “the disease and heresy” of Ethno-phyletism.
The fact of real doctrinal divisions among Eastern Orthodox hierarchs and theologians regarding the nature of the Church continues to raise for them a serious question that was not confronted in Crete. How can they pursue Church unity with Catholics and others when there exist real schisms and heresies within Pan-Orthodoxy that are not resolvable due to the lack of the Petrine Primacy that Christ established for His Church?

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(James Likoudis is the author of three books dealing with Eastern Orthodoxy. His The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy: Letters to a Greek Orthodox on the Unity of the Church [$27.95] is available from the author. See his website: www.jameslikoudispage.com.)