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Last Updated: 22 June 2016

CWN - The Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate has asked Iraq’s Catholics to fast on June 17, “in solidarity with the fasting Muslims during this month of Ramadan.”

“We will fast and pray together for peace and stability in our country and the region,” the patriarchate said in a statement. “We also call our faithful to assist the displaced and affected families in order to promote the culture of love, fraternity and harmonic coexistence.”

References:

• Chaldean Patriarchate: Christians Joining Muslims, in Fasting One Day of Ramadan, to Promote Peace, Fraternity and Help the Displaced (Chaldean Catholic Patriarchate)

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Last Updated: 22 June 2016

The Russian Orthodox Church will not send representatives to the Pan-Orthodox Council that is scheduled to open in Crete on June 19, the Moscow patriarchate has announced.

"We will not be able to participate," said Metropolitan Hilarion, the chief ecumenical official of the Moscow patriarchate. 

At an emergency meeting, called in response to decisions by several Orthodox bodies to pull out of the gathering, the Russian Orthodox Synod called for postponement of the gathering. 

The withdrawal of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is by far the largest of the world's Orthodox bodies, ends the hopes that the Pan-Orthodox Council-- an unprecedented gathering that has been planned for 50 years-- would be a worldwide demonstration of unity among the Orthodox churches.

References:

• The Russian Orthodox Church suggests postponing Sunday's historic meeting of all of the world's Orthodox churches (AP)
• On the Situation Caused by the Refusal of Several Orthodox Churches to Participate in the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
• Moscow Patriarchate calls emergency session, weighs withdrawal from Pan-Orthodox Council (CWN, 6/8)

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Last Updated: 22 June 2016

An Eastern priest’s vision for Catholic-Orthodox relations

James Dominic Rooney, O.P., is a priest and a doctoral student in philosophy at St. Louis University.

Excerpt from America magazine:

I recently encountered an Orthodox priest who was taking a group of well-known Russian iconographers to look at religious art at the St. Louis Art Museum. I had met him a little earlier when visiting his parish. He introduced me to the group, in Russian, as a “uniate priest.” He likely never intended anything disparaging by this, but the label rang in my ears.

The term uniate, while sometimes used by Eastern Catholics themselves, originally carried a disparaging connotation. It was used after the Union of Brest (1596) by Orthodox people to identify those previously Orthodox members of the clergy and laypeople who had agreed to the “union” with Rome. Its foreign-sounding character connoted submission to the “Roman foreigners.” Today, given the term’s history, it is avoided in any official discussions, even though it continues to be used without any ill will by some Orthodox.

But those past tensions continue to play out in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue and in the popular Orthodox mind. A historic Great and Holy Synod—a synod of all the worldwide episcopal primates of the Orthodox churches—will take place at the Orthodox Academy of Crete from June 16 to 27. While not an ecumenical council, it is in some ways parallel in significance to the Second Vatican Council. There has not been such a meeting among the Orthodox for many hundreds of years, and the synod, like Vatican II, will deal with the church’s relations to the modern world.

But the release of a preparatory synod document on relations with non-Orthodox Christians occasioned what might seem to outsiders a surprising amount of criticism among some Orthodox. There is a significant and vocal minority of Orthodox who fear that any ecumenical activity will involve compromising the doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Orthodox Church. This has been termed the “pan-heresy of ecumenism,” insofar as these people perceive ecumenism to rest on doctrinal indifferentism and disregard for truth. Catholics familiar with the history of the Second Vatican Council will likely recall similar criticisms voiced by Catholic traditionalist groups in regard to ecumenism. It is not an unfitting comparison in tenor or mentality.

Continue reading at americamagazine.com.

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Last Updated: 11 June 2016

CWN - Amid calls for the postponement of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, which is scheduled to begin on June 19 in Crete, Orthodox leaders in Albania and Cyprus came to the defense of the council and its agenda.

“The convening of the Great Council was decided unanimously by two Synaxes of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches without any objection being raised,” Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus said in a June 9 statement. “This reality ensures unity and unanimity among us, which is why we believe that any other statement or proposal, at the last moment, jeopardizes this unity; those who are complicit—knowingly or unknowingly—in disrupting this unity will bear the burden.”

“The cancellation of the convocation of the Holy and Great Synod cannot occur without a new decision taken by the body who decided on this convocation,” the Albanian Orthodox Church said in a statement issued the previous day. “It cannot be canceled at the last minute through declarations and messages delivered from various directions.”

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Antioch have already said that they will not take part in the Council in Crete. The Patriarchate of Moscow-- by far the largest of the Orthodox churches-- has called for postponement of the long-awaited event, as has the Serbian Orthodox Church.

References:

• Church of Albania: The Convocation of the Holy and Great Synod of Orthodoxy is a Necessity (Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church)
• Message of His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus On the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church)
• Serbian Orthodox Church joins in plea to postpone Crete Council (CWN, 6/9)

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Last Updated: 11 June 2016

CWN - Pope Francis has named the two top officials of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity as his delegates to attend the Pan-Orthodox Council.

Cardinal Kurt Koch and Bishop Brian Farrell-- the president and secretary, respectively, of the Pontifical Council-- will travel to Crete for the opening of the gathering, which is scheduled for June 19. The high-level delegation shows that the Pope considers the Orthodox gathering a "supremely important" event, Bishop Farrell told the Catholic News Service.

(Disputes among the Orthodox churches have raised questions about the level of attendance at the meeting in Crete, and the possibility that the gathering might be postponed. See today's separate CWN news story.) 

References:

• Pope sends top Vatican officials to Pan-Orthodox Council (CNS)

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Last Updated: 08 June 2016

risu.org.ua - On 2–4 June 2016 an international conference “Arriving at a Common Narrative: The ‘Lviv Sobor’ of 1946 and Its Aftermath to the Present” gathered at the University of Vienna, Austria. Scholars from Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, USA, Vatican City—both Orthodox, from various jurisdictions, and Catholic, including Roman Catholics and Greco-Catholics—were invited by Pro Oriente, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, to examine the circumstances of the “Lviv Sobor” from different perspectives.

Over the course of three days, the participants presented papers and discussed historical, theological, and canonical perspectives of the events of 1946, informs the official communique issued today by Pro Oriente. "The situation was examined in a broad context, starting from the nineteenth century until 1989. In discussion of the historical events, all sides concluded that political and geopolitical factors were decisive and played an exaggerated role in the planning and execution of the Sobor, whereas theological issues were marginal and overshadowed by political ideology", said organizers.

Yet they admit, that consensus was not reached on the role of certain aspects of the broad historical context, such as the relevance of the Union of Brest in 1596 in examining the “Lviv Sobor” of 1946. On the first evening of the conference, two public keynote addresses were presented at the Vienna Archbishop’s Palace by official representatives of the Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Churches. The representative of the Russian Orthodox Church pointed out the strict connection between both events. The representative of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church stressed the difference of their historical contexts, in particular the pressure of militant atheistic totalitarianism.

Official Russian Orthodox representatives were invited but did not attend in person, presenting their papers in absentia, thus making any kind of personal dialogue or conversation during the conference impossible.