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Photo: Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I embrace.
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CWN - The Georgian Orthodox Church has rejected a document on ecumenism, prepared for the worldwide council of Orthodox leaders scheduled to take place in Crete in June.
The rejection of the preparatory document by one of the world's fourteen autocephalous Orthodox churches poses the first serious challenge for the council's planners. A key organizing principle for the council has been that any statement or document produced by the participants must have unanimous support. The opposition of the Georgian hiearchy also illustrates the deep suspicions about ecumenical work within some Orthodox circles.
Patriarch Ilia II of Tbilisi, the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, announced that the Georgian Synod had rejected the document on ecumenism. "Our Church is that which saves our country and our people," he said. "In the future our Church will stand as a guard for Orthodoxy."
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CWN - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow says that "powerful forces" outside Russian Orthodox Church were opposed to his February 12 meeting with Pope Francis.
The Russian prelate, who is now visiting Brazil, told reporters there that "no one knew" about the negotiations to arrange a meeting with the Roman Pontiff. Those negotiations reportedly went on for months, but Patriarch Kirill said that only five people were briefed about them. "I am not going to name them," he added.
"There are powerful forces that did not really want it," the Patriarch explained. He indicated that he was not speaking of opposition within the Russian Orthodox hierarchy-- although he acknowledged that some prelates saw "some danger in the meeting." He did not identify the "powerful forces" that would have been more strenuously opposed.
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CWN - The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has renewed his criticism of portions of the recent joint statement of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow but said he was moved by Pope Francis’s reference to their friendship during a recent press conference.
Following the February 12 joint statement, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that many members of his flock “feel betrayed by the Vatican, disappointed by the half-truth nature of this document, and even see it as indirect support by the Apostolic See for Russian aggression against Ukraine. I can certainly understand those feelings.”
As Pope Francis returned to Rome from Mexico on February 17, he spoke of his friendship with Major Archbishop Shevchuk when both ministered in Argentina.
The Pope’s words were “truly the opening of the doors of mercy,” the prelate told Catholic News Service. “He is inviting us to lower our voices. You cannot have a dialogue shouting.”
At the same time, as he renewed his criticism of portions of the joint statement, he said that the document “is not the word of God, it is not a page of the Holy Gospel,” but “only a tool to start true, sincere dialogue.”
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risu.org.ua - Metropolitan Antony Shcherba with bishop Daniel Zelenskyj of the Ukrainian Orthhodox Church in the USA had a meeting with His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew to discuss the conversations that took place in Geneva and to learn the truth about the Pre-Conciliar meeting of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches.
"Following the recent Pre-Conciliar meeting of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches, which took place in Geneva a few weeks ago, much information began to appear on the Internet about discussions and decisions that took place during the gathering. The source of this information was the press office of the Patriarchate of Moscow. Much of the information was extremely critical in reference to the hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in the USA and Canada. Most of that criticism was completely false as was the quoted response of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the criticism, which had been stated during the Geneva meeting. We were not surprised to hear a completely different interpretation of the Geneva discussions, along with His All-Holiness' unchanging commitment to and concern about his spiritual children in Ukraine, since the Patriarchate of Constantinople remains as the Mother Church of Ukraine. We will be soon be preparing our own response to the false statements", reads the statement issued by the press service of the Ukrainian Orthhodox Church in the USA.
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CWN - More than 10,000 children have been killed during the civil war in Syria, the apostolic nuncio in that country estimates.
Archbishop Mario Zenari told an Italian radio audience that civilians represent a high proportion of the 300,000 people who have died in the fighting. "Women and children are suffering the most," he said.
The suffering of Syria's civilians is compounded because relief efforts have been thwarted, the archbishop added. "Yesterday I heard that humanitarian convoys had reached 80,000 people, but about 450,000 still live in besiege areas and more than 4 million are in areas that cannot be reached due to being between two armed forces."
"This massacre must cease," the Pope's envoy said.
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CWN - The Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, has told Aid to the Church in Need that Christians are determined to remain in the war-torn nation.
“The reason we are holding out, we Christians, despite everything that happens to us, is deeply rooted in the history of our Church, which is that of the earliest Christians,” said Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart. “Paul was baptized, confirmed, ordained to the priesthood and sent out to preach the good news to the world by our forefathers in Damascus.”
“The Christians who are suffering here today are the descendants of Christian believers who have remained faithful to Christ for 2,000 years and who had the courage to pay with their lives for their unwavering fidelity to the Church of the Word Incarnate, who has always been the Alpha and the Omega of their existence,” he continued.
Asking Christians in the West for their prayers and support, Archbishop Jeanbart said that “we need their constant and decisive advocacy with their political representatives and their governments … We hope that they will understand, once and for all, that we are determined to remain in our own country. This is a vital need for us and it represents an obvious and inalienable human right; it means as much to us as our life itself.”
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