South American Assembly of Bishops meets in Caracas

(ROAA) - On November 6 and 7, 2012 took place in Caracas, Venezuela, the Assembly of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in South America. It was the third meeting of Orthodox Bishops of South America after those organized in Sao Paolo (2010) and Buenos Aires (2011). The Assembly was hosted by the Greek Orthodox parish in Caracas.

After serving the Divine Liturgy, the first item on the agenda was the meditation of HE Metropolitan Tarasios of the Greek Metropolis of Buenos Aires and South America, about common service and spiritual-pastoral ministry in the Church of Christ. His Eminence Metropolitan Athenagoras of the Greek Metropolitan Church for Mexico and Central America, the Chairman of the Assembly, then explained at length the dialogue with the bishops of Antioch Church in parishes in South America regarding their participation at this Assembly. The representatives of the Orthodox jurisdictions that were present (five out six jurisdictions) noted with regret on the non-participation of the Antiochian Bishops and decided to send a letter expressing this matter.

The proceedings continued by establishing four working committees of the Assembly:

1. The Committee that would compose the Directory of canonical priests and parishes of South America.
2. The Committee for the registration of the Assembly of Bishops in Argentina.
3. The Committee for translations responsible for compiling a list of worship and catechism books available in Spanish and Portuguese.
4. The Committee for Inter-Religious Relations.

According to the decisions from Chambesy, it was made a list of the hierarchs members of the Executive Committee of the Assembly.

In the context of the events of the Orthodox world, the members of the Assembly composed a letter of condolences for the passing into eternity of His Beatitude Maxim of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and a congratulatory letter for Metropolitan Platon of the Russian Orthodox Church, a former member of the Assembly, who celebrated 30 years of priestly ministry. It was also established the date of the next Assembly, 6 to 7 November 2013 in Bigorilho, Curitiba, Brazil.