Russian Rep.: maybe an intra-Orthodox "conference" now

Moscow, June 9 (Interfax) - The refusal of several Churches to participate in the Pan-Orthodox Council casts doubts on its status, the representative of Russian Church said.

"It is quite difficult to talk about the pan-Orthodox status [of the Council]," head of the Synodal Department for Church, Society and Media Relations Vladimir Legoyda said during the broadcast of the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Thursday.

The slated Council "probably can be called an intra-Orthodox conference, but it would be difficult to call it the Pan-Orthodox Council," Legoyda said.

Legoyda recalled that, according to the regulations of the Council, all the decisions of it must be adopted in consensus, unanimously. "If at least one Church opposes one or another document, it would not get adopted. One cannot talk about the pan-Orthodox consensus in this situation when three Churches simply refused to participate!" he said.

The convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Council, which has not been convened for more than a thousand years, has been prepared for over half a century and has been slated to take place on Crete in late June, was brought into question after the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Antiochian Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church refused to participate in it.