The Church of Antioch and the Crete gathering

A very informative post from Notes on Arab Orthodoxy.

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(Notes on Arab Orthodoxy) - The most recent issue of Majallat al-Nour, the official magazine of the Orthodox Youth Movement, has dedicated several articles to evaluating the Crete meeting and its aftermath. Over the next week or so, I'll try to translate a few of the pieces. The Arabic original can be found here.

Metropolitan Siluan: The Decision of the Synod of Antioch Sets the Course Aright by Loulou Siba

The great, general, expanded Orthodox Council, are words that have been repeated since the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III sent a letter to the patriarchs and heads of autocephalous churches inviting them to meet and discuss emerging challenges for the Church. Then, in 1923, the Ecumenical Patriarch Meletius (Metaxakis) sent another invitation and meetings started and multiplied, but disagreements between the Orthodox churches dominated the atmosphere until in 1961 the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras attempted to break the ice and activate preparations for holding this council.


Since that time, the Orthodox world has awaited the holding of this general council, until this year a council was held on the island of Crete that did not gain the attribute "great", since not all the Orthodox churches attended. The Council of Crete met in the absence of churches including the Patriarchate of Antioch, and for this reason Majallat al-Nour went to His Eminence Metropolitan Siluan (Muci) of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Argentina, who represented the Patriarchate of Antioch in the preparatory meetings, so that he could shed some light on this council and on its ramifications for the Orthodox world.

Majallat al-Nour thanks His Eminence and makes supplication to God Almighty to make firm his steps in spreading the Good News in the Land of Silver, Argentina.

Could you please summarize the Antiochian position on the Council of Crete.

The decision of the Synod of Antioch, issued on the eve of the feast of our Apostolic See, sets the course aright toward the premises that inspired the Orthodox in the twentieth century, when they resolved to prepare for the great council, as well as to the the principles that they laid in place as the basis for their work. The premises can be summarized with the phrase "one Orthodox witness in the contemporary world" and the principles can be summarized by recourse to "the principle of unanimity" between all the Orthodox churches at all levels of preparation from committees and preparatory conferences to the level of the great council itself...

Complete post here.