By Andrei Zolotov and Stephen Brown
The assembly yesterday agreed to set up a special commission in a bid to resolve the issue
of the participation of Orthodox churches in the organisation.
However, only hours after assembly voted to set up the commission, the Russian Orthodox
Church delegation at the assembly announced that it was suspending its participation in
the WCC's central committee while the "special commission on Orthodox participation
in the WCC" conducted its deliberations.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has now officially withdrawn from the WCC (see story, page
3) following the withdrawal of the Georgian Orthodox Church last year.
The special commission will have half of its members appointed by Orthodox churches and
the other half appointed by the WCC's executive committee. It will draw up proposals about
"necessary changes in structure, style and ethos of the council". The work of
the commission will last for "at least three years".
Some of the changes proposed by the commission may be implemented by the WCC's central
committee before the next assembly, which is due to take place in seven year's time.
"If we are satisfied with the results of the commission, we will resume our work on
the central committee," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church delegation to the
assembly, Hilarion Alfeyev, told ENI. "If not, our church will have to withdraw from
the WCC."
He added that it was "too early to predetermine the specific model for the
restructured WCC because it is precisely what the special commission must decide
upon".
However, another senior Russian Orthodox delegate, Vsevolod Chaplin, told ENI that,
ideally, the Russian Orthodox Church wanted to see a "forum with no fixed
membership" to replace the WCC's current structure altogether, so that the Orthodox
Church would bear no responsibility for what was said by others.
"If the whole language, the whole system of the WCC doesn't change, formal membership
in this system for our church would be impossible," he said.
The plan for a commission to deal with Orthodox participation in the WCC was first
proposed by a crisis meeting of high-level representatives from 15 Eastern Orthodox
Churches which was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in May this year. The meeting affirmed
support for ecumenism and the search for Christian unity, but registered strong concern
about the policies and programmes of the WCC.
During a debate at the assembly yesterday about the relationships with Orthodox churches,
Bishop Niphon of the Romanian Orthodox Church revealed that, two days earlier, at a
meeting in Harare of the heads of Orthodox delegations to the assembly, "the Oriental
Orthodox brothers expressed their full agreement with that statement [from
Thessaloniki]".
(The WCC's five Oriental Orthodox member churches, cooperate with, but are not in full
communion with, the Eastern Orthodox churches.)
Bishop Niphon stressed the commitment of Orthodox churches to ecumenism, and referred to a
number of positive actions by the WCC, including its condemnation of proselytism (the
poaching of church members by another church), but warned that if the WCC's structure was
not revised, many Orthodox churches would face "growing difficulty".
Bulgarian theologian Ivan Dimitrov, attending the assembly as an advisor, told ENI that
the Bulgarian church's decision to withdraw from the WCC had been taken "not out of
anti-ecumenical convictions, but under the pressure from the [ultra-conservative
breakaway] Old Calendarist church".
However, although there is pressure from ultra-conservative factions within the Orthodox
churches to end all ecumenical ties, many mainstream Orthodox leaders and theologians have
serious reservations about the direction the WCC is taking.
Women's ordination, inclusive language in reference to God and discussion of homosexuality
by WCC Protestant members as well as Westernised decision-making processes are factors
which, the Orthodox feel, marginalise them within the ecumenical movement.
Asked about the special commission, the WCC's general secretary, Dr Konrad Raiser, told
ENI that each of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches was expected to send one -- or
in the case of bigger churches, such as those from Russia and Romania, two --
representatives to the commission, which will be then matched by the same number of
theologians from non-Orthodox member churches. It should meet before next August's meeting
of the central committee in Geneva.
"The commission should not concentrate only on the structure of the WCC," Dr
Raiser told ENI, "but it should go to the roots of the feeling of marginalisation and
alienation of the Orthodox Church. That will be good for the ecumenical movement."
According to Georges Tsetsis, spokesman of the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
of Constantinople, the Harare assembly "was much better than we had expected.
"Our voice has been heard," he said.
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