GOC bishop: Document on relations of Orthodoxy with non-Orthodox Christians must be revised

Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos. Photo: AgionOros.ru

Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, a member of the delegation of the Church of Greece to the upcoming Pan-Orthodox Council, sent a message to the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece in which he expressed concerns about the draft documents approved at the meeting of the Primates of the Local Churches in Chambésy and called for amendments, AgionOros.ru reports.

According to Metropolitan Hierotheos, the document Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World contains “terminological confusion.”

“It is necessary to make changes in order to avoid theological and ecclesiological ambiguity, which is inappropriate in conciliar documents, especially in the texts of a Pan-Orthodox Council,” the hierarch noted.

In his view, the title of the text is correct in content, and therefore all expressions used in the document should be adapted to that title in order to avoid double meanings and ambiguity.

In particular, the Greek metropolitan focused on what he described as an ambiguous treatment of church unity in the text:

“Correct is the statement concerning the unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, according to which ‘the unity of the Church’ (it should be clarified that this refers specifically to the Orthodox Church) ‘cannot be broken’ (para. 6), because, as is also correctly noted, ‘the responsibility of the Orthodox Church for unity, as well as her universal mission, was expressed by the Ecumenical Councils,’ which ‘especially emphasized the inseparable link between right faith and sacramental communion’ (para. 3).”

At the same time, he noted that other passages imply that the unity of the Church has been lost, even though “the unity of the Church cannot be broken,” and therefore such formulations should be corrected.

The hierarch also argued that the text contains provisions influenced by the theory of “baptismal theology,” which served as one of the foundations of the Second Vatican Council.

Metropolitan Hierotheos stated that Western Christians should be received into the Orthodox Church through the Sacrament of Baptism. “This is connected with differences in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, including Western teachings on filioque and created divine energy (actus purus),” the message says.

“To free the document Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World from ambiguity and internal contradictions, paragraph 20 – ‘The prospects for theological dialogues of the Orthodox Church with other Christian Churches and confessions always proceed from the canonical criteria of the already established Church tradition (Canon 7 of the Second Ecumenical Council and Canon 95 of the Quinisext Council)’ – should be replaced with the following text:

‘The prospects for theological dialogues of the Orthodox Church with other Christian confessions are based on the faith and order accepted in the Orthodox Church and founded upon the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. The reception of non-Orthodox Christians into the Orthodox Church takes place according to the principles of akribeia and economia. Economia may be applied to those Christian confessions in which Baptism is performed in accordance with the apostolic and patristic tradition: by triple full immersion with the confession of the Holy, Consubstantial and Undivided Trinity,’” the hierarch concluded.

The second part of Metropolitan Hierotheos’ message, devoted to an analysis of the document The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World, was announced for publication in the coming days.

As the UOJ previously reported, representatives of the Churches of Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia and Cyprus had previously voiced criticism of this document.

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