Bartholomew convokes the Primates of the Orthodox Churches
Istanbul (AsiaNews ) - The
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has convoked the patriarchs and archbishops of
all the Orthodox Churches to a meeting in Istanbul, next March, for an exchange
of views on the guidelines and timeframe for the Preparatory Commission of the
Pan-Orthodox Synod, scheduled for 2015. Thus far, most
meetings have been dealt exclusively with procedural matters.
The
last meeting of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches was held in 2008, also in
Constantinople
In addition to talk of the
Preparatory Commission, next March's encounter is also motivated by Constantinople's
desire to remind sister churches that they cannot face the challenges of a economically
globalized but spiritually fractured world - with all the negative consequences
that follow for human existence - without
joint initiatives. Orthodox
circles see this as an attempt to move beyond a self-marginalization born of a
localist mentality that has characterized the Orthodox Churches in the modern
era, partly because of a certain post- Ottoman filettism (nationalism).
Constantinople,
also thanks to its historical supra-national mentality, is attempting to
prevent the introversion of the Orthodox world . This
because there are many in the Orthodox world who see an Orthodox Church fearful
of the social challenges of the new era, a church that is content to perform
simple acts of charity and obsess itself in discussions on individual social
issues, thus avoiding having to deal with the whole crisis
that afflicts the human existence in modern society. Individual
churches that, with the approval from their synod, undertake "local" initiatives,
without keeping in mind the universal needs and challenges.
In this regard, the Metropolitan
of Pergamon, Ioannis Zizioulas , co-chairman of ecumenical dialogue between
Catholics and Orthodox and eminent theologian has told us that " the
greatest danger to Orthodoxy , but also for the whole Christian world, is not
atheism, secular
power in general or its various enemies. Nobody in history has been able to
dispel the truth. The greatest danger comes from its self-marginalization . And
this happens every time a movement, a spiritual force refuses to confront and
come to dialogue
with all social and intellectual movements of its era. Why must always remember
that history is not monolithic".
"The
story - Zizioulas continues - is the space in which you exercise the freedom of
the human being . And freedom in the 'arc of human life is characterized by the
expression of diverse opinions and consequently the dialectic of "you
"and" no.
"Only at the end ( in the eschatological sense ) human freedom will be
expressed as a" yes " , that turned to God and to the truth.
The Church has established itself
over time on this consideration. From
the beginning, the first Christian communities dedicated themselves to
constructive dialogue with Judaism and the Greek world. It
reached its highest point in the so-called patristic period, in which the
Church dared to tackle a constructive dialogue with the culture of the time,
sealing it with his own truth . Only
in the modern world has the so-called division between sacred and profane taken
place in the world of culture, which has pushed the Church out of the cultural
and civil sphere, with damaging consequences not only for the Church, but for
civilization itself".
"Therefore
- continues Zizioulas - any escape from the historical reality and the
continuing search for identity exclusively in the past, without taking into
account the historical, social and cultural context in which the tradition of
identity developed, is equivalent to first Orthodoxy and then to marginalizing romanticizing".
"It
's very important then - said the Metropolitan of Pergamon - that we men of the
Church, we give up our narcissist self-satisfaction that only leads to sterile
confrontations. Instead we must learn
how to offer creation the essence of the true witness, that of Our Lord".
.png)
25/01/2016 00:12
28/01/2016 10:00
20/06/2016 19:07
