Orthodox answers

[loinburger]

Yup, I'm not sure who she was the rest of the time - presumably herself, but I didn't ask

[Kidlicious]

It's more that sick people don't act right, Kid.

Sick people can act right when they have faith in God, and don't doubt their beliefs.

[Kidlicious]

Faith is the cure for our sickness. Doubt is bad medicine. How can someone be cured and not know it, and what good would it be in this case?

[The Mad Monk]

Icons: Yes or No?

[Elok]

I think perhaps you are patronizing me.

[The Mad Monk]

Nonsense. I have never purchased a single thing off you.

[Elok]

Okay, the "Pan-Orthodox Council" has now more or less officially descended into farce, and it's not totally clear to me why. For those of you even more in the dark who care, we've been planning a global council of all the Orthodox Churches for forty years, and it was planned for Crete later this month. More than a third of the fourteen churches involved have now declared their intention to boycott the meeting, many of them in the past couple of days, and the ones that remain are mostly barely-even-titular churches like Cyprus and Jerusalem. Russia, Antioch, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Serbia have all withdrawn. The POC will, at this rate, consist of Greeks, the disparate collection of odds and ends under EP authority, Africa (which is Alexandria's, IIUC), and sundry oddballs.

So, people in countries where Orthodoxy is more prominent, such as BE and Onodera: do you know just what is going on? There are two narratives to explain it. One says the various churches don't want to give up their uncanonical overseas territories in the diaspora. The other says that the EP has been heavy-handed and dictated the terms of the meeting without adequate discussion. What's the perspective in Russia and/or Greece?

[Sir Og]

Very little coverage of this around here. (I learned from you)

My take is that everybody likes to be the boss. So the various patriarchies like the status quo. They have nothing to gain from some kind of unification.

[Elok]

What unification? There's nothing in the agenda about unified administration AFAIK--then again, there are STILL no official translations of any of the documents into English. The complaint I'm hearing is that the meeting would consist largely of an up-or-down vote on the six documents prepared in advance, with little or no opportunity for editing or modifying. Whereas the five dissenters would prefer a more Ecumenical-Council style, where everybody gets together and argues and loses their temper and it drags on for weeks over things like the handful of churches Jerusalem has in Qatar.

[Sava]

anyone looking for info on orthodoxy should seek a better source than this thread

[Bereta_Eder]

I have no idea what we're talking about here
but maybe it's this

https://translate.google.gr/translate?hl=el&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tovima.gr%2Fsociety%2Farticle%2F%3Faid%3D807342

[Elok]

Yep, that's it. I have a hard time understanding the automated translation, but there's some interesting stuff there

[Sir Og]

What unification? There's nothing in the agenda about unified administration AFAIK--then again, there are STILL no official translations of any of the documents into English. The complaint I'm hearing is that the meeting would consist largely of an up-or-down vote on the six documents prepared in advance, with little or no opportunity for editing or modifying. Whereas the five dissenters would prefer a more Ecumenical-Council style, where everybody gets together and argues and loses their temper and it drags on for weeks over things like the handful of churches Jerusalem has in Qatar.

Here are the motives of the Bulgarian church for not attending:

- seating arrangements in the council meeting for the heads of autocephalous Orthodox Churches violates the principle of equality, and the location of observers and guests of the Council is inappropriate;
- the agenda lacked essential to Orthodoxy topics "that have contemporary relevance and require timely Ecumenical Council resolution";
- disagreement by the Orthodox churches on some of the texts already prepared for the council;
- inability, according to the already adopted agenda of the Pan-Orthodox Synod, to edit texts during his work;
- "The need to undertake large and unjustified financial expenses in case of participation of the Orthodox Church in council"

So basically they think they are disrespected; the meeting is pointless; and if they go they will have money for fewer luxury cars.

[The Mad Monk]

- seating arrangements in the council meeting for the heads of autocephalous Orthodox Churches violates the principle of equality, and the location of observers and guests of the Council is inappropriate;

A similar debate concerned the shape of the table to be used at the conference. The North favored a circular table, in which all parties, including NLF representatives, would appear to be "equal"' in importance. The South Vietnamese argued that only a rectangular table was acceptable, for only a rectangle could show two distinct sides to the conflict. Eventually a compromise was reached, in which representatives of the northern and southern governments would sit at a circular table, with members representing all other parties sitting at individual square tables around them.

[Aeson]

I am glad that holy men are so wise and inspired by God to be able to sit down (or not to sit down as it were) and solve such pressing matters facing humanity in such an efficient manner...