Chania,Crete To Host Pan-Orthodox Council

It has been decided by the preparatory meeting of the Primates and Delegations of the 14 autocephalous Orthodox Churches in Chambesy,Switzerland that the Orthodox Academy of Crete in Chania will be the site of the Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church from 16-27 June 2016.The Orthodox Academy is a conference center with tasteful modern architecture and only a short walk from the sea.It is next to the 17th century Gonia Monastery and a ten minute walk from the fishing village of Kolympari.
Chania,the second largest city on the Greek island of Crete,is the capital of Chania prefecture and 39 kilometers from an international airport.*
On Pentecost Sunday,19 June,the Panegyrical Divine Liturgy will be concelebrated by His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew and the Primates in the Cathedral Church of St.Menas in Herakleion.*
In his address to the meeting,His Beatitude Theophilos III,Patriarch of Jerusalem and All Palestine,said in Greek that the purpose of Our Synaxis is truly holy and sacred,the completion of the work that was commenced a long time ago by Our Fathers,namely the study,review and resolution of vital issues and problems facing Our Flocks and Our fellow human beings across the world.
Therefore,Our Synaxis provides testament to Our unity in Christ "through the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4,30) and consolation to Christians,persecuted in the Middle East and other parts of the world,as well as moral strengthening for contemporary man,tested and tortured by political disunity and divisions,by the economic and moral crisis and by arbitrary and unprecedented hideous crimes against innocent souls.
Therefore,placing Our trust in the education,construction and salvation of the souls of Our rational flocks,we have by the Lord Himself the authority,in the upcoming Great Pan-Orthodox Synaxis,arranged by the Synaxis of the Primates in Constantinople in March 2014,to rule on the issues that have been unanimously agreed upon and on those on which unanimity has not been reached,and assign them for further study and resolution,His Beatitude noted.