His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will chair a meeting of delegations from the 14 autocephalous Orthodox Churches at the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambesy,Switzerland from 21-28 January.The meeting is to make final preparations for the Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church,which is scheduled to begin on Orthodox Pentecost Sunday,19 June 2016,at Haghia Irene,the ancient Church of St.Irene,in Constantinople (Istanbul).The rules of the Council must be finalised and any other remaining issues resolved.The meeting will evaluate and validate the texts to be proposed for approval at the Council.
Among those in attendance at Chambesy are Archbishop Demetrios of America;Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia;and Patriarch Daniel of Romania.Metropolitan Sawa of Poland and Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East could not attend for health reasons;while Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece could not come for personal reasons.All Churches have sent authorised delegations,however.The primates will concelebrate the Sunday Divine Liturgy.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is being advised by theologians Metropolitan John of Pergamon and Metropolitan Emmanuel of France.He proposed that the length of the Great and Holy Council be two weeks and that a range of people,including representatives of the Orthodox clergy and laity,as well as media and non-Orthodox ecumenical observers,be invited to the Council.*
The Council has been many decades in the making.It will seek to convey the Orthodox Church's message to the modern world at large,as well as work to normalise her internal affairs and guide her external relations with other Christian churches and other religions.
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