Crisis Builds as Pan-Orthodox Council Faces Last Minute Tussles

Two of the 14 autocephalous Orthodox Churches have threatened to stay away from the immanent Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church if their demands aren't met;however,they remain open to negotiations.If even one Orthodox Church failed to attend the Council,it would lose its legitimacy as an historic event and so would have to be postponed at the very least.*
.The Church of Bulgaria is dissatisfied with such things as the seating arrangements at the Council.At the same time,the Church of Antioch is displeased by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople's plan for a conference to resolve jurisdictional conflict between Antioch and the Church of Jerusalem immediately after the Council,rather than before it,as Antioch desires.
The Church of Georgia wants to amend the proposed Council document on Marriage and the Impediments to it.
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The very fact of these late hour problems emerging shows how critical it is to hold this Council.The distance between the local Churches has become wider than perhaps was realised to this point,after so many centuries without a large assembly of all the Orthodox Christian Churches.*
At a meeting of the Russian Orthodox Church's Holy Synod on 3 June 2016,it was proposed:
1.that the way out of the present emergency situation could be found in holding an extraordinary Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council conference to address the present situation and examine the amendments to the Council's documents presented by Orthodox Churches with the aim to work out agreed proposals;
2.that considering the great amount of work and the importance of problems raised,such a conference needs to convene urgently,no later than on 10 June 2016,so that on the basis of its resolution the Orthodox Churches could make a decision as to the possibility of convening the Pan-Orthodox Council at the stated date;
3.that His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia address His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew with an appropriate proposal;
4.and that the proposals be immediately sent t the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches.*
The Council is scheduled to be held at the Orthodox Academy of Crete from 19-26 June in Kolymbari,Chania.