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The present article addresses the history of the preparations of the Pan-Orthodox Council since 1923, when the Pan-Orthodox Conference was held in Istanbul, until January 2016, when the Synaxis of the Primates was held in Chambesy, Switzerland. This article describes distinctive features and main events of the pre-conciliar process at its different stages as well as retraces the formation of the Council's agenda and the evolution of its preparatory procedure. The article demonstrates that relations between the local churches, especially those of the Ecumenical and Moscow Patriarchates, have affected the character and intensity of the pre-conciliar process. The author concludes that the preparatory methodology developed in the second half of the 20th century became inefficient in the early 21st century. The reconsideration of the accepted procedure made it possible for the churches to agree upon convening the Council in 2016. Yet we can presume that another Council will be necessary to consider a few items removed from the agenda of the upcoming Council.

Keywords: Pan-Orthodox Council, Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, history of the pre-conciliar process, inter-Orthodox relations, Patriarchate of Constantinople, Moscow Patriarchate.

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On June 16-27, 2016, the "Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church", also called the Pan-Orthodox Council, is scheduled to be held at the Cretan Orthodox Academy in Chania (Greece). It is assumed that each local church, whose autocephalous status is generally recognized, will be represented at the council in the person of its primate and accompanying bishops. The participants of the council will have to consider and adopt, on the basis of the principle of consensus, draft documents on church-disciplinary, social, inter-Christian and inter-Orthodox topics, which have been developed over several decades. In this article, we will show how the council was prepared and what events preceded the decision to convene it.

Prehistory of the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council (1923-1960)

Pan-Orthodox Congress in Istanbul in 1923

The need for a council that could speak authoritatively on problematic theological, canonical, and pastoral issues was widely discussed by local churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first practical steps on this path were taken by Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios IV. Patriarch Meletios headed the Church of Constantinople for less than two years - from November 1921 to October 1923. One of his main initiatives, which was implemented, was the holding of a Pan-Orthodox Congress (conference) in May-June 1923. This meeting is traditionally considered as a starting point for the presentation of the history of the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council.

On February 3, 1923, Patriarch Meletios sent a message to the heads of the Churches of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Serbia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania with a proposal to create a joint commission that could study current problems of pan-Orthodox significance and propose ways to resolve them canonically.1 Holding a meeting

1. For the English translation of the epistle, see Viscuso, P. (2006) A Quest for Reform of the Orthodox Church. The 1923 Pan-Orthodox Congress. An Analysis and Translation of Its Acts and Decisions, pp. 4-5. Berkley, CA: InterOrthodox Press.

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The commission was scheduled for the same year after Easter. It was assumed that at this meeting, the delegates of the churches will study the so-called "calendar issue", as well as other issues that require immediate resolution and will be included in the agenda at the suggestion of the participants.

In response to the invitation of Patriarch Meletius, delegates were sent by the Serbian, Cypriot, Greek and Romanian Churches. The Russian Church was not officially invited because of the ambiguity of the internal church situation in the USSR. Nevertheless, the meeting was attended by two Russian hierarchs - Archbishop Anastasius (Gribanovsky) of Chisinau and Khotyn and Archbishop Alexander (Nemolovsky) of Aleutia and North America. Although the Russian Church did not give these hierarchs the right to represent their interests and did not consider their participation as legitimate, 2 from the point of view of the Patriarch of Constantinople, they acted as its legal representatives.3
A meeting of the commission was held in Istanbul from May 10 to June 8, 1923. In total, eleven meetings were held, at which agreed decisions were developed on seven topics: correction of the Julian calendar; the attitude of the Orthodox Church to the adoption of a new calendar, more perfect from a scientific and practical point of view; the relationship between the sacraments of the priesthood and marriage; the possibility of remarriage of widows clergy; age of candidates for holy orders; convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Council in 1925; attitude to the ecclesiastical situation in Russia 4. The canonical status of some of these decisions was subsequently disputed by a number of local churches.5
2. Troitsky S. V. Let's fight together with danger / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. 1950. N 2. P. 46.

3. Viscuso, P. A Quest for Reform of the Orthodox Church, pp. XXII-XXV.

4. Here and further, when considering the decisions of preparatory meetings, unless otherwise indicated, by default we rely on their publication in the article by G. N. Skobey: Skobey G. N. Inter-Orthodox cooperation in the preparation of the Holy and Great Council of the Eastern Orthodox Church / / Church and Time. 2002. N 2. pp. 56-60. Skobey's publication omits the decisions of the Pan-Orthodox Congress concerning the situation in the Russian Church and the convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Council in 1925.For the full text of the decisions of the Congress, see: Ionita, V. (2014) Towards the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church. The Decisions of the Pan-Orthodox Meetings since 1923 until 2009, pp. 105-111. Fribourg: Institute for Ecumenical Studies; University of Fribourg.

5. Yakimchuk I. Z. Vsepravoslavnyj kongress [All-Orthodox Congress] / Ed. Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy, vol. 9. Moscow: Church and Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia", 2005, p. 683.

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Among the decisions of the conference, the most significant consequences for the life of the church were the approval of the correction of the Julian calendar, which caused the appearance of the Old - Style schism, and for the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council, the question of the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the implementation of pan-Orthodox initiatives raised by the very fact of convening the meeting. This issue comes to the fore when considering the conference as one of the steps taken by the Patriarchate of Constantinople to resolve its situation in the 1920s.

The situation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the early 1920s was characterized by two factors. On the one hand, because of the anti-Turkish position that Patriarch Meletios held during the Greek-Turkish War of 1919-1922, the Patriarchate was on the verge of physical destruction on the territory of Turkey. Moving its center from Istanbul to Thessaloniki or Mount Athos was considered by the Phanar as a possible scenario. On the other hand, by this time the Patriarchate had lost many of its canonical territories. Since the middle of the 19th century, a group of new churches left its jurisdiction, and as a result of the Greek-Turkish War, which ended in the so-called "Asia Minor catastrophe" of 1922, it remained practically without a congregation on the territory of Asia Minor.

The internationalization of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, based on the idea of the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the Orthodox Church, was chosen as a strategy to ease the situation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in these conditions.6 The special status of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was intended to ensure its preservation on its historical territory by attracting international attention to its problems. One of the practical consequences of the chosen strategy was the consolidation of the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the implementation of pan-Orthodox initiatives. Patriarch Meletios justified this role of the Church of Constantinople during the second session of the conference in 1923, when, in response to a proposal from the representative of the Romanian Church, Archimandrite Iulius (Scriban), to consider ways to strengthen inter-Orthodox cooperation, he outlined his vision of the structure of the Orthodox Church and the most effective way to achieve this goal.

6. For more information on the development of the theory of primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the 1920s, see: Ermilov P. V. Origin of the theory of primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople // Bulletin of St. Petersburg State University. I: Theology. Philosophy. 2014. Issue 1 (51), pp. 36-53.

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acceptable ways of exercising church authority at the pan-Orthodox level.

According to Patriarch Meletios, the most appropriate analogy describing the specifics of the structure of the Orthodox Church is the constitutional confederation. The key principle that characterizes governance within such a confederation is synodality (collegiality), which is implemented at the local and pan-Orthodox levels. If the implementation of the principle of synodality in the first case requires the efforts of a single local church, its implementation at the level of all churches requires a single center where the entire episcopate can meet to solve common problems. Patriarch Meletios was convinced that the Ecumenical Patriarchate should be such a center, ensuring the unity of the entire church, by virtue of the primacy that tradition and canons assimilate to it:

It is obvious that forgetting the principle of holding general councils is a threat to the unity of Orthodoxy... The Ecumenical See, which is entrusted by canons and tradition with the responsibility of presiding over the see, would gratefully accept a solution agreed with the rest of the Orthodox Churches to establish a system of conferences acting on behalf of the entire church ... 7

The holding of a conference under the auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which was granted the status of "pan-Orthodox"not without the personal participation of Patriarch Meletius, 8 was intended to restore the institution of synodality at the inter-Orthodox level and in fact reinforce the claim of Constantinople to a leading role in the Orthodox Church.

At the end of the eighth session of the conference, the participants discussed the proposal of the Romanian delegation to coincide with the 1600th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council in 1925. At the same time, it was decided that a Pan-Orthodox Council should be held within the framework of the celebrations, which will consider and resolve all issues of concern to the Orthodox Church9. To the competence of this council,

7. Viscuso, P. A Quest for Reform of the Orthodox Church, p. 25.

8. Ibid., pp. 39-41.

9. Ibid., pp. 152-154.

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In particular, issues related to the relationship between the sacraments of marriage and the priesthood and the second marriage of widowed clergy were considered, decisions on which were taken at the meeting were non-binding. The idea that a Pan-Orthodox Council should follow the meeting was implicitly present in Patriarch Meletius ' message of February 3, 1923, and was directly voiced by him during the meeting.10 The preparation of the council was entrusted to the Ecumenical Patriarch.

Meeting of the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission on Mount Athos in 1930

Attempts by Patriarch Constantine VII of Constantinople to hold an Ecumenical Council 11 in Jerusalem in 1925 were unsuccessful due to the refusal of the Serbian, Romanian and Antiochian Churches to participate in it. In particular, the Serbian Church demanded that the council be convened only after preliminary preparation in the commissions of autocephalous churches and then in the general preparatory commission, or "pre-council" 12. In this context, the idea was formed that the organization of the council requires a number of preparatory stages, including the convocation of the "pre-council", which will remain the main preparatory body until the end of the 1960s13. Constantine VII's successor, Basil III, attempted to convene an Ecumenical Council on Mount Athos in 1926, but this initiative also failed to materialize.14
10. Viscuso, P. A Quest for Reform of the Orthodox Church, p. 28.

11. Until the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference in 1968, when the Pan-Orthodox Council was officially designated "the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church", it could be called by analogy with the seven main councils of the ancient Church - the Ecumenical Council. A conference of theologians held in Athens in 1936 was devoted to the question of the validity of such naming of the cathedral (see Ionita, V. Towards the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, pp. 22-30). The use of the term "ecumenical council" was decided to be abandoned at the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference. This decision was motivated by the fact that the recognition of the ecumenical or non-universal character of any council depends mainly on its soteriological significance, which cannot be determined in advance (Damascene (Papandreou), mitr. Speech at the first pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference (1976) / / Orthodoxy and the World. Athens: Nea Sinora, 1994. pp. 185-186).

12. Troitsky S. V. Let's fight together with danger. p. 47.

13. Ionita, V. Towards the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, pp. 12-15.

14. Shkarovsky M. V. The Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church in the first half of the XX century. Moscow: Indrik, 2014, pp. 61, 67-68.

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The first and last pre-war meeting of the preparatory commission was held in July 1930 at the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos on the initiative of Patriarch Photios II of Constantinople. The convening of the conference outside of Turkey was due to the unwillingness of the Turkish authorities to allow events that strengthen the international position of the Church of Constantinople to be held on their territory.15 The Commission discussed a catalog of topics for the pre-meeting, which was scheduled for June 1932. At the invitation of Patriarch Photius, the meeting was attended by representatives of all local churches except the Russian One. Her participation in the meeting was impossible, as Patriarch Photios invited not only her canonical head Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), but also the head of the" Living Church " Metropolitan Veniamin (Muratovsky) of Moscow16.

Based on the results of the commission's work, a catalog of 17 topics for the future pre-meeting was formed. Of the decisions of the 1923 meeting, only the issue of the calendar was included in the agenda of the pre-assembly. At the same time, the emphasis was shifted from correcting the Julian calendar to developing a more accurate Paschal calendar. This understanding of the calendar issue will be essential for the further preparation of the Council 17. The rest of the catalog's topics were new and focused on the relationship of the Orthodox Church to non-Orthodox christianity, ways to develop and strengthen inter-Orthodox cooperation, and church disciplinary issues. It should be noted that the catalog included the topics of determining the ways of granting autocephaly and resolving the situation in the Diaspora, reflecting the current problems of inter-Orthodox relations, complicated by the granting of autocephaly to the Polish Church by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the difficult situation in the Diaspora. At the initiative of Patriarch Meletios, the topic of the diaspora was discussed at a meeting in 1923. Then the position of Meletius, who insisted on the exclusive right of Constantinople to manage the diaspora, was not supported by other participants of the meeting, and the issue of the diaspora was removed from the agenda.

15. Troitsky S. V. Let's fight together with danger. p. 46.

16. Skobey G. N. Inter-Orthodox cooperation in the preparation of the Holy and Great Council of the Eastern Orthodox Church. p. 61.

17. See in this issue of the journal V. Khulap's article "The Calendar Question: Conciliar Discussions in History and Modernity".

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The pre-assembly was scheduled to be held on Mount Athos in June 1932. According to the decision of the preparatory commission of 1930, the Patriarch of Constantinople was to ensure the representation of the Russian Church at the pre-council. In June 1931, Photius II invited Archimandrite Vasily (Dimopulo), through his representative in the USSR one representative each from the Moscow Patriarchate and the Living Church. This method of representation, which effectively equates the "Living Church" with the Moscow Patriarchate, did not suit Metropolitan Sergius and the Patriarchal Synod, 18 and on April 12, 1931, Metropolitan Sergius informed Patriarch Photius through Archimandrite Vasily (Dimopulo) of the refusal of the Russian Church to participate in the pre-council.19 Some other churches also refused to participate in the pre-council, which forced Patriarch Photius to postpone its convocation indefinitely.20 Further preparation of the cathedral was interrupted by the Second World War.

Conference of Primates and Representatives of Orthodox Churches in Moscow in 1948

Preparations for the Pan-Orthodox Council under the leadership of the Ecumenical Patriarch were resumed in the early 1950s. However, in the post-war period, the Russian Church tried to take the initiative to convene a Pan-Orthodox Council, acting under pressure from the Soviet authorities.

Since 1943, the Soviet government has viewed the Russian Church as a tool for conducting its foreign policy and spreading Soviet influence in the post-war world. In this context, the idea of resuming the preparation of the Pan - Orthodox Council was born-now on the initiative of the Russian Church and with the prospect of holding it in Moscow. Conducting Everything-

18. Shkarovsky M. V. The Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church in the first half of the XX century. pp. 84-85.

19. Letter of the Deputy Representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the USSR to Archimandrite Vasily Dimopulo (dated April 12, 1932, No. 521) / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1931-1935, Moscow: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2001, pp. 101-104. For more information, see A. Mazyrin's article "On the question of the Russian factor in the failure of the Pan-Orthodox Council in the 1920s and 1930s" in this issue of the journal.

20. O Prosinode (ot 29 jul'ya 1932 goda za N 113) // Zhurnal Moskovskoi patriarkhii v 1931-1935 gody [Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1931-1935]. Moscow: Izdatel'skii Sovetskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi, 2001, pp. 126-127.

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The decision of the Russian Orthodox Council in Moscow was intended to provide it with leadership in the Orthodox world and thus make it a more appropriate tool for solving the tasks assigned to it. The church itself, however, tried to distance itself from the role imposed on it.21
In 1947, a pan-Orthodox pre-conciliar conference was planned, which was conceived as a resumption of the preparation of the council at the stage at which it was interrupted fifteen years earlier. The pre-council was supposed to be followed by the convocation of a Pan-Orthodox Council in 1948.However, attempts to hold a pre-council in 1947, and then in 1948, as part of the celebrations dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the autocephaly of the Russian Church, were unsuccessful. In both cases, the failure was attributed to the refusal of the Churches of Constantinople, Cyprus and Greece to send representatives.22
The refusal was motivated by two reasons: the influence of communism on the Russian Church and the inability of Moscow to lead the pre-council process. The first motive was correct, since the agenda of the pre-council was formed under the influence of the Soviet authorities, and the decisions of the conference of heads and representatives of autocephalous Orthodox churches, which was conceived as a pre-council meeting, followed the foreign policy objectives of the USSR, in particular, in relation to Catholicism and ecumenism. 23 The second motive was more related to ecclesiological issues and showed differences between the two The Russian and Greek Churches regarding who has the right to convene a Pan-Orthodox Council. From the point of view of the Greek churches, only the Ecumenical Patriarch had such a right by virtue of canonical primacy. Accordingly, the preparation of the council under the leadership of the Russian Church was regarded as an encroachment on its part on the privileges that belong to the Ecumenical Patriarch. 24 From the point of view of the Russian Church

Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkva i II Vatikansky sobor [Russian Orthodox Church and the Second Vatican Council]. Evidence. Events. Dokumenty [Documents], Moscow: Lepta Publ., 2004, pp. 52-54.

22. Proceedings of the Conference of heads and representatives of autocephalous Orthodox Churches in connection with the celebration of the 500th anniversary of autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church. July 8-18, 1948, vol. II. Moscow: Moscow Patriarchate, 1949, p. 453.

Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkva i II Vatikansky sobor [Russian Orthodox Church and the Second Vatican Council], pp. 51-52.
24. For the position of the Greek churches on the issue of convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Council, see: Troitsky S. V. Where and what is the main danger? // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1947, No. 12, pp. 31-42. In this article Troitsky criticizes Zakynthos ' position

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however, the council could be convened in any autocephalous church25. The attempt of the Russian Church to undertake the preparation of a Pan-Orthodox Council demonstrated the incompatibility of these positions, which was one of the reasons for the failure of this initiative.

Coordination of the positions of the local churches regarding the conditions for the beginning of the pre-conciliar process (1951-1960)

As already noted, the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council was resumed by Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople in 1951. In February of this year, he sent a message to the heads of local churches, inviting them to return to the issue of convening a pre-council. On September 25, 1952, Patriarch Athenagoras sent another message informing the heads of churches that most of them considered it necessary to postpone the convocation of the pre-council. This decision was motivated by tensions in inter-Orthodox relations and the need for all churches to participate in the pre-council. 26 Since the churches also expressed their support for finalizing the pre-council agenda, Patriarch Athenagoras attached to his message of September 25, 1952, a catalog developed by the preparatory commission at the Vatopedi Monastery in 1930. It was assumed that the Vatopedi catalog would be improved in accordance with the wishes of the churches.

Among the local churches that supported the postponement of the pre-council was the Russian Church. The conditions for its participation in the pre-council were formulated in the reply message of Patriarch Alexy I dated March 7, 1953.27 Agreeing with the need to resume the pre-conciliar process, Patriarch Alexy outlined the points of tension in relations between the Churches of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church, which did not allow the latter to take part in the pre-conciliar process: the presence of the Western European Orthodox Church in the Russian Orthodox Church.-

Metropolitan Chrysostomos, described in his article "Two main dangers", which was published in the official journal of the Greek Church "Ecclesia" No. 29-30 of August 1, 1947.

25. Troitsky S. V. On Church autocephaly / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, No. 7, 1948, p. 49.

26. Vedernikov A. K voprosu o predsobornom sostoyanie [On the issue of the pre-council meeting]. Zhurnal Moskovskoi patriarhii, 1953, No. 8, p. 53.

27. Epistle of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia to His Holiness Archbishop of Constantinople - New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1952, No. 6, pp. 4-8.

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In 1923, the Finnish Diocese of the Russian Church was granted the rights of autonomy under the jurisdiction of Constantinople; the Ecumenical Patriarch did not have canonical communion with the primates of the Albanian, Polish and Czech Orthodox Churches. In article A. Vedernikov's book "On the question of the Pre-Conciliar Conference", which develops and explains the content of the aforementioned message of Patriarch Alexy, also mentioned other obstacles: the communion of Constantinople with the Russian Orthodox Church abroad and the Russian North American metropolia, as well as the non-recognition of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, which was restored in 1953,28
A compromise on the conditions for resuming the pre-conciliar process was reached by Patriarchs Alexy and Athenagoras during their meeting in Istanbul on Christmas Day 1960. As a result of this meeting, Patriarch Alexy agreed to the participation of the Russian Church in the pan-Orthodox conference, which was scheduled to be held next year on the island of Rhodes and which was supposed to be an intermediate stage in the preparation of the pre-council.29 The Russian Church also recognized the independent status of the Church of Finland under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Patriarch of Constantinople, in turn, pledged to ensure full participation in the conference of the Albanian, Bulgarian, Polish and Czech Churches.30 This demand of Patriarch Alexy was fulfilled, and these churches, except for the Albanian one, were subsequently represented at the First Pan-Orthodox Conference (in the future, they could provide the Russian Church with the necessary support in the preparation of the council). In addition, Patriarch Athenagoras assured the Primate of the Russian Church that the disputed issues between Constantinople and Moscow will be gradually resolved. In 1966, Constantinople did terminate its jurisdictional relationship with the Russian Exarchate of Western Europe, although it retained Eucharistic communion with it. By persuading the Russian Church to join in the preparations for the council, Patriarch Athenagoras removed one of the key obstacles that had blocked the preparatory process in previous years.

28. Vedernikov A. K voprosu o predsobornom sostoyanie [On the issue of the pre-meeting meeting]. pp. 51-51.

29. Ionita, V. Towards the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, p. 39.

Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkva i II Vatikansky sobor [Russian Orthodox Church and the Second Vatican Council], pp. 146-148.
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Preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council (1961-2016)

Preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council in the framework of Pan-Orthodox conferences (1961-1968)

The First Pan-Orthodox Conference, held on the island of Rhodes from 24 to 30 September 1961, for the first time consolidated the efforts of the majority of local churches in the preparation of a Pan-Orthodox Council. The joint participation of the Russian and Constantinople Churches in this conference, however, did not remove the existing differences between them. The confrontation between the delegations of these churches was one of the key factors that determined the course of the meeting, 31 and was reflected in the discussion of two procedural issues: the procedure for appointing the chairman of the meeting and the creation of a special preparatory commission.

The Russian delegation made a proposal to amend the procedure for appointing the Chairman at the very beginning of the meeting. The de facto Pan-Orthodox conferences were to be held under the chairmanship of a representative of the Church of Constantinople, who initiated and prepared them. At the suggestion of the Russian delegation, if the representative of Constantinople was unable to perform the presidential functions, the chairman should be appointed alternately and in accordance with the diptychs 32. In this case, each of the churches had to preside for one day 33. This initiative, supported by the Romanian Church, was negatively received by the chairman of the meeting, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Naples and Phasos, and was removed from the meeting's agenda. The presidency of Pan-Orthodox conferences was considered by the Church of Constantinople as an attribute of its primacy.34
The second proposal, concerning the creation of a special commission for the preparation of the council, was voiced by Archbishop Ni-

31. This was noted by the editor of the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, Priest A. Wenger, who was present at the meeting as an observer. Vestnik Russkogo khristianskogo studencheskogo dvizheniya [Bulletin of the Russian Christian Student Movement], 1961. III-IV (62-63). p. 16).

32. Venger A., priest. On the Rhodes Meeting, p. 10.

33. Clement O. Conversations with Patriarch Athenagoras. Translated from French by V. Zelinsky. Brussels: Life with God, 1993, p. 639.

34. Ibid., p. 611.

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kodim (Rotov) in his speech on the agenda items. It was assumed that the special preparatory commission"with the equal participation of all local Orthodox churches" 35 would become the main body preparing the pre-council. The competence and working procedure of this commission were to be determined by the meeting participants and then approved by the churches. It is obvious, however, that the Russian delegation intended the creation of the commission to balance the desire of the Church of Constantinople to monopolize the work of preparing the Council.36 This proposal was not followed up in the First Pan-Orthodox Conference. Subsequently, the Russian delegation repeated this proposal at the Third Pan-Orthodox Conference in 1964.37
Both attempts to introduce procedural changes in the preparation of the pre-council reflected the position of the Russian Church regarding the pan-Orthodox structure, according to which every autocephalous church is an equal subject of inter-church law. 38 This understanding of autocephaly assumed that all churches had equal rights in the preparation and convocation of a Pan-Orthodox Council, and Constantinople could lead this process only insofar as the other churches delegated to it the presidency functions. Accordingly, according to Archbishop Nicodemus, " the practice of violating the equal rights and full rights of all local Orthodox Churches and justifying attempts to prevail in the Orthodox Church."

35. Statement of the head of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Nikodim of Yaroslavl, at the Pan-Orthodox meeting / / Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) and Pan-Orthodox unity. To the 30th anniversary of the death of Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod / Comp. prot. Vladimir Sorokin. Saint Petersburg: Knyaz-Vladimirsky Sobor Publishing House, 2008, pp. 26-27.

36.Another member of the Russian Church delegation, Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshein) of Brussels and Belgium, points out that the Constantinople delegation set such goals for itself. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Second Vatican Council, pp. 161-163.
37. Statement by Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad and Ladoga, Head of the Moscow Patriarchate delegation, at the third Pan-Orthodox Conference on the agenda of the Russian Orthodox Church in Rhodes // Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) and Pan-Orthodox unity. To the 30th anniversary of the death of Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod / Comp. prot. Vladimir Sorokin. Saint Petersburg: Knyazvladimirsky Sobor Publishing House, 2008, pp. 55-56.

38. Shishkov, A. (2015) "Einige Besonderheiten der Position der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche im panorthodoxen vorkonziliaren Prozess", Una Sancta 2(70): 119-129.

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a particular Local Church or ethnic group " should not be considered anomalous. In this case, Archbishop Nicodemus certainly had in mind the claim to primacy on the part of Constantinople. With regard to the preparation of a Pan-Orthodox Council, this position has not changed in principle since the conference was held in 1923 and assumed that " it is the Ecumenical Patriarchate that has the primacy to convene, after consultation with all the Churches, Pan - Orthodox conferences and councils and to direct their work."40. This same problem was the basis of the positions of the Russian and Greek Churches regarding the initiative of the former to undertake the preparation of the council in the 1940s.

The main outcome of the First Rhodes Conference was a unanimous decision to convene a Pan-Orthodox Council. In addition, based on the Vatopedi catalog, which was previously finalized taking into account the comments of the churches, an updated catalog of the pre-council was compiled, including more than a hundred topics summarized in eight sections:

1. Faith and Dogma;

2. Divine service;

3. Governance and the church system;

4. Relations between Orthodox Churches;

5. Relations of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the Christian world;

6. Orthodoxy in the world;

7. General theological topics;

8. Social issues.

Compared to the Vatopedi catalog, its revised version was supplemented with topics of a doctrinal and social nature, arranged in the sections "faith and dogma" and "social issues", respectively. The remaining issues were presented to varying degrees in the Vatopedi catalog, although they underwent a number of significant changes. The level of detail of the sections shows that the meeting participants were most interested in the issues of attitudes to non-Orthodoxy and ecumenism, church governance and inter-Orthodox relations.

The Pre-Council catalog, developed by the First Pan-Orthodox Conference, was sent to the local churches, which were supposed to

39. Statement of the head of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Nikodim of Yaroslavl, at the Pan-Orthodox Conference. p. 21.

40. Clement O. Conversations with Patriarch Athenagoras, p. 611.

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prepare your own reports on each of its topics. By the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference held at the Orthodox Center of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Chambesy (Switzerland) in June 1968, only the Russian Church had done so. Slow work on catalog topics required optimization and regulation of this process. The Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference adopted relevant decisions.

At the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference, it was also decided to abandon the pre-council as the main preparatory body of the Pan-Orthodox Council. This proposal came from the head of the Constantinople delegation, Metropolitan Meliton of Chalcedon, and was justified by the fact that the concept of "pre-council" was unknown in the history of the Church and is alien to the canonical consciousness of Orthodoxy. 41 According to the adopted regulations, the convocation of the council was now to be preceded by several preparatory stages. The following procedure was proposed. For each stage, several themes of the Rhodes catalog are selected, and then they are distributed among local churches, which prepare draft final decisions on them. The next stage is the consideration of the drafts prepared by the churches by the inter - Orthodox preparatory commission, whose main task is to prepare agreed draft documents for consideration at the pre-council meeting, which develops and agrees by consensus the final wording on the topics of the catalog for further consideration at the Pan-Orthodox Council. The pre-meeting meeting, having completed work on the first group of topics in the catalog, forms the agenda for the next preparatory stage. The Pan-Orthodox Council was to be convened after all the topics of the Rhodes catalogue had been studied according to the procedure described. The initiative to convene preparatory commissions, pre-conciliar meetings and the council itself was assigned to the Ecumenical Patriarch.

The Meeting also institutionalized the preparations for the council by establishing a special secretariat at the Orthodox Center of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Chambesy, near Geneva. The secretariat was entrusted with the functions of practical implementation of the preparation of the council in accordance with the Pan-Orthodox law.-

41. Clement O. Conversations with Patriarch Athenagoras p. 660.

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solutions 42. The creation of the secretariat was part of the overall concept of the center, which was established in 1966 with the aim of ensuring inter-Christian and inter-Orthodox activities of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the full implementation of which in Turkey was hindered by the negative attitude of the authorities to the international initiatives of the Phanar. In addition, the presence of the center outside the canonical jurisdictions of local churches and on the territory of non-aligned Switzerland emphasized the ecumenical and supranational nature of its activities. After hosting the secretariat for the preparation of the Council in Chambesy, in the immediate vicinity of which the World Council of Churches was located, Geneva actually became the center of implementation of the main pan-Orthodox initiatives - pre-Council and ecumenical.43 Constantinople claimed a leading and coordinating role in the implementation of both initiatives.

It would be erroneous, however, to conclude that the developed mechanism for preparing the council took into account the interests of the Ecumenical Patriarch only. The contribution of other participants was reflected in the establishment of an inter-Orthodox preparatory commission, which was supposed to ensure a more complete participation of local churches in the preparation of the council. The Romanian (at the Vatopedi and I Pan-Orthodox Conferences 44) and Russian (at the I and III Pan-Orthodox Meetings) Churches took the initiative to create a commission for the preparation of the council, composed of representatives of all churches. Although these proposals differed in detail, they paved the way for the establishment of an inter-Orthodox preparatory commission. It should be noted that this decision did not contradict the interests of Patriarch Athenagoras, who considered it as the implementation of his initiative to establish a pan-Orthodox synod under the Ecumenical Patriarch.45
According to the procedure adopted, the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference selected six sub-themes from the Rhodes catalogue for the first preparatory stage and distributed them among the churches:

1. Sources of Divine Revelation;

42. Damaskin (Papandreou), mitr. Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Chambesy-Geneva. Itogi dvadtsatiletnoi deyatel'nosti (1966-1986) [Results of twenty-year activity (1966-1986)]. Athens: Nea Sinora, 1994. pp. 129-130.

43. Clement O. Conversations with Patriarch Athenagoras, p. 659.

44. Ibid., p. 647.

45. Ibid., p. 666.

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2. Greater participation of the laity in the liturgical and other areas of the Church's life;

3. Bringing church regulations on fasting in line with modern requirements;

4. Obstacles to marriage;

5. Calendar issue;

6. "Икономия" и "акривия" в Православной церкви.

The reports prepared by the churches were finalized by the Inter-Orthodox preparatory commission in July 1971 and recommended for consideration at the First Pre-Council Meeting. The Commission also raised the issue of the need to revise the Rhodes catalogue. Members of the commission noted that the existing catalog is poorly structured and does not allow us to understand which of the topics stated in it are most important for the church. 46 In addition, the number of topics did not allow us to complete the preparation of the council in the short term.

I Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Conference in Chambesy (1976)

Originally scheduled for 1972, the First Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Conference was held only in 1976. Among the reasons that delayed its holding for four years were the need to study - both at the local and inter-Orthodox levels-the issue of reducing the Rhodes catalog, and an active discussion around the council that developed among theologians who were not directly involved in its preparation. The results of this discussion were subsequently presented at the pre-council meeting by Metropolitan Damascene (Papandreou), Secretary for Council Preparation, and taken into account in its work.47
The First Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Conference was held from 21 to 28 November 1976 at the Orthodox Center of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Chambesy. The meeting focused on revising the catalogue of topics of the Pan-Orthodox Council. Based on the results of the theological discussion in previous years, as well as on the results of consultations, the main criteria that should be met by the topics submitted for consideration by the Pan-Orthodox Council were formulated. The main one

46. Ionita, V. Towards the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, p. 61.

47. Damaskin (Papandreou), mitr. Speech at the first Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference (1976). pp. 187-196.

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One of them was the direct relevance of the agenda to the current problems of church life, which cause discord in relations between churches. It was decided to refuse to consider issues of a doctrinal and liturgical nature 48. The final list, which included topics voted for by at least seven churches, consisted of ten items. The selected topics can be grouped into four groups: relations between local churches and the Ecumenical Patriarchate (1-4), disciplinary and canonical issues (5-7), relations between the Orthodox Church and the rest of the Christian world (8-9), and the witness of Orthodoxy in the modern world (10).:

1. Orthodox Diaspora;

2. Autocephaly and the method of its proclamation;

3. Autonomy and the method of its proclamation;

4. Diptychs;

5. General Calendar issue;

6. Obstacles to marriage;

7. Bringing church regulations on fasting into line;

8. The attitude of the Orthodox Churches to the rest of the Christian world;

9. Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical movement;

10. The contribution of local Orthodox churches to the celebration of Christian ideas of peace, freedom, brotherhood and love among peoples and the elimination of racial discrimination.

The First Pre-Conciliar Conference was complicated by the refusal of Patriarch Athenagoras to invite representatives of the Orthodox Church in America and the Japanese Orthodox Church. In 1970, these churches received autocephaly and autonomy from the Russian Church, respectively, which were not recognized by a number of churches, including the One in Constantinople. In fact, they were excluded from the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Synod49.

Metropolitan Meliton of Chalcedon, who presided over the meeting, explained that it was impossible to participate in the meeting.-

48. Damaskinos, metropolitan of Tranoupolis (1979) "Towards the Great and Holy Council", The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 24(2-3): 106-108.

49.At this stage of the pre-conciliar process, autonomous churches were considered as full participants with the right to vote. The participation of autonomous churches will later be established by the "Rules of Procedure for Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Meetings" adopted at the Third Pre-Conciliar Meeting in 1986.

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representatives of the Orthodox Church in America by the fact that its autocephaly does not have general Orthodox recognition 50. This explanation, however, does not exhaust the essence of the conflict that has arisen. Prior to the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in America, there was correspondence between Patriarchs Athenagoras and Alexy (and later-Locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Pimen of Krutitsk and Kolomna)51 shows that the conflict was based on a disagreement between the Russian and Constantinople Churches regarding the procedure for granting autocephaly. While the former insisted that the decision of the Kyriarchal Church (i.e., the "mother church") was sufficient to grant autocephaly, the latter defended the exclusive right of the Ecumenical Council to proclaim autocephaly and emphasized the special role of the Ecumenical Patriarch in resolving this issue.

II and III Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Conferences (1982, 1986)

The participants of the First Pre-Conciliar Meeting were optimistic about the prospects for convening a Pan-Orthodox Council and expected that the second Pre-Conciliar meeting would consider all the topics of the catalog at once and, if there was a consensus, announce the convocation of the council. The third pre-conclave meeting, if necessary, was only intended to complete the work that had been initiated.52 However, the planned schedule for the preparation of the cathedral turned out to be unrealistic. By the end of 1979, only eight churches had submitted their reports to the secretariat. 53 The preparation of the Second Meeting was also carried out in violation of the 1968 regulations, since it was not preceded by an inter-church meeting.-

50. Message of the DECR Communication Service on the position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Estonian church issue in connection with the negotiations between the delegations of the Moscow and Constantinople Patriarchates held in Zurich on March 26, 2008 // Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 16.05.2008 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/407840.html, accessed from 25.12.2015].

51. Exchange of messages on the problems of Orthodoxy in America / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. 1970. N 4. pp. 5-9. Correspondence of hierarchs in connection with the autocephaly of the American Orthodox Church / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. 1970. N 9. Pp. 6-15.

52. Aghiorghoussis, M. (1976) "Towards the Great and Holy Council: The First Pre-Synodal Pan-Orthodox Conference in Geneva", The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21(4): 426.

53. Damaskinos, metropolitan of Tranoupolis. "Towards the Great and Holy Council", p. 113-115.

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Orthodox Preparatory commission (in fact, its preparation was carried out by the secretariat itself).

The Second pre-conciliar meeting was held at the Orthodox Center of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Chambesy from 3 to 12 September 1982, and soon afterward the work on the preparation of the council continued at the Second Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission, which met in February 1986, and at the Third Pre-Conciliar meeting, which took place from 26 October to 6 November of the same year. As a result of these three inter-Orthodox meetings, final projects on topics 5-10 were agreed and approved. In addition, the Third Pre-Conciliar Meeting approved the "Rules of Procedure for Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Meetings". This document preserves the logic of the decisions of the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference on the procedure for preparing the council and establishes the established practice of holding inter-Orthodox preparatory commissions and pre-council meetings. In addition, the regulations fixed the 1976 catalog and established that finding solutions on all its topics is a prerequisite for the convocation of the council.

Beginning of preparations for the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Conference (1986-1995)

In accordance with the rules of procedure, the Third Pre-assembly meeting set the agenda for the next meeting. It includes the remaining four themes from the 1976 catalog: "Orthodox Diaspora", "Autocephaly and the order of its proclamation", "Autonomy and the order of its proclamation" and "Diptychs". Each of these topics directly affected bilateral relations between the Churches of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church, which at that time were complicated by the non-recognition of the autocephalous and autonomous status of the Orthodox Church in America and the Japanese Orthodox Church, as well as the presence of the Russian Orthodox Archdiocese of Western Europe under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.54 In addition, the question of the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarch, which was disputed by the Russian Church, was directly related to these topics. Finding a consensus on these topics promised to develop a common understanding of the structure of Law-

54. The Western European Exarchate of Russian Parishes was re-admitted to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1971 as the Russian Orthodox Archdiocese of Western Europe.

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the glorious Church, and at the same time-the elimination of one of the key factors that gave rise to inter-Orthodox conflicts in previous decades. Realizing the complexity of the task ahead and the related problems of the remaining topics, the participants of the Third Pre-Conciliar Meeting stipulated the procedure for preparing the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Meeting, emphasizing, in particular, that its convocation "should take place only when a common Orthodox point of view is developed on all topics".55
The development of the topics of the fourth Pre-Conciliar Meeting began in 1990 with the Third Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission, which developed a draft final document on the topic "Orthodox Diaspora". The Fourth Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission, held in November 1993, continued to study the issue of the diaspora and finalize the relevant draft documents. The same commission also prepared a draft document on the topic "Autocephaly and the method of its proclamation". The participants reached a consensus on the canonical conditions for the proclamation of autocephaly and the role of the Kyriarchal Church, as well as the Constantinople and other local churches. The procedure for proclaiming autocephaly outlined in general terms was preliminary in nature and required further refinement. Finally, the Conference of canonists, held in April 1995, completed the study of the issue of the Diaspora by preparing draft rules of procedure for the work of episcopal conferences (meetings of Orthodox bishops of different jurisdictions in certain Diaspora regions).

Break in the preparation of the Council (1996-2008)

The break in the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries was closely connected with the so-called "Estonian question". In 1996, the Patriarchate of Constantinople extended its jurisdiction to Estonia, which is canonically subordinate to the Russian Church, establishing the Orthodox Autonomous Apostolic Church of Estonia on its territory. The Russian Church did not recognize the canonical status of autonomy for this church structure. The resulting jurisdictional conflict has negatively affected the interaction of the two churches in matters of inter-Christian and inter-Orthodox cooperation.

55. Skobey G. N. Inter-Orthodox cooperation in the preparation of the Holy and Great Council of the Eastern Orthodox Church. p. 180.

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56 and led to the fact that the process of preparing the Pan-Orthodox Council was suspended for twelve years.

One of the reasons why the Russian Church suspended its participation in the pre-conciliar process during this period was the unacceptability of the Russian Church's participation in inter-Orthodox forums where the Orthodox Autonomous Apostolic Church of Estonia is officially represented in the jurisdiction of Constantinople. This position was outlined at the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 200057. In accordance with the relevant decision of the council, Patriarch Alexy II did not take part in the meeting of primates of Orthodox churches in Istanbul in December 2000,58 because the head of the "Constantinople" Estonian Church, Metropolitan Stefan, was invited to attend. For the same reason, in 2007, a delegation of the Russian Church left a meeting of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. It was not without reason that the Russian Church assumed that the Estonian Church would also be invited to participate in the preparation of the council. There was a historical precedent: since 1968, another autonomous church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Finland, has been a permanent participant in the pre - conciliar process.

Preparation of the Council after the resumption of the pre-council process (2008-2014)

On October 10-12, 2008, at the initiative of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, a meeting of primates of Orthodox churches was held. In his opening speech, Patriarch Bartholomew, in particular, called on the churches to resume preparations for the council, starting with the solution of the issue of the diaspora, which was already studied in the 1990s59. As a condition for accepting the offer

56. Primate of the Russian Church commented on the state of relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople / / Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 10.01.2008 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/76040.html, accessed from 25.12.2015].

57. Jubilee Bishops ' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Cathedral of Christ the Saviour on August 13-16, 2000. Materials: Moscow: Publishing Council of the Moscow Patriarchate; Charitable Foundation "Christmas-2000", 2001. p. 465.

58. Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. 2000. N 12. P. 10.

59. Address by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Synaxis of the Heads of Orthodox Churches (October 10, 2008). (2008), The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 53(1-4): 304.

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The Russian Church has asked the Ecumenical Patriarch to limit the number of full participants in the pre-conciliar process to autocephalous churches, excluding autonomous churches from it.60 This requirement was met. The exclusion of the Estonian Autonomous Church made it possible to resume preparations for the Pan-Orthodox Council, and the decision was officially announced in the primates ' message. In the same message, it was noted that the first step on this path will be to hold a pan-Orthodox pre-council meeting next year, which will discuss the topic of the diaspora. 61 This decision contradicted the procedure approved in 1986 for the preparation of the Fourth Pre-Conclave meeting, according to which its convocation should have been preceded by finding a common position on all remaining topics on the agenda.

The fourth Pre-Conclave meeting was held in Chambesy from 6 to 13 June 2009. After a minor revision of the drafts prepared at the inter-Orthodox meetings in 1990, 1993 and 1995, the participants of the meeting approved the final document on the Diaspora and the rules of procedure for bishops ' conferences. The adopted documents state that"an early resolution of the issue of the Orthodox diaspora in accordance with Orthodox ecclesiology and the canonical traditions and practices of the Orthodox Church" 62 is the common will of all churches. For historical and pastoral reasons, the strictly canonical organization of the Diaspora should be preceded by a transition period, during which conferences will be created from all canonical bishops located in a particular region. It was assumed that episcopal conferences led by a representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople would prepare the ground for a canonical settlement of the situation in the Diaspora at a Pan-Orthodox Council.

However, the work of some episcopal conferences has been complicated by internal conflicts, which show that the churches have not yet developed a common understanding of how the problem of the diaspora should be solved. For example, in September-

60. Lambriniadis, E. (2009) "Challenges of Orthodoxy in America and the Role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate", The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 54(1-4): 254.

61. Epistle of the Primates of Orthodox Churches / / Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 12.10.2008 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/473056.html, accessed from 25.12.2015].

62. Skobey G. N. Inter-Orthodox cooperation in the preparation of the Holy and Great Council of the Eastern Orthodox Church. p. 182.

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bre 2015 The Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, commenting on the draft possible canonical structure of Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States, criticized the current state of work of the US Episcopal Conference 63. Explaining the position of the archdiocese, its representative later clarified that the reason for the publication of the relevant statement was the leadership of the conference in the spirit of the 28th rule of the Council of Chalcedon, used by Constantinople to justify the right of the Ecumenical Patriarch to rule the diaspora.64 In this sense, it is noteworthy that in 2009 Archimandrite Elpidophorus (Lambriniadis), then General Secretary of the Synod of the Church of Constantinople, commenting on the role of episcopal conferences, noted that they are a temporary measure on the way to subordination of the Diaspora to the Ecumenical Patriarchate:

Subordination of the Diaspora to the Ecumenical Patriarchate does not imply either Hellenization or violation of the canonical order, since only in this way can one remain faithful to the letter and spirit of the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. The Mother Church, however, knows that such subordination is difficult to achieve in the current historical context. Therefore, a proposal was made on the icononomy, which has now been accepted at the pan-Orthodox level, to establish local pan-Orthodox episcopal conferences in the Diaspora (like SCOBA in the USA)... In the case of the United States, subordination to the First See, that is, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, not only suits American society and mentality, but also opens up new opportunities for this promising region, which can become a model of pan-Orthodox unity and witness.65
The study of autocephaly, autonomy and diptychs was continued at the Fifth and Sixth Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commissions, which were held from 9 to 17 December 2009 and from 22

63. Statement of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America to the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, The Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (no date) [http://antiochian.org/statement-antiochian-orthodox-christian-archdiocese-no rth-america-assembly-canonicalorthodox-bishop, accessed on 3.01.2016].

64. Antioch on the Record: Orthodox Administrative Unity in North America, Ancient Faith Ministries (no date) [http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/aftoday/antioch_on_the_record_orthodox_ad ministrative_unity_in_north_america, accessed on 03.01.2016].

65. Lambriniadis, E. "Challenges of Orthodoxy in America and the Role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate", p. 253-254.

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until February 26, 2011, respectively. Of the three topics, consensus was reached only on the topic of autonomy. The relevant final document was approved following the work of the V Preparatory Commission. At the same meeting, a consensus was reached on the method of granting autocephaly. According to the communique of the conference, autocephaly is proclaimed by the Ecumenical Patriarch, which indicates the consent of the Kyriarchal Church to grant autocephaly and the pan-Orthodox consensus on this issue. At the same time, the tomos declaring autocephaly must be signed by both the Ecumenical Patriarch and the heads of all local churches.66 The final approval of this issue was postponed until the next meeting of the preparatory commission, but the decision on it was blocked by using the right of veto. The Commission was also unable to reach an agreed decision on the subject of the diptychs, the main differences of opinion concerning the place in the diptychs of the Churches of Cyprus, Georgia, Poland and Albania, as well as the inclusion of the Orthodox Church in America. As a result, the participants of the VI Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission were forced to admit that it was not yet possible to reach a consensus on these issues.67
The results of the VI preparatory Commission called into question the prospects for convening the council, since, according to the adopted procedure, the condition for its convocation was to find agreed decisions on all agenda items. On April 16, 2011, Patriarch Bartholomew sent a message to the heads of local churches, in which he proposed three options for further work on the preparation of the council. In fact, this message proposed to abandon the previously established principles of preparation, in order to remove the contradictions that have arisen and speed up its convocation.

The first option proposed by Patriarch Bartholomew was to continue the work of the inter-Orthodox preparatory commission. At the same time, it was stated that success in this case will be possible only if the principle of consensus is abandoned. The principle of consensus was used in decision making

66. Commission interorthodoxe preparatoire 9-17 Decembre 2009. Communique, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (no date) [http://www.ec-patr.org/docdisplay.php?lang=en&id=1141&tla=fr, accessed on 25.12.2016].

67. Chambesy: fin des travaux de la commission preparatoire inter-orthodoxe, Orthodoxie. L'information orthodoxe sur Internet (no date) [http://orthodoxie.com/chambesy-fin-des-travaux-de-la-commission-preparatoire- inter-orthodoxe, accessed on 25.12.2015].

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starting with the Pan-Orthodox meetings on the island of Rhodes and was recorded in the "Rules of Procedure for Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Meetings", adopted in 1986. The second option is to postpone the convocation of the council. Finally, the third option is to convene the council without considering the issues of autocephaly and the diptychs, which, accordingly, will be excluded from its agenda. Further preparation of the council was directly influenced by the first and third proposals: the proposal to abandon the principle of consensus was challenged by the Russian Church, and the idea of convening a council without considering a number of topics was eventually adopted at the pan-Orthodox level.

The main opponent of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in rejecting the principle of consensus was the Russian Church. Her position was motivated by the fact that"the rejection of the principle of consensus is fraught with new disturbances both at the preparatory stage and at the council itself, since it can create problems with the reception of conciliar decisions in the Local Church whose opinion was not taken into account" 69. At the Sixth Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission, a number of churches blocked the adoption of decisions that did not suit them. If decisions were made by a majority vote, the opinion of the Russian Church or any other church would not be taken into account in similar situations. It is noteworthy that earlier the Patriarchate of Constantinople also argued the importance of the principle of consensus in a similar way70. In order to ensure that its interests are respected at the council, if decisions are made by a majority vote, the Russian Church considered alternative forms of church representation at the council. These proposals are based on the principle of proportional representation, when the number of representatives who have the right to vote is determined depending on the actual size of the church (as a criterion for determining this proportion, it was proposed to take into account the number of parishes or bishops).

68. Ionita, V. Towards the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, p. 102-103.

69. Hilarion (Alfeyev), mitr. Inter-Orthodox cooperation in preparation for the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church / / Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 03.11.2011 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1663993.html, accessed from 25.11.2015].

70. Damaskin (Papandreou), mitr. Orthodox Diaspora. Report at the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission (1990) / / Orthodoxy and Peace. Athens: Nea Sinora, 1994, p. 217.

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Preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council after the decision to convene it (2014-2015)

A solution to the crisis in the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council was found at a meeting of primates held in Istanbul from 6 to 9 March 2014, at which they decided to convene the council in Istanbul in 2016, provided that "nothing unexpected happens" 71. This decision formally fell outside the competence of the consultative meeting.72 The topics of autocephaly and diptychs were removed from the council's agenda until a pan-Orthodox consensus was reached on them.

Obviously, not all churches were prepared to discuss the convocation of the council at the meeting. For example, according to the report of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the Russian Church was critical of the current state of preparation for the council and intended to bring up issues of a procedural and preparatory nature for discussion: finalizing the final documents on topics on which the pre-council meetings had already developed final documents; adding topical issues to the council's agenda, such as bioethics, problems of the family; elaboration of the council's rules of procedure and the principle of decision-making; changing the procedure for preparing the council through the creation of a renewed secretariat composed of representatives of all local churches 73. Some of the proposals of the Russian Church were taken into account. In particular, all decisions during the preparation of the council and at the council itself will be made on the basis of consensus.

The Conference established a special inter-Orthodox preparatory commission, which was charged with developing the council's rules of procedure and once again discussing the draft conciliar documents approved at the Second and Third Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Meetings in 1982 and 1986. At the same time, it was agreed that some of these documents should be revised, and some should be edited.-

71. Epistle of the Primates of Orthodox Churches (March 6-9, 2014, Phanar) / / Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 9.03.2014 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3599975.html, accessed from 25.12.2015].

72. The work of the commission for the preparation of the meeting of the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches has been completed / / Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 6.03.2014 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3594618.html, accessed from 2.01.2016].

73. A meeting of the Primates of Churches opened in Istanbul / / Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 7.03.2014. [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3597070. html, accessed from 2.01.2016].

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nia. The first group included the documents "The contribution of the Orthodox Church to the spread of peace, justice, brotherhood and love among peoples, the elimination of racial and other discrimination", "The Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement", "The Attitude of the Orthodox Church to the rest of the Christian world". The second group included documents on the calendar issue, obstacles to marriage, and the meaning of fasting and its observance today. Churches had different views on the extent of acceptable corrections in documents to be edited. According to Patriarch Bartholomew, the content of these documents should not have undergone significant changes.74 Some churches, however, understood "editing" more broadly and later insisted, in particular, on a meaningful revision of the document on obstacles to marriage. All these documents, after their completion, as well as the document on autonomy, were to be considered by the Fifth Pan-Orthodox Pre-Conciliar Meeting, scheduled for the first half of 2015.

The decisions of the meeting were not signed by the primates of the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia and the Patriarchate of Antioch. The first one was absent due to the fact that the new primate of this church, Metropolitan Rostislav, who was elected in January 2014, was not recognized in this status by the Ecumenical Patriarch. The delegation of the Czech-Slovak Church was not invited to the meeting of primates. This conflict was later resolved, and Metropolitan Rostislav participated in the next meeting of primates in January 2016 as the legitimate head of his church. The delegation of the Church of Antioch did not sign the decisions of the 2014 meeting, citing the unwillingness of its participants to consider the conflict between the Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem over jurisdiction in Qatar75 (in April 2014, these churches broke off Eucharistic communion).

The Special Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission established at the Primates ' Meeting has started its work in the Senate-

74. Keynote Address by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches (2016), Ecumenical Patriarchate. January 22 [https://www.patriarchate.org/-/keynote-address-by-his-all-holiness-ecumenical -patriarch-bartholomew-to-the-synaxis-of-the-primates-of-the-orthodox-churc hesgeneva-22-01-2016-?inheritRedirect=true&redirect=%2F, accessed on 31.01.2016].

75. Antiochian Patriarchate Statement Regarding the Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches, The Self-ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (no date) [http://www.antiochian.org/antiochian-patriarchatestatement-regarding-synaxis-pri mates-orthodox-churches, accessed on 3.01.2015].

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In September 2014, it held a total of four meetings: from 30 September to 3 October 2014, from 16 to 20 February, from 30 March to 2 April, and from 16 to 18 December 2015. The first three meetings were devoted to finalizing previously prepared documents for the Pan-Orthodox Council, and the last one was devoted to developing the rules of procedure.

The Commission reached consensus on only two documents: "The importance of Fasting and its observance today "and"The Relationship of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the Christian World." The latter document combines two documents approved in 1986: "The attitude of the Orthodox Churches to the rest of the Christian World "and"Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement". These documents, together with the document on autonomy, were adopted at the Fifth Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Meeting in October 2015. Amendments to the documents on social issues, on the calendar issue and on obstacles to marriage could not be approved unanimously 76. In addition, at its meeting in December 2015, the commission was unable to work out the rules of procedure of the Pan-Orthodox Council and interrupted your work due to disagreements that have arisen.

Local churches reacted differently to the prospect of convocation of the council in the absence of agreed decisions on some of its topics. Some churches considered it a necessary condition for the convocation of the council to find agreed decisions on all the topics on its agenda, including autocephaly and diptychs. Other churches insisted that the lack of consensus on topics that had previously been adopted at pre-council meetings and that were only to be finalized by a special preparatory commission was not an obstacle to the convocation of council 77.

Finalizing and agreeing on draft documents that had previously failed to reach consensus was the main item on the agenda of the meeting of primates of 78 local churches, which was held from January 21 to 28, 2016 at the Orthodox Center of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Chambesy. At this meeting, the document on the topic "The Mission of the Pra" was finalized and unanimously adopted.-

76. Balashov N., prot. Pre-assembly meetings. Local Churches are preparing for the Pan-Orthodox Council / / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. 2016. N 1. pp. 26-31.

77. Keynote Address by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches (2016).

78. Synaxis of Primates Issues Communique Concerning Council (2016), Orthodox Church in America. January 29 [https://oca.org/news/headline-news/synaxis-of-primatesissues-communique-co ncerning-council, accessed on 31.01.2016].

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Orthodox Church in the modern world", which is based on the previous document entitled "Contribution of the Orthodox Church to the spread of peace, justice, brotherhood and love among peoples, the elimination of racial and other discrimination". The documents agreed at the fourth and Fifth Pre-Council meetings were also approved for consideration at the Pan-Orthodox Council. At the same time, the meeting reviewed the status of the decision on the diaspora. If in 2009 the creation of episcopal conferences was conceived as a temporary measure that should prepare for a canonical settlement of the situation in the Diaspora at the Pan-Orthodox Council, then following the meeting it was decided to postpone the final decision on this issue indefinitely and preserve the practice of episcopal conferences. The revised document on "The Sacrament of Marriage and its obstacles" was not signed by the Churches of Antioch and Georgia and will continue to be discussed at inter-Orthodox consultations. At the suggestion of the Russian Church delegation, calendar 79 was removed from the council's agenda. Thus, of the ten topics on the council's agenda formed in 1976, three will not be considered at the council: "The issue of the common calendar", "Autocephaly and the method of its proclamation" and "Diptychs".

The meeting also addressed technical and procedural issues. The proposal of the Russian Church to move the venue of the Pan-Orthodox Council was accepted, and as a result, the primates agreed with the proposal of Patriarch Bartholomew to move the cathedral from Istanbul to the island of Crete. The meeting also set dates for the council: from June 16 to June 27. The rules of procedure of the council were approved, decisions were made on the participation of non-Orthodox observers in the council, on covering the costs associated with the council, and on publishing all documents agreed upon during its preparation. In order to optimize the further preparation of the Council, the meeting also established an inter-Orthodox secretariat to complement the work of the existing council preparation secretariat at the Ecumenical Patriarchate's Orthodox Center in Chambesy. Commenting on the creation of this secretariat, Patriarch Bartholomew noted that its tasks, in particular, will include promoting the idea of a Pan-Orthodox Council among the faithful, publishing and distributing agreed documents.-

79. Report of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill to the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church (February 2, 2016). Official website of the Moscow Patriarchate. 02.02.2016 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/4366063.html, accessed 02.02.2016].

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tov - so that the subsequent reaction can be taken into account at the Pan-Orthodox Council itself.80
Conclusions

Preparations for the Pan-Orthodox Council began in 1923 at the Pan-Orthodox Congress in Istanbul, which was held on the initiative and under the chairmanship of Patriarch Meletios IV of Constantinople. The Ecumenical Patriarch retained a leading role throughout the entire pre-conciliar process. A pan-Orthodox understanding of the importance of holding the council and a consensus on the conditions necessary for its joint preparation were reached by the early 1960s. Since the First Pan-Orthodox Council of Rhodes in 1961, most local churches have joined the pre-council process. The Russian Church also became an active participant.

The preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council was not without difficulties and was complicated by crises in relations between the local churches. Due to disagreements with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Russian Church did not participate in the preparation of the council during the interwar period and in the 1950s.81 The non-recognition of the autocephalous status of the Orthodox Church in America by the Patriarchate of Constantinople created additional tension in the pre-council process, and the "Estonian question" interrupted it for more than a decade. Conflicts that had a negative impact on the preparation of the council arose not only between the Russian and Constantinople Churches, but also, for example, between the Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem. The lack of consensus on a number of issues on the council's agenda was another factor that negatively affected the pre-council process. Although some problems were successfully resolved, some issues still remain open and will not be discussed at the council.

The procedure for preparing the cathedral changed. Initially, the convocation of the council was to follow directly after the Pan-Orthodox-

80. Keynote Address by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches (2016), Ecumenical Patriarchate. January 22 [https://www.patriarchate.org/-/keynote-address-by-his-all-holiness-ecumenical -patriarch-bartholomew-to-the-synaxis-of-the-primates-of-the-orthodox-churc hesgeneva-22-01-2016-?inheritRedirect=true&redirect=%2F, accessed on 31.01.2016].

81.In this case, we leave out external obstacles related to the living conditions of the Russian Church in the USSR.

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congress of 1923. But already in the mid-1920s, there was an understanding that its convocation should be preceded by special preparation. Until the end of the 1960s, the pre-council was supposed to be the main preparatory body. However, at the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference in 1968, a new procedure for preparing the council was approved through pan-Orthodox pre-conciliar meetings and the activities of inter-Orthodox preparatory commissions. At the same time, a special secretariat was established at the Orthodox Center of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Chambesy, the establishment of which was accepted by all churches, although some of them later criticized its work.

The preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Council took place under different historical conditions. It began in the context of the changes that occurred after the First World War and related to the end of the Greek presence in Asia Minor, with the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, with the emergence of new states in Eastern Europe. After the Second World War, the preparation of the council was conducted in a bipolar world, in which its main participants - the Moscow and Constantinople Patriarchates - were "on opposite sides of the barricades." However, it is noteworthy that it was during this period that the work on the preparation of the cathedral was most fruitful. At the same time, the mechanisms for preparing the council and its final agenda were formed.

Changes related to the collapse of the USSR led to the suspension of the pre-conclave process in the 1990s and 2000s and made it impossible for its subsequent resumption under the same conditions. The mechanisms of council preparation developed in the second half of the twentieth century proved unproductive at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Since 2008, the main decisions concerning the convocation of a Pan-Orthodox Council are no longer taken by the relevant preparatory bodies, but at meetings of primates of Orthodox churches, the very fact of which is a new and exceptional event in the life of world Orthodoxy. In addition, the drafts of conciliar documents developed in the 1970s and 80s were meaningfully outdated by the time the decision to convene the council was made, and required revision. Consensus on corrections to these documents also proved problematic and required the participation of the primates of the churches during a meeting in January 2016.

Despite the difficulties that have arisen, the Orthodox Churches have not abandoned - and do not abandon - the very idea of a council as a whole.

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a "mechanism" for discussing and resolving issues of pan-Orthodox significance. Moreover, the local churches expressed their readiness in principle to confine themselves to considering those issues on which agreed solutions were developed, thus placing the importance of conciliar practice itself in the life of the Orthodox Church first. Accordingly, it can be expected that subsequent Pan-Orthodox Councils will be required to resolve the still open issues on the inter-Orthodox agenda.

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Vystuplenie glavy delegatsii Moskovskogo patriarkhata mitropolita Leningradskogo i Ladozhskogo Nikodima na I I I vsepravoslavnom soveshchanii na o. Rodos po voprosam povestki dnia [Report by the Head of the Moscow Patriarchate delegation Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Ladoga on the agenda items presented at the Third Pan-Orthodox conference on Rhodes Island]. (2008), in Mitropolit Nikodim (Rotov) i vsepravoslavnoe edinstvo. K 30-letiiu so dnia konchiny mitropolita Leningradskogo i Novgorodskogo Nikodima (Rotova), pp. 54-62. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatel'stvo Kniaz'-Vladimirskogo sobora.

Zaiavlenie glavy delegatsii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi arkhiepiskopa Iaroslavskogo Nikodima na vsepravoslavnom soveshchanii [Statement by the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Delegation Archbishop Nikodim (Rotov) of Iaroslavl' Given at the Pan-Orthodox Conference]. (2008), in Mitropolit Nikodim (Rotov) i vsepravoslavnoe edinstvo. K 30-letiiu so dnia konchiny mitropolita Leningradskogo i Novgorodskogo Nikodima (Rotova), pp. 19-31. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatel'stvo Kniaz'-Vladimirskogo sobora.

Zaiavlenie Sviashchennogo Sinoda Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi [Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church] (2000), Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii 12: 4-10.

Zavershilas' rabota komissii po podgotovke vstrechi Predstoiatelei Pomestnykh Pravoslavnykh Tserkvei [The Commission for the preparations of the meeting of Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches concludes its work] (2014), Ofitsial'nyi sait Moskovskogo Patriarkhata. March 06 [http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3594618.html, accessed on 02.01.2016].

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