Το Κέντρο Οικουμενικών, Ιεραποστολικών και Περιβαλλοντικών Μελετών «Μητροπολίτης Παντελεήμων Παπαγεωργίου» (CEMES) διοργάνωσε την Τετάρτη 22 Φεβρουαρίου 2023, στρογγυλή διαδικτυακή τράπεζα με θέμα “Η Αρχιεπισκοπή Αχρίδoς στην Ορθόδοξη κοινωνία. Προσδοκίες και Προοπτικές”, με ομιλητές από διαφορετικές εκκλησιαστικές δικαιοδοσίες και ακαδημαϊκές ειδικότητες.
Συζητήθηκαν οι πρωτοβουλίες των Σέρβων, Ρώσσων, Ρουμάνων και άλλων Ορθοδόξων Εκκλησιών, μετά την απόφαση του Οικουμενικού Πατριάρχου να κινήσει τις διαδικασίες αυτοκεφαλίας της Αρχιεπισκοπής Αχρίδος.
Ομιλητές:
Καθ. Svetoslav Riboloff, Πανεπιστήμιο Αγίου Κλήμεντος Αχρίδος, Σόφια.
Καθ. Gjoko Gjorgjevski, Σχολή St. Clement Ohrid, Σκόπια.
Καθ. Δημήτριος Κεραμίδας, Ποντιφικό Πανεπιστήμιο Αγίου Θωμά Ακινάτη, Ρώμη / μέλος του CEMES EC.
Συντονιστής: Ομ. Καθηγητής Πέτρος Βασιλειάδης, Θεολογική Σχολή, Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης / Επίτιμος Πρόεδρος CEMES.
Του καθηγητή Πέτρου Βασιλειάδη
On the occasion of the recent developments regarding the Church of North Macedonia – Archbishopric of Ohrid an interesting webinar Round Table discussion, moderated by me, took place yesterday, as an extraordinary Open Public Lecture of the Master Program in “Orthodox Ecumenical Theology” (MOET) of the Center of Ecumenical, Missiological, and Environmental Studies (CEMES), with speakers from different church jurisdictions and academic expertise: Prof. Gjoko Gjorgjevski, St. Clement Ohrid Faculty, Skopje, Prof. Svetoslav Riboloff, University St. Kliment of Ochrid, Sofia, and Prof. Dimitrios Keramidas, Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome / Vice President of CEMES.
It was agreed that CEMES will organize another face-to-face event in Skopje, after the completion of this autocephaly process, with the participation of scholars also from Serbia, after the recommendation by prof Ivan Dimitrov, and possibly by Ukranian theologians from all Orthodox jurisdictions of Ukraine, after the recent appeal reported by Rev. Prof. Andriy Dudchenko, since the two cases are somewhat related.
My short intervention yesterday was as follows:
“In this round table on “The Archbishopric of Ohrid in the Orthodox communion. Expectations and Perspectives” we will examine with the help of Guest speakers, coming from different church jurisdictions and academic expertises, are: Prof. Svetoslav Riboloff, Bulgarian University St. Kliment of Ochrid, Sofia, Prof. Gjoko Gjorgjevski, N. Macedonian St. Clement Ohrid Faculty, Skopje, and Prof. Dimitrios Keramidas, Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome / Vice Pres.of CEMES, the implications for Orthodox unity of the situation developed after the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s initiative to start the process of granting Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia – for half a century remaining in a schismatic situation
In my short introduction I will also mention the Predicaments of the Orthodox Negative Identity for its Ecclesiology. It is my firm conviction that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s primary task all these years was to bring into completion, after nearly 70 years of preparation, a Panorthodox Synod. It was for that reason that he avoided to take any initiative to heal the painful schisms in both Ukraine and North Macedonia – despite numerous requests from various quarters, ecclesiastical and political, of those countries.
Our CEMES foundation dealt during the last two years with all these issues from canonical, historical and theological perspectives and found that the Synodical and Patriarchal decision was taken according to all canonical preconditions (Cf. a critical assessment of the Constantinople-Moscow debate in cemes.weebly.com and in academia.edu/41211517), despite being strongly and vehemently opposed by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), to the extent that she eventually broke Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate (EP ). Moscow Patriarchate’s allies in the Balkans reacted in different ways, which will be analyzed by our quests today.
Ever since, a thorough critical examination of the situation, which is further deteriorated, has convinced us that the real causes of this regrettable situation are much more serious. What lies behind these consecutive crises is the dispute on an effective primacy role to deal with inter-Orthodox secondary issues, mostly administrative, because of the ROC and her Orthodox allies’ refusal to accept the ages-old canonical and ecumenically decreed prerogatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch: first to receive ekkliton requests and second grant autocephaly, actually start the process for it.
Unfortunately, for many centuries, especially in the second half of the second millennium, we Orthodox have unconsciously developed a “negative” Orthodox identity: we are not what the Bible and our Tradition have left us as a legacy, but what the others, mainly the Catholics, are not, i.e., without a primacy, the visible expression of the Church’s unity, accompanied of course by synodality.
Autocephaly, originally thought of as the necessary step for the people’s national identity and aspirations, had unconsciously contributed to the heresy of ethnophyletism and nationalistic tendencies in the Orthodox Church. Needless to say, that all newer Orthodox autocephalies, including the earlier one of the Russian nation, especially those with Patriarchal dignity, can hardly be considered as traditional, compared with the only one ecumenically decreed in the first millennium, i.e. the Church of Cyprus, and that without patriarchal dignity!
The present crisis that appeared after these two closely related autocephalies, the Ukrainian and the North Macedonian, are not isolated case within Orthodoxy. Previously, the absence of ROC from the Holy and the Great Council of 2016, and their veto to the completion of the pre-conciliar document on autocephaly, was widely explained at an ideological and geopolitical level as an attempt to prevent the loss of Ukraine, something that would weaken the novel theory of the Russian leadership (political and ecclesiastical) about Russkii Mir, and at a theological level because of their refusal to accept the primatial role of the Ecumenical Patriarch. All these actions are of course related to their old theory of a “Third Rome”. The crisis in the Autocephalus-to-be-Archdiocese-of-Ohrid is clearly due, and to some extend instigated by, ROC.
Refusal to accept a Church with a visible head (a Πρώτος with a humble diaconia) actually destroys the basis of the Church’s unity. Especially, in view of its existence in all other levels (metropolitan, episcopal and parish), deprives the coherence in our Church’s witness. Any novel perception of Church unity, based primarily on power, (arithmetic superiority), which is currently promoted by the Patriarchate of Moscow, or even viewed on the basis of Moscow being the capital of a currently dominant empire, as previously was the case of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the city of New Rome, the capital of the Roman empire, can hardly have any ecclesiological, or canonical, justification.
The new situation in North Macedonia with the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox – in a schismatic situation for more than half a century – in that country unexpectedly brought a wider wave of reactions followed by ambiguous initiatives, which will be analyzed, I suppose, by our guest speakers.
Before I give to them the floor, allow me to make an appeal, that we Orthodox should revisit our authentic ecclesiology with its principal expression of unity – and especially catholicity – and abandon our ideological understanding of “Orthodoxia”, mostly used against the use of the term “Catholic” by the RCC as their identity mark. Actually, all our predicaments are the result of refusing to acknowledge the ecumenically decreed prerogatives of a Primus in our Church.”
