wfn.org | WCC Agrees to Set up Commission to Resolve Grievances

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16-December-1998 
98428 
 
    WCC Agrees to Set up Commission to 
    Try to Resolve Orthodox Grievances 
 
    by Andrei Zolotov and Stephen Brown 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
HARARE, Zimbabwe -The World Council of Churches eighth assembly, which is 
meeting in Harare, Dec. 12 agreed to set up a special commission in a bid 
to resolve the issue of the participation of Orthodox churches in the 
organization. 
 
    However, only hours after assembly voted to set up the commission, the 
Russian Orthodox Church delegation at the assembly announced  that it was 
suspending its participation in the WCC's central committee while the 
"special commission on Orthodox participation in the WCC" conducted its 
deliberations. 
 
    It was also revealed on Dec. 12 that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has 
officially withdrawn from the WCC, following the withdrawal of the Georgian 
Orthodox Church last year. 
 
    The special commission - half of whose members will be appointed by 
Orthodox churches, with the other half appointed by the WCC's executive 
committee - will draw up proposals about "necessary changes in structure, 
style and ethos of the council." The work of the commission will last for 
"at least three years." Some of the changes proposed by the commission may 
be implemented by the WCC's central committee before the next assembly, 
which is due to take place in seven year's time. 
 
    "If we are satisfied with the results of the commission, we will resume 
our work on the central committee," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church 
delegation to the assembly, Hilarion Alfeyev, told ENI. "If not, our church 
will have to withdraw from the WCC." 
 
    He added that it was "too early to predetermine the specific model for 
the restructured WCC because it is precisely what the special commission 
must decide upon." 
 
    However, another senior Russian Orthodox delegate, Vsevolod Chaplin, 
told ENI  that - ideally - the Russian Orthodox Church wanted to see a 
"forum with no fixed membership" to replace the WCC's current structure 
altogether, so that the Orthodox Church would bear no responsibility for 
what was said by others. "If the whole language, the whole system of the 
WCC doesn't change, formal membership in this system for our church would 
be impossible," he said. 
 
    The plan for a commission to deal with Orthodox participation in the 
WCC was first proposed by a crisis meeting of high-level representatives 
from 15 Eastern Orthodox Churches which was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, 
in May this year. The Thessaloniki meeting affirmed support for ecumenism 
and the search for Christian unity, but registered strong concern about the 
policies and programs of the WCC. 
 
    During a debate at the Harare assembly on Dec. 12 about the 
relationships with Orthodox churches, Bishop Niphon of the Romanian 
Orthodox Church revealed that, two days earlier,  at a meeting in Harare of 
the heads of Orthodox delegations to the WCC  assembly, "the Oriental 
Orthodox brothers expressed their full agreement with that statement [from 
Thessaloniki]." 
 
    (The WCC's five Oriental Orthodox member churches, cooperate with, but 
are not in full communion with, the Eastern Orthodox churches.) 
 
    Bishop Niphon stressed the commitment of Orthodox churches to 
ecumenism, and referred to a number of positive actions by the WCC, 
including its condemnation of proselytism (the poaching of church members 
by another church), but warned that if the WCC's structure was not revised, 
many Orthodox churches would face "growing difficulty." 
 
    Bulgarian theologian Ivan Dimitrov, attending the assembly as an 
advisor, told ENI  that the Bulgarian church's decision to withdraw from 
the WCC had been taken "not out of anti-ecumenical convictions, but under 
the pressure from the [ultra-conservative breakaway] Old Calendarist 
church." 
 
    However, although there is pressure from ultra-conservative factions 
within the Orthodox churches to end all ecumenical ties, many mainstream 
Orthodox leaders and theologians have serious reservations about the 
direction the WCC is taking. Women's ordination, inclusive language in 
reference to God and discussion of homosexuality by WCC Protestant members 
as well as Westernised decision-making processes are factors which,  the 
Orthodox feel, marginalise them within the ecumenical movement. 
 
    Asked about the special commission, the WCC's general secretary, Dr. 
Konrad Raiser, told ENI that each of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox 
Churches was expected to send one - or in the case of bigger churches, such 
as those from Russia and Romania, two - representatives to the 
commission, which will be then matched by the same number of theologians 
from nonOrthodox member churches. It should meet before next August's 
meeting of the central committee in Geneva. 
 
    "The commission should not concentrate only on the structure of the 
WCC," Dr. Raiser told ENI, "but it should go to the roots of the feeling of 
marginalisation and alienation of the Orthodox Church. That will be good 
for the ecumenical movement." 
 
    According to Georges Tsetsis, spokesman of the delegation of the 
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Harare assembly "was much 
better than we had expected. 
 
    "Our voice has been heard," he told ENI. 
 
    Late on Dec. 12 Catholicos Aram 1 (Armenian Apostolic Church, Lebanon) 
was re-elected moderator of the WCC's central committee. The 
vice-moderators are: Justice Sophia Adinyira (Anglican Church of the 
Province of West Africa, Ghana) and Dr. Marion Best (United Church of 
Canada). The other members of the executive committee are: Yadessa Daba 
(Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus), Dr. Maake Jonathan Masango 
(Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa), Abigail Ogunsanya (Church of the 
Lord Aladura, Nigeria), Carmencita Karagdag (Philippine Independent 
Church), Dr. Samuel Lee (Presbyterian Church of Korea), Bishop Zacharias 
Mar Theophilus (Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, India), Donnalie 
Edwards (Anglican Church in the Province of the West Indies, Antigua and 
Barbuda), Bishop Wolfgang Huber (Evangelical Church in Germany), Jana 
Kalinova (Czechoslovak Hussite Church), Anders Gadegaard (Evangelical 
Lutheran Church in Denmark), Inamar Correa de Souza (Episcopal Anglican 
Church of Brazil), Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick (Presbyterian Church - USA), 
Mckinley Young (African Methodist Episcopal Church, USA), Dr. Ilaiti Sevati 
Tuwere (Methodist Church in Fiji), Dr. Hilarion Alfeyev (Moscow 
Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church), Bishop Nifon of Slobozia and 
Calarasi (Romania), Leonid Kishkovsky (Orthodox Church in America), Mar 
Cyril Ephraim Karim (Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, USA). 

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