According to recent reports this is now happening. Patriarch Bartholomew I is reported as saying, "[The Orthodox Church feels] the need for renovation...For instance, the prescription of a forty days fast before Easter and Christmas is scarcely feasible today outside of monasteries." He further claims, "Our aims are like John's [Pope John XXIII]: to update the Church and promote Christian unity... By the grace of God, all Orthodox Churches now favor ecumenism." (National Catholic Reporter, Jan. 21, 1977)
In 1923 he(Meletios) summoned the so-called "Pan-Orthodox Congress," which introduced the Gregorian calendar and discussed the possibility of a second marriage for priests. Concerning these changes, Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) wrote, "From the moment of that sorrowful Pan-Orthodox Congress of Patriarch Meletios (who gave such a self-proclaimed title to a meeting of four to six bishops and a few priests, without the participation of the other three Patriarchs), from the time of that un-Orthodox Congress, an act of vandalism was wrought against Orthodoxy. Many reforms were proposed, which the Church with terrible, binding curses had forbidden; reforms such as married bishops, a second marriage for clergy and the abolition of fasts. It is true that this un-Orthodox Congress did not succeed in officially promulgating all these impious violations of Church laws, limiting itself to proposing the institution of the New Style calendar and the celebration of all the holy days thirteen days earlier than proscribed, while leaving the Paschalia untouched. This senseless and pointless concession to Masonry and to Papism, which long ago had tried to institute such a change of calendar in their attempt to totally absorb the Unia in Latinism (the main external difference between the Uniates and Latins is the Old Style calendar of the former), violates the Apostolic ordinance of the Sts. Peter and Paul fast, for if the New Style calendar is followed, when Pascha falls on April 21 (O.S.) or later, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul occurs before the Sunday of All Saints, and therefore the preceding Fast is totally eliminated!"
"Patriarch Meletios was well-known as a supporter of the Russian 'Living Church' movement, which rose up against Patriarch Tikhon; he also initiated the adoption of the Latin calendar by the churches of Constantinople, Romania and Poland, and created a Polish autocephalous church, which turned over the Orthodox living in Poland into the hands of the Polish nationalists" (see the proceedings concerning the murder of the Polish Metropolitan George, compiled by Archimandrite Smaragdus).
It is clearly evident that the Patriarchate has chosen a definite course, which it is unwilling to change. The alarm of the Athonite fathers is understandable when one considers that according to Church canons even interfaith prayers with heretics are forbidden, not to mention intercommunion. According to Orthodox understanding the Roman Catholics are heretics, and their sacraments are devoid of divine grace. St. Mark of Ephesus maintained, "The Latins are not only schismatics, but heretics" and St. Gregory Palamas wrote, "The Latins have left the enclosure of the Church."
Let us pause for a moment at the idea of calling a "Great Council of the Orthodox Church" and examine what the righteous Archimandrite Justin (Popovich) wrote about this event. We quote his letter of May 7, 1977, written in the name of the Bishop's Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Fr. Justin indicates the untimeliness of such a council, and the artificial selection of topics which reveal the papist pretensions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He writes, "The question of preparation for and calling of an "Ecumenical Council" of the Orthodox Church is not new. This question was proposed during the life of the unfortunate Patriarch Meletios (Metaxakis), the creator of a schism in Orthodoxy as a result of his so-called "Pan-Orthodox Congress" held in Constantinople in 1923.
Regarding the Moscow and Constantinople delegations present at the first pre-council meeting in 1987, discussing a forthcoming new "Ecumenical Council," Fr. Justin writes, "Who do they [the delegates] really represent, which Church and what people of God? The hierarchy of Constantinople present at these meetings consists mainly of titled metropolitans and bishops. These are pastors without a flock and without any concrete responsibility before God and their living flock. Who does this hierarchy represent, and who will it represent at a future council? Recently the Patriarchate of Constantinople has created many new bishoprics and metropolitan seats, sees that are only titular and indeed fictitious in nature, since the actual communities no longer exist. This is being done, no doubt, in preparation for the upcoming 'Ecumenical Council,' where, with a majority created by these titled delegates, enough votes will be cast to support the neo-papist ambitions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Recently the Patriarchate has even actively participated in dialogue with Monophysites, who unfortunately were not brought to repentance and union with the Orthodox Church by the dialogue, but rather the dialogue led to apostasy from Orthodoxy. We read, "The two families [Orthodox and Monophysite] accept that the lifting of the anathemas and condemnations will be based on the fact that the Councils and the Fathers previously anathematized or condemned, were not heretics" (Point 10 of the Second Joint Declaration composed at the Ecumenical Patriarchate Centre, Geneva, Switzerland, September, 1990). Can we accept such a decision, which annuls the former decrees of Ecumenical Councils? Reviewing all that has been said above, it is difficult not to reach the conclusion that the Patriarchate of Constantinople is in fact taking a decidedly un-Orthodox position.
