Introductory scenes
Kneeling Vespers on pillows - tacky to say the least!
Crete 2016 -- Divine Liturgy and Vespers with the Kneeling Prayers of Holy Pentecost
Council Message could codify four new Ecumenical Councils
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/94479.htm
In addition to discussing the six documents prepared beforehand at previous conferences, participants at the ongoing council, begun yesterday on the Great Feast of Pentecost on the island of Crete, are also to deliberate over and publish the official "Message" of the council. ...
In it, the current gathering is referred to as a preparatory council for a further series of councils, rather than a one-time event, noting that the absence of four Local Churches is properly speaking the failure of all involved, and that the issues preventing certain Churches from participating in the current council are to be resolved before the convening of the next, that all might attend in good conscience.
Notably, the draft document currently under consideration also recognizes as ecumenical the Photian Council of 879-880, already sometimes referred to as the Eighth Ecumenical Council, which condemned the Latin addition of the Filioque into the Nicene Creed; the hesychast councils of Constantinople held between 1341 and 1351, already sometimes collectively referred to as the Ninth Ecumenical Council, which upheld the distinction between the essence and energies of God and man's ability to commune with these energies; the 1642 Council of Iași (Jassy) which countered certain Catholic and Protestant heresies which had exercised some degree of influence on Orthodox theology; and the 1672 Council of Jerusalem which refuted Calvinism and also rejected the Filioque.
Regarding these councils, the document especially notes their statements against Western scholasticism and the imbalanced emphasis on reason as obstacles to unity, and in light of the Councils of Iași and Jerusalem, states that the Catholic and Protestant confessions in no way make up a part of the Church, while avoiding the use of the word "heretic."
The overall atmosphere at the current council is one of a favorable impression of the document, according to the source. However, it is as yet a draft document and it remains to be seen what precise message the participating bishops and Churches will release.
Other News
http://www.romfea.gr/epikairotita-xroni ... is-ellados
Translation to English was taken from a private FB group and is printed below:
False Council, Crete 2016
Day One
The minority voice of the witness of true faith was brutally and cynically silenced on the first day of the Holy and Great Council.
Fierce polemic erupted during the Monday afternoon 20. June session of the Great and Holy Council.
Metropolitan Hierotheos had a heated polemic with met. Zizioulas, as he debuted with the proposed amendment by the Church of Greece to the “Mission of the Orthodox Church in the contemporary world” document.
Metropolitan Hierotheos voiced: “You are changing the teaching of the Church!” “What will it be when even more problematic documents come to be debated.”
Metropolitan Zizioulas in cold, measured and calculating manner responded.
It is interesting to note that the “firefighter”, “the peacemaker” was EP Bartholomew, who thanked both on their theological knowledge.
When all was done and dusted the ecumenist had easily defeated the proposed amendment.
Metropolitan Hierotheos then accused the Council majority that they have already enacted the heresy by not accepting the proposed amendment to the document “Mission of the Orthodox Church in the contemporary world”.
The “knife in the back” to met. Hierotheos came from metropolitan of Peristerona, Chrysostomos, who although the metropolitan of the Church of Greece voted for the amendment to be “thrown out”.
Debate was closed by the patriarch of Alexandria with “We are not students to be thought theology” or words to that effect, which caused the enormous applause from the participants. Sad but true…
Yet another website posts the following concerning the first day, June 20, 2016:
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/94489.htm
According to Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias and Almyros, the first of six texts up for discussion, “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World” was unanimously approved at the afternoon session on Monday, June 20 of the council on Crete, reports panorthodoxcemes.blogspot.ru.
The text is the result of the fifth pan-Orthodox pre-conciliar conference held in Chambesy, Switzerland in October 2015 and was signed by the primates of all Local Churches, except for that of Antioch, at the meeting in January 2016.
The text, largely bearing the stamp of Met. John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, was passed unanimously with minor changes. The amendments proposed by Met. Hierotheos (Vlachos) in a letter to the Church of Greece on March 5, 2016 were rejected.
