Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical on the convocation of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church
Your Beatitude and Most Holy Daniel, Archbishop of Bucharest, Metropolitan of Wallachia and Patriarch of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Romania, dearly beloved and cherished brother and concelebrant in Christ God, we embrace Your venerable Beatitude fraternally in the Lord and greet you most joyfully.
It is with profound fraternal love as well as sentiments of special honor and emotion that we communicate with Your dearly beloved and illustrious Beatitude through this, our fraternal Patriarchal Letter, first and foremost expressing our thanksgiving and joy at the completion of preparations for the Holy and Great Council of our Orthodox Church through the wonderful collaboration both in the past of our fathers of blessed memory, and also more recently of all those tasked by our Churches to this sacred service, but finally our very own collaboration as brother Orthodox Primates during our Synaxis at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy-Geneva. Wherefore, in accordance with the unanimously approved document “Organizational and Working Procedure of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church,” we officially announce to You and Your most holy Church of Romania “the completion of the pre- conciliar preparation of the items on the Council’s agenda decided on a pan-Orthodox level,” and inform you that, with our unanimous consent, we have already appointed the Orthodox Academy of Crete as the venue for convening the Council and the period between 18th to 27th June, 2016, as the time of the Council. Furthermore, in accordance with our decisions, prior to the deliberations of our Council, a Special Inter-Orthodox Committee will meet with the participation of one representative from each sister Church in order to draft its Message to the Orthodox world and the worldwide community; this draft will be considered by all of us as Primates on 17th June, 2016, in the same location, for subsequent referral to the Holy and Great Council.
Dutifully reminding you that the Agenda of the Holy and Great Council will be exclusively comprised solely of the following items:
- The mission of the Orthodox Church in today’s world
- Orthodox diaspora
- Autonomy and the means of proclaiming it
- The sacrament of marriage and its impediments
- The importance of fasting and its observance today
- Relations of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the Christian world.
Moreover, in our capacity as President of the Council, we invite Your Beatitude to participate in its deliberations with twenty-four Hierarchs as a maximum limit from your Church, accompanied by advisors, secretarial and auxiliary staff, who cannot number more than six.
Thus, Most Holy Brother, in a spirit of wisdom and divine strength, in sincere love, with simplicity and a fervent heart, so that through this Holy and Great Council, we may speak to our Orthodox faithful and all people about the glory of the Lord, as He directs us to do, we entreat Your Beatitude to inform us, in as timely a manner as possible, of the composition of Your most holy Church’s conciliar delegation and the exact time of arrival for You personally, as well as for the remaining members of Your delegation to Chania, Crete, together with the selected accommodation for You and Your delegation, for the information of the Organizing Committee already designated by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Wherefore, we thank all of You and everyone in general, embracing Your love fraternally and with profound love and honor in the Lord.
March 12,2016
Your venerable Beatitude’s beloved brother in Christ
Source: Basilica.ro
