THE LOCATION AND DATES OF THE HOLY AND GREAT SYNOD OF ORTHODOXY 2016
Mystagogy – 27/1/16
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According to Amen.gr, the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church will take place at the Orthodox Academy of Crete in Kolympari of Chania. The Synod will be presided over by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, with the Primates and their delegations participating from all the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches. The dates the Synod will be convened will be from June 16th to the 27th. On the Sunday of Pentecost, June 19th, a Panegyrical Divine Liturgy will be celebrated by the Ecumenical Patriarch and concelebrated with the various Primates at the Cathedral Church of Saint Menas in Herakleion.
The Orthodox Academy of Crete is a modern Conference Center situated in an exceptionally beautiful location only a few meters from the sea and next to the Gonia Monastery (17th Century). It is situated 22 kilometers from the city of Chania and 39 kilometers from its international airport. Chania is the westernmost prefecture of Crete, with the city of Chania as its capital. The conference center of the Orthodox Academy of Crete is located about 10 minutes by foot outside the small fishing village of Kolympari.
So can someone explain this to me please? First they were going to meet in Nicea, then the Phanar, and now in Crete? Is it the Turkish government or the sanctions? What is the story please?
Looking at the preparation for this Holy and Great Council it seems that our unity is in the name alone, since most of the real and important questions will not be discussed for example granting of Autocephally which is pretty much blocked by Constantinople due to Papal ambitions. For example Orthodox Church of America was granted Autocephally by her mother Church, the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970’s and OCA is not being recognized as the 15th local Orthodox Church mainly because of the position of His All Holiness Ecumunical Patriarch Bartholomew who has a mind set of a Roman Catholic Pope and believes that it is Constantinople that should have that right. In all the reality however all bishops sit on Peter’s throne and all are equal just like all Orthodox Churches are equal and the title of first amongst equal does not give a privilage to ignor the 2000 year old tradition. Another important topic that will not be discussed is the diptych which is a list of names used by an autocephalous church to commemorate the primates of all the world’s autocephalous churches.The list should look something like this:
Autocephalous Church
1. Constantinople
2.Alexandria
3. Antioch
4. Jerusalem
5. Russian
6. Georgian
7. Serbian
8. Romanian
9. Bulgarian
10. Cyprus
11.Church of Greece
12. Albania
13. Polish
14. Czech Lands and Slovakia
15.American and Canadian
It also seems that it is precisly Churches like the Russian Orthodox Church, Georgian Orthodox Church, Romanian Orthodox Church, Serbian Orthodox Church, Jerusalem Orthodox Church Polish Orthodox Church, and ofcourse the cradle of Orthodoxy Mountain Athos that are keeping our Orthodox faith traditional and are trying to preserve that unity in the fullness of faith. Another subject that is not being discussed is the Calendar issue. Our church has been on the same Calendar for 1923 years until ecumenist movement of Patriarch Meletios and Athenogoras and others who
decided to betray that calendar and de facto cause a split amongst the Orthodox faithful. Absolutely nothing positive came out of that move to the so called “revised Julian calendar’ which is nothing more than abandonment of unity with the One Holy and Apostolic Church and false unity with the schismatic Roman Catholic Church and the multitude of Protestant sects that have completly abandoned the true christianity. It also the result of formation of various Old Calendarist schisms that develope as the result of that deviation from UNITY when we all celebrated all of our feasts together like true brothers and sisters in Christ.