Still, we quarreled

The world is becoming increasingly interconnected, says the Message of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches, the final document of the Istanbul Pan-Orthodox meeting, and “in parallel, the scale of alienation, divisions and conflicts is increasing.” And the Orthodox themselves immediately decided to prove the correctness of this thesis: during Saturday’s meeting of the central committee of the Conference of European Churches (CEC), the Russian Orthodox Church announced the suspension of its membership in this organization.

“The reason for this decision was the unfounded, contrary to the Constitution and rules of the CEC, reluctance to consider the application for membership of the Estonian Orthodox Church, which is a self-governing Church within the Moscow Patriarchate,” the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate told Interfax-Religion.

The DECR recalled that in November 2007, the ECC accepted an application for membership from the so-called Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church (EAOC), which is part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but is not recognized by the rest of the Orthodox Churches.

At the same time, the CEC instructed its Secretary General to study the issue of compliance of the Estonian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate with the criteria for membership in the Conference. The recommendation to admit the Estonian Church into the CEC was made by the Conference delegation after a meeting with Metropolitan Cornelius of Tallinn and the Estonian clergy in April 2008.

However, as reported by the DECR, the President of the Central Committee of the CEC, Pastor Jean-Arnold de Clermont, “with the support of the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” delayed the consideration of the application in every possible way, citing “the unresolved issue of the status of Orthodox jurisdictions in Estonia.”

In Cyprus, where a meeting of the Central Committee of the CEC was held these days, J.-A. de Clermont openly declared “that he could not approve any decision that would not be firmly supported by Constantinople, and began, just like the representatives of Constantinople, to propose postponing the issue indefinitely,” Deputy Chairman of the DECR MP Prot. . Vsevolod Chaplin. When it came to voting, representatives of Constantinople and other Greek Churches “defiantly, single file, left the hall in the foyer, where they sat down to drink coffee,” the agency’s interlocutor noted.

In his opinion, the majority of CEC members would support the entry of the EOC into the Conference, “but the masterful delaying of the issue, unfortunately, did its job.”

As a result, the refusal to properly consider the application of the Estonian Orthodox Church made it impossible for it to participate in the CEC Assembly in Lyon in 2009.

In the current situation, the Russian Orthodox Church, “showing solidarity with our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Estonia, decided to suspend its membership in the CEC until a positive resolution of the issue of admitting the Estonian Church to this organization.”