World Council of Churches makes an historical decision to allow the Orthodox to improve their witness in this organization

WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES MAKES AN HISTORICAL DECISION TO ALLOW THE ORTHODOX TO IMPROVE THEIR WITNESS IN THIS ORGANIZATION

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee meeting on September 2 at the WCC headquarters in Geneva approved and adopted the results of the work of the Special Commission for Orthodox Participation in the WCC.

The Commission was set up in 1998 by the 8th WCC Assembly in Zimbabwe in response to the deep concern of the Local Orthodox Churches for their status in the WCC, under which their voice was virtually unheard and their stance often had no influence on decisions taken in the WCC.

All the Orthodox Churches are members of the World Council, except for the Churches of Bulgaria and Georgia, which withdrew before the 8th Assembly, and the Oriental Orthodox (non-Chalcedonian) Churches. The overwhelming majority of the 342 WCC member churches belong to various Protestant traditions. Cooperation of member churches in their common search for the God-commanded Christian unity (cf. Jn. 17) is carried out under agreement with the Basis of the WCC: “The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. The WCC is not and cannot be a “church” (The Toronto Declaration, 1950), nor does it have the right to speak for churches without their apparent consent or substitute particular churches (WCC Constitution, Article IV), but only serves as an instrument of cooperation among churches.

The continuously growing numerical superiority of Protestant member churches as a consequence of fragmentation in the Protestant world, on one hand, and the unchanged number of Orthodox Churches preserving unity among themselves with their total flock no inferior in number but even exceeding that of the Protestant member churches, on the other, often led to situations where that the position of the Orthodox was marginalized in a mechanical way through the democratic procedure of decision-making by a simple majority vote adopted by the WCC. For the same reason, the WCC, due to the considerable diversity of its membership, sometimes became an agent of certain ideas and theological views alien to Orthodox Tradition and doctrine.

The Orthodox delegates kept stating their disagreement with such innovations (see, for instance, The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement. Documents and Statements 1902-1975. Geneva, 1978). However, the practice of making occasional statements proved to be little effective and unsatisfactory. There was awareness that the WCC was in fact the only world-wide inter-Christian forum both for discussions on theological issues and joint actions for social service and missionary work and that it would be historically wrong to lose such a unique instrument. The growing Christian solidarity contributed to rapprochement indeed, sometimes not so much between theological attitudes as human souls and helped to reduce conflicts on religious grounds. At the same time, the historical mission of Orthodoxy could not be fulfilled properly due to certain obstacles, including those of administrative or legal nature. Considering this and the fact that the theological liberalization of the Protestant world strongly affected the nature of the WCC discussions and the directions they took, the Orthodox Churches at their meeting in Thessaloniki in May 1998 demanded that radical changes should be made in both the structure and working style of the Council to make the Orthodox participation “more significant”.

For three years the Special Commission for Orthodox Participation in the WCC, with active involvement of the Russian Orthodox Church, carefully studied and discussed – in its subcommittees and four plenary sessions in Switzerland (1999). Egypt (2000), Hungary (2001) and Finland (2002) – all the difficulties caused by the crisis in the inter-confessional dialogue. Working concurrently with the Commission was a special group which considered the issues of membership and which was accountable to the WCC Executive Committee. As a result, concrete and detailed recommendations were worked out on changing the WCC decision-making system, memberships, practice of joint prayers and approach to solving social and ethical problems. In fact, never in its fifty-year-long history the WCC has given so close attention to the problems of Orthodox participation. It should be mentioned for the sake of justice though that some Protestant churches were also disturbed by many of the above-mentioned problems and shared the Orthodox concern before. The Special Commission, just as the results of its work, represents an unprecedented phenomenon not analogous to anything in history.

According to the decision made by the Central Committee on September 2, 2002, a new method of decision-making will be introduced to the WCC practice. It is based not on a majority vote system but on a consensus model that provides for taking into account the opinion of a minority in the Council regardless of its confessional proportion. This will allow avoiding situations where the WCC decisions, which, though not obligatory for member churches, sometimes presented a challenge to the Orthodox worldview, doctrine and Tradition, were adopted by a majority vote.

The Special Commission consisting of 60 members was made up of an equal number of Protestant and Orthodox participants. The same parity will be observed in the work of a 14-member Standing Committee which is to monitor the programmatic work of the WCC.

From now on, cooperation in the WCC will be carried out on the two levels: full membership and association. Unlike the traditional membership (“belonging to the fellowship of the WCC”), the status of “a church in association with the WCC” implies participation in the work of the Council “from outside”, without the right of vote and participation in the consensus procedure. This status will apply primarily to those churches and Christian communities which do not consider it possible for themselves, for any theological or other reasons, to adopt membership and bear responsibility for its implications.

The WCC Central Committee, which started its work on August 26 and will continue it till September 3, has also adopted a number of statements on public issues concerning the situation in the Holy Land, South Asia, Colombia and the threat of military action against Iraq. On Sunday September 25, celebrations were held in Lausanne, devoted to the 75th anniversary of the Faith and Order movement.

Participating in the work of the WCC Central Committee from the Russian Orthodox Church were Bishop Hilarion of Podolsk, vicar of the Moscow Diocese and representative of the Moscow Patriarchate at the international European organizations, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a DECR vice-chairman, Rev. Mikhail Gundyaev, secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate representation at the WCC, and Ms. Margarita Nelyubova, DECR secretariat for inter-Christian relations. Two Central Committee members from the Russian Orthodox Church were temporarily substituted by S. Chapnin, editor-in-chief of Moskovsky tserkovny vestnik, and V. Kalinchuk, student at the Institute of Orthodox Theology in Chambesy, Switzerland.