By Andrei Zolotov and Stephen Brown
Harare, 13 December (ENI)--The World Council of Churches eighth assembly, which is meeting in Harare, yesterday 12 December agreed to set up a special commission in a bid to resolve the issue of the participation of Orthodox churches in the organisation.

However, only hours after assembly voted to set up the commission, the Russian Orthodox Church delegation at the assembly announced that it was suspending its participation in the WCC's central committee while the "special commission on Orthodox participation in the WCC" conducted its deliberations.

It was also revealed on 12 December that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has officially withdrawn from the WCC, following the withdrawal of the Georgian Orthodox Church last year.

The special commission - half of whose members will be appointed by Orthodox churches, with the other half appointed by the WCC's executive committee - will draw up proposals about "necessary changes in structure, style and ethos of the council". The work of the commission will last for "at least three years". Some of the changes proposed by the commission may be implemented by the WCC's central committee before the next assembly, which is due to take place in seven year's time.

"If we are satisfied with the results of the commission, we will resume our work on the central committee," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church delegation to the assembly, Hilarion Alfeyev, told ENI. "If not, our church will have to withdraw from the WCC."

He added that it was "too early to predetermine the specific model for the restructured WCC because it is precisely what the special commission must decide upon".

However, another senior Russian Orthodox delegate, Vsevolod Chaplin, told ENI that - ideally - the Russian Orthodox Church wanted to see a "forum with no fixed membership" to replace the WCC's current structure altogether, so that the Orthodox Church would bear no responsibility for what was said by others. "If the whole language, the whole system of the WCC doesn't change, formal membership in this system for our church would be impossible," he said.

The plan for a commission to deal with Orthodox participation in the WCC was first proposed by a crisis meeting of high-level representatives from 15 Eastern Orthodox Churches which was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in May this year. The Thessaloniki meeting affirmed support for ecumenism and the search for Christian unity, but registered strong concern about the policies and programmes of the WCC.

During a debate at the Harare assembly on 12 December about the relationships with Orthodox churches, Bishop Niphon of the Romanian Orthodox Church revealed that, two days earlier, at a meeting in Harare of the heads of Orthodox delegations to the WCC assembly, "the Oriental Orthodox brothers expressed their full agreement with that statement [from Thessaloniki]".

(The WCC's five Oriental Orthodox member churches, cooperate with, but are not in full communion with, the Eastern Orthodox churches.)

Bishop Niphon stressed the commitment of Orthodox churches to ecumenism, and referred to a number of positive actions by the WCC, including its condemnation of proselytism (the poaching of church members by another church), but warned that if the WCC's structure was not revised, many Orthodox churches would face "growing difficulty".

Bulgarian theologian Ivan Dimitrov, attending the assembly as an advisor, told ENI that the Bulgarian church's decision to withdraw from the WCC had been taken "not out of anti-ecumenical convictions, but under the pressure from the [ultra-conservative breakaway] Old Calendarist church".

However, although there is pressure from ultra-conservative factions within the Orthodox churches to end all ecumenical ties, many mainstream Orthodox leaders and theologians have serious reservations about the direction the WCC is taking. Women's ordination, inclusive language in reference to God and discussion of homosexuality by WCC Protestant members as well as Westernised decision-making processes are factors which, the Orthodox feel, marginalise them within the ecumenical movement.

Asked about the special commission, the WCC's general secretary, Dr Konrad Raiser, told ENI that each of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches was expected to send one - or in the case of bigger churches, such as those from Russia and Romania, two - representatives to the commission, which will be then matched by the same number of theologians from non-Orthodox member churches. It should meet before next August's meeting of the central committee in Geneva.

"The commission should not concentrate only on the structure of the WCC," Dr Raiser told ENI, "but it should go to the roots of the feeling of marginalisation and alienation of the Orthodox Church. That will be good for the ecumenical movement."

According to Georges Tsetsis, spokesman of the delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Harare assembly "was much better than we had expected.

"Our voice has been heard," he told ENI.

 Late on 12 December Catholicos Aram 1 (Armenian Apostolic Church, Lebanon) was re-elected moderator of the WCC's central committee. The vice-moderators are: Justice Sophia Adinyira (Anglican Church of the Province of West Africa, Ghana) and Dr Marion Best (United Church of Canada). The other members of the executive committee are: Yadessa Daba (Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus), Dr Maake Jonathan Masango (Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa), Abigail Ogunsanya (Church of the Lord Aladura, Nigeria), Carmencita Karagdag (Philippine Independent Church), Dr Samuel Lee (Presbyterian Church of Korea), Bishop Zacharias Mar Theophilus (Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, India), Donnalie Edwards (Anglican Church in the Province of the West Indies, Antigua and Barbuda), Bishop Wolfgang Huber (Evangelical Church in Germany), Jana Kalinova (Czechoslovak Hussite Church), Anders Gadegaard (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark), Inamar Correa de Souza (Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil), Dr Clifton Kirkpatrick (Presbyterian Church - USA), Mckinley Young (African Methodist Episcopal Church, USA), Dr Ilaiti Sevati Tuwere (Methodist Church in Fiji), Dr Hilarion Alfeyev (Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church), Bishop Nifon of Slobozia and Calarasi (Romania), Leonid Kishkovsky (Orthodox Church in America), Mar Cyril Ephraim Karim (Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, USA). [998 words]

Photographs of the assembly are available from Photo Oikoumene

Related sites:

WCC Assembly Web Site

Photo Oikoumene

ENI special reports in French

ENI takes no responsibility for the content of external sites

This selection of ENI articles from the WCC assembly are for personal information only and remain copyright 1998 Ecumenical News International. They may not be reposted electronically or reproduced in any form whatsoever. For further details about subscriptions to the full ENI Daily News Service, including details of media subscriptions, contact ENI, PO Box 2100, CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland, Tel: +41-22 791 6515, Fax: +41-22 798 1346, Email: eni@eni.ch, or consult the range of ENI products.