The Orthodox & the WCC

The following post is from Protopriest Alexander Lebedeff of the Russian Church Abroad. Interesting. Any thoughts? Comments welcome.

I don’t know if anyone has paid attention to the interview that the General
Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr. Samuel Kobia, gave at the
conclusion of his official visit to Moscow.

In the course of the interview, he said that one of the main topics of
discussion during his meetings with the Moscow Patriarchate was the work of
the special Commission on the Participation of the Orthodox Church in the
Ecumenical Movement, which was created at the request of the Orthodox after
the Inter-Orthodox Conference held in Thessalonica in 2000, where the
Orthodox Churches stated that if significant changes were not made
regarding Orthodox participation in the WCC, all of the Orthodox would
withdraw.

Based on the work of this Commission, two important changes were made that
Dr. Samuel Kobia, in his interview in Moscow announced, will be implemented
at the next General Assembly of the WCC, scheduled to take place in Porto
Allegre, Brasil, next year:

1) there will be no more joint prayer among participants. Each confession
will pray separately.

2) resolutions will not be passed by voting, but by consensus

What does this mean regarding Orthodox participation in the WCC?

The most important obstacle, from an Orthodox perspective, was joint prayer
with the heterodox. This has now been prohibited.

Secondly, the Orthodox positions were previously being marginalized,
because of the overwhelming majority of Protestant members in the WCC. This
meant that if a Resolution were proposed on issues such as tolerance of
homosexuality, or same-sex marriages, or “inclusive language” in the
Bible–the Orthodox would have been outvoted.

Now, this cannot happen. If the Orthodox members do not agree, then no
consensus is achieved, and the measure does not pass. Effectively, this
means that the Orthodox have a veto on any decisions of the World Council
of Churches.

With joint prayer with the heterodox excluded, and the Orthodox Church
given veto power over decisions made by the WCC–there is no doubt that the
situation regarding the participation of the Orthodox Church in the WCC has
significantly changed.