Crete as host to the Faith and Order Plenary Commission
- The 2009 meeting of the Faith and Order Plenary Commission takes place at the Orthodox Academy of Crete, Greece.
The 120-member Faith and Order Plenary Commission of the World Council of Churches will meet on the Greek island of Crete, 7-13 October 2009. It will be the first time that the plenary commission, which last gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2004, meets in a predominantly Orthodox setting.
Crete already hosted a meeting of the Faith and Order Standing Commission, whose 30 members come together at least every 18 months, in 1984, when the commission agreed on its agenda for the years following the success of the paper on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry.
Read the bible study The Winds of Crete by Mary Tanner (Ecumenical Review Volume 54 Issue 4, October 2002)
Churches in Crete
Christianity came to Crete very early on. Titus is regarded as the island's first bishop, to whom the apostle Paul wrote in an epistle: "The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you."
As in the rest of Greece, the vast majority of the population is Greek Orthodox. However, for historical reasons the Archdiocese of Crete is independent from the Church of Greece and is under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Crete was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1898, when it became an autonomous state under Ottoman suzerainty and international control, and finally became part of Greece in December 1913. Under Ottoman rule the Orthodox Christian religion was an important factor in opposing the occupation. In the course of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey stipulated by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the Muslim part of Crete's population had to leave. At the same time, ethnic Greek Christian refugees from Asia Minor, principally Smyrna, arrived on the island.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
The current leader of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is H.A.H. Bartholomew I, who will give the opening presentation at the Faith and Order Plenary Commission meeting in Crete.
The history of Constantinople as a patriarchate began in 330, when the Emperor Constantine I decided to move the seat of his government from Rome to the small town of Byzantium (later called Constantinople, today Istanbul) on the Bosporus. The Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (381) conferred upon the bishop of the city the second rank after the bishop of Rome. After the great schism between Rome and Constantinople in the 11th century, the patriarch became the "primus inter pares" or first among equals among all the patriarchs of the Orthodox churches.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate was among the first churches to participate in the formation and development of the ecumenical movement, and is particularly known for its Encyclical to "All the Churches of Christ", issued in 1920. It is a founding member of the WCC. The patriarchate is involved in the coordination of inter-orthodox relations, and particularly the preparations for the holy and great synod of the Orthodox churches.
The Orthodox Academy of Crete
The venue of the October 2009 meeting of the Faith and Order Plenary Commission is the Orthodox Academy of Crete (OAC), an ecclesiastical foundation under the spiritual auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. With the organization of conferences and a variety of other activities, the OAC promotes mutual understanding between the Orthodox churches, Christians in general, different religions, cultures and academic disciplines.
Opened in 1968 in the presence of representatives of all Orthodox Churches, other Christian traditions and organizations, the universities of the country and a large audience, the OAC encouraged a climate of dialogue at a time when Greece was still dominated by the suppressive monologue of dictatorship. The Evangelical Church of Germany financially supported the construction of the OAC wanting to give the people of Crete a sign of repentance and reconciliation at a place closely connected with the Battle of Crete (1941), the Resistance and the countless victims of the Second World War.
