IN THE early centuries of eastern Christian history, when doctrines were hammered out at seven disputatious bishops’ councils, theological arguments were on everyone’s mind. As one account of Constantinople put it: “Ask the price of bread, and you are told that the Father is greater than the Son; ask about your bath, and you are told the Son was made out of nothing.”
This month, as the 270th Patriarch of Constantinople, Orthodoxy’s first among equals, flew to Crete to convene the first full-blown gathering of the world’s Orthodox bishops for many centuries (some would say nearly 1,300 years), he hoped for a calmer spirit. The intention was for the leaders of the 14 churches which make up global Orthodox Christianity to send a message of encouragement and concern, not only about theology but about earthly woes from pollution to inequality.
But before the Holy and Great Council was due to open on June 16th, a consensus which had been carefully built by Patriarch Bartholomew, an ethnic Greek who lives in Istanbul, began to fray. On various grounds, the patriarchates of Bulgaria, Georgia and Antioch (which is based in Syria) pulled out….
