Participants of a meeting on the preservation of the unity of the Eastern Orthodox Church plan to adopt a joint statement calling for peace and harmony, representatives of delegations of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem told Sputnik
AMMAN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th February, 2020) Participants of a meeting on the preservation of the unity of the Eastern Orthodox Church plan to adopt a joint statement calling for peace and harmony, representatives of delegations of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem told Sputnik.
The meeting is being conducted in Jordan's Amman at the initiative of Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, who wants to find a way to overcome the schism that resulted from the Patriarchate of Constantinople's actions in Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, Patriarch Irenaeus of Serbia, and Metropolitan Rostislav of the Czech Lands and Slovakia are in attendance. The primates of the Romanian and the Polish Orthodox churches sent lower-ranked bishops to represent them.
"Work on the joint statement has already begun. It's too early to talk about its content, as the work on the text will go on until the evening. But we can already say that it will be very positive, peaceful," representatives of delegations said.
The meeting is being held behind closed doors.
In January 2018, the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine was formed via the merger of two other non-canonical Ukrainian "churches." The initiative, spearheaded then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, was regarded as the "legalization of schism" by the Moscow Patriarch. The following year, the new Ukrainian church was recognized by primates of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Church of Greece.
