While we have a different take on the Council, I do agree with you in part. Some of what is going on is clearly intra-Orthodox church politics. Moscow and Constantinople have very different views of things. Moscow thinks they should be at the head of the table because they are the biggest local Church and the EP thinks she has jurisdiction over the entire world outside the 14 local churches she recognizes as autocephalous. And I agree that I see Moscow’s hand in some of this. That said, the complaints from the Bulgarians and Georgians, echoed by Antioch along with their very justified grievances, are real. And the EP’s open contempt for those concerns is only aggravating the situation.
Still if you study church history all of this is child’s play compared to the backroom politics and machinations of bishops at some of the nine OEcumenical Councils. The Holy Spirit works in Its own way and uses often very flawed tools for Its own ends.
The Council will happen or it won’t. If it meets then it will either succeed in some good, or it won’t and will end up not being received. God’s will be done.
“If it meets then it will either succeed in some good, or it won’t and will end up not being received.”
Precisely, with or without the feigned imprimatur of Moscow! In the end it is up to us, the People of God, to give or withhold the Great Axios!