Posted on 06/16/2005 7:49:18 AM PDT by sionnsar
The Kykkos Monastery, Cyprus, June 2005
The International Commission of the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue met in the Holy Royal and Stavropegic Monastery of Kykkos, in Cyprus, from Thursday, June 2nd - Wednesday, June 8th, 2005, as guests of the Church of Cyprus and of the Most Revd Bishop Nikiforos of Kykkos, the Abbot of the monastery.
The Commission wish to record their gratitude to His Eminence the Abbot, the brothers and staff of Kykkos Monastery for the warmth of their welcome, and to Bishop Vasilios of Trimithus who has organised and co-ordinated the many aspects of this meeting, together with the staff of the Ecumenical Relations Office of the Church of Cyprus.
The Commission consists of representatives of the Orthodox Churches and of the Anglican Communion. The Dialogue began its work by exploring theological and doctrinal issues of concern for dialogue between the Anglican and Orthodox Churches in 1973. Agreements reached in its first two stages were set out in the Moscow Agreed Statement of 1976 and the Dublin Agreed Statement of 1984. In its present third phase, which began in 1989, the Commission has been examining our understanding of the Church in the light of our faith in the Holy Trinity, the Person of Christ and the Holy Spirit. From 1989, the Commission has met on an annual or biannual basis, completing Statements on Trinity and the Church, Christ, the Spirit and the Church, Christ, Humanity and the Church (all 1998), Episcope, Episcopos, and the Church (2001), Christ, the Priesthood and the Church (2002).
In 2003, at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, the Commission began its current round of study on the subject of the ministries of women and men in the Church, of questions of Heresy and Schism, and of Reception.
In Kykkos, the Commission completed the work on these Agreed Statements, and will meet next year to finalise the text of the complete cycle of Statements agreed in the current phase from 1989 to date in preparation for publication.
Metropolitan John of Pergamon Bishop Mark Dyer
Orthodox Co-Chairman Anglican Co-Chairman
Kykkos, Monday, 6th June, 2005
Commission Members present in Cyprus were:
Orthodox Representatives
Metropolitan John of Pergamon (Ecumenical Patriarchate) (Co-chair),
Metropolitan Petros of Aksum (Patriarchate of Alexandria),
Fr Alexander Haig (Patriarchate of Antioch),
Bishop Basil of Sergievo (Patriarchate of Moscow),
Archbishop Nifon of Targoviste (Patriarchate of Romania),
Bishop Gerasim of Zugdid and Tsaishi (Patriarchate of Georgia),
Fr Giorgi Zviadadze (Patriarchate of Georgia),
Bishop Vasilios of Trimithus (Church of Cyprus) (host),
Professor Constantine Scouteris (Church of Greece),
Fr Andrzej Minko (Church of Poland),
Bishop Ilia of Philomelion (Church of Albania),
Fr Vaclav Jezek (Church of Czech Lands and Slovakia),
Metropolitan Ambrosius of Helsinki (Church of Finland),
Fr Matthias Palli (Church of Estonia),
Fr Christos B Christakis (Church of Estonia) (co-secretary).
Representatives of the Anglican Communion
Bishop Mark Dyer (Episcopal Church of the USA) (Co-chair),
Bishop John Baycroft (Anglican Church of Canada),
The Revd Dr Timothy Bradshaw (Church of England),
The Revd Canon John Gibaut (Anglican Church of Canada),
The Revd Canon William B Green (Episcopal Church of the USA),
Bishop William Gregg (Episcopal Church of the USA),
The Revd Canon Livingstone Ngewu (Church of the Province of Southern Africa),
The Revd Dr Duncan Reid (Anglican Church of Australia),
The Revd Professor John Riches (Scottish Episcopal Church),
Bishop Max Thomas (Anglican Church of Australia),
The Revd Canon Hugh Wybrew (Church of England),
The Revd Canon Gregory K Cameron (Church in Wales) (co-secretary).
For more information please contact:
Canon Gregory K Cameron,
Deputy Secretary General and Director of Ecumenical Affairs and Studies,
Anglican Communion Office
St Andrew's House
16 Tavistock Crescent
London W11 1AP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7313 3900
Fax: +44 (0)20 7313 3999
Email: gregory.cameron@aco.org
The Revd Dr Christos B Christakis
Sts.Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church,
2500 Grand Avenue,
Middletown, OH 45044
USA
Tel: +1 513 422 2312
Fax: +1 513 423 1141
Email: FrChristos@yahoo.com
The Address of Welcome by the Bishop of Kykkos, Nikiforos:
Dear brothers in Christ
Dear members of the conference
Today is a day of remembrance of our saintly father Nikiforos the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople, whose holy name I humbly bear.
On the occasion of your conference, hosted by our historic monastery, the monastery of my penitence, I considered it my pleasant duty to come and officiate in the holy liturgy and to pray to God to grant to all of you, conference participants his enlightenment from above, so that this dialogue may bear fruit and so that one day, through the power of the Holy Ghost, we may communicate in the common chalice of the Bread of Life.
The common ground is there. It consists of the first centuries of Christianity, before the one, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ was fragmented.
It is the duty of all Christians to remember always the anxious prayer of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane "Holy Father, keep them in your name, those you have given me, so as to be one, like us."
In order to achieve the reunion of the Christian world what is needed is incessant prayer, an intense dialogue in love, and good will.
I wish all of you a pleasant stay here, and may you come again.
I thank you all
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Orthodox ping
ping
Their statement will be interesting to read.
What's the G2 on Bishop Dyer. I seem to remember that he was the ECUSA rep on the Windsor Report committee and that he presented a rather twisted view of the report after he came back to the States.
I received a backchannel question about him too. I don't really know anything. A quick Google search doesn't make him look very good. So why are the Orthodox talking with him?
"So why are the Orthodox talking with him?"
No idea. The last time we had any real discussions with the Anglicans, we got mugged.
I googled Dyer, and he is indeed the bishop I banged heads with back in the early/mid 80s at the diocesan convention in Bethlehem, PA.
I wanted to present a resolution affirming the church's position that homosexual behavior was sinful, no more or less so that other sexual sins, i.e. adultery & fornication, but a sin nevertheless.
To make a long story short, Dyer tried to convince me that while the homosexual community was making a lot of noise, no one took them seriously. In fact, he pointed to Bishop Spong as an example of an outcast within the denomination. I wasn't buying his line, but still managed to miss my opportuniy to present the resolution. (In all honesty, that was probably more my fault than his, but that's another story.)
The whole episode did provide valuable insight into the bishop's mind as well as the incentive to look elsewhere for spiritual nourishment.
The small parish I was in at the time, a Jesus loving, Bible preaching, God fearing, Spirit filled vibrant community is now closing its doors.
PS Then there was the time we decided to have a tent revival --- outside, with tent. The rest of the diocese was just about apoplectic! (GRIN!!)
Come to think of it, I'm surprised that little parish survived as long as it did!
Funny, that's how we felt every Sunday in our ECUSA parish what with the diversity-this-and-unity-that-Spirit-is-doing-a-new-thing spiel spewed from the pulpit.
In fact, the last time any in depth discussions took place between Orthodoxy and Anglicanism was in the late 1800s into about the 1930s. In the end, the Orthodox hierarchs had to issue communications disavowing what the Anglican bishops were saying to the Orthodox faithful which was essentially "You Orthodox can come on over to our Church because your hierarchs say we believe the same things." Our hierarchs got really angry. Unfortunately, for sometime thereafter some Greek and Arab hierarchs especially here in America continued to maintain close ties with the Anglicans. In part I think that came from a deep affection the Greeks had for the English and a desire on the part of the Greeks to be respectable in America and elsewhere...to "pass for white" so to speak. It is a pretty shameful period in my opinion, but perhaps understandable when taken in the context of the times. That attitude is generally dead today, especially among the lower clergy and the laity and the most recent problems in ECUSA have made it even "deader".
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