Orthodox Christian Church and Ecumenism
Constantinople III, 680 AD.
Affirmed the True Humanity of Jesus by insisting upon the reality of His Human will and action.
Nicea II, 787 AD.
Affirmed the propriety of icons as genuine expressions of the Christian Faith.
The modern ecumenical movement, has its origins in the World's Confederation of Missions (Edinburg 1910), which has been preceded by the creation of organizations with interconfessional character:
- 1864, Evangelical Alliance
- 1895, World's Federation of Christian Association of Students
- 1914, Worlds Alliance for the Promotion of International Friendship of the Church.
- 1947, Ecumenical Youth Action
In the context of the modern Ecumenical Movement, the nature and the function of the World Council of Churches, can be described as having a comprehensive and undivided character. It is one ecumenical movement, open to all Churches, and any Church cannot pretend to be considered the center of this movement; it is "greater" than any Church taken individually, and which includes all Churches.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is not identified with the Ecumenical movement. Even if the Council pursues including all the Churches, the ecumenical movement remains something inclusive. The WCC is a fruit, an instrument of the ecumenical movement, an attempt to express more visible, more structural the communion discovered by the Churches in the ecumenical movement, which extends beyond the WCC.
The Ecumenical Council wants to be a genuine Council of all the Churches. The only condition for the admission of a Church as member of the Council is the acceptance of the foundation. Acceptance does not mean that that the Church renounce at its own conception about the Church, about Christian unity and about the nature of the Ecumenical Movement.
The presence of a Church in the Ecumenical Council does not mean the acceptance 'per se' of the unity of faith and of the Eucharistic communion with the other Churches member. The ecumenical dialogue serves the cause of the reconstitution of the unity of all Christians, but is not identical to the union of the Churches as such. The WCC is rather a forum where the Churches clarify their divergent and convergent points. The Churches themselves will decide the union.
The participation of the Orthodox Church in the ensemble of the ecumenical dialogue is based on criteria and principles of work. The ecumenical problem is not
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