2009-11-03 10:01:00
Belgrade, November 3, Interfax - Next session of the Joint
International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic
Church and the Orthodox Church will be held in September 2010.
Participants in the Commission previous session in October 2009
discussed the document on "the role of the Pope of Rome in the first
millennium," head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church
Relations Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk said in his interview to the
Ras-Prizren Diocese website, Kosovo.
"This text hasn't been published, we
studied only a part of it, and thus I can't assess it. I can only say that we
have lots of critical remarks and I'm not sure all Orthodox Churches will be
happy about the text," Archbishop Hilarion said.
According to him, "it
will clear out at the Commission's next session" in September 2010 in Vienna.
The Archbishop also reminded that the Russian Orthodox Church did not
participate in the Ravenna Document summing up the decisions of the Joint
Commission in October 2007 in Ravenna dedicated to the nature of authority in
the Ecumenical Church. Then the Moscow Patriarchate representatives accused
Vatican of lobbying a Catholic model of papal administration on Orthodox world.
"The Ravenna document is the text adopted without participation of the
Russian Orthodox Church, we didn't approve of it, we didn't sign and never
will," Archbishop Hilarion said.