There is no need for discussions ‘on autocephaly issues’ in a situation when the Orthodox world stands in a special need of unity in face of modern challenges and threats. This was stated by Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East during his stay in Serbia on October 14, 2018, the Orthodox Life portal reports with reference to Ria.ru.
‘The reasons for our visit to the sister Serbian Orthodox Church are our commitments to consider together all that complicates now the relations among Local Orthodox Churches. What kind of necessity is there to discuss precisely now the issues of autonomies or autocephalies when we need most of all the solid unity of all Orthodox Christians? There is no doubt that the Orthodox Church should consider her problems at a general Council that would bring together Primates of all the Local Churches’, Patriarch John said.
The patriarch also pointed to the need to pray ardently to the Lord Jesus Christ ‘that He may divert from His Church all the waves of political traps, historical upheavals and destructive spirit of individualism so that the spirit of His glory may shine in it’.
‘Beloved in the Lord, what we need most of all is a time when Orthodox Christianity will become one word and one firm body amidst the chaos of this world characterized primarily by divisions. The unity of the Orthodox world is a guarantee that Christ handed down to our hands, while the harmony of Local Orthodox Churches is, in the first place, what preserves its unity and solidarity’, Patriarch John X of Antioch said.
