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His Al-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. © Sean Hawkey

continuance. Notable contributions came from the Patriarch of Serbia, who
hoped that the absent churches would in time receive the Council; from the
Archbishop of Cyprus who bewailed centuries of necessary Orthodox inversion
but now faced major questions, naming fundamentalism and nationalism
within Orthodoxy as a problem hampering reform and emphasising that
questions of precedence did not move the laity and that Orthodoxy must be
more open; the Archbishop of Albania, a confessor of the faith from
communist times, spoke powerfully about calumnies against the Council and
its advocate as ‘little drops of poison’ and went on to say that the Council did
not need to be a ‘facsimile’ of ancient councils or those of the Western Church
but went on to argue for qualified majorities as actually laid down by ancient
councils.
From this powerful support for the Council and its long preparatory
process it is clear that the Council was on course even if some in the absentee
churches have their reservations. The solidarity for the Ecumenical Patriarch
and the Council from all over Orthodoxy was very evident.
After a week of strenuous and prolonged debate and discussion, the
Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, presided over the closing Liturgy of the

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