A historic meeting of Orthodox Christian scholars confronts divisions and war

Nearly 400 Orthodox Christian theologians from 44 countries convened in the largest international conference of its kind in Greece on January 12 to discuss “Nicaea-sized” questions facing the Eastern Orthodox Church amid war and bitter division.

Some of the most contentious issues at the Mega-Conference of the International Orthodox Theological Association, meeting in Volos, have been exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, which exacerbated a split between a newly independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Kyiv and the Russian Orthodox Church based in Moscow.

The conference’s keynote speaker, Metropolitan Ambrosios (Zografos) of Korea and Exarch of Japan, a bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, told the assembly that the various branches of Orthodox Christianity had fomented a heresy by taking sides in the war, calling it “an unspeakable travesty” that as a result, “most Orthodox leaders have failed to condemn this diabolical war unequivocally.