Amman, Jordan, February 26, 2020
Photo: Romfea
The delegations of the 6 Local Churches that previously announced their participation in the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s fraternal gathering in Amman, Jordan, have arrived and the meeting is underway.
Notably, the Russian Church’s delegation includes His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, the canonical primate in Ukraine, loved and admired not only by all the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine, but by hierarchs, clergy, and people from throughout the entire Orthodox world.
His Beatitude arrived around 10:30 PM last night, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
Today’s gathering at the Fairmont Hotel in Amman began with prayer at 9:30 AM, with the participation of the delegations from the Jerusalem, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Polish, and Czech-Slovak Churches, including the primates His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, His Holiness Patriarch Irinej of Serbia, and His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.
The gathering includes a morning and evening session, with an audience at the court of King Abdullah II of Jordan in the afternoon.
The sessions are closed to the media except for a state-owned Jordanian station and the British journalist Peter Welby, who specializes in news of the Arab world. Thus, little information is expected before the delegations issue an official press release.
In an interview about the gathering, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, explained that, “It is not proposed to make any decisions in Amman. This meeting is not for making decisions, but for the fraternal discussion of urgent problems and possible ways out of the crisis.”
“Let’s hope that the meeting in Amman will be the beginning of a process of discussing pan-Orthodox issues, which will eventually be joined by other Churches,” he added.
