Source: http://modeoflife.org/rocor-holy-synod-encyclical-on-the-procedures-and-pre-conciliar-documents-of-the-pan-orthodox-synod/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 00:37:23+00:00

Document:
document to espouse proper Orthodox ecclesiology in the manner necessary for the full proclamation of Christ’s Truth in a divided world. In our estimation this is the most problematic of the Pre-Conciliar documents, and one which will require substantial revision and amendment during the sessions of the Council itself, if it is to attain a form suitable for adoption.
The inconsistencies in ecclesiological terminology are readily apparent, and have already been noted by many (the Most Reverend Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and St. Vlasios, the Most Reverend Metropolitan of Limassol, as well as various learned Orthodox clergy and scholars). While the document opens by identifying the Orthodox Church as “the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” (art. 1), which “grounds her unity on the fact that she was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as on the communion in the Holy Trinity and in the Sacraments” (art. 2), the terminology used throughout the remainder of the text renders ambiguous these otherwise clear and true phrases.
Not only is proclamation of the Orthodox Church as “the One” Church befuddled by the statement that “the Orthodox Church acknowledges the existence in history of other Christian Churches and confessions which are not in communion with her” (art. 6) and the repeated references to “various Christian Churches and confessions” (art 6, art. 20); the document also lacks any reference to the fact that the Church is not only “founded by” our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ (cf. art. 2), but is ever His mystical Body, always one and indivisible (cf. Ephesians 5.30; Colossians 1.24). Though of course all acknowledge the existence in history of groups who seek to follow the Saviour apart from the Orthodox Church, and which may by self-definition refer to themselves as ‘churches’, Orthodox ecclesiology permits of no pluralization of what is, and must always be, One: Christ’s Body itself. In casual usage such terminology (i.e. of ‘other churches’) may at times be employed out of convenience, but it can have no place in a formal document of the Church, which must be scrupulously precise and give clear, unequivocal voice to the traditions we have received from our Fathers, which they received from the Lord.
More serious are the deficiencies in this text regarding the essential distinction it seeks to address: namely, the Church and her relations to those outside her. While our hearts echo the sentiment of the holy Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky) who observed of the fracture in the Christian world: “What conscious Christian does not sorrow in soul when he sees the enmity and division among people who should be uniting their faith, among whom should be reigning the peace left and given by Christ to His disciples, and love poured into the hearts of Christians by the Holy Spirit!” — we acknowledge at the same time that the advent of such peace to those who are divided can come only through the proclamation of the one true path towards unity: the life of salvation offered in the Church; and that understanding how to return to the indivisible Church begins with a right understanding of separation.
(ibid.) that extends beyond the “One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” and incorporates many other confessions.
The same document contains other errors which cannot be passed over. Its twenty-third article comments on the necessity of inter-Christian theological dialogue (itself a good and potentially fruitful endeavour) “excluding any practice of proselytism or any outrageous manifestations of inter-confessional antagonism” (art. 23). The loose association of the term “proselytism” with “inter-confessional antagonism” is problematic, for the Lord commands both the active preaching (leading to baptism) of “all nations” (cf. Matthew 28.19, 20) and assures the Church of His special preservation of those being proselytised — a reality we hymn in the Typical Psalms of the Divine Liturgy (κύριος φυλάσσει τοὺς προσηλύτους, Psalm 145.9). To categorically forbid “proselytism”, properly understood, by Orthodox towards the heterodox is a tacit acceptance of an “equality of confessions” (something the document itself rightly says cannot be accepted; cf. art. 18), since it amounts to an avowal of the idea that the heterodox are already united to the Body of Christ (the Church) and therefore need not be drawn towards repentant conversion into it.
This clarification, which may at first strike as overly nuanced or even pedantic, is of fundamental importance to Orthodox theology and anthropology, and demonstrates the need for the most exacting attention when considering documents for widespread circulation (even in a case such as this, where the text does not purport to be about Trinitarian doctrine at all, yet inadvertently puts forward doctrinally problematic themes). The rise in misapplication of the term “person” to man over the past 75 years has resulted in numerous perversions of theological language in the realm of doctrinal reflection, one of the most notable of which, the concept that there is a “communion of Divine Persons in the Holy Trinity”, is directly stated in the document (art. 2.i).
The precise theological discussions of the fourth and fifth centuries clarified that the Father, Son and Spirit are united in an eternal communion of essence (in the begottenness of the Son, the procession of the Spirit and the monarchia of the Father), but not a communion of Persons. Misapplication of the term “person” to man has led, however, to considerations of the community of the human race being applied to the nature of the Holy Trinity in a manner that contradicts the clear teaching of the Fathers and Ecumenical Councils. Furthermore, such improper language of Trinity creates new anthropological problems that arise from seeing “the human person” as “a community of persons in the unity of the human race reflecting the life and communion of the Divine Persons in the Holy Trinity” (art. 2.i — one of the most problematic phrases in the document). While it is true that man’s freedom (the subject of Article 2) is a gift arising from his being created “in the image” of God, neither his life in the broad community of the race of men, nor the freedom he exercises within it, are comparable to the freedom of the Divine Persons expressed in their eternal, mutual indwelling.
The determinations made through the Pre-Conciliar process and the decision of the Primates of the Autocephalous Churches, spelled out in Articles 3, 12 and 13 of the “Organisation and Working Procedure of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church” document, make clear that the Pan-Orthodox gathering to take place this year will not be a council of this nature. We hasten to add, in a spirit of full faith and love, that this in no wise means it cannot be of value and importance, and indeed we pray for a fruitful meeting that permits a new degree of inter-Orthodox dialogue and common work.
However, a council that includes only a fixed number of representative bishops (art. 3.i), in which voting on the adoption of texts is done on a novel “one Church, one vote” model in which voting “shall be effected by autocephalous Orthodox Churches, not each particular member of the delegations represented at the Council” (art. 12.i), in which it is explicitly asserted that “the voting of a Church at the Council, not a member of a delegation, does not exclude the possibility for one or a few hierarchs in the delegation of a particular autocephalous Church to take a negative position towards introduced amendments or a text in general” (art. 12.ii) and which relegates any such dissenting voice to “an internal affair of that Church to which the hierarchs belong” (art. 12.iii) — all these things mean that any documents which are approved at this council may indeed have “a pan-Orthodox authority” (art. 13.ii), but this authority can be neither dogmatic nor doctrinal, but will represent only the authority of the voices of those hierarchs permitted by such regulations to be present, speak, and have a vote.
While we are satisfied that the insistence upon unanimous consensus for any amendments (art. 11.ii), as well as the adoption of texts themselves (art. 13.i), adequately safeguards against the possibility of the imposition of any text by “majority vote”, the fact remains that even in such cases where decisions are taken at this council by the unanimous consensus of those present, such decisions can never be considered to bear witness to the consensus of the plenitude of the Church, and therefore the authority they bear shall be adjudged accordingly.
Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York, President of the Synod of Bishops.
 We note the careful precision that must be applied in this matter, as the document employs both correct references to “man” (человек, ὁ ἄνθρωπος), as well as incorrect references to the “human person” (человеческая личность, τόν ἀνθρώπινον πρόσωπον). The latter, which are the core of the theological problems with this document, are located at: Art.1 Title; 1.i, iii; 2.i, iii; 3.i; and 6.v).
For the sake of those reading the texts in other translations, the problem is at times compounded (for example, the English translation in wide circulation, which is not itself an official translation of the Pre-Conciliar Conferences, regularly confuses the matter further by failing to distinguish between the different terms in the official text, rendering almost all instances even of человек, ὁ ἄνθρωπος as “human person”. Cf. Pref. paras. 2, 4; art. 1.i; multiple instances in 2.i; 6.iii, x; multiple instances in 6.xii, 6.xv).

References: art. 20
 art. 2
In casu
 art. 18
 Art.1
 art. 1