Ecclesiological Tendencies in the Ecumenical Approach of the Council of Crete

Abstract The Ecumenical legacy of the Council of Crete convened in 2016 is extremely important because of the consistent discussions on this topic during the grounding of the Council, but mostly subsequent to that, when the process of reception of the Council began. The Holy and Great Council of Crete of 2016, known also as the Pan-Orthodox Council, issued six official documents plus a Message and an Encyclical. Among those documents, one is dedicated to the question of ecumenical relations. Inside various Orthodox Autocephalous Churches different groups denounced the Council because of its ecumenical approach, meaning that a good understanding of the ecumenical legacy of the Council of Crete is one of the most important keys in its reception. In this study I will try to inspect the ecclesiological theology found in the Document on Ecumenical Relations released in 2016 by the Council of Crete, thereby analyzing why some of the groups rejected this document. Comparing different forms of the documents with the final approved form will help us understand how the Orthodox approach to ecumenism evolved in time, since the beginning of the preparations for the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church.