The Bishop of Guilford, the Rt Rev Christopher Hill has been elected vice-president of the Conference of European Churches (CEC).
On Dec 16 the CEC Central Committee elected Bishop Hill and the Rev. Cordelia Kopsch of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (EKD) as its vice presidents, and Metropolitan Emmanuel of France as president of the fellowship of 120 Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican churches in Europe.
Bishop Hill likes this sort of thing judging from his involvement in the various Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogues so his appointment is a positive move for an Anglican presence in the CEC.
While one welcomes the presence of the Orthodox churches in this body where the many European churches may talk to one another, it sounds as if they have brought with them their own squabbles, and that may be a distraction from what this body is for, if that becomes its focus under the Metropolitan of France. I gather the same squabbles got in the way of discussions between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics.
“If you invite them, we won’t come, so there!” Sound familiar?
Oh for anyone who doubts just how serious the disputes among the Orthodox Churches are, there is open warfare between the Ecumenical and Moscow Patriarchates over the fate of St Nicholas, the Orthodox Cathedral on the Riviera in Metropolitan Emmanuel’s territory, as I learned on the BBC ‘Sunday Program’ last week, just one of a number of flashpoints between the two churches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Cathedral,_Nice
In brief, a private lease granted by the last Tsar is coming to an end, and the Russian government’s lawyers on behalf of the Moscow Patriarchate is seeking to claim possession under French law alleging that it is Tsar Nicholas’s successor, notwithstanding the Russian government’s involvement in murdering him. Or that is what I have gathered anyway. As is I suppose predictable with Orthodox politics, it is all very Byzantine.