Voices of Synodality from the Orthodox East contribute to the Great Debate

Voices of Synodality from the Orthodox East contribute to the Great DebateThis hefty volume is a significant contribution to the steadily increasing quantity of publications being made available to resource the global process of study and reflection launched by Pope Francis which is intended to turn the Roman Catholic Church into a thoroughly synodical community. 1Over the past few years Ecclesiology has been providing articles and Editorials (the latter all free to view) on synodality from various ecumenical perspectives.The ecumenical dimension is judged to be vital to the synodical journey of the Catholic Church because other Christian traditions -Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant -have had long experience of practising a synodical polity, in their various ways.Some of these traditions (e.g. the Presbyterian Church of Scotland) are currently examining their legacy of synodality and governance and aiming to improve it.Others churches would benefit from some self-examination in the light of the energy and insight that Pope Francis and the Roman Catholic Church are putting into this initiative.In the Church of England and the Anglican Communion as a whole, synodality has become politicised and polarised; it needs to be reformed and purified and its character as a spiritual pathway reclaimed.At the present juncture, synodality is a challenge and an opportunity for all Christian Churches.It was, therefore, an excellent initiative when, in July 2021, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity of the Catholic Church proposed to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops that conferences on the theory and practice of synodality within the various Christian traditions should be held.As a result of this initiative, four international and ecumenical conferences were held at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum), Rome, in November 2022 and January 2023.They focused on the theology and practice of synodality in the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, 'Mainline Protestant' (including Anglican) and Free Churches respectively.This volume is the impressive result of the first two conferences and reproduces, after revision and editing, their proceedings.A second volume, containing the