The Agenda of Vatican II Council and of Pan-Orthodox Council in the Preparatory Period: Parallels and Differences

Abstract

The article compares the agenda of the II Vatican Council of the Catholic Church (1962-1965) and the themes of the Pan-Orthodox Council during many years of its preparation. The author points to the thematic parallelism of the two conciliar processes, which reflected the desire of the Catholic and Orthodox churches to respond to the challenges of contemporary world. At the same time, in contrast to the Catholic Council, in the Orthodox pre-consiliar many of the themes of the original agenda, concerning the relationship of the Church to the modern world, have been omitted after long discussions; some themes were not supported and dropped at the Pre-Council meetings. As a result, the agenda scheduled for June 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council became largely limited to internal church issues, except for one document - about the Mission of the Church.