On the occasion of recent publications circulating on the internet, the Church of Albania clarified that it would not be drawn into the area of counter-complaints, rebuttals, insults, inaccuracies, and slander, as attempted by incompetent laymen on certain online platforms.
The Albanian Orthodox Church, therefore, declares in all directions that it is not prepared to publicize on the internet and in mass media in general its opinions or judgments regarding the attitude and behavior of other local Orthodox Churches and their Primates.
The painful ecclesiastical problems that have arisen in the past years and most recently in Africa, as a result of the clear cracks in the relations of the local Orthodox Churches and the widespread concern of the Orthodox believers, cannot be solved by the method of chain retaliation by specific Churches and by collecting consent from the rest through mass media.
The responsible opinion of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania is expressed in the official church correspondence and announcements of the Archsecretariat, and will be directly submitted to the competent body, the Pan-Orthodox Synod, or Synaxis, which, in accordance with the principle of synodality, is the only body empowered to resolve core issues and to ensure the unity and peace of the worldwide Orthodox Church.
As the unprecedented calamity of Orthodoxy in Ukraine intensifies and the unspeakable suffering of the Orthodox believers peaks, a pan-Orthodox response is required as soon as possible.
A Pan-Orthodox Synod is convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch. It can be convened even if some local Churches are absent, as was the case with the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church in Crete in 2016.
