On the day of the Holy Spirit, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew called on the four Orthodox churches that did not participate in the Holy and Great Council in Crete to accept its decisions conciliarly. He made this address on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its holding. Speaking after the Divine Liturgy in the Holy Trinity Church in Stavrodromi, the Patriarch recalled that the work of the Council began precisely on the Monday of the Holy Spirit in 2016 in Kolymbari, near the city of Chania, and the central message was the unity of the Orthodox Church.
Patriarch Bartholomew called on the churches that were absent from the Council, including the Bulgarian one, to once again study its texts, the encyclical and its message and to proceed with their acceptance. Such a step would be an expression of respect for the efforts and sacrifices made over decades in the preparation of the council by generations of bishops, including those from churches that did not participate in the council.
The Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete was held on 16–27 June 2016, and ten of the fourteen autocephalous Orthodox churches participated in it. At the last moment, four churches withdrew from participation, the first being the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, which announced this on 1 June, two weeks before the start of the council. The Bulgarian bishops justified this by the “high financial costs” of their participation and the “insufficient time to coordinate the documents” signed by the Bulgarian participants in the pre-council meetings. After the Bulgarian Church, the Patriarchate of Antioch (because it had a dispute with the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and did not receive the support of Fener) and the Georgian Churches announced their refusal to participate. Finally, the Moscow Patriarchate also refused, citing the absence of the first three churches.
