A pan-orthodox council without the orthodox?

This article examines the question of the preparation and legitimacy of the pan-Orthodox council, as it was envisioned at the time of its writing. Noël Ruffieux, a Swiss Orthodox layman, adopts both an analytical and ecclesiological approach to question the conditions of validity of such a conciliar assembly. The central idea is that the convocation of a pan-Orthodox council cannot be fully legitimate if it excludes the active participation of the people of God as a whole, that is, the ecclesial pleroma, beyond the episcopal body alone. The article thus highlights the responsibility of lay faithful in the conciliar life of the Church: to inform oneself, deliberate and formulate proposals are fully ecclesial acts in their own right. On the theological level, this contribution recalls the Orthodox doctrine of conciliar reception and underlines the risk of a council which, lacking rootedness in the living conscience of the Church, would fall short of its own purpose.