Ivana Noble

Ivana Noble, a Hussite theologian, offers in this article a critical analysis of the texts produced by the 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council. Her study examines the doctrinal and ecclesiological scope of the conciliar documents through a rigorous theological reading. The central argument of the article is that these texts reveal a confusion between the eschatological dimension of the Church and its concrete historical reality. According to the author, this unresolved tension generates an ambiguity in the way the Council addresses contemporary issues, whether ethical, social, or ecumenical. The contribution of this article lies in the external perspective that a theologian from a Protestant tradition brings to conciliar Orthodoxy, thereby offering a comparative viewpoint likely to enrich the theological debate surrounding the reception and normative scope of the Pan-Orthodox Council.

This article by Ivana Noble, drawn from a research conference, examines the future of Orthodox presence in the West through a critical rereading of the past. Adopting a hermeneutical approach that articulates retrospection and prospection, the author analyzes three structural problems: the difficult transition from diaspora status to that of a local Church, the persistence of parallel jurisdictions motivated by political and ethnic factors, and the tendency toward a theological uniformity inherited from neo-patristic monopoly. The main contribution of the article lies in highlighting the memories of marginalization accumulated from the Byzantine era to the post-revolutionary emigrations, and in proposing an "apophatic attitude," in Lossky's sense, as a path of communal healing. The article also advocates for a reassessment of marginalized Orthodox renewal currents — Slavophilism, Sophiology, practiced Hesychasm — in order to restore a fruitful theological plurality within Western Orthodoxy.