Amman 2014. 13th Plenary Session of the Join International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church

Abstract

Four years after its previous session in Vienna, Austria, the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church held its 13th Plenary Session in Amman, Jordan, 15-23 September 2014, hosted by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. At the previous session the Commission was not able to adopt a study document on the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of the Church during the first millennium. It was then decided to start a more directly theological study on the relations between primacy and synodality/concilliarity. However, the theological approach of the draft document prepared for the Amman meeting was not accepted by the Commission and a new document was drafted during the meeting on the same theme. This document was considered at length but, finally, it was decided that it needed to be more developed before it could be sent to the Churches and made public. A drafting group is asked to prepare a new text for the Coordinating Committee that will meet in September 2015; a new Plenary Session is foreseen in 2017.