The council could lead to closer ties to the Roman Catholic Church.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I fears that some churches are too isolated from each other and the outer world.

Speaking to a summit in Istanbul, he said the council must find a way to help Orthodox churches resolve their differences.

It must also help them work more as one church rather than many, he said.

"Unless the Orthodox Church places its own house in order, it would be unable to address the world with authority and validity," he said.

He mentioned "relations with non-Orthodox Christians" as a topic to be debated before the council, but gave no specifics.

Patriarch Bartholomew will meet Pope Francis in Jerusalem in May.

The council, officially called the Holy and Great Synod, will take place in Istanbul's Hagia Irene.

This is a former Byzantine church in a courtyard of Topkapi Palace, the home of the Ottoman sultans.

One of the main questions facing the 2016 council will be how to balance relations among the Orthodox Churches.

The Russian church, after seven decades of subjugation under communism, has re-emerged as an influential voice in world Christianity.

A communique from the patriarchs stressed that all decisions at the council would be taken by consensus.

This is a position the Russians strongly defended in preparations for the meeting.

The patriarchs also called for "peaceful negotiations and prayerful reconciliation in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine".

They adenounced what they said were "threats of violent occupation of sacred monasteries and churches" there.

On the Middle East, the patriarchs denounced "the lack of peace and stability, which is prompting Christians to abandon the land where our Lord Jesus Christ was born".

Sources:

• The Tablet
• Huffington Post
• Image: archons.org

The group is led by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, who retired as auxiliary bishop of Sydney in 2004, aged 66, partly because of lack of recognition of the sexual abuse problem in the Church.

He is supported by Bishop Pat Power, retired bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, and Bishop Bill Morris, who was removed from his office as bishop of Toowoomba by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.

Bishop Robinson, who launched the Towards Healing protocol in Australia and headed the Australian bishops' professional standards committee, has just launched a new book entitled For Christ's Sake: End Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church … for Good.

He says he wants a "Catholic spring" revolution, a people-power movement to force the Vatican to tackle the abuse crisis at its source.

"There has been so much abuse that it's impossible to blame just the individuals — we blame them too, of course — but it's impossible to limit ourselves to that," he said.

"We have to look at any systemic causes of the abuse. We have to take a really hard look at the Church itself and see what we can find there in the way of causes, factors which have in any way contributed to abuse."

Bishop Robinson, who was abused as a child, said millions of good Catholics have been "deeply disillusioned, both by the revelations of widespread abuse and even more by what they have perceived as the defensive, uncaring and unchristian response on the part of many who have authority in the Church and claim to speak in God's name.

"Catholic people all over the world are sick of the scandal and this is a chance for them to speak up and join a collective voice that will be heard in Rome."

Sources:

The Australian

ABC News

Sydney Morning Herald

Image: Daily Telegraph