With its menacing assertiveness tinged with touchy paranoia, post-Soviet Russia dominates the agenda of Western geopolitics and diplomacy. This problem even extends into the realm of sport. Now it has taken on a theological dimension. It threatens to overshadow what could have been a fundamental turning point in Christian history, the Holy and Great Council of the Eastern Orthodox family of Churches that takes place this week in Crete. Not through the Russian presence, however, but its absence. The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has chosen late in the day to boycott the event. And the Moscow Patriarchate represents the majority of Orthodox Christians in the world.

The convening of the Council, the first of its kind for 1,200 years, is the achievement of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. He worked hard to find a common basis for the discussions, despite tensions between himself and Moscow.