The historic Pan-Orthodox Council takes place in Crete (Greece), reports Deutsche Welle.
Council opened with the service in the Cathedral of St. Mina in Heraklion, chaired by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
This is the first meeting of the Patriarchs for 1,300 years, but representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and several other churches: Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria and the Syrian Patriarchate of Antioch have already refused to take part in it.
The day before Ukrainian Parliament supported the appeal to Bartholomew to grant the Ukrainian Orthodox Church autocephaly and autonomy from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Related: Ukraine's top 10 Gothic churches
