Canon Law expert meets with Head of the Greek Orthodox Church

A School of Law and Politics Professor has recently attended a private meeting with the Head of the Greek Orthodox Church worldwide.

Professor Norman Doe met with His All Holiness Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in Istanbul on 16 March 2019 to discuss the work of an ecumenical panel of religious leaders, jurists and theologians of which he has been a member since 2013.  The panel has members from ten Christian traditions worldwide – Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, Old Catholic and Pentecostal.

The Panel’s Statement of Principles of Christian Law (Rome 2016) was suggested and initially drafted by Professor Doe on the basis of his book Christian Law: Contemporary Principles (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

The Statement (2016) is being fed into the work of the World Council of Churches and its Faith and Order Commission, which in 2017 established at Geneva a partnership with the panel. National events to use the Statement to foster greater understanding between institutionally divided Christians have been already taken place in for example Uppsala, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Sydney, and Cardiff and further such events are planned for the coming months in Oslo, London, and Rome.

His All Holiness Bartholomew welcomed the Statement as a “means of unity and collaboration” between Christians of different traditions.