The role of the Church in the digital age and challenges arising from the applications of artificial intelligence were on the agenda of today’s session by members of the Church of Greece’s Holy Synod.
Two hierarchs read out position papers during Thursday’s session, with the Metropolitan of Ioannina, His Eminence Maximos, addressing the Holy Synod on the issue of “Consequences of Digital Technology, and the artificial spirit, in general, in the role and mission of the Church.
The Metropolitan of Mesogea and Lavreotiki, His Eminence Nicholaos, followed with an address entitled “Challenges entailed with AI”.
As expected, on Friday members of the Holy Synod will vote to fill three vacant Metropolises of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece, namely, the bishoprics of Fthiotida, Kalavryta and Aegialias, as well as Limnos and Aghios Efstratios.
On Saturday, an extraordinary Holy Synod session will be convened in order to discuss a proposal by the Archbishop of Athens regarding the contentious issue of the Tomos of Autocephaly for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
In a related development, two days before the extraordinary session, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external Church relations, was quoted by the semi-official RIA Novosti news agency as saying: “…The Church of Greece is autocephalous, and I hope it takes a responsible position, one that corresponds with the spirit and letter of ecclesiastical canons, without pressure from abroad.”