The Pan-Orthodox Council, which is due to begin on Sunday, was hanging in the balance this week after two of the 14 invited churches withdrew and others expressed major reservations. As the council neared collapse, 50 Orthodox scholars signed an open letter urging the churches to press ahead with the gathering. But Metropolitan Hilarion, the Moscow Patriarchate’s foreign minister, reiterated the Russian Orthodox Church’s official view that the council should be postponed. The open letter came shortly after it emerged that Pope Francis had asked two senior Vatican officials to attend the summit as observers. The officials are Cardinal Kurt Koch and Bishop Brian Farrell, respectively the president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. In the open letter, sent to the 14 primates of the “autocephalous” churches, 50 Orthodox scholars said the council was a chance to “commence a new phase of Orthodox witness. As the eyes of the whole world are upon the Orthodox Church, we beseech all of our leaders to hear the Spirit’s call to conciliar unity.” The council, for which preparations began in 1961, was supposed to bring together all 14 Orthodox churches. But after the Bulgarian church pulled out, the Moscow Patriarchate said the meeting could not go ahead unless all the churches were present. The Georgian church also announced on Sunday that it would not come. The Patriarchate of Antioch said it might not attend, while the Serbian Orthodox Church said it would rather the meeting was considered a consultation, not a council.