Autocephaly

Autocephaly (/ɔːtəˈsɛfəli/; from Template:Lang-el, meaning "property of being self-headed") is the status of a hierarchical Christian church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. The status has been compared with that of the churches (provinces) within the Anglican Communion.

Overview of autocephaly

In the first centuries of the history of the Christian church, the autocephalous status of a local church was promulgated by canons of the ecumenical councils. There developed the pentarchy, i.e. a model of ecclesiastical organization where the universal Church was governed by the primates (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The independent (autocephalous) position of the Church of Cyprus by ancient custom was recognized against the claims of the Patriarch of Antioch, at the Council of Ephesus (431); it is unclear if the Church of Cyprus has always been independent or if it was once part of the Church of Antioch. When the Patriarch of Antioch claimed the Church of Cyprus was under its jurisdiction, the Cypriot clergy denounced this before the Council of Ephesus. The Council ratified the autocephaly of the Church of Cyprus by a resolution which conditionally states: "If, as it is asserted in memorials and orally by the religious men who have come before the Council - it has not been a continuous ancient custom for the bishop of Antioch to hold ordinations in Cyprus, - the prelates of Cyprus shall enjoy, free from molestation and violence, their right to perform by themselves the ordination of bishops [for their island]". After the Council of Ephesus, the Church of Antioch never claimed that Cyprus was under its jurisdiction. The Church of Cyprus has since been governed by the Archbishop of Cyprus, who is not subject to any higher ecclesiastical authority.

Autocephaly in Eastern Orthodoxy

See also: Eastern Orthodox Church organization

In Eastern Orthodoxy, the right to grant autocephaly is nowadays a contested issue, the main opponents in the dispute being the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which claims this right as its prerogative, and the Russian Orthodox Church (the Moscow Patriarchate), which insists that one autocephalous jurisdiction has the right to grant independence to one of its components. Thus, the Orthodox Church in America was granted autocephaly in 1970 by the Moscow Patriarchate, but this new status was not recognized by most patriarchates. In the modern era, the issue of autocephaly has been closely linked to the issue of self-determination and political independence of a nation; self-proclamation of autocephaly was normally followed by a long period of non-recognition and schism with the mother church.

Modern-era historical precedents

Following the establishment of an independent Greece in 1832, the Greek government in 1833 unilaterally proclaimed the Orthodox church in the kingdom (until then within the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate) to be autocephalous. But it was not until June 1850 that the Mother Church, under the Patriarch Anthimus IV, recognized this status.

In May 1872, the Bulgarian Exarchate, set up by the Ottoman government two years prior, broke away from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, following the start of the people's struggle for national self-determination. The Bulgarian Church was recognized in 1945 as an autocephalous patriarchate, following the end of World War II and after decades of schism. By that time, Bulgaria was ruled by the Communist party and was behind the "Iron Curtain" of the Soviet Union.

Following the Congress of Berlin (1878), which established Serbia's political independence, full ecclesiastical independence for the Metropolitanate of Belgrade was negotiated and recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1879. Additionally, in the course of the 1848 revolution, following the proclamation of the Serbian Vojvodina (Serbian Duchy) within the Austrian Empire in May 1848, the autocephalous Patriarchate of Karlovci was instituted by the Austrian government. It was abolished in 1920, shortly after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918 following the Great War. Vojvodina was then incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The Patriarchate of Karlovci was merged into the newly united Serbian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Dimitrije residing in Belgrade, the capital of the new country that comprised all the Serb-populated lands.

The autocephalous status of the Romanian Church, legally mandated by the local authorities in 1865, was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1885, following the international recognition of the independence of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (later Kingdom of Romania) in 1878.

In late March 1917, following the abdication of the Russian tsar Nicholas II earlier that month and the establishment of the Special Transcaucasian Committee, the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in Georgia, then within the Russian Empire, unilaterally proclaimed independence of the Georgian Orthodox Church. This was not recognized by the Moscow Patriarchate until 1943, nor by the Ecumenical Patriarchate until 1990.

In September 1922, Albanian Orthodox clergy and laymen proclaimed autocephaly of the Church of Albania at the Great Congress in Berat. The church was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1937.

The independent Kyiv Patriarchate was proclaimed in 1992, shortly after the proclamation of independence of Ukraine and the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The Moscow Patriarchate has condemned it as schismatic, as it claims jurisdiction over Ukraine. Some Orthodox churches have not yet recognized Ukraine as autocephalous. In 2018, the problem of autocephaly in Ukraine became a fiercely contested issue and a part of the overall geopolitical confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, as well as between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Autocephalous and autonomous Eastern Orthodox churches

Further information: Organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Autonomy (Eastern Orthodoxy)

Diagram with the organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church as of 2020

See also

• Eastern Orthodox Church organization
• Autonomy (Eastern Orthodoxy)
• Episcopal polity
• Congregationalist polity

References

Bibliography

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•  ———  (1999). Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History. New York: Oxford University Press (published 2010). ISBN 978-0-19-995132-1.
• Grdzelidze, Tamara (2010). "The Orthodox Church of Georgia: Challenges Under Democracy and Freedom (1990–2009)". International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church. 10 (2–3): 160–175. doi:10.1080/1474225X.2010.487719. ISSN 1747-0234. S2CID 143474746.
•  ———  (2012). "The Georgian Tradition". In Casiday, Augustine (ed.). The Orthodox Christian World. Abingdon, England: Routledge. pp. 58–65. ISBN 978-0-415-45516-9.
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• Hitchins, Keith (1994). Rumania 1866–1947. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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• Karagiannēs, Giōrgos (1997). Ekklēsia kai kratos, 1833–1997: Historikē episkopēsē tōn scheseōn tous (in Greek). Athens. ISBN 978-960-8402-49-2. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Lawrence, John (1963). "Anglicans and Orthodoxy". In Armstrong, A. H.; Fry, E. J. B. (eds.). Re-Discovering Eastern Christendom: Essays in Commemoration of Dom Bede Winslow. London: Darton Longman & Todd. pp. 119ff.
• "Pentarchy". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2001. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
• Sanderson, Charles Wegener (2005). Autocephaly as a Function of Institutional Stability and Organizational Change in the Eastern Orthodox Church (PhD diss.). College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, College Park. hdl:1903/2340.
• Schaff, Philip; Wace, Henry, eds. (1900). A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Series 2. Vol. 14: The Seven Ecumenical Councils. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers (published 1995). ISBN 978-1-56563-130-4.

Further reading

• "Autocephaly". OrthodoxWiki. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
• Papakonstantinou, Christoporos (1999). "Autocephaly". In Fahlbusch, Erwin; Lochman, Jan Milič; Mbiti, John; Pelikan, Jaroslav; Vischer, Lukas; Bromiley, Geoffrey W.; Barrett, David B. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Christianity. Vol. 1. Translated by Bromiley, Geoffrey W. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-8028-2413-4.
• Shahan, Thomas J. (1907). "Autocephali" . In Herbermann, Charles G.; Pace, Edward A.; Pallen, Condé B.; Shahan, Thomas J.; Wynne, John J. (eds.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Encyclopedia Press (published 1913). pp. 142–143.
• Zhukovsky, Arkadii (1984). "Autocephaly". In Kubiyovych, Volodymyr (ed.). Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Vol. 1. Toronto: University of Toronto. pp. 141–142. ISBN 978-1-4426-3280-6.

A. Schmemann, “A Meaningful Storm: Some Reflections on Autocephaly, Tradition, and Ecclesiology,” SVTQ 15 (1971) 3–27

Philip Walters (2002) Notes on Autocephaly and Phyletism, , 30:4, 357-364, DOI: 10.1080/09637490120103320

Papakonstantinou. (2011). Autocephaly. In Encyclopedia of Christianity Online. Leiden, Koninklijke Brill NV. https://doi.org/10.1163/2211-2685_eco_A776

Tudorie. (2020). The time has come : debates over the autocephaly of the OCA reflected in St Vladimir’s quarterly (Tudorie, Ed.). St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.