Topic: Jurisdictions

[JimCBrooklyn]

I have just finished reading Metropolitan Ware's book, The Orthodox Church and, boy, quite a bit to digest!

One thing I was wondering about:

I realize that the book was written in the 90's, and as such many of the statistics/jurisdictional issues are most likely quite changed by now. One thing I find generally confusing is the whole issue of autocephaly, autonomony, "self-ruled" churches, etc. I'm not entirely sure what distinguishes one from another...

I'm also not sure which jurisdictions' autocephaly/autonomy/independence are not recognized by certain others; it seems there may be some major cases of this? If so, how is a jurisdiction determined as Orthodox or not, if, say, the MP is in communion with it, and the EP is not, or vice versa? How do such issues get resolved?

I hope this is not an overly controversial questin.
Jim

[mike]

Autocephalous - all decisions are made within the Church
Autonomous - all internal decisions are made within the Church, external decisions are made by the autocephalous Church (each autonomous Church is under an autocephalous Church), Primate of the Autonomous Church is confirmed by the Autocephalous Church
Self-ruled - the same as autonomous but the name is less jarring

Being recognised as autocephalous and being in communion are two distinct things. Recognising one Church as autonomous or autocephalous is complicated because it limits the other Churches. One autocephalous Church can't freely work on another one autocephalous or autonomous Church's tertitory so they don't do it sometimes and treat the newly appeared autocephalous Churches as foreign dioceses of their Mother-Churches (if they had not become autocephalous).

Generally such things are solved by meeting of the representatives of the all Churches.

[ialmisry]

I have just finished reading Metropolitan Ware's book, The Orthodox Church and, boy, quite a bit to digest!

One thing I was wondering about:

I realize that the book was written in the 90's, and as such many of the statistics/jurisdictional issues are most likely quite changed by now. One thing I find generally confusing is the whole issue of autocephaly, autonomony, "self-ruled" churches, etc. I'm not entirely sure what distinguishes one from another...

I'm also not sure which jurisdictions' autocephaly/autonomy/independence are not recognized by certain others; it seems there may be some major cases of this? If so, how is a jurisdiction determined as Orthodox or not, if, say, the MP is in communion with it, and the EP is not, or vice versa? How do such issues get resolved?

I hope this is not an overly controversial questin.
Jim

Autocephalous Churches are equivalent to states in the united states, autonomous Churches are like home rule muncipalities. The Congress, meeting in joint session, is like the Ecumenical Council, regular session like the Pan-Orthodox Councils held from time to time.  Unlike the Vatican, we have no equivalent to President.

This analogy of course isn't exact: it would be closer if the Assemblymen of the State Legislature also acted as the executives of their districts (as bishops do), if they met in a unicarmal legislature (like Nebraska) and the assemblyman of the capital served as the governor, and if mayors of home rule districts had to be approved by the governor/state assembly; and if the Federal Congress was made up of the state assemblymen.

Issues of jurisdictions autocephaly/autonomy usually don't come to a head unless two autocephalous Churches run into each other in a new territory.  In North America the Russians were there since 1739, but there was no dispute until 1904, when the Russian Church, the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarch each had a Church in New York City:the occasion for the dispute to come to the fore was the Russian Church consecrated an Antiochian bishop for his Cathedral in Brooklyn. Earlier the Greeks had joined up with the Russians already there, like in San Francisco.  In Japan, its autonomy wasn't questioned, as there was no other Church anywhere near.  When Constantinople organized an Archdiocese in Australia and New Zealand, it claimed Japan for the latter.

[JimCBrooklyn]

I definitely understand the distinctions now, but to clarify:

A) Non-recognition of autocephaly does not necessarily imply that two churches are not in communion?
B) What churches do not recognize, currently, the autocephaly of certain others?
C) Are there currently Orthodox churches not in communion with one another?

[ialmisry]

I definitely understand the distinctions now, but to clarify:

A) Non-recognition of autocephaly does not necessarily imply that two churches are not in communion?

Yes, it does not mean lack of communion.

B) What churches do not recognize, currently, the autocephaly of certain others?

At present IIRC, the only one now that is not universally recognized is the Orthodox Church in America. Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Cyprus (i.e. the Greek Church) oppose its autocephaly, and officially see it as part of the Russian Orthodox Church, at least until last year.  Last year at the Episcopal Assembly Constantinople implicitely recognized it as not part of the Russian Church and autocephalous, but explicitely avoided officially doing so.  Moscow, Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, the Czech Lands and Slovakia recognize it as autocephalous. Antioch, Romania, Serbia, Albania do not recognize it, but do not question its canonical status. Bishops of the Greek Church, the Antiohican, the Serbian and Albanian Churchs have taken part in the enthronement of the metropolitan of the OCA, however. Only Jerusalem and Cyprus have not ever had official contact that I know of with the OCA.

C) Are there currently Orthodox churches not in communion with one another?

There are ones, like the "Genuine Church of Greece" (claims to be the real Orthodox Church of Greece) or ROCA (which claims to be the Russian Church, not to be confused with ROCOR, which is in communion with the Russian Church and everyone else); and those who are in schism, like the alternative patriarchate of Bulgaria (which does not recognize the Bulgarian patriarch); and those who have proclaimed their autocephaly and gone into schism, like the Ukrainian Orrthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate (not to be confused with the UOC-Moscow Patriarchate, which is in communion with everyone) and the Macedonian Orthodox Church (which is in competition with the Serbian Church's Archdiocese of Ohrid, which is in communion with everyone).  Then there are some groups like the Milan Synod, who originate from schismatic groups.  These groups are not only not in regular communion with us, but are not in communion with each other.

There are also the Oriental Orthodox (Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian, Indian) who are not in formal communion with us, but are in full commuion with each other, have signed communion agreements with us in Egypt and Syria, have informal communion with us, and who hopefully one day soon will be fully in communion with us.  The issue here is that they formally do not accept the Ecuemnical Council of Chalcedon, and subsequent issues that that entails.

[JimCBrooklyn]

That clears up a lot. I had thought before that certain jurisdictions' non-recognition of the autocephaly of OCA, in particular, implied that they did not believe such churches to be Orthodox. I'm glad to know this is not so.

As to the ones actually not in communion, those situations sound relatively par for the course for any major church, i.e., SSPX with Rome.

I understood before to some extent the distinction between OO and EO, though it seems there are conflicting views on where the relationship should be. What were the major issues at Chalcedon? Or, rather, which ones still linger most prominently as obstacles to full communion/reunion?
Also, what was the nature of those agreements in Egypt and Syria?

Thank you for all the info
Jim

[Irish Hermit]

Autonomous Churches and Self-Governing Churches are distinct entities in the Moscow Patriarchate.  The provisions which govern Self-Governing Churches of  the Church of Russia are given in Chapter VIII of the Ustav.

http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/133132.html

Just to note that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad does not have the status of an Autonomous Church but the lesser status of a Self-Governing Church.

Autonomous Churches of the Moscow Patriarchate:

Japan
China


Self-Governing Churches:

Estonia
Latvia
Moldova
Russian Church Abroad


Self-Governing with with many rights of Autonomy:

Ukraine.

[ialmisry]

That clears up a lot. I had thought before that certain jurisdictions' non-recognition of the autocephaly of OCA, in particular, implied that they did not believe such churches to be Orthodox. I'm glad to know this is not so.

As to the ones actually not in communion, those situations sound relatively par for the course for any major church, i.e., SSPX with Rome.

I understood before to some extent the distinction between OO and EO, though it seems there are conflicting views on where the relationship should be. What were the major issues at Chalcedon? Or, rather, which ones still linger most prominently as obstacles to full communion/reunion?
Also, what was the nature of those agreements in Egypt and Syria?

Thank you for all the info
Jim

The Metropolitan of Lebanon (EO) once summed it up best on the EO and OO: nobody wants to die. Because of the disparity of numbers (e.g. in Egypt 250,000 EO versus 8 million or so OO; in Syria over a million EO with 100,000 OO) the fear is that one will swallow up the other.  This period of hesitation may be good to work out so that doesn't happen.

The official sticking point is official recognition of Chalcedon by the OO.  They see, in the light of the next Council of Constantinople II that the EO have the same Faith as the OO, but they seem to see it that the EO replaced/abandoned Chalcedon at Constantinople II.  The EO are maintaining that the OO misunderstood Chalcedon and that Constantinople II clarified their quibbles about Chalcedon. The agreements in Egypt and Syria recognize each others Holy Mysteries, most specifically marriage, and allow intercommunion in the context of mixed marriage (though it happens, unoffiicially outside of thoe families). Basically the Arab EO and the OO view each other as Protestant denominations view each other as coreligionists.  The Greeks less so, as they are somewhat foreign to the area and there are many Greeks in Greece who are opposed to any union with the OO (and with the relative absence of OO in Greece, are quite content to ignore the existence of the real OO and what they believe, and prefer ot keep the creation of polemics).

[Paisius]

The agreements in Egypt and Syria recognize each others Holy Mysteries, most specifically marriage, and allow intercommunion in the context of mixed marriage (though it happens, unoffiicially outside of thoe families).

I do know there are places here in America where limited intercommunion occurs with the knowledge of the local bishop.