Autocephaly problem: history and present
by Very Rev. John H. Erickson (Presented at Institut de théologie orthodoxe Saint-Serge in Paris, at the conference "The Forthcoming Council of the Orthodox Church: Understanding the Challenges" on 18-20 October 2012)
by Very Rev. John H. Erickson (Presented at Institut de théologie orthodoxe Saint-Serge in Paris, at the conference "The Forthcoming Council of the Orthodox Church: Understanding the Challenges" on 18-20 October 2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaFhJGj1kh4
Transcript:
Certainly the theme I was assigned is important. Over the past century few subjects have provoked as much controversy in the Orthodox world as Autocephaly. One need only mention disputes between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople concerning the status of the Polish Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church in the Czech lands in Slovakia and most recently Orthodox Church in America, the former North American Russian metropolia, the OCA.
There have a course also been unilateral claims to autocephaly put forward by at least two Ukrainian groups and by the Macedonian Orthodox Church, we should probably consider them as well. Autonomy also has been a source of controversy. Through much of the 20th century the Russian Orthodox Church in Constantinople disputed the status of the Finnish Orthodox Church and more recently and with high drama the status Estonia. And additional examples could be mentioned.
Most often the case of autocephaly disagreement is centered on accession to autocephaly. How autocephalys status is attained. That while debate on this subject is preceded with great acrimony, the nature and content of autocephaly has been left undefined. The word is assumed to have a simple univocal meaning but in fact those who use it tacitly make certain assumptions which others may not share but which nevertheless color their outlook and arose their passions. Much the same can be said about Autonomy, clearly neither term can be understood without consideration of the wider historical context in which they are being used.
In present-day usage one might find it in a textbook a church is termed autocephalous if it possesses first of all the right to resolve all internal problems on its own authority independently of other churches and second, the right to appoint its own bishops among them the primate, without obligatory expression of dependents on another church.
On the other hand an autonomous church is one whose primate must be appointed or approved in some way by the church that granted it autonomy. Similarity between the two aspects of autocephaly that I just noted and the internal and external sovereignty above the modern state as presented in textbooks in political science: this is hardly coincidental. From the 19th century onward autocephaly has been understood as radical independence analogous to that which the modern sovereign state enjoys in the secular sphere.
The autocephalous Church so often referred to as the local church, topekie ecclesia, this is regarded as the fundamental ecclesiastical organism which all lesser bodies: diocese, eparchies, are all but parts, administrative subdivisions, dependencies.
The weaknesses of this understanding have become ever more conspicuous over the past century like the International System of sovereign states on which it was patterned, this modern system of autocephalous churches failed to meet demands placed on it in are own rapidly-changing world.
Possession internal sovereignty by no means has assured spiritual health within an autocephalous church and insistence on external sovereignty has inhibited the creation of the effective structures for maintaining communion or even communication between order selfless churches.
All too often the result has been indifference, absence of common activity and periodic confrontation. The approach to autocephaly, between ecclesiology rather, lying behind this modern understanding of autocephaly, now is widely discredited in theological circles.
Well of course it's continuing influence can be felt in the practices and official utterances of the autocephalous churches themselves, the reliance on this approach on the language and thought patterns of Law and Diplomacy has given way to a more churchly approach drawing on scripture, liturgy, church fathers.
The point of departure for this more recent approach to ecclesiology has been the Eucharist seen now not just as one of several means of grace at the disposal the church conceived of, as a divinely instituted body politic but is the very basis for the church's life and I know in the present company here at Saint Sergius, I can take familiarity with this Eucharistic ecclesiology for granted.
I mention it now because its insights help explain the evolution of church structures in antiquity when the fundamental ecclesiastical organism was understood to be the local church. Local in this case meaning the church, other relatively compact face to face community considerably more limited in its geographic extension then the modern autocephalous local church. Considerably more local one could say then the Russian Federation. Though modest in scale each local church was, if I may use the words of the late Archbishop Peter L'Huillier, each local church was the Sacramento manifestation of ecclesial plenitude. These churches related to each other not as parts of a whole, but on the principle of mutual identity, each in its place was the concrete realization of the church have God, but this did not negate the need for communion with other local churches but rather implied it.
The mutual identity of the local churches in the profound communion uniting them was expressed most tangibly through the collegiality of their bishops especially as these met together in Council. So long be for the establishment of christianity is the favored religion of the state, before structures for coordination of church life were defined in the form of conciliar canons, ecclesiastical organization in the Roman Empire tended to follow the lines of civil administration. By the 4th century synods of bishops we're meeting with some regularity in most provinces of the empire, typically under the presidency of the Bishop of the metropolis the capital city, to address matters of common concern, to resolve disputes, to elect and ordained their cum provincial colleagues including their primate. In other words roughly speaking and with several important exceptions the church's of each province constituted an autocephalous entity.
These churches didn't become autocephalous, they were autocephalous. They were not granted autocephaly they had it. It isn't necessary here to trace the process of consolidation that transformed the church structures in the course is the fourth and fifth centuries. Out of a constellation of autocephalous ecclesiastical provinces, 5 major ecclesiastical divisions emerged this pentarchy, and patriarchates whose pre-eminence in the universal Church would be assured by Imperial legislation and theological reflection even after any practical significance they had was limited by the rise of Islam in the east and by barbarian invasions in the West.
But notwithstanding the ascendancy of pentarchic theory, in practice there were several exceptions, churches beside this five patriarchates with the right to appoint all their own bishops including their primate. The geographic boundaries of autocephalous churches might coincide with those of civil administration but neither civil administration or ecclesiastical boundaries were directly related to political independence or to nationality.
And while the bishops of the autocephelous entity were expected to manage their own affairs, they were obliged to do this in accordance with the canons, with the universal canons, and not the particular law of the autocephalous entity that set forth basic principles of church order.
In short these autocephalous entities, these autocephalous churches developed in order to strengthen bonds of communion uniting local churches at a given region with each other and with all the churches. They were intended to unite, not divide. To be practical administrative arrangements, they didn't pretend to self-sufficiency.
For many centuries Roman Byzantine Imperial ideology remained intact and with it the sense of belonging to a single Christian Commonwealth, but this began to change in the wake of the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204. Whereas autocephaly formerly had meant independence on a purely ecclesiastical level, now it was related to political independence.
Evident in this period are signs of incipient nationalism, to its most conspicuous among the Balkan Slavs, but you can find this also in Greek circles. For example intellectuals began to use the word Hellene, Greek in a positive sense. Hitherto of course it had meant pagan, as distinct from Christian, but at the same time a new sense of universalism can be detected.
Old symbols of unity and order, the Emperor and his once universal Empire, the pentarchy of patriarchs, were fading in . Taking their place on the institutional level was the Patriarch Constantinople, who effectively replaced the Emperor as symbol of the unity love the orthodox Christian world. But nationalism replete with romantic myths about national origins, language, character, would reemerge as a significant factor in orthodox church life in the late 18th - 19th century, and with nationalism, the modern autocephalous church.
The first stirrings of this modern nationalism could be felt among educators, intelligencia, who promoted the study of national languages, history and culture. But as Pascal Kitromilides has observed, nationalism became a real as opposed to a theoretical problem for orthodoxy once the people's above the balkans rose up in arms against Ottoman rule in the early 19th century. The protracted revolts in the balkans provided the crucible for the transformation of the orthodox religious communities of the balkans into modern nations.
Part of the transformation involved the radical reshaping of local ecclesiastical communities from branches of eccumenical orthodoxy into components of new nations. Throughout the balkans revolt of subject orthodox populations against Ottoman rule involved on the ecclesiastical level independence from the Patriarch of Constantinople. Because of this coincidence scholars sometimes explain autocephaly simply as a function of nationalism, as one aspect have national consolidation. A processed mark by the nationalization of religion and the sacralization of the nation.
But of course the story is more complex. A sense of national identity in the absence of other factors seldom if ever has been sufficient for the establishment of an autocephalous church at least for one recognized by all its sister churches. What is made decisive difference is state involvement. Indeed it has been argued that in the balkans national identity itself has been largely a creation of the state. State involvement in the establishment in the establishment or one might add, the suppression of autocephalous churches has been motivated by state interests and only secondarily by religious considerations. Multiple examples could be advanced do demonstrate this.
Whether in the predominantly orthodox nation states of the balkans or the declining ottoman and austro-hungarian empires, autocephaly assured that the ecclesiastical entity in question would serve state interests. The episcopate of the church might have the right to manage its internal affairs to
elect all its own bishops of course under clothes state supervision, but communication with other Orthodox churches were strictly limited typically carried on through the state's Foreign .
With more changes in political geography in the wake of World War I, the issue of accession of autocephaly took on new urgency after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the subsequent change and exchang of populations. The patriarch of Constantinople was left with only a tiny flock in the new Turkish Republic. Perhaps as a consequence, maybe even a happy consequence, the patriarchate became more inclined then before to emphasize its wider primatial authority within the orthodox world. Meanwhile relentless communist persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church brought an end to its once enormous influence for several decades. All this set the stage for a series of confrontations concerning autocephaly autonomy, and related issues during the remainder of the 20th century.
Inter orthodox cooperation in the early 1990s began to suggest a way forward and we've heard in earlier presentations the prehistory, this great and holy Council. In 1990 and 1993 meetings at the preparatory Commission addressed too closely intertwined topics the Diaspora and Autocephaly , and it also touched on Autonomy. I remember those meetings well...for one I was present as an expert not because of ecclesiastical affiliation. At another I was included in the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church. My invitation arrived from Geneva to Moscow and was forwarded to me from there.
The Commission's point of departure in 1998 1993, background reports from the churches, these text where by that point already over 10 years old. In these, three lines of thinking can be discerned. First of all there was report of the Romanian Orthodox Church, it argued that each autocephalous national church has the right to govern its own national diaspora as it sees fit, though the report does acknowledge that churches formed as a result of missionary activity constitute a special case, and here I quote "since they belong to a different nationality then the members of the missioning church." In such cases autocephaly may be envisioned.
A second group of reports from churches is a Greek heritage appealed above all to Chalcedon Canon 28, a text I think everyone knows, and to its provisioned for churches among the barbarians. The argument went on to suggest that only constantinople has authority in the so-called Diaspora and as for Autocephaly, only a council of eccumenical standing can definitively establish an autocephalous church. Any interim arrangements depending on approval by constantinople.
The report of Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church takes a more pragmatic approach, like the Romanian approach it he rejects Greek interpretation of Chalcedon Canon 28, and it argues that in any case modern situations vary considerably, whether arising from multiple immigrations, or mission, each situation should be considered on its own terms.
Whatever their origins, churches of the Diaspora must receive the opportunity to grow into new local churches. In America the argument goes where the multiplicity of jurisdictions is in part a result of mission and in part a result of immigration, several possible solutions are possible.
The report concludes that the best solution would be for Constantinople to grant autocephaly to its American archdiocese, just as moscow had in the case of the OCA, so also for the other churches to grant autocephaly to their jurisdictions in North America, and then for these to unite as a single autocephalous church.
The difficulty is how can these positions so divergent be reconciled and in fact the inter orthodox preparatory Commission chose not to attempt to reconcile these divergent interpretations of the historical record, but instead to develop procedures and proposals for the future. Although the inter Orthodox preparatory Commission hasn't reached full agreement on autocephaly it has agreed reached agreement on autonomy.
According to the draft text on the subject granting autonomy to a part of its canonical jurisdiction lies within the exclusive competence of a given autocephalous church. After approving a petition for autonomy this church issues the appropriate tomos then notifies the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the other autocephalous churches of its actions.
How are we to evaluate these text that we now have before us or potentially be for us?
Like so many of the texts developed in the course of the great and holy Council process, the draft text on accession to autocephaly ducks the hard issues. It avoids any reference to the many extra ecclesial factors that have affected and in many ways transformed our understanding about autocephaly. It barely mentions nationalism, it doesn't mention statism at all. This makes it difficult to imagine any real progress in inter Orthodox relations even if a great and holy council does eventually meet to approve the texts now under consideration.
Needed also is constructive engagement with our past. This may be painful, it may also be invigorating. If we know where we have been it will be easier to know the way forward to fuller communion with God and with each other.
Transcript:
Certainly the theme I was assigned is important. Over the past century few subjects have provoked as much controversy in the Orthodox world as Autocephaly. One need only mention disputes between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople concerning the status of the Polish Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Church in the Czech lands in Slovakia and most recently Orthodox Church in America, the former North American Russian metropolia, the OCA.
There have a course also been unilateral claims to autocephaly put forward by at least two Ukrainian groups and by the Macedonian Orthodox Church, we should probably consider them as well. Autonomy also has been a source of controversy. Through much of the 20th century the Russian Orthodox Church in Constantinople disputed the status of the Finnish Orthodox Church and more recently and with high drama the status Estonia. And additional examples could be mentioned.
Most often the case of autocephaly disagreement is centered on accession to autocephaly. How autocephalys status is attained. That while debate on this subject is preceded with great acrimony, the nature and content of autocephaly has been left undefined. The word is assumed to have a simple univocal meaning but in fact those who use it tacitly make certain assumptions which others may not share but which nevertheless color their outlook and arose their passions. Much the same can be said about Autonomy, clearly neither term can be understood without consideration of the wider historical context in which they are being used.
In present-day usage one might find it in a textbook a church is termed autocephalous if it possesses first of all the right to resolve all internal problems on its own authority independently of other churches and second, the right to appoint its own bishops among them the primate, without obligatory expression of dependents on another church.
On the other hand an autonomous church is one whose primate must be appointed or approved in some way by the church that granted it autonomy. Similarity between the two aspects of autocephaly that I just noted and the internal and external sovereignty above the modern state as presented in textbooks in political science: this is hardly coincidental. From the 19th century onward autocephaly has been understood as radical independence analogous to that which the modern sovereign state enjoys in the secular sphere.
The autocephalous Church so often referred to as the local church, topekie ecclesia, this is regarded as the fundamental ecclesiastical organism which all lesser bodies: diocese, eparchies, are all but parts, administrative subdivisions, dependencies.
The weaknesses of this understanding have become ever more conspicuous over the past century like the International System of sovereign states on which it was patterned, this modern system of autocephalous churches failed to meet demands placed on it in are own rapidly-changing world.
Possession internal sovereignty by no means has assured spiritual health within an autocephalous church and insistence on external sovereignty has inhibited the creation of the effective structures for maintaining communion or even communication between order selfless churches.
All too often the result has been indifference, absence of common activity and periodic confrontation. The approach to autocephaly, between ecclesiology rather, lying behind this modern understanding of autocephaly, now is widely discredited in theological circles.
Well of course it's continuing influence can be felt in the practices and official utterances of the autocephalous churches themselves, the reliance on this approach on the language and thought patterns of Law and Diplomacy has given way to a more churchly approach drawing on scripture, liturgy, church fathers.
The point of departure for this more recent approach to ecclesiology has been the Eucharist seen now not just as one of several means of grace at the disposal the church conceived of, as a divinely instituted body politic but is the very basis for the church's life and I know in the present company here at Saint Sergius, I can take familiarity with this Eucharistic ecclesiology for granted.
I mention it now because its insights help explain the evolution of church structures in antiquity when the fundamental ecclesiastical organism was understood to be the local church. Local in this case meaning the church, other relatively compact face to face community considerably more limited in its geographic extension then the modern autocephalous local church. Considerably more local one could say then the Russian Federation. Though modest in scale each local church was, if I may use the words of the late Archbishop Peter L'Huillier, each local church was the Sacramento manifestation of ecclesial plenitude. These churches related to each other not as parts of a whole, but on the principle of mutual identity, each in its place was the concrete realization of the church have God, but this did not negate the need for communion with other local churches but rather implied it.
The mutual identity of the local churches in the profound communion uniting them was expressed most tangibly through the collegiality of their bishops especially as these met together in Council. So long be for the establishment of christianity is the favored religion of the state, before structures for coordination of church life were defined in the form of conciliar canons, ecclesiastical organization in the Roman Empire tended to follow the lines of civil administration. By the 4th century synods of bishops we're meeting with some regularity in most provinces of the empire, typically under the presidency of the Bishop of the metropolis the capital city, to address matters of common concern, to resolve disputes, to elect and ordained their cum provincial colleagues including their primate. In other words roughly speaking and with several important exceptions the church's of each province constituted an autocephalous entity.
These churches didn't become autocephalous, they were autocephalous. They were not granted autocephaly they had it. It isn't necessary here to trace the process of consolidation that transformed the church structures in the course is the fourth and fifth centuries. Out of a constellation of autocephalous ecclesiastical provinces, 5 major ecclesiastical divisions emerged this pentarchy, and patriarchates whose pre-eminence in the universal Church would be assured by Imperial legislation and theological reflection even after any practical significance they had was limited by the rise of Islam in the east and by barbarian invasions in the West.
But notwithstanding the ascendancy of pentarchic theory, in practice there were several exceptions, churches beside this five patriarchates with the right to appoint all their own bishops including their primate. The geographic boundaries of autocephalous churches might coincide with those of civil administration but neither civil administration or ecclesiastical boundaries were directly related to political independence or to nationality.
And while the bishops of the autocephelous entity were expected to manage their own affairs, they were obliged to do this in accordance with the canons, with the universal canons, and not the particular law of the autocephalous entity that set forth basic principles of church order.
In short these autocephalous entities, these autocephalous churches developed in order to strengthen bonds of communion uniting local churches at a given region with each other and with all the churches. They were intended to unite, not divide. To be practical administrative arrangements, they didn't pretend to self-sufficiency.
For many centuries Roman Byzantine Imperial ideology remained intact and with it the sense of belonging to a single Christian Commonwealth, but this began to change in the wake of the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204. Whereas autocephaly formerly had meant independence on a purely ecclesiastical level, now it was related to political independence.
Evident in this period are signs of incipient nationalism, to its most conspicuous among the Balkan Slavs, but you can find this also in Greek circles. For example intellectuals began to use the word Hellene, Greek in a positive sense. Hitherto of course it had meant pagan, as distinct from Christian, but at the same time a new sense of universalism can be detected.
Old symbols of unity and order, the Emperor and his once universal Empire, the pentarchy of patriarchs, were fading in . Taking their place on the institutional level was the Patriarch Constantinople, who effectively replaced the Emperor as symbol of the unity love the orthodox Christian world. But nationalism replete with romantic myths about national origins, language, character, would reemerge as a significant factor in orthodox church life in the late 18th - 19th century, and with nationalism, the modern autocephalous church.
The first stirrings of this modern nationalism could be felt among educators, intelligencia, who promoted the study of national languages, history and culture. But as Pascal Kitromilides has observed, nationalism became a real as opposed to a theoretical problem for orthodoxy once the people's above the balkans rose up in arms against Ottoman rule in the early 19th century. The protracted revolts in the balkans provided the crucible for the transformation of the orthodox religious communities of the balkans into modern nations.
Part of the transformation involved the radical reshaping of local ecclesiastical communities from branches of eccumenical orthodoxy into components of new nations. Throughout the balkans revolt of subject orthodox populations against Ottoman rule involved on the ecclesiastical level independence from the Patriarch of Constantinople. Because of this coincidence scholars sometimes explain autocephaly simply as a function of nationalism, as one aspect have national consolidation. A processed mark by the nationalization of religion and the sacralization of the nation.
But of course the story is more complex. A sense of national identity in the absence of other factors seldom if ever has been sufficient for the establishment of an autocephalous church at least for one recognized by all its sister churches. What is made decisive difference is state involvement. Indeed it has been argued that in the balkans national identity itself has been largely a creation of the state. State involvement in the establishment in the establishment or one might add, the suppression of autocephalous churches has been motivated by state interests and only secondarily by religious considerations. Multiple examples could be advanced do demonstrate this.
Whether in the predominantly orthodox nation states of the balkans or the declining ottoman and austro-hungarian empires, autocephaly assured that the ecclesiastical entity in question would serve state interests. The episcopate of the church might have the right to manage its internal affairs to
elect all its own bishops of course under clothes state supervision, but communication with other Orthodox churches were strictly limited typically carried on through the state's Foreign .
With more changes in political geography in the wake of World War I, the issue of accession of autocephaly took on new urgency after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the subsequent change and exchang of populations. The patriarch of Constantinople was left with only a tiny flock in the new Turkish Republic. Perhaps as a consequence, maybe even a happy consequence, the patriarchate became more inclined then before to emphasize its wider primatial authority within the orthodox world. Meanwhile relentless communist persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church brought an end to its once enormous influence for several decades. All this set the stage for a series of confrontations concerning autocephaly autonomy, and related issues during the remainder of the 20th century.
Inter orthodox cooperation in the early 1990s began to suggest a way forward and we've heard in earlier presentations the prehistory, this great and holy Council. In 1990 and 1993 meetings at the preparatory Commission addressed too closely intertwined topics the Diaspora and Autocephaly , and it also touched on Autonomy. I remember those meetings well...for one I was present as an expert not because of ecclesiastical affiliation. At another I was included in the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church. My invitation arrived from Geneva to Moscow and was forwarded to me from there.
The Commission's point of departure in 1998 1993, background reports from the churches, these text where by that point already over 10 years old. In these, three lines of thinking can be discerned. First of all there was report of the Romanian Orthodox Church, it argued that each autocephalous national church has the right to govern its own national diaspora as it sees fit, though the report does acknowledge that churches formed as a result of missionary activity constitute a special case, and here I quote "since they belong to a different nationality then the members of the missioning church." In such cases autocephaly may be envisioned.
A second group of reports from churches is a Greek heritage appealed above all to Chalcedon Canon 28, a text I think everyone knows, and to its provisioned for churches among the barbarians. The argument went on to suggest that only constantinople has authority in the so-called Diaspora and as for Autocephaly, only a council of eccumenical standing can definitively establish an autocephalous church. Any interim arrangements depending on approval by constantinople.
The report of Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church takes a more pragmatic approach, like the Romanian approach it he rejects Greek interpretation of Chalcedon Canon 28, and it argues that in any case modern situations vary considerably, whether arising from multiple immigrations, or mission, each situation should be considered on its own terms.
Whatever their origins, churches of the Diaspora must receive the opportunity to grow into new local churches. In America the argument goes where the multiplicity of jurisdictions is in part a result of mission and in part a result of immigration, several possible solutions are possible.
The report concludes that the best solution would be for Constantinople to grant autocephaly to its American archdiocese, just as moscow had in the case of the OCA, so also for the other churches to grant autocephaly to their jurisdictions in North America, and then for these to unite as a single autocephalous church.
The difficulty is how can these positions so divergent be reconciled and in fact the inter orthodox preparatory Commission chose not to attempt to reconcile these divergent interpretations of the historical record, but instead to develop procedures and proposals for the future. Although the inter Orthodox preparatory Commission hasn't reached full agreement on autocephaly it has agreed reached agreement on autonomy.
According to the draft text on the subject granting autonomy to a part of its canonical jurisdiction lies within the exclusive competence of a given autocephalous church. After approving a petition for autonomy this church issues the appropriate tomos then notifies the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the other autocephalous churches of its actions.
How are we to evaluate these text that we now have before us or potentially be for us?
Like so many of the texts developed in the course of the great and holy Council process, the draft text on accession to autocephaly ducks the hard issues. It avoids any reference to the many extra ecclesial factors that have affected and in many ways transformed our understanding about autocephaly. It barely mentions nationalism, it doesn't mention statism at all. This makes it difficult to imagine any real progress in inter Orthodox relations even if a great and holy council does eventually meet to approve the texts now under consideration.
Needed also is constructive engagement with our past. This may be painful, it may also be invigorating. If we know where we have been it will be easier to know the way forward to fuller communion with God and with each other.
