Over the last half century few subjects
have provoked so much controversy in the Orthodox world as autocephaly. One
need only mention the unedifying disputes between the Russian Orthodox
Church and the Patriarchate of Constantinople concerning the status of the
churches of Poland, Czechoslovakia and America. Disagreement has centered on
the way in which autocephalous status is attained. To put matters in
simplest terms, according to the Russian Church, any autocephalous church
has the right to grant canonical independence to one of its parts. According
to Constantinople, on the other hand, only an ecumenical council can
definitively establish an autocephalous church, and any interim arrangements depend upon approbation by Constantinople, acting in its capacity as
the "mother church" and "first among equals."
While this debate concerning the granting
of autocephaly has proceeded with great acrimony, the nature and content of
autocephaly has been left relatively undefined. The word is assumed to have
a simple univocal meaning. In fact, those who use the term often tacitly
assume implications which others may not share but which nonetheless color
their outlook and at times arouse their emotions.
In present-day Orthodox usage, a church
is termed "autocephalous" if it possesses
Similarity between this definition and the definition of internal and
external sovereignty given in textbooks on government is hardly
coincidental.
Autocephaly thus defined in quasi-political terms is seen as
arising from a veritable liberation. According to Professor J. Karmires,
writing in the Greek Encyclopedia for Religion and Ethics: "By this concept
[of autocephaly] above all is meant the various local churches that have
been emancipated (kheirapheto) and that have their own administrative and
spiritual 'head'..." As Professor Karmires immediately goes on to add, these
autocephalous churches are also characterized by "the coincidence of their
jurisdictional boundaries with those of the corresponding state." Here we
have echoes of an idea most forcefully enunciated by Theokletos Pharmakides,
principal theoretician of the modern Church of Greece, according to whom
independence of a state necessarily implies ecclesiastical independence for
the territory of that state. This conception, so well suited to
nineteenth-century attitudes toward church/state relations, has continued to
influence Orthodox polity in this century. It was used, for example, to
justify the autocephaly of the Orthodox church of the new Polish republic
following World War I. Usually, however, it has not been the concept of the
state as such but rather that of the nation-state that has colored
perceptions of autocephaly.
To be sure, nationality alone has not
completely triumphed as a principle of ecclesiastical organization - witness
the fate of the Bulgarian Exarchate in the nineteenth century, when
phyletism (tribalism, ethnicism) was officially condemned as a heresy by
Constantinople. But nationality linked to statehood has been a very potent
force indeed. We find the basic argument expressed in its simplest - and
most benign - form by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in his preface to the 1653
edition of the Kormchaia Kniga: though Russia had received Christianity from
Constantinople, this did not imply necessary and permanent subordination,
"for if a nation has established an independent state not subordinate to the
Greek empire, and if that local church gradually has become stronger, it may
in time become self-governing in all respects." We find the same argument
expressed more stridently in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth century,
as the older sense of one Orthodox oikoumene gives way to modern ideas of
nationalism and statism.
These are only a few of the elements
which may enter into modern definitions of autocephaly. Even from these, one
can easily understand why dispassionate discussion of the subject has been
so difficult. Unfortunately, the search for an adequate definition of
autocephaly is not greatly simplified when one turns from modern church
history to the more distant past, for the word "autocephalous" has had a
variety of meanings over the centuries.
This historical investigation of
"autocephaly" should dispel at least one common misconception. Very often
autocephaly is taken to be a univocal, self-evident and utterly fundamental
principle of Orthodox ecclesiology, as though the notion of autocephaly has
remained - and will forever remain consistent and unchanged. But as we have
seen, forms of supra-episcopal organization in Orthodoxy have in fact varied
considerably. In antiquity each province in effect constituted an
autocephalous church. In the imperial period there was a marked tendency to
centralization, first into patriarchates and then around a single center,
Constantinople. But in the twentieth century we have entered a new period in
the history of ecclesiastical organization, one in which we can no longer
appeal to this or that isolated historical precedent.
Here, by way of example, the situation of
Orthodoxy in America could be noted. As indicated at the beginning of this
essay, the patriarchate of Moscow seems to take as axiomatic the principle
that any autocephalous church has the right to grant autocephaly to one of
its parts, and on this basis it recognized as autocephalous its former North
American mission, now the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). The patriarchate
of Constantinople has vigorously protested this autocephaly, arguing that
only an ecumenical council can definitively establish an autocephalous
church and that any interim arrangements depend above all upon approbation
by Constantinople. Now the approach of Moscow certainly is consistent with
nineteenth-century ideas which would regard the auto cephalous church as the
spiritual counterpart of the sovereign nation-state, and the approach of
Constantinople is consistent with the "newer tomes of autocephaly" to which
it so often refers, even though this clearly ignores much of the historical
evidence presented here. Yet in their official pronouncements neither Moscow
nor Constantinople take into consideration all the dimensions of the actual
American situation. Moscow has tried to ignore the multitude of overlapping
ethnic jurisdictions in America or at most has regarded them as regrettable
anomalies, while Constantinople has failed to recognize the existence,
growth and vitality - or even the possibility - of authentic church life
that is at once both Orthodox and American. As a result, their debate over
"who has the right to grant autocephaly" has been sterile, without
possibility of resolution.
In all this controversy, one should also
note the lack of correspondence between spiritual content and canonical
forms, so that the very same church may be regarded by one party as
autocephalous and by another as autonomous or possibly even as completely
uncanonical. Authentic church life may be present yet still be ignored or
mislabeled. Conversely, authentic spiritual life may be absent yet canonical
recognition be extended. Thus, as we debate about who has the right to grant
autocephaly, as we wait for a Great and Holy Council to answer such
questions, in fact we are ignoring the real source of the canonical chaos of
our time: that miserable ecclesiological nominalism which ignores spiritual
reality in favor of empty names, claims and titles. Should we not instead
discuss real issues, however painful this may be? Do we care enough - love
enough - to take upon ourselves this cross of truth?
From: The
Challenge of our Past by John Erickson, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press,
Crestwood, NY, 1991
