Eastern Orthodox Church organization


The Eastern Orthodox Church, like the Catholic Church, claims to be the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The term Western Orthodoxy is sometimes used to denominate what is technically a vicariate within the Antiochian Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox Churches and thus a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church as that term is defined here. The term "Western Orthodox Church" is disfavored by members of that vicariate.
In the 5th century, Oriental Orthodoxy separated from Chalcedonian Christianity, well before the 11th century Great Schism. It should not be confused with Eastern Orthodoxy.

Church governance

The Orthodox Church is a communion comprising the fourteen or sixteen separate autocephalous hierarchical churches that recognize each other as "canonical" Orthodox Christian churches. Each constituent church is self-governing; its highest-ranking bishop reports to no higher earthly authority. Each regional church is composed of constituent eparchies ruled by bishops. Some autocephalous churches have given an eparchy or group of eparchies varying degrees of autonomy. Such autonomous churches maintain varying levels of dependence on their mother church, usually defined in a Tomos or other document of autonomy. In many cases, autonomous churches are almost completely self-governing, with the mother church retaining only the right to appoint the highest-ranking bishop of the autonomous church.
Normal governance is enacted through a synod of bishops within each church. In case of issues that go beyond the scope of a single church, multiple self-governing churches send representatives to a wider synod, sometimes wide enough to be called an Orthodox "ecumenical council". Such councils are deemed to have authority superior to that of any autocephalous church or its ranking bishop.
The Orthodox Church is decentralised, having no central authority, earthly head or a single Bishop in a leadership role. Thus, the Orthodox Church uses a synodical system canonically, which is significantly different from the hierarchically organised Catholic Church that follows the doctrine of papal supremacy. References to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as a leader are an erroneous interpretation of his title. His title is of honor rather than authority and in fact the Ecumenical Patriarch has no real authority over Churches other than the Constantinopolitan. His unique role often sees the Ecumenical Patriarch referred to as the "spiritual leader" of the Orthodox Church in some sources, though this is not an official title of the patriarch nor is it usually used in scholarly sources on the patriarchate.
The autocephalous churches are in full communion with each other, so any priest of any of those churches may lawfully minister to any member of any of them, and no member of any is excluded from any form of worship in any of the others, including reception of the Eucharist.
In the early Middle Ages, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church was ruled by five patriarchs: the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem; these were collectively referred to as the Pentarchy. Each patriarch had jurisdiction over bishops in a specified geographic region. This continued until 927, when the autonomous Bulgarian Archbishopric became the first newly promoted patriarchate to join the original five.
The patriarch of Rome was "first in place of honor" among the five patriarchs. Disagreement about the limits of his authority was one of the causes of the Great Schism, conventionally dated to the year 1054, which split the church into the Catholic Church in the West, headed by the Bishop of Rome, and the Orthodox Church, led by the four eastern patriarchs. After the schism this honorary primacy shifted to the Patriarch of Constantinople, who had previously been accorded the second-place rank at the First Council of Constantinople.

Jurisdictions

Autocephalous Orthodox churches

Ranked in order of seniority, with the year of independence given in parentheses, where applicable.

Four Ancient Patriarchates

  1. Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
  2. Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria
  3. Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch
  4. Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem
Those four ancient Orthodox Patriarchates are of the five episcopal sees forming the historical Pentarchy, the fifth one being the See of Rome. They all adopted the Chalcedonian Definition and remained in communion after the schism that followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The council was the fourth of the Ecumenical Councils that are accepted by Chalcedonian churches which include the Eastern Orthodox, and also the Catholic, and most Protestant churches. It was the first council not to be recognised by any Oriental Orthodox churches.
Nowadays, the importance of all four Ancient Patriarchates is diminished because their sees are all located in modern countries and cities where Christians are in the minority.
The title of Patriarch was created in 531 by Justinian.

Junior Patriarchates

  1. Bulgarian Orthodox Church
  2. Orthodox Church of Georgia
  3. Serbian Orthodox Church
  4. Russian Orthodox Church
  5. Romanian Orthodox Church

    Autocephalous Archbishoprics

  6. Church of Cyprus
  7. Church of Greece
  8. Orthodox Church of Albania

    Autocephalous Metropolis

  9. Polish Orthodox Church
  10. Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia
  11. Orthodox Church in America
  12. Orthodox Church of Ukraine
The four ancient patriarchates are the most senior, followed by the five junior patriarchates. Autocephalous archbishoprics follow the patriarchates in seniority, with the Church of Cyprus being the only ancient one. In the diptychs of the Russian Orthodox Church and some of its daughter churches, the ranking of the five junior patriarchal churches is different. Following the Russian Church in rank is Georgian, followed by Serbian, Romanian, and then Bulgarian Church. The ranking of the archbishoprics is the same.

Autonomous Orthodox churches

;under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
;under the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch
;under the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem
;under the Russian Orthodox Church
;under the Serbian Orthodox Church
;under the Romanian Orthodox Church
*Autonomy not universally recognised.

Semi-Autonomous churches

;under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
;under the Russian Orthodox Church
*Autonomy not universally recognised.

Orthodox churches with limited self-government but without autonomy

;under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

Churches in resistance (True Orthodoxy)

These are churches that have separated from the mainstream communion over issues of Ecumenism and Calendar reform since the 1920s. Due to what these churches perceive as being errors of modernism and ecumenism in mainstream Orthodoxy, they refrain from concelebration of the Divine Liturgy with the mainstream Orthodox, while maintaining that they remain fully within the canonical boundaries of the Church: i.e., professing Orthodox belief, retaining legitimate apostolic succession, and existing in communities with historical continuity. With the exception of the Orthodox Church of Greece, they will commune the faithful from all the canonical jurisdictions and are recognized by and in communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.
Due in part to the re-establishment of official ties between the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and the Moscow Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church of Greece has broken ecclesial communion with ROCOR, but the converse has not happened. Where the Old Calendar Romanian and Bulgarian churches stand on the matter is as yet unclear.
The Churches in resistance are:
These Churches do not practice Communion with any other Orthodox jurisdictions nor do they tend to recognize each other. Yet, like the Churches in resistance above, they consider themselves to be within the canonical boundaries of the Church: i.e., professing Orthodox belief, retaining what they believe to be legitimate apostolic succession, and existing in communities with historical continuity. Nevertheless, their relationship with all other Orthodox Churches remains unclear, as Orthodox Churches normally recognize and are recognized by others.
The following Churches recognize all other mainstream Orthodox Churches, but are not recognized by any of them due to various disputes:
The following Churches use the term "Orthodox" in their name and carries belief or the traditions of Eastern Orthodox church, but blend beliefs and traditions from other denominations outside of Eastern Orthodoxy: