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. During the
medieval period, Orthodox empires wanted their church to be "equal" to the state and declare their own 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 (i.e. the Ecumenical Patriarchate), 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. 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 Honorary use of the term Within the
Patriarchate of Constantinople, the adjective
autocephalous was sometimes also used as an honorary designation, without connotations to real autocephaly. Such uses occurred in very specific situations. If a
diocesan bishop was exempt from
jurisdiction of his metropolitan, and also transferred to the direct jurisdiction of the patriarchal throne, such bishop would be styled as an "autocephalous archbishop" (self-headed, just in terms of not having a
metropolitan). Such honorary uses of the adjective
autocephalous were recorded in various
Notitiae Episcopatuum and other sources, mainly from the early medieval period. For example, until the end of the 8th century, bishop of
Amorium was under the jurisdiction of metropolitan of
Pessinus, but was later exempt and placed under direct patriarchal jurisdiction. On that occasion, he was given an honorary title of an
autocephalous archbishop, but with no jurisdiction over other bishops, and thus no real autocephaly. Sometime later (), metropolitan province of Amorium was created, and local archbishop gained regional jurisdiction as a metropolitan, still having no autocephaly since his province was under supreme jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. ==See also==