AUTOCEFALE, CHIESE. – In general, the particular Churches that depend on no other Church and govern themselves in a wholly independent and autonomous manner are called autocephalous Churches. According to the Catholic conception, only one particular Church is fully autocephalous by right, namely the Church of the diocese of Rome, since its pastor is the bishop of this city, Peter’s successor in his supremacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church. All the other particular Churches, being subject to this primacy and expressly recognizing him as their head, cannot be called autocephalous in the true sense of the word. In the Catholic system, there can be no autocephalous Churches in the plural.
I. VARIOUS KINDS OF AUTOCEPHALY. — This holds if the term a. is taken in its absolute sense. But in the ancient Church autocephaly was sometimes understood in a relative sense. Thus the Church of the island of Cyprus was commonly called a. from the time of the Council of Ephesus, because it was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Antioch and governed itself without any intervention by a patriarch. But this kind of autocephaly did not sever the bond of subordination that linked this Church to the bishop of Rome by virtue of the right of universal supremacy. Among the Byzantines there was also occasional talk of autocephalous bishops or archbishops. These were bishops who withdrew from the jurisdiction of their metropolitan and depended directly on the patriarch of Constantinople: another example of relative autocephaly. The ancient patriarchates of the East and the other Eastern Churches that, from a certain point onward, were no longer linked to one of the four patriarchates may likewise be described as a.; such was the case, for example, with the Armenian Church from the year 374 onward. These patriarchates, in fact, governed themselves autonomously; but this was still a relative autonomy, because the bishop of Rome retained his right to intervene in their affairs—an intervention that, as history teaches, manifested itself especially in cases of appeal and when the faith was at stake.
Absolute autocephaly began on the day when schism and heresy separated certain Churches or groups of Churches from the bishop of Rome, the common center of ecclesiastical unity; these Churches organized themselves without any intervention by the universal primate and no longer admitted his interference in their activity. This occurred, in the 5th century, among the Monophysite groups of Egypt, Syria, and Armenia, and also in the Church of Persia, which as early as 424, at the Synod of Markabba, decided to break off all communication with the rest of Christendom, before embracing the Nestorian heresy, which confirmed it permanently in its separatism. The Byzantine Church, for its part, became completely a. from the time when it definitively withdrew from the authority of the Roman Pontiff.
If one now investigates the principles on the basis of which absolute autocephalies were organized, one finds no uniformity. Among the Monophysite autocephalies, the properly ethnic or racial principle prevailed, dividing the Churches according to race and language. Thus there arose the Egyptian or Coptic Church, the Jacobite Syrian Church, and the Armenian Church known as Gregorian. The autocephaly of the Nestorian Church was governed rather by the properly nationalist principle, which multiplies independent groups not precisely according to race or language, but according to the number of independent political states: each independent nation corresponds to an independent religious group, a national Church. The Church of Persia proclaimed its autonomy even before becoming Nestorian, because of the danger of persecution that would have resulted from any relationship with the Churches of foreign territories. The nationalist principle also prevailed in the organization of the a. groups derived from the ancient Byzantine Church, but it was not the only one. The three patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem survived through all political vicissitudes and changes of frontier by virtue of the principle of apostolic origin, although, for a certain period, the patriarch of Constantinople imposed his supremacy and jurisdiction on these Churches, claiming to substitute them for the Roman supremacy of the first centuries. Before the First World War of 1914–18, several autocephalies of the Byzantine rite existed within the single Austro-Hungarian Empire. Also strictly racial or phyletic, as the Greeks say (from φυλή “race, tribe”), was the Bulgarian Church or exarchate, which constituted autonomous dioceses or groups of the faithful wherever Bulgarians by race were found, without regard for the boundaries of independent states or nations. In our own day the racial or phyletic principle is developing ever more strongly, especially in the two Americas and among dispersed Russians.
II. THE AUTOCEPHALOUS CHURCHES OF THE BYZANTINE RITE. – When, in the West, one speaks of autocephalous Churches, one habitually means the autocephalous Churches of the Byzantine rite, the whole of which constitutes what is commonly called the Orthodox Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church, and which some designate by the names Greek-Russian Church, Greek-Slavic Church, Schismatic Church of the East: all more or less improper designations. Each of these Churches, with the exception of the three Eastern patriarchates and the Cypriot Church, arose subsequently from the ancient patriarchate of Constantinople, chiefly by virtue of national autocephalism, which, as has been said, multiplies autocephalies according to the number of independent States. This principle explains the greater or lesser number of autocephalies, which in fact depends on political events and the frontiers of the States. Before the war of 1914, there were 16 autocephalies or autonomies. After it, the number was almost doubled. The racial or phyletic criterion also exercises its influence here.
Etymologically, the two terms autonomy and autocephaly are synonymous; an autocephalous Church is also autonomous. In reality, however, within the Byzantine group under discussion, there is a marked difference between the properly so-called autocephalous Churches and the autonomous Churches. Autocephaly is constituted by a fully independent Church that does not admit the interference of any other sister Church in its affairs, even in the most serious matters: theoretically, it recognizes no higher authority except that of a possible ecumenical council.
Autonomy is an autocephaly in the process of formation: it still retains some bond of subordination to the mother autocephaly from which it has separated, that is, to the patriarchate of Constantinople. The latter reserves the right to ordain the first prelate of the autonomous Church, to provide it with sacred chrism, to send it an exarch or delegate in cases of exceptionally serious affairs in order to conduct an inquiry, to receive appeals, etc. Considered on the political level, autonomy may be compared to an English dominion or a very broad protectorate.
This system of Byzantine autocephalous Churches suppresses unity of government or of a permanent central authority. Each autocephalous Church constitutes a religious society numerically distinct from the sister Churches, independent of each of them, possessing its own particular organization and its own supreme authority, usually represented by a college or synod. We have a group of independent republics, which cannot properly be considered a confederation, because a common central authority is lacking. In theory, there is the ecumenical council, which every autocephaly recognizes as the supreme authority. But besides being a transitory authority, the ecumenical council is, for these Churches, a genuine myth. Since the schism, it has never met again, and it can be convened neither in law nor in fact, on account of the divergent opinions existing among Greek-Russian theologians concerning the conditions for such an assembly.
Although unity of government is lacking, the system nevertheless claims to safeguard unity of faith, ecclesiastical communion, discipline, and liturgy. In fact, only liturgical unity has been sufficiently preserved to the present day. To find a certain unity of faith among these Churches, one must reduce it to the strict minimum of the definitions expressed by the first seven ecumenical councils. Disciplinary or canonical unity exists only in a small number of rules or canons still observed, an inheritance from the legislation of the ancient Byzantine Church.
The organic statutes of most of the autocephalous Churches have often changed and are laws imposed by the secular power, which in these Churches plays the part of the Pope in the Catholic Church. And it is in fact the true supreme authority, to which they are obliged to submit. As for the unity of ecclesiastical communion (communicatio in sacris), it has no longer existed in practice since the Bulgarian schism of 1872 and since several other divisions that have arisen in recent times among certain autocephalies. The internal divisions of the Russians, dispersed following the Bolshevik revolution, dealt it the final blow.
We now have numerous autocephalies that communicate in sacris with other autocephalies, which anathematize one another. The principle “the friends of our friends are our friends; the enemies of our enemies are our enemies” is no longer applied. In theory, the autocephalies must communicate to one another the important decisions they make that may be of general interest. In the decrees or tomes of autocephaly issued by the patriarch of Constantinople, he recommends that the Churches, in such cases, consult the ecumenical patriarchate. This recommendation very often remains a dead letter: one example, among many others, is that of the Romanian Church, which in 1925 changed itself into a patriarchate without informing either the ecumenical patriarchate or the other Churches.
Such, in broad outline, is the system of the autocephalous Churches derived from the ancient Byzantine Church. This system has its panegyrists, who customarily contrast it with the unitary and centralizing constitution of the Roman Church. They extol its advantages, which would be those of suppressing every struggle between priesthood and empire, between civil and ecclesiastical power; of wonderfully reconciling unity with freedom; of fostering patriotism, multiplying autonomous centers of development and progress; and of maintaining an equal distance from Protestant anarchy and papal tyranny. Unfortunately, this idyllic picture does not exist in reality. Indeed, the Church pays for the enumerated advantages with the loss or diminution of its unity, its independence, its universalist and catholic character, and its true religious influence over souls. Moreover, from the doctrinal point of view, the question is not which, in theory, is the best form of ecclesiastical government, but which constitution Jesus Christ chose for his Church when founding II. The New Testament and the tradition of the ancient Church give the question a very clear answer, which does not favor nationalist autocephalism, and still less racial or phyletic autocephalism.