AUTOCEPHALOUS CHURCHES. - "Autocephalous Churches" is the general name for particular Churches that do not depend on any other Church and govern themselves in a completely independent and autonomous manner. According to the Catholic conception, only one particular Church is fully autocephalous by right, namely the Church of the diocese of Rome, since it has as its pastor the bishop of that city, the successor of Peter in his supremacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church. All the other particular Churches, being subject to this primate and manifestly acknowledging him as head, cannot be called autocephalous in the true sense of the word. In the Catholic system there cannot be autocephalous Churches in the plural.
I. VARIOUS KINDS OF AUTOCEPHALY
This holds if the term autocephaly 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the Church of the island of Cyprus was commonly called autocephalous from the Council of Ephesus onward, because it was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch and governed itself without any intervention of a patriarch. But this kind of autocephaly did not break the bond of subordination that bound this Church to the Bishop of Rome by virtue of the right of universal supremacy. Among the Byzantines there was also sometimes talk of autocephalous bishops or archbishops. These are 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 moment onward, were no longer bound to one of the four patriarchates may likewise be qualified as autocephalous, as was the case, for example, of the Armenian Church from the year 374. These patriarchates, in fact, governed themselves autonomously; but it was always a relative autonomy, because the Bishop of Rome retained his right of intervention 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 from the Bishop of Rome, the common center of ecclesiastical unity, certain Churches or groups of Churches, which organized themselves outside any intervention of the universal primate and no longer admitted his interference in their activity. This happened, in the 5th century, for the Monophysite groups of Egypt, Syria and Armenia, and also for 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 forever in its separatism. The Byzantine Church, in its turn, became completely autocephalous from the moment it definitively withdrew from the authority of the Roman Pontiff.
If one now investigates on the basis of what principles the absolute autocephalies organized themselves, no uniformity is found. Among the Monophysite autocephalies the properly so-called ethnic or racial principle prevailed, which divides the Churches according to race and language. Thus there arose the Egyptian or Coptic Church, the Syrian Jacobite Church, the Armenian Church known as Gregorian. The autocephaly of the Nestorian Church was rather dominated by the properly so-called nationalist principle, which multiplies independent groups, not precisely according to race or language, but according to the number of independent political States: to every independent nation there corresponds 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 for it from any relation with the Churches of foreign territories. The nationalist principle likewise dominated in the organization of the autocephalous groups derived from the ancient Byzantine Church; but it was not the only one. The three patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem preserved themselves through all political vicissitudes and changes of frontier by virtue of the principle of apostolic origin, although, during a certain period, the Patriarch of Constantinople imposed on these Churches his supremacy and jurisdiction, which he claimed to substitute for the Roman supremacy of the first centuries. Before the World War of 1914-18 there existed several autocephalies of the Byzantine rite 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 dioceses or autonomous groups of faithful wherever there were Bulgarians by race, without regard to the frontiers of independent States or nations. In our own days the racial or phyletic principle is developing more and more, especially in the two Americas and among the dispersed Russians.
II. THE AUTOcephalous CHURCHES OF THE BYZANTINE RITE
When people speak, in the West, of autocephalous Churches, they habitually mean the autocephalous Churches of the Byzantine rite, whose aggregate constitutes what is commonly called the Orthodox Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church, which some designate by the name of Greek-Russian Church, Greek-Slavic Church, Schismatic Church of the East: all more or less improper designations. Each of these Churches, except the three Eastern patriarchates and the Church of Cyprus, arose successively from the ancient patriarchate of Constantinople, above all by virtue of national autocephalism, which, as has been said, multiplies autocephalies according to the number of independent States. This principle explains the more or less great number of autocephalies, which depends, in effect, on political events and on the frontiers of States. Before the war of 1914 there were counted 16 autocephalies or autonomies. After it the number was almost doubled. The racial criterion or phyletism also exercises its influence here.
Etymologically the two terms autonomy and autocephaly prove to be synonyms; an autocephalous Church is also autonomous. In reality, however, in the Byzantine group of which we are speaking, there is a marked difference between the autocephalous Churches properly so called and the autonomous Churches. Autocephaly is constituted by a Church fully independent and which admits no interference by any other sister Church in its own affairs, even the gravest: it recognizes theoretically, as superior authority, only that, should it occur, of the ecumenical council.
Autonomy is an autocephaly in the process of formation: it still preserves some bond of subordination in the face of the mother autocephaly from which it has detached itself, that is, from the patriarchate of Constantinople. The latter reserves to itself the right to ordain the first prelate of the autonomous Church, to supply it with the holy chrism, to send it an exarch or delegate in the case of exceptionally grave affairs in order to conduct an inquiry, to receive appeals, etc. Considering it on the political plane, one may compare autonomy to an English dominion or to a very broad protectorate.
This system of Byzantine autocephalous Churches comes to suppress the unity of government or of permanent central authority. Each autocephalous Church constitutes a religious society that is numerically distinct from the sister Churches, independent of each of them, having its own particular organization, and its own supreme authority, habitually represented by a college or synod. We have an aggregate of independent republics, which cannot be considered as a confederation properly so called, because a common central authority is lacking. In theory, there is the ecumenical council, which every autocephaly recognizes as supreme authority. But besides being a transitory authority, the ecumenical council is, for these Churches, a veritable myth. After the schism, it has never again been assembled and cannot be assembled either de jure or de facto, because of the divergent opinions that exist among Greek-Russian theologians on the conditions of such an assembly.
Lacking the unity of government, the system nevertheless claims to safeguard the unity of faith, of ecclesiastical communion, of discipline and of liturgy. In effect, only liturgical unity has been sufficiently safeguarded down to the present day. To find among these Churches a certain unity of faith, one must reduce it to the strict minimum of the definitions expressed by the first seven ecumenical councils. Disciplinary or canonical unity exists only for a small number of rules or canons still observed, an inheritance of the legislation of the ancient Byzantine Church.
The organic statutes of the majority of the autocephalous Churches have often changed and are laws imposed by the secular power, which in these Churches represents the part of the Pope in the Catholic Church. And it is in effect the true supreme authority, to which they are obliged to submit. As for the unity of ecclesiastical communion (communicatio in sacris), it no longer exists practically after the Bulgarian schism of 1872 and after several other scissions produced in recent times between certain autocephalies. The internal divisions of the Russians, dispersed in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution, have given it the death blow.
We now have numerous autocephalies that communicate in sacris with other autocephalies, which anathematize one another mutually. 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 mutually communicate to one another the important decisions that they take and that may be of general interest. In the decrees or tomes of autocephaly, issued by the patriarch of Constantinople, the latter recommends to the Churches to consult, in such a case, with the ecumenical patriarchate. This recommendation very often remains a dead letter: one example, among several 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 is, set out in broad outline, the system of the autocephalous Churches derived from the ancient Byzantine Church. This system has its panegyrists, who are wont to compare 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 marvelously reconciling unity with liberty; of favoring patriotism, of multiplying the autonomous centers of development and progress; of keeping at an equal distance from Protestant anarchy and from papal tyranny. Unfortunately, this idyllic picture does not exist in reality. In fact the Church pays for the advantages enumerated with the loss or the diminution of its unity, of its independence, of its universalist and catholic character, of its true religious influence over souls. Moreover, from the doctrinal point of view, the question is not to know which is, in theory, the best form of ecclesiastical government, but which is the constitution that Jesus Christ chose for his Church in founding it. The New Testament and the tradition of the ancient Church give to the question a very clear answer, which is not in favor of nationalist autocephalism and much less of racial or phyletic autocephalism.