Organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, is a communion composed of up to seventeen separate autocephalous (self-governing) hierarchical churches that profess Eastern Orthodoxy and recognise each other as canonical (regular) Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. Each constituent church is self-governing; its highest-ranking bishop called the primate (a patriarch, a metropolitan or an archbishop) reports to no higher earthly authority. Each regional church is composed of constituent eparchies (or dioceses) ruled by bishops. Some autocephalous churches have given an eparchy or group of eparchies varying degrees of autonomy (limited self-government). Such autonomous churches maintain varying levels of dependence on their mother church, usually defined in a tomos or another 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 (often an archbishop or metropolitan) of the autonomous church. Normal governance is enacted through a synod of bishops within each church. The Eastern Orthodox Church is decentralised, having no central authority, earthly head or a single bishop in a leadership role. Thus, the Eastern Orthodox use a synodical system canonically, which is significantly different from the hierarchical organisation of the Catholic Church that follows the doctrine of papal supremacy. References to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as a sole authoritative leader are an erroneous interpretation of his title “first among equals". 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 Eastern Orthodox Church in some sources. The autocephalous churches are normally 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 the reception of the Eucharist.

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Related concepts (24)

Diptych

A diptych (ˈdɪptɪk; from the Greek δίπτυχον, di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world was a diptych consisting of a pair of such plates that contained a recessed space filled with wax. Writing was accomplished by scratching the wax surface with a stylus. When the notes were no longer needed, the wax could be slightly heated and then smoothed to allow reuse.

Organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church

Old Calendarists

Old Calendarists (Greek: palaioimerologitai or palaioimerologites), also known as Old Feasters (palaioeortologitai), Genuine Orthodox Christians or True Orthodox Christians (GOC; Γνήσιοι Ορθόδοξοι Χριστιανοί), are traditionalist groups of Eastern Orthodox Christians who separated from mainstream Eastern Orthodox churches because some of the latter adopted the revised Julian calendar while Old Calendarists remained committed to the Julian calendar. Old Calendarists are not in communion with any mainstream Eastern Orthodox churches.