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RELIGION AND CHURCH IN RUSSIA AND WORLDWIDE
Kyrlezhev, Alexander (2016) “Orthodox Commonwealth: A Typology of Autocephalous Churches”, Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 34(1): 74-101.
The paper explores the relationships between the fourteen independent
Eastern Orthodox churches making part of a so called diptychon — a list
of churches placed in order of “honor”. These fourteen churches take
part at the Pan-Orthodox Council in June 2016. The author firstly
defines the current meaning of church “autocephalous” status and then
creates a typology of the Orthodox ecclesiastical subjects drawing upon
history, current situation, and structural features. The paper concludes
that any strict typology is impossible to develop, while the
differences in particular aspects would not help to represent the
configuration of the entire Orthodox commonwealth. Instead, the paper
develops grouping by certain paradigms: national/transnational;
anachronic/diachronic, national/imperial. Also, the paper introduces a
new paradigm of a “diffused church” that overlaps with the above
paradigms. The paper then deals with the distinction between the
“symbolic” and the “real” aspects of church constitution and church
self-perception.
