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Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, the Nation-State, and the Specter of Byzantium
George Demacopolous
George Demacopolous
While it is customary for Orthodox Christians to look to canonical legis-lation when they seek to evaluate the challenges of the contemporary world, it is rarely the case that inquirers prop-erly account for the full context or Sitz im Leben of the canons. And while one might make a case for the timeless in-sight of canonical prescriptions when dealing with dogmatic teaching or moral prohibitions, it is less appropri-ate to do so when trying to apply the canons to issues of ecclesiastical juris-diction, such as the question of auto-cephaly. This is because ecclesiastical borders in the Orthodox Church have always reflected broader geopolitical realities, if somewhat belatedly, and this is precisely the context in which the few canons that speak to these issues emerged. In other words, the canons on questions of jurisdiction do not offer theological verdicts but sim-ply confirm that the ecclesiastical map of the Byzantine church should mirror the jurisdictional framework of the imperial provincial network. Perhaps even more problematic for the mod-ern appropriation of these canons is the fact that they presume an imperial superstructure that no longer exists.
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