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Orthodox Religion study materials
Orthodox Religion study resources

Orthodox Religion: Church History: Post-Schism, Autocephaly, and the Modern Era

Orthodox Religion · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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Church History: Post-Schism, Autocephaly, and the Modern Era

This domain tests how the Orthodox Church has organised itself since the schism: union attempts, life under Ottoman and Communist rule, the emergence of autocephalous churches, the diaspora, and the modern conciliar movement.

Unions and captivity

  • The Latin occupation of Constantinople (1204–1261); the Union of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439), both rejected by the Orthodox faithful.
  • After 1453 the Ecumenical Patriarch functioned as ethnarch of the Orthodox millet; martyrs such as Patriarch Gregory V (1821) mark the period.

Autocephaly

  • Moscow became de facto autocephalous in 1448 by electing Jonah without Constantinople; the patriarchate was established in 1589, abolished by Peter I's Spiritual Regulation (1721) and restored in 1917.
  • Greece declared autocephaly in 1833, receiving the tomos in 1850; Serbia 1879 (restored 1920); Romania 1885 (patriarchate 1925); Bulgaria 1870, in schism until 1945; Georgia 1917, recognised 1943; Poland 1924; Albania 1937.
  • Autocephaly is granted by a mother church through a tomos, involves election of a head and commemoration in the diptychs, and requires recognition by the other churches. The 2016 council proposed consensus as the procedure; practice remains contested.

The modern era

  • The Russian Revolution produced ROCOR (1920) and the Paris school (Bulgakov, Florovsky, Lossky).
  • Orthodox churches joined the WCC in 1961; the Great and Holy Council met in Crete in 2016 with ten churches present and four absent.
  • Constantinople granted a tomos to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in January 2019; Moscow and several others do not recognise it.

Worked example

"Does autocephaly mean independence?" No. An autocephalous church elects its own head and governs its internal affairs, but remains in Eucharistic communion, shares dogma and canon law, and is recognised by the other churches. The reasoning is: autonomy concerns internal administration under a mother church; autocephaly concerns self-governance with full communion. The Ukrainian case shows that a tomos without wider recognition produces a canonical dispute, not automatic independence.

Traps

  • Equating autocephaly with doctrinal independence.
  • Confusing autonomy with autocephaly.
  • Assuming all fourteen churches attended Crete in 2016.
  • Treating Florence 1439 as accepted by the Orthodox Church.