The structure of the church

The canons

The basic structure for the Orthodox church is defined by the New Testament writings; the canons (regulations and decrees) of the first seven ecumenical councils; the canons of several local or provincial councils, whose authority was recognized by the whole church; the so-called Apostolic Canons (actually some regulations of the church in Syria, dating from the 4th century); and the “canons of the Fathers,” or selected extracts from prominent church leaders having canonical importance. The various canons were later compiled in the Byzantine nomocanon, attributed in its final form to the patriarch Photius (9th century). The Byzantine church, as well as the modern Orthodox church, adapted the general principles of this collection to its particular situation.

The canons themselves do not represent a system or a code. They do, however, reflect a consistent view of the church, of its mission, and of its various ministries. They also reflect an evolution of ecclesiastical structure. For the Orthodox church today, only the original self-understanding of the church has a theologically normative value. Thus, those canons that reflect the nature of the church as the body of Christ have an unchanging validity today. Other canons, if they can be recognized as conditioned by the historical situation in which they were issued, are subject to change by conciliar authority, and others have simply fallen out of practice. The use and interpretation of the canons is therefore possible only in the light of some understanding of the church’s nature. This theological dimension is the ultimate criterion through which it is possible to distinguish what is permanent in the canons from that which represents no more than a historical value.

The episcopate

The Orthodox understanding of the church is based on the principle, attested to in the canons and in early Christian tradition, that each local community of Christians, gathered around its bishop and celebrating the Eucharist, is the local realization of the whole body of Christ. “Where Christ is, there is the Catholic church,” wrote St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 100 ce). Modern Orthodox theology also emphasizes that the office of bishop is the highest among the sacramental ministries and that there is therefore no divinely established authority over that of the bishop in his own community, or diocese. Neither the local churches nor the bishops, however, can or should live in isolation. The wholeness of church life, realized in each local community, is regarded as identical to that of the other local churches in the present and in the past. This identity and continuity is manifested in the act of the ordination of bishops, an act that requires the presence of several other bishops in order to constitute a conciliar act and to witness to the continuity of apostolic succession and tradition.

The bishop is primarily the guardian of the faith and, as such, the centre of the sacramental life of the community. The Orthodox church maintains the doctrine of apostolic succession—i.e., the idea that the ministry of the bishop must be in direct continuity with that of the Apostles of Jesus. Orthodox tradition—as expressed especially in its medieval opposition to the Roman papacy—distinguishes the office of “Apostle” from that of bishop, however, in that the first is viewed as a universal witness to the historical Jesus and his Resurrection while the latter is understood in terms of the pastoral and sacramental responsibility for a local community, or church. The continuity between the two is, therefore, a continuity in faith rather than in function.

No bishop can be consecrated or exercise his ministry without being in unity with his colleagues—i.e., being a member of an episcopal council, or synod. After the Council of Nicaea (325), whose canons are still effective in the Orthodox church, each province of the Roman Empire had its own synod of bishops that acted as a fully independent unit for the consecration of new bishops and also as a high ecclesiastical tribunal. In the contemporary Orthodox church these functions are fulfilled by the synod of each autocephalous church. In the early church the bishop of the provincial capital acted as chairman of the synod and was generally called metropolitan. Today this function is fulfilled by the local primate who is sometimes called patriarch (in the autocephalous churches of Constantinople [Istanbul], Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russia, Georgia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine), but he may also carry the title of archbishop (in Cyprus and Greece) or metropolitan (in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the United States). The titles of archbishop and metropolitan are also widely used as honorific distinctions.

The jurisdiction of each autocephalous synod generally coincides with national borders—with numerous exceptions in the Middle East (e.g., in the jurisdiction of Constantinople over the Greek islands and the jurisdiction of Antioch over several Arab states)—and also concerns the national dioceses of the Orthodox diaspora (e.g., in western Europe, Australia, and the United States), which frequently remain under the authority of their mother churches. The latter situation led to an uncanonical overlapping of Orthodox jurisdictions, all based on ethnic origins. Several factors, originating in the Middle Ages, have contributed to modern ecclesiastical nationalism in the Orthodox church. These factors include the use of the vernacular in the liturgy and the subsequent identification of religion with national culture.

Clergy and laity

The emphasis on communion and fellowship as the basic principle of church life inhibited the development of clericalism, the tradition of enhancing the power of the church hierarchy. The early Christian practice of lay participation in episcopal elections never disappeared completely in the East. In modern times it has been restored in several churches, including those in the United States. Besides being admitted, at least in some areas, to participation in episcopal elections, Orthodox laymen often occupy positions in church administration and in theological education. In Greece almost all professional theologians are laymen. Laymen also frequently serve as preachers.

The lower orders of the clergy— priests and deacons—are generally married men. The present canonical legislation allows the ordination of married men to the diaconate and the priesthood, provided that they were married only once and that their wives are neither widows nor divorcees. These stipulations reflect the general principle of absolute monogamy, which the Eastern church considered as a Christian norm to which candidates for the priesthood are to comply strictly. Deacons and priests cannot marry after their ordination. Bishops are selected from among the unmarried clergy or widowed priests. The rule defining the requirement for an unmarried episcopate was issued at a time (6th century) when monks represented the elite of the clergy. The contemporary decrease in the number of monks in the Orthodox church has created a serious problem in some territorial churches, as new candidates for the episcopacy are difficult to find.

Monasticism

Eastern Christian monasticism began in the 3rd and 4th centuries of the Christian era. From its beginning it was essentially a contemplative movement seeking the experience of God in a life of permanent prayer. Concern for prayer, as the central and principal function of monasticism, does not mean that the Eastern Christian monastic movement was of a single uniform character. Eremitic (solitary) monasticism, favouring the personal and individual practice of prayer and asceticism, often competed with cenobitic (communal) monastic life, in which prayer was mainly liturgical and corporate. The two forms of monasticism originated in Egypt and coexisted in Byzantium as well as throughout eastern Europe.

In Byzantium the great monastery of Studion became the model of numerous cenobitic communities. It is in the framework of the eremitic, or Hesychast, tradition, however, that the most-noted Byzantine mystical theologians, such as St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas, received their training. One of the major characteristics of the Hesychast tradition is the practice of the Jesus prayer, or constant invocation of the name of Jesus, sometimes in connection with breathing. This practice won wide acceptance in medieval and modern Russia. Cenobitic traditions of Byzantium also were important in Slavic lands. The colonization of the Russian north was largely accomplished by monks who acted as pioneers of civilization and as missionaries.

In Byzantium as well as in other areas of the Orthodox world, the monks were often the only upholders of the moral and spiritual integrity of Christianity, and thus they gained the respect of the masses as well as that of the intellectuals. The famous Russian startsy (“elders”) of the 19th century became the spiritual leaders of the great Russian writers Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolay Gogol, and Leo Tolstoy and inspired many philosophers in their quest for religious experience.

Since the 1970s, when a resurgence in the admission of new monks began, the most famous centre of Orthodox monasticism has been Mount Athos in Greece. In this remote location more than 1,000 monks of different national backgrounds are grouped into a monastic republic—a federation of 20 self-governing monasteries and smaller monastic communities whose governor is appointed by the Greek minister of foreign affairs and whose spiritual head is the ecumenical patriarch.