§ 85. The Autonomy of the Regional Churches

In speaking of the unity of the Church, we have seen how the Church, one and ecumenical in its nature, presents to us in its earthly composition several regional churches, differing in the form of their constitution and possessing an autonomous administration.[1] This autonomy of the various regional churches that make up one ecumenical Church has its foundation both in Holy Scripture and in the earliest legislative acts of the Church itself. The Founder of the Church commands His apostles to preach the Gospel to all nations, without touching their social institutions; and the apostles, coming into various regions, founded local churches and set pastors over them, leaving it to them to order the church administration according to the social circumstances of the place, so that already within the lifetime of the apostles themselves several churches had been founded with a wholly autonomous administration of their own. The apostles themselves, in governing their own church, acted in this conciliarly; but in those places where they founded new churches they acted independently and each for himself, preserving only the unity of the spirit, while handing over the administration of those churches to their successors, who again acted in the very same way as the apostles.[2] By this the apostles themselves showed that, just as the ecumenical Church is to be governed by the assembly of the hierarchs of all the churches, so too every regional church that has been properly founded may lawfully have its own hierarchy and its own particular administration[3] — the more so since heavenly grace is expressly promised to every such properly founded regional church.[4] Being penetrated with the awareness of this, the very first ecumenical councils confirmed by legislative means to the respective regional churches their particular rights and customs and their autonomy, thus giving the force of law to what had been established by custom over several centuries from apostolic times.[5] These same councils tell us, in their canons, in what the autonomy of the regional churches consists, namely: a) in the independence of the hierarchy of one church from another;[6] b) in the hierarchical rights and privileges of some churches before others;[7] c) in the rights of local legislation and independent courts;[8] and d) in the particularity of local customs and church rites.[9] But while recognizing the autonomy of the regional churches, the canons at the same time, out of regard for the unity of the Church, do not permit the regional churches: a) to compose a new teaching of the faith, or to abandon anything of the general teaching;[10] b) to depart in their administration from the fundamental laws of the ecumenical Church;[11] c) to introduce any innovations into that which has been consecrated by apostolic tradition and has been preserved through the centuries in the Church;[12] d) to break spiritual unity with the other churches;[1] and e) to violate the local rights and customs of other churches.[13]