§ 97. General Survey

III. THE AUTOCEPHALOUS BISHOPS OF TODAY

General Survey.

Corresponding to the twofold form of the supreme administrative organization in autocephalous churches, which was established in earlier times, in today’s autocephalous regional churches there exist two forms of this supreme administration: one is represented by councils that meet periodically, and the other by councils that are permanent, attached to the first episcopal sees of the respective autocephalous local churches. Both these periodic and these permanent councils constitute the supreme administrative organization, or organ of supreme authority, in the regional church concerned, and we have spoken of them specially in §91. But since these councils, in order to reach a valid resolution, must be held under the presidency of their lawful head—who represents the regional church concerned before the other regional churches and before the state authority—and since this same head, at times when the council is not in session, possesses, especially in those churches where periodic councils are held, particular rights distinct from those of the other hierarchs of the local church concerned; and since, finally, given such a position of these church heads, their election and installation in general differ from the installation of the other hierarchs—we shall now speak of that installation.

In the constitution of the Orthodox Church, so far as concerns the rights in question, the title borne by this or that first bishop of the respective autocephalous churches is of no significance. They are all equal among themselves in authority—whether called patriarchs, or exarchs, or metropolitans—so long as the administrative independence of the churches entrusted to them has been recognized by the competent authority, and so long as that independence has been approved by the universal (ecumenical) Church.