§ 86. The Autonomous Regional Churches of the Older Period

The Fourth Ecumenical Council, by its 17th canon, ordains that in the ordering of church districts the political ordering of the lands is to be followed. This same ordinance was repeated by the Council in Trullo in its 38th canon. This is a general rule which the Church has followed from its very beginning, and to which these two ecumenical councils gave only legal expression.[1] We find this already in the period before Constantine the Great, when a new division of the Greco-Roman state was established, and we find the same in every period thereafter. According to the importance of the respective city in political terms on the one hand, and, on the other, with regard to whether a church had been founded directly or indirectly by an apostle, judgment was made as to the hierarchical rank of the bishop of that city, and likewise as to the autonomy that was to be recognized for this or that local church.

In the apostolic epistles the churches are already divided according to the political division. The most extensive church districts bear the name of whole regions, for example the churches of Asia;[2] smaller districts are called by the name of provinces, as the Macedonian church;[3] and smaller still by the name of the chief cities in the provinces, as the Thessalonian,[4] the Ephesian,[5] and so on. Each of these churches had its own particular administration, while their common administration was centered in the chief cities of the district. The Apostle Paul, on leaving the churches in Asia, addresses the pastors of Ephesus and entrusts to them the care of the church administration of that whole district, of which Ephesus was the chief city.[6] He does the same with regard to the churches of Achaia, addressing the Christians of Corinth, which was the capital of Achaia.[7] This apostolic practice is likewise reflected in the canons that were first issued in the Church, and in which hierarchical rights are always spoken of with regard to the national and political standing of the cities in which the respective churches were located.[8]

The canonical principle mentioned above, governing the ordering of church districts, was applied in full when a new division of the state was proclaimed.[9] The First Ecumenical Council gives the force of law to the division of the churches that existed in its own time and that rested on custom. It confirmed by name the autonomous rights and privileges of the churches in Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Caesarea;[10] but from canon 6 of this same council it can be seen that other church districts also existed (ἐν ἄλλαις ἐπαρχίαις) which enjoyed rights and privileges equal to those of the four mentioned, and whose privileges it confirms. Among these districts with an autonomous administration was, in the prefecture of the East, the church at Ephesus; in the prefecture of Western Illyricum, the church at Sirmium; and in that of Eastern Illyricum, the church at Thessalonica; in the remaining two prefectures the autonomous churches were at Milan, Carthage, Lyon, Toledo, and Eboracum (York).[11] The Second Ecumenical Council, following Constantine’s division of the state, established a corresponding church division with regard to the eastern churches, leaving the western churches under the previous division.[12] The Third Ecumenical Council, confirming what had already been done before it in this regard, recognized, along with the other autonomous church districts, the autonomy of the Cypriot church as well.[13] The Fourth Ecumenical Council likewise confirmed the then-existing division of the church districts in the East, and, on the basis of canon 3 of the Second Ecumenical Council, confirmed the honors enjoyed by the see of Constantinople; and because Constantinople was the new imperial capital, this council further added to it authority over a certain district.[14] Finally, at the Council in Trullo the final division of the church districts of the whole Christian world was established, and a hierarchical order among the heads of these districts was set. In the West there was but one chief hierarch, namely the high priest of Rome. Of the five political dioceses of the eastern prefecture, the Asian was united with the eastern in the narrower sense, and the remaining four had as their chief cities: Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Caesarea. The hierarch of this last city was made subordinate to the hierarch of Jerusalem, for the sake of the holy memory of that city. Taking this situation into account, the Council in Trullo, in its 36th canon, confirmed the privileges of the hierarchs of these cities, namely, that the first should be that of Rome, the second that of Constantinople, the third that of Alexandria, the fourth that of Antioch, and the fifth that of Jerusalem.[15] Of the other autonomous churches of the West this council makes no mention, while of the eastern churches it confirms the autonomy of the Cypriot church.[16]

Besides these, the canonical sources also mention further autonomous churches: the Nea Justiniana [church], from the sixth century, and the Iberian, or Georgian, church, to which autonomy was granted by a council of Antioch during the time of the Patriarch Peter of Antioch.[17]

In this way, the canonical sources mention, as autonomous in constitution and administration from the older period, besides the western churches, in the East the churches of: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Nea Justiniana, and Iberia. The Nea Justiniana [church] existed for only a short time, and as a result of the incursions of the Avars, even the city itself, in which the see of the chief bishop of this church district had been, disappeared in the seventh century.[18] The same subsequently happened also to the autonomous Iberian church.[19]

Besides the aforementioned autonomous churches of the older period, there were also: the Bulgarian Patriarchate of Tarnovo, which was already abolished in the fourteenth century;[20] the Bulgarian-Serbian Archbishopric of Ohrid, abolished in the second half of the eighteenth century;[21] and the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć, abolished in 1766.[22]