AUTOCEPHALY

In Greek, αὐτός (self) and κεφαλή (head), literally "self-headed," a term in common usage in the Christian East. It refers to a self-governing church with the power to appoint its own primate (patriarch, catholicos or metropolitan) and other exarchs (bishops), and the right to resolve its internal problems on its own. Autocephalous churches are also to be distinguished from autonomous churches. Although they share many common elements, they differ from each other on the crucial question of jurisdiction. Autocephalous churches are not dependent on another church for leadership, ecclesial life, and mission. Autonomous churches, while having the autonomy to regulate their daily affairs, are nevertheless canonically dependent on, and subordinated to, an autocephalous church. In practical terms, this means that important decisions such as the appointment of a leader (metropolitan or major archbishop) must be ratified by the holy synod of the parent autocephalous church.

Historically, autocephaly denoted an ecclesiastical independence within the framework of Church organization and, legally, meant a juridical exemption from any subordination to such established authority on a praeter legem basis. Some of these Churches existed entirely within the boundaries of one state (ethnarch), others within a political framework comprising various nationalities, in accordance with former metropolitan provinces and their dioceses whose bishops met regularly in synod and elected their own primate. Their relative rank was determined by a kind of hierarchy of honor, with the Ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople at its head. Among the ancient patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, the order of precedence was fixed at the Council of Chalcedon, and, later, the Patriarchate of Moscow (established in 1589) assumed fifth place. Other autocephalous Churches were assigned rank in accordance with the date of their achieving ecclesiastical independence—the Church of Cyprus (431), the Church of Sinai (sixth century), the Bulgarian Church (927), the Serbian Church (1220), the Church of Georgia, under its own Catholicos, the Church of Greece (1833), the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church (1923), the Church of Finland (1923), the Polish Orthodox Church (1924), the Albanian Church (1937), and so forth. As for the Church of Georgia, its original autocephalous status dated from the fifth century. In 1817 this status was abolished, and it was annexed to the Russian Church and governed by a Russian exarch. In 1917 it recovered its autocephalous status, which was recognized by the patriarch of Moscow in 1943.

Bibliography: d. attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, 2 v. (Milwaukee 1946–47). j. hackett, A History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus (London 1901). j. meyendorff, The Orthodox Church, tr. j. chapin (New York 1962). s. h. scott, The Eastern Churches and the Papacy (London 1928).

[l. nemec/eds.]