Eastern Orthodox Church Organization
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Eastern Orthodox Church Organization
The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, is a communion comprising the seventeen separate autocephalous (self-governing) hierarchical churches that recognise each other as canonical (regular) Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. Each constituent church is self-governing; its highest-ranking bishop called the primate (a patriarch, a metropolitan or an archbishop) reports to no higher earthly authority. Each regional church is composed of constituent eparchies (or dioceses) ruled by bishops. Some autocephalous churches have given an eparchy or group of eparchies varying degrees of autonomy (limited self-government). Such autonomous churches maintain varying levels of dependence on their mother church, usually defined in a ''tomos'' or other document of autonomy. In many cases, autonomous churches are almost completely self-governing, with the mother church retaining only the right to appoint the highest-ranking bishop (often an archbishop or metropo ...
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Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the head of the Roman Catholic Church—the Pope—but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognized by them as '' primus inter pares'' ("first among equals"), which may be explained as a representative of the church. As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The Eastern Orthodox Church officially calls itself the Orthodox Catholic Church. Eastern Orthodox theology is based on holy tradition, which incorporates the dogmatic decrees of the seven ecumenical councils, the Scriptures, and the teachin ...
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Papal Supremacy
Papal supremacy is the doctrine of the Catholic Church that the Pope, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, the visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful, and as pastor of the entire Catholic Church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered: that, in brief, "the Pope enjoys, by divine institution, supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls." The doctrine had the most significance in the relationship between the church and the temporal state, in matters such as ecclesiastic privileges, the actions of monarchs and even successions. Institution of papal supremacy The Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy is based on the idea that it was instituted by Christ and that papal succession is traced back to Peter the Apostle in the 1st century. The authority for the position is derived from the Confession of Peter documented ...
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First Council Of Constantinople
The First Council of Constantinople ( la, Concilium Constantinopolitanum; grc-gre, Σύνοδος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in AD 381 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. This second ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, except for the Western Church,Richard Kieckhefer (1989). "Papacy". ''Dictionary of the Middle Ages''. . confirmed the Nicene Creed, expanding the doctrine thereof to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and dealt with sundry other matters. It met from May to July 381 in the Church of Hagia Irene and was affirmed as ecumenical in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon. Background When Theodosius ascended to the imperial throne in 380, he began on a campaign to bring the Eastern Church back to Nicene Christianity. Theodosius wanted to further unify the entire empire behind the ...
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Primacy Of The Roman Pontiff
Papal primacy, also known as the primacy of the bishop of Rome, is a Roman Catholic ecclesiological doctrine concerning the respect and authority that is due to the pope from other bishops and their episcopal sees. The doctrine is accepted at a fundamental level by both the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church, though the two disagree on the nature of primacy. English academic and Catholic priest Aidan Nichols wrote that "at root, only one issue of substance divides the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Churches, and that is the issue of the primacy." French Eastern Orthodox researcher Jean-Claude Larchet wrote that, together with the '' Filioque'' controversy, differences in interpretation of this doctrine have been and remain the primary causes of schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, some understand the primacy of the bishop of Rome to be merely one of greater honour, regarding him as ' ("first among eq ...
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East-West Schism
East West (or East and West) may refer to: *East–West dichotomy, the contrast between Eastern and Western society or culture Arts and entertainment Books, journals and magazines *'' East, West'', an anthology of short stories written by Salman Rushdie * ''East and West'' (book), a 1998 book by Christopher Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong *''Philosophy East and West'', an international, interdisciplinary academic journal *''East and West'', a quarterly English-language journal published 1950 to 2009 by the Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente Film, TV and theatre * ''East and West (film)'', a 1923 Austrian silent film *''East/West'' (also known as ''Est-Ouest''), a 1999 film by Régis Wargnier *East West Players, an Asian American theatre organization *''East West 101'', an Australian television drama series *''Purab Aur Paschim'' (East and West), a 1970 Bollywood movie Music * ''East-West'' (The Butterfield Blues Band album), 1966 * ''East West'' (Julia F ...
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Primus Inter Pares
''Primus inter pares'' is a Latin phrase meaning first among equals. It is typically used as an honorary title for someone who is formally equal to other members of their group but is accorded unofficial respect, traditionally owing to their seniority in office. Historically, the ''princeps senatus'' of the Roman Senate was such a figure and initially bore only the distinction that he was allowed to speak first during debate. Also, Constantine the Great was given the role of ''primus inter pares''. However, the term is also often used ironically or self-deprecatingly by leaders with much higher status as a form of respect, camaraderie or propaganda. After the fall of the Republic, Roman emperors initially referred to themselves only as ''princeps'' despite having enormous power. Various modern figures such as the chair of the United States Federal Reserve System, the prime minister of parliamentary countries, the President of Switzerland, the Chief Justice of the US Supr ...
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Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church ( bg, Българска православна църква, translit=Balgarska pravoslavna tsarkva), legally the Patriarchate of Bulgaria ( bg, Българска патриаршия, links=no, translit=Balgarska patriarshiya), is an autocephalous Orthodox jurisdiction. It is the oldest Slavic Orthodox church, with some 6 million members in Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. It was recognized as autocephalous in 1945 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. History Early Christianity The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has its origin in the flourishing Christian communities and churches set up in the Balkans as early as the first centuries of the Christian era. Christianity was brought to the Balkans by the apostles Paul and Andrew in the 1st century AD, when the first organised Christian communities were formed. By the beginning of the 4th ce ...
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Pentarchy
Pentarchy (from the Greek , ''Pentarchía'', from πέντε ''pénte'', "five", and ἄρχειν ''archein'', "to rule") is a model of Church organization formulated in the laws of Emperor Justinian I (527–565) of the Roman Empire. In this model, the Christian church is governed by the heads (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The idea came about because of the political and ecclesiastical prominence of these five sees, but the concept of their universal and exclusive authority was attached to earlier Hellenistic-Christian ideas of administration. The pentarchy was first legally expressed in the legislation of Emperor Justinian I, particularly in ''Novella'' 131. The Quinisext Council of 692 gave it formal recognition and ranked the sees in order of preeminence, but its organization remained dependent on the emperor, as when Leo the Isaurian altered the boundary of patriarchal jurisdict ...
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State Church Of The Roman Empire
Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy of Nicene Christians in the Great Church as the Roman Empire's state religion. Most historians refer to the Nicene church associated with emperors in a variety of ways: as the catholic church, the orthodox church, the imperial church, the imperial Roman church, or the Byzantine church, although some of those terms are also used for wider communions extending outside the Roman Empire. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Church, all claim to stand in continuity from the Nicene church to which Theodosius granted recognition. Earlier in the 4th century, following the Diocletianic Persecution of 303–313 and the Donatist controversy that arose in consequence, Constantine the Great had convened councils of bishops to define the orthodoxy of the Christian faith and to expand on earlier Christi ...
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Early Christian Church
Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish diaspora. The first followers of Christianity were Jews or proselytes, commonly referred to as Jewish Christians and God-fearers. The Apostolic sees claim to have been founded by one or more of the apostles of Jesus, who are said to have dispersed from Jerusalem sometime after the crucifixion of Jesus, c. 26–36, perhaps following the Great Commission. Early Christians gathered in small private homes, known as house churches, but a city's whole Christian community would also be called a church – the Greek noun ἐκκλησία (''ekklesia'') literally means assembly, gathering, or congregation but is translated as church in most English translations of the New Testament. Many early Christians were merchants and others who had pract ...
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Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and preceding the High Middle Ages ( 11th to 13th centuries). The alternative term ''late antiquity'', for the early part of the period, emphasizes elements of continuity with the Roman Empire, while ''Early Middle Ages'' is used to emphasize developments characteristic of the earlier medieval period. The period saw a continuation of trends evident since late classical antiquity, including population decline, especially in urban centres, a decline of trade, a small rise in average temperatures in the North Atlantic region and increased migration. In the 19th century the Early Middle Ages were often labelled the ''Dark Ages'', a characterization based on t ...
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Ecumenism
Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ''ecumenical'' is thus applied to any initiative that encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and churches. The fact that all Christians belonging to mainstream Christian denominations profess faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour over a believer's life, believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant and inspired word of God (John 1:1), and receive baptism according to the Trinitarian formula is seen as being a basis for ecumenism and its goal of Christian unity. Ecumenists cite John 17:20-23 as the biblical grounds of striving for church unity, in which Jesus prays that Christians "may all be one" in order "that the world may know" and believe the Gospel message. In 1920, the Ecumenical Patriarch ...
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