Eastern Orthodox Church organization

This article treats the manner in which the Eastern Orthodox Churches are organized, rather than the doctrines, traditions, practices, or other aspects of Eastern Orthodoxy.

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The Eastern Orthodox Churches are a communion comprising the collective body of fourteen or fifteen separate autocephalous hierarchical churches that recognize each other as "canonical" Orthodox Christian churches.

Related Topics:
Communion - Autocephalous - Orthodox Christian

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The head of the Body of Christ can be only Christ. The Eastern Churches have no one so powerful as the Roman Pope. The highest-ranking bishop of the communion is the Patriarch of Constantinople, who is also primate of one of the fourteen or fifteen churches. These organizations are in full communion with each other, so any priest of any of those churches may lawfully minister to any member of any of them, and no member of any is excluded from any form of worship in any of the others. Despite the fact that, like the Roman Catholic church, they are "closed communion" churches, i.e. with rare exceptions excluding non-members from receiving the Eucharist, nonetheless they admit each other's members to that sacrament. This is completely non-paradoxical as far as the Orthodox are concerned, since, even though there may be many "Churches", there is only one Church, in Orthodox ecclesiology. That is, each "Orthodox Church" is actually a portion of the Orthodox Church as a whole. Friction among them is over matters of church politics rather than doctrine.

Related Topics:
Patriarch of Constantinople - Primate - Full communion - Roman Catholic - Closed communion - Eucharist - Sacrament

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Like the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox church claims to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

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All the disagreements among persons of differing religious beliefs beget strange nomenclature, and accordingly a church adhering to so-called Western Orthodoxy is actually a Vicariate within the Antiochian Orthodox Church (it is never called the "Western Orthodox Church" by anyone who actually worships within that Vicariate) and thus a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church as that term is defined here.

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Note that Oriental Orthodoxy separated from the Eastern Orthodox Church in the 5th century, well before the 11th century Great Schism. It should not be confused with Eastern Orthodoxy.

Related Topics:
Oriental Orthodoxy - 5th century - 11th century - Great Schism

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