Неструктурированность и организация Православной Церкви

nonestructure and organization of the Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly known simply as the Orthodox Church is a communion composed of up to seventeen separate autocephalous (self governing) hierarchical churches that profess Eastern Orthodoxy and recognise each other as canonical (regular) Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. Each constituent church is self governing;

Normal governance is enacted through a synod of bishops within each church.

The Eastern Orthodox Church is decentralised, having no central authority, earthly head or a single bishop in a leadership role. Thus, the Eastern Orthodox use a synodical system canonically, which is significantly different from the hierarchical organisation of the Catholic Church that follows the doctrine of papal supremacy. His title is of honor rather than authority and in fact the Ecumenical Patriarch has no direct authority over churches other than the Constantinopolitan Church. The Ecumenical Patriarch's unique role is sometimes referred to as being the "spiritual leader" of the Eastern Orthodox Church, although even this is disputed. The autocephalous churches are normally 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, including the reception of the Eucharist. However, there have been varying instances in the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church where communion has been broken between member churches for short periods, particularly over autocephaly issues or disagreements over ecumenism with other Christian denominations. In early Christian history, the church existed only as a single denomination of five communing churches ruled by five patriarchs: the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, collectively referred to as the Pentarchy. Each of the five patriarchs had jurisdiction over bishops in a specified geographic region which did not overlap with the jurisdiction of another patriarch. This continued until 927, when the Bulgarian Patriarchate became the first newly promoted patriarchate to join the original five. Historically, the Patriarch of Rome was considered to be the "first in place of honor" among the five patriarchs. Disagreement about the limits of his authority was one of the causes of the Great Schism, conventionally dated to the year 1054, which split the previously unified Church into the Roman Catholic Church in the West, headed by the Pope, and the Orthodox Catholic Church (more commonly known today as the Eastern Orthodox Church), led by the four eastern patriarchs. After the schism, the honorary primacy of the Bishop of Rome shifted to the Patriarch of Constantinople, who had previously been accorded second place rank at the First Council of Constantinople. In the 5th century, Oriental Orthodoxy separated from Chalcedonian Christianity (and is therefore separate from both the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church), well before the 11th century Great Schism. It should not be confused with Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism.

Ranked in order of seniority, with the year of independence (autocephaly) given in parentheses, where applicable. There are a total of 17 autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches which are recognized to various degrees among the communion of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Canonicity refers to the state of being in communion with the larger Eastern Orthodox Church (making the church in question undisputedly a constituent of the Eastern Orthodox Church), whereas autocephaly refers to the state of being more or less self governing. Canonicity is binary (two churches are either in communion or not) while autocephaly exists on a spectrum. Disputes over autocephaly often lead to short term breaks in communion for political reasons. These short term breaks are typically not due to differences in doctrine or theology.

Orthodox Church in America (granted by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970 and recognized by five other churches, but not recognised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate or remaining Churches. Canonicity universally recognized.)

Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) (1992 as Ukrainian Orthodox Church, split from Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 1992 allying with Russian Orthodox Church, declared independence from the Russian Orthodox Church on 27 May 2022, recognised as independent by the Georgian Orthodox Church on 24 March 2023. Its status as an independent church rejected by the majority of churches)

Orthodox Church of Ukraine (1992 as Ukrainian Orthodox Church, autocephaly from 15 December 2018, recognised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 5 January 2019 and 3 other churches. Its autocephaly and canonicity rejected by remaining Churches, including its rival Ukrainian Churches.)

A minority of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate led by Filaret (Denysenko) split again in 2019, following internal disputes and concerns as to whether the autocephaly granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate amounted to true autocephaly due to the conditions imposed. They are not recognized by any church, including its rival Ukrainian Churches. The Old Calendarists and True Orthodox split from their local church and are not recognized as canonical, nor do they recognize any of the above churches as canonical. Some maintain communion with the Kyiv Patriarchate under Filaret.

The typical order that the four ancient churches appear in the diptychs is the same order given above. While every major church places the four ancient churches in their diptychs before the other autocephalous churches, this order may still differ slightly. For example, in the diptychs of the Russian Orthodox Church and some of its daughter churches (e. g., the Orthodox Church in America), the ranking of the five junior patriarchates is: Russia, Georgia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria. The ranking of the archbishoprics is the same, with the Church of Cyprus being the only ancient one (AD 431).

Old Believers are divided into various churches which recognize neither each other nor the mainstream Eastern Orthodox Church.