[The following is translated from the French versions found in: Episkepsis 635 (May 31, 2004): 2-11]
Relations of the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the Church of Greece
Act of the enlarged Holy Synod, meeting at the Phanar
In the past ten months, the disagreement between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece has caused a stir, especially within Greek-speaking Orthodoxy. In Greece, the conflict has made the front page of newspapers, generated a public debate, and scandalized the Orthodox people.
Episkepsis, journal of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has the task of informing its readers of current events. Thus it would be an omission if it failed to address the issue. Of course, we hope that our readers will understand that it is impossible to go on to a detailed analysis or critique. The facts presented and the numerous opinions expressed on this occasion can help those who are especially interested in the issue to draw their own conclusions.
For the most part, the problems that arise in the history and life of the Church are considered complex. When they are debated, they give the impression that they are due to minor issues. It is nevertheless the theological, canonical and liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church that is at stake. This assures the unity of the Church and the fraternal concord and coexistence in love of the Orthodox Churches established over the course of history according to circumstances.
In the event of disagreement and impasse in a question of ecclesiastical order, everything is put in order to find a canonical solution. If all means are exhausted, especially in the case of a transgression by faits accomplis, the only ecclesiastical authority authorized to intervene is the Holy Synod which, after a sustained and detailed analysis, makes a decision. This decision should be decisive for assuring that the Church’s canonical discipline is respected and preventing divisions and schisms. This is the purpose of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s convoking the enlarged Holy Synod,[1] meeting at the Phanar, on April 30, 2004. As painful as the decisions that were taken appear, the Synod arrived at them conscientious to defend the rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate underpinned by previously passed canonical agreements.
It is important not to forget that relations between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece have a particular character, as they are based on a common responsibility and patrimony. In addition to the pan-Orthodox function, they have the sacred mission of preserving unity and exercising pastoral functions over the Greek-speaking elect throughout the world.
Act of the Holy and Sacred Major Endemousa Synod Gathered at the Phanar
Protocol No. 384
The holy canons prescribe denouncing and condemning acts that harm and transgress canonical order, consisting of trespassing on the canonical territory of another Church.
Thus according to Holy Scripture and the divine Fathers, good order governs both heavenly and earthly affairs. All must maintain good order as per se comprising and constituting peace, especially those who are the leaders of the Churches who, aware of their own measures and limits, should remain within them. The holy canons of the Church, in a consensus over time, enjoin: “The bishop should not dare to conduct ordinations outside the boundaries of his diocese, in cities or countrysides that do not belong to him (…) without the consent of those to whom these cities or these countrysides belong.” Those who act and commit acts outside their borders, casting out, by trespassing in foreign eparchies, concord and good order and, confounding the Church, becoming teachers and artisans of disorder, are viewed harshly (Apostolic Canon 35, Canon 2 of the Second Ecumenical Council and others with the same meaning).
The very holy Church of Greece, deliberately and contrary to the canons, having separated herself from the holy Great Church of Christ of Constantinople and giving a bad example to the other Churches, realized, with time, that she had set off on a tortuous path and, in repentance, asked to regain the right and canonical path. Thus, on the basis of ecclesiastical and canonical provisions, the Ecumenical Patriarchate granted her her independence and autocephaly by the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of 1850, stipulating that her supreme ecclesiastical authority would not be a primate, but the the permanent Synod that the hierarchs of Greece commemorate; its President, the metropolitan of Athens, does not enjoy the privileges of leader and primate, but of president of a local Synod; the Ecumenical Patriarch remains primate, to whom “the Holy Synod of Greece should refer in ecclesiastical matters requiring examination and assistance… while the Ecumenical Patriarch, surrounded by the Holy Synod, readily provides his assistance, declaring what is necessary to the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece.” The Holy Synod of the new autocephalous Church of Greece received full authority to manage affairs concerning internal ecclesiastical administration through Synodal Acts that in no way transgress the holy Councils, established customs, or the formulations of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The provinces of the seven Ionian islands first, then those of Thessaly—by a Patriarchal and Synodal Act, respectively that of 1866 and that of 1882—having been emancipated from the Ecumenical See, were fully attached to the very holy autocephalous Church of Greece, in such a way as “to be called and known to all as being united and attached to her, constituting an integral part.”
As the times and things subsequently got worse, after the Asia Minor disaster and the departure or exchange of populations, threatening the very existence of the Great Church of Christ, this common Mother and protectress of the Orthodox, being no longer able to give her good things without risk, settled the affairs of the provinces called the “New Lands” differently, by an Act appropriate to the time and circumstances, with the consent also of the leaders of the Nation; so that the Mother of noble birth, rising like a grapevine on the hillsides of the Lord’s vineyard and providing abundantly and without counting, diminished but not impoverished, should be neither withered nor annihilated, but rather should continue her role as First See of the Orthodox, serving their unity and their progress, continually glorifying in history and in the present the Nation of the Greeks and of the Orthodox in general. If other nations had the Ecumenical See, that age-old, unique and grand institution, they would do everything to consolidate and grow its sovereign authority and influence.
For this purpose, in any case, the aforementioned ecclesiastical provinces of Crete, the New Lands and the Dodecanese, to which it is important to add the Holy Mountain of Athos, as well as the other holy patriarchal and stavropegial monasteries located in Greece, continue, with varying degrees of dependence, to be the canonical territory of Constantinople which, to the present, has never conceded to any other Church full jurisdiction over them, nor does she propose to do so. They are all within the canonical boundaries of the Church of Constantinople. Consequently, anyone who without the notice, consent or agreement of the Ecumenical Patriarchate—that is, without being invited, so arbitrarily—proceeds to the election and ordination of bishops, commits the very grave canonical crime of extra-jurisdictional activity by trespassing in foreign provinces, snatching and usurping the rights of others.
It thus being given that, since his accession to the See of Athens, His Beatitude brother Christodoulos, archbishop of Athens, has deliberately and repeatedly violated, the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos of 1850, seeking to be commemorated as Primate in the autocephalous Church of Greece as well as in the New Lands without the agreement of the holy Great Church of Christ and, moreover, the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1928 without respecting its terms, despite the formal and explicit objection of the Ecumenical See, arbitrarily intervening through episcopal ordinations in these provinces where the very holy Ecumenical See maintains its canonical right intact and, doings so, despite the warnings and canonical demands of the Mother Church, he insists on disorder and harms himself and the entirety of the Church, becoming a cause of scandal and divisions within the hierarchy and the people, henceforth to prevent the propagation of evil and in the hope that canonical order will be reestablished quickly:
a) We deem that the recent elections and transfers are not valid, transgressing the concrete terms of the Act of Sepember 4, 1928 and, consequently, that they are contrary to the canons on account of being extra-jurisdictional acts committed in a foreign jurisdiction, and that the holy metropolitan dioceses of Thessaloniki, Eleutheroupolis and Servia and Kozani still remain vacant.
b) We decide in ineffable pain and affliction to break communion with His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens, who is stricken from the diptychs of our holy Great Church of Christ and forbidden from communion with us in worship and administration and with the clergy and monks belonging to our Church.
c) We recommend to the bishops thus “elected” not to take charge of our provinces, lest communion with them also be broken.
d) We ardently ask the honorable Greek State not to cooperate in the abolition of canonical order by promulgating the related presidential decrees.
e) We express the very strong dissatisfaction and grief of the Mother Church with the hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who cooperated with such “elections”, happily few in number.
f) We make it known that, in the case that this canonical anomaly continues, the Ecumenical Patriarchate will be forced to revoke the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1928.
Henceforth, in faith and proof of which the present Patriarchal and Synodal Act was referred to the Code of our holy Great Church of Christ.
April 30, 2004, indiction 12.
[signatures of Patriarch Bartholomew and the expanded Holy Synod]
The Ecumenical Patriarch’s Message to the Pious Greek Faithful
Brothers and children, Christ is risen!
We speak to you from the Phanar, our Ecumenical Patriarchate, refuge of the Nation’s sighs.
We address ourselves to you from the city of Hagia Sophia and we send you the paschal greeting and the prayer of your Mother Church, the venerable source of our Nation.
We would have liked for this communication with you to be simply paschal, only joyful. Unfortunately, we speak to you at this moment with a heart filled with sorrow, with ineffable grief, since a lance pierces the heart of the Mother Church of Constantinople.
For, the enlarged Holy Synod meeting here today, with a broken heart, was forced to suspend communion with His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens given that, since his election—and despite his kinds words with regard to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, he has been working to weaken it. One of his acts committed to the detriment of the the Mother Church is the act of contesting, both in his deeds and his words, the rights of the latter over the metropolitan dioceses of Northern Greece, located in what is usually called the New Lands, whose administration the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in the very difficult years following the Asia Minor catastrophe, provisionally confided to the Church of Greece under certain precise conditions. In other words, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, beset with difficulties, confided the management of its house to its sister and daughter Church. At present, His Beatitude states that the house belongs to him or that it should belong to him after the passage of so many years. He does not say it explicitly, but he clearly contests the property title. Moreover, he defies the prerogatives and the consecrated mission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as center of the coordination of the Orthodox sister Churches.
Our Patriarchate has lost, without fault being imputable to it, its metropolitan dioceses in Asia Minor and eastern Thrace. It has lost the greater part of its flock here in Istanbul, as well as on the islands of Imbros and Tenedos. On one September night, it saw its churches, the houses and the belongings of its children here given over to destruction and fire. By the grace of God, it was able to create some provinces abroad, made up of expatriate children of the Church. It nevertheless desires that the dioceses of Northern Greece also belong to it, dioceses where the Christians who live there are in the majority the children and grandchildren of our fellow citizens who were brutally deported, those who sought refuge from Asia Minor. These dioceses belong to it for all time and it exercised its pastoral function in difficult years thanks to eminent hierarchs, many of whom suffered martyrdom for the holy faith of Christ and the liberty of the fatherland. Some say or write that the Patriarchate supposedly divides and splits Greece. Nothing is more false than this claim. Crete, the Dodecanese, Mount Athos—which belong to the Ecumenical Patriarchate—are they any less Greece?
We have made every possible effort to maintain peace and unity. Last Monday, they fooled us. Also, it is with great sadness that we have been led to take today this unanimous decision. It would be hypocritical on our part to commune and to communicate with a brother who lacks respect and thoughtfulness, apart from verbally, toward the sacred institution of the martyric Mother Church.
It is a shame that the Patriarch be forced to speak in this way. But he suffers. He is heartbroken. Our duty and that vows that we pronounced at our ordination give us the obligation to protect the rights of this martyric see. If it were a matter of our personal belongings, we would readily offer them to pacify the Church. But it is a matter of a sacred deposit that our fathers confided to us and which we have no right to cede to anyone. We believe that the entire pious Greek people will understand the measure of our responsibility and that it will justify our act.
In this certitude, we embrace you all paternally, assuring you of our love and affection, and giving you our heartfelt patriarchal blessing.
May the risen Lord be with you!
Patriarchal Letter to the Local Orthodox Churches concerning the Metropolitan Dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Northern Greece and the Aegean Sea (May 9, 2004)
Your Beatitude and Holiness, Pope and Patriarch Peter of Alexandria and All Africa, dear and beloved brother in Christ our God and concelebrant of our humble person, fraternally embracing Your honorable Beatitude in the Lord, we cordially salute you.
The age-old canonical tradition of the Orthodox Church, proclaimed by the decisions of the ecumenical or local councils and certified by consequent ecclesiastical practice constitutes the indispensable criterion for good relations between the local Orthodox Churches in the communion of faith and the bond of love. Thus, at all times, every deviation with regard to the established canonical tradition introduces a greater or lesser irregularity, preventing not only the proper functioning of these relations, but also the very unity of the Church. For both the major and minor criteria for this internal good order have direct or indirect reference to the very nature or the realization of the Church’s spiritual mission in the world. Historical experience, age-old twice over, of the Church allows us to draw this conclusion, also certified by the formulation and practical application of the canons.
In this spirit, having to defend the canonical Orthodox order, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has always put forward, against all odds, the fundamental principles governing this order in order to eliminate deviations or confusions due to vicissitudes, that threaten the unity of the Church. For, in modern times, a dangerous error has slipped into the Orthodox Church. It consists of confusing the canonical criterion advocating the strict delimitation of ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the secularized ideology of the Church centered on the nation. This trouble has seriously undermined the good and regular functioning of inter-Orthodox relations and was denounced as a serious ecclesiological deviation by the Great Council that gathered in Constantinople in 1872. This ruling constitutes the authentic interpretation of the principles governing Orthodox canonical tradition concerning the structures of organization and the mutual relations of the local Orthodox Churches. Thenceforth, the dialectic opposing the legality defined by secular authority and the canonical regularity defended by the Church was a crucial question with often painful consequences in the life of the local Orthodox Churches.
This confusion also underpins the recent, improperly appearing tension in the relations between the very holy Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, principally on account of the arbitrary and provocative contestation of the latter’s canonical rights to the provinces of Northern Greece, rights consecrated by consensual agreement established by the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1928. This consensual and agreed ecclesiastical rule with precise conditions was dictated by the inalienable canonical rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate over these provinces and the Greco-Turkish treaty concerning the exchange of population in eastern Thrace, Asia Minor and Pontus. It explicitly concerned the provisional mandate given to the “Church of Greece”– which is to say to another ecclesiastical entity, that of the “autocephalous Church of Greece”– to administer according to attribution competence the metropolitan dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate whose territory was annexed by the Greek state on account of the irregular situation that was created, without prejudice to the “supreme canonical right of the Ecumenical Patriarchate” over them.
For, since his accession to the Archbishopric of Athens, His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens has persisted in directly or indirectly defying, in an arbitrary and provocative manner, this supreme canonical right of the Mother Church, such as is defined in the ten clauses of the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1928. This persistence has rightly caused the repeated interventions of the Ecumenical See, meant to put a stop to these claims and these irregular acts. Unfortunately, the exhortations and explicit suggestions of the Mother Church regarding the respect due to the clauses of the Patriarchal and Synodal Act were not only ignored in a provocative manner, but they were also deliberately utilized by His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens to sow confusion and create the conditions for an arbitrary incorporation of these provinces of the Ecumenical Patriarchate into the absolute canonical jurisdiction of the very holy autocephalous Church of Greece. This constitutes a transgression on an Orthodox canonical level and an irregular trespass into a foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Thus, the Mother Church, having exhausted herself in calling for peace and canonical order, could no longer tolerate the refusal of His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens to apply the Terms of the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1928, giving a mandate to the Church of Greece to partially administer the metropolitan dioceses of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Northern Greece. She has thus decided to bring together a holy and sacred enlarged Synod to consider the worsening crisis, taking the measures provided by the canons. The decisions that were taken constitute an ultimate appeal to His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens to comply with what has just been said, complying also with the appeal with the same sense by Your beloved Beatitude and that of His Beatitude Patriarch Irenaeus of Jerusalem, to make sure that the evil does not worsen. They are the following:
a) We deem that the recent elections and transfers are not valid, transgressing the concrete terms of the Act of Sepember 4, 1928 and, consequently, that they are contrary to the canons on account of being extra-jurisdictional acts committed in a foreign jurisdiction, and that the holy metropolitan dioceses of Thessaloniki, Eleutheroupolis and Servia and Kozani still remain vacant.
b) We decide in ineffable pain and affliction to break communion with His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens, who is stricken from the diptychs of our holy Great Church of Christ and forbidden from communion with us in worship and administration and with the clergy and monks belonging to our Church.
c) We recommend to the bishops thus “elected” not to take charge of our provinces, lest communion with them also be broken.
d) We ardently ask the honorable Greek State not to cooperate in the abolition of canonical order by promulgating the related presidential decrees.
e) We express the very strong dissatisfaction and grief of the Mother Church with the hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who cooperated with such “elections”, happily few in number.
f) We make it known that, in the case that this canonical anomaly continues, the Ecumenical Patriarchate will be forced to revoke the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1928.
Your Beatitude,
In this spirit, complying with the age-old canonical order of the Orthodox Church, we oblige ourselves to send You the complete text of the decision that was taken, for your own information. We hope that You think the same thing regarding the authority of the holy canons governing the mutual relations of the local Orthodox Churches, which are destined to prove better, thanks to the cooperation of all, the unbreakable unity of the Orthodox Church and her credible witness in the world of today.
Fraternally embracing Your beloved Beatitude, we ask you to accept our profound love in the Lord and our distinguished consideration.
May 9, 2004
+Bartholomaios of Constantinople
brother in Christ
of Your venerable Beatitude
—-
[1] The major expanded or endemousa Synod: it gathers together the members of the permanent synod, the bishops resident in Istanbul, as well as the bishops of the dioceses of the Dodecanese, Crete, Western Europe, America and Asia.
Orthodox Synaxis 