A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 21 - Tuesday, May 25th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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Church Turf War Two Centuries Old Tensions between Constantinople, Athens and the Greek Government Continue By George Gilson ATHENS, (Athens News), May 14, 2004 – When Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomeos conducted his first official visit to Athens several years ago, he conducted a memorial service at the grave of the 19th-century priest Konstantinos Economou. The symbolism was apparent. Economou was the chief proponent of jurisdictional control of the Ecumenical Patriarchate over the Church of Greece, a position which was bitterly opposed by his contemporary priest Theoklitos Farmakidis, a one-time member of Greece's Holy Synod and an Athens University theology professor. The legendary dispute between the two epitomises about 175 years of tensions between Constantinople, Athens and the Greek government, which from the birth of the modern Greek state exercised a dominant role in church affairs. When the Greek statesman Ioannis Capodistrias became governor of the fledgling Greek state after the revolution, he restored canonical relations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which until then had administered all the dioceses in the new state. He was well aware that the head of Orthodoxy was located in a hostile state, the Ottoman Empire, but was convinced that the dogmatic ties between Greece and Constantinople had to be preserved so as not "to endanger breaking up Hellenism, embodied in, and inalienable from, its faith". In his correspondence with Capodistrias, Ecumenical Patriarch Constantinos I expressed interest in maintaining canonical ties and the dogmatic tradition. Capodistrias appeared interested in securing the self-administration of the church in Greece, but having the Ecumenical Patriarchate keep the high canonical oversight over the Greek Church. However, the assassination of Capodistrias and the advent of young Bavarian King Otto (a minor) and his regent, the Protestant Leopold Maurer, changed things dramatically, ending efforts to arrange church affairs in cooperation with the patriarchate. The first church charterMaurer and Farmakidis were the architects of the unilateral "declaration of independence" of the Eastern Orthodox Apostolic Church of the Kingdom of Greece, as expressly stated in the first church charter, published on July 23, 1833, which tore away the Greek dioceses from the Mother Church of Constantinople. A five-member permanent synod was established as the highest church authority, but the church administratively had the imported king as its head, and not the patriarch, who was viewed by some major intellectuals such as Adamantios Koraes as labouring under the Ottoman tyranny. The royal trustee had to be present at all synod meetings. Any act without his approval was considered null and void - no synodal decision could be executed with his "approved" indication on it - and he could even propose matters for discussion. Three members of the synod were bishops and two could be lower clergy, which is how Farmakidis was appointed. In 1833 Maurer closed down most of Greece's monasteries, many of which belonged to the patriarchate, whose property was expropriated or looted. Of 563 monasteries at least 394 were to be shut down. The 1840s saw an effort by the synod to reach some rapprochement with the patriarchate, but that was possible only when official recognition of Church of Greece autocephaly (independence) was requested of Constantinople. The new constitution of 1844 underlined (article 3) that the Church of Greece "is inextricably linked dogmatically with the Great Church of Constantinople and all other Christian churches of the same confession... and is autocephalous, exercising independently of any other church its sovereign rights, and is administered by a synod of bishops". The Tome of 1850The Ecumenical Patriarchate declared the Church of Greece autocephalous in the Tome of 29 June 1850 - rather than recognizing the de facto situation - but under certain conditions that limited its independence and stirred the ire of Farmakidis and his followers. The permanent synod, presided over by the metropolitan of Athens, would be the highest ecclesiastical authority (and not a single bishop or metropolitan). Bishops would commemorate "our Holy Synod" and the metropolitan of Athens would commemorate "All bishoprics of Orthodoxy" and the ecumenical patriarch and the three other patriarchs of the ancient patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Greece would receive the holy myrrh, with which Orthodox Christians are baptised, from Constantinople, underlining canonical unity with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On general church issues concerning the entire Orthodox Church, the Greek Church was required to consult with the patriarchate. The Church of Greece and the government both accepted the terms of the Tome of 1850, which was followed by a new church charter that somewhat limited the role of the state in ecclesiastical affairs. But the charter did not incorporate all the elements of the Tome, just as today's Church of Greece charter (1977) does not expressly protect the patriarchate's rights over its dioceses in northern Greece, rights accepted by the two sides by the mutually agreed Act of 1928, to which the Greek government was a signatory and which is named and protected in today's Greek constitution. The patriarchate in 1866 accepted the incorporation of the Ionian Islands' dioceses in the Church of Greece, a move which was opposed by the local bishops of Kefallonia and Zakynthos, who acquiesced a year later at the urging of the patriarchate. Following a request from the Greek synod, the dioceses of Thessaly were ceded to the Greek Church by Constantinople by another Synodal Tome, issued in 1882. The Act of 1928The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 incorporated Macedonia and Epirus into the Greek state. Crete gained its independence and became part of Greece at the same time. But dioceses in Macedonia, Epirus and western Thrace remained under direct patriarchal control until 1928, when their administration was ceded "in trusteeship" to the Church of Greece by the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of 1928. The Church of Greece was thereafter comprised of the dioceses of the old kingdom of Greece, and the patriarchal or New Territories dioceses, called thus because their incorporation in the Greek state was recent when they passed under Church of Greece administration. The metropolitan bishops leading patriarchal dioceses would participate fully in the administration of the Church of Greece, in both the full hierarchy (which acts as a sort of legislative body) and the permanent Holy Synod. But the Ecumenical Patriarchate retained the highest canonical rights over its dioceses in Greece - and the metropolitans leading them - and certain administrative privileges. The latter included the right to be commemorated at all services and to approve the list of candidates for these dioceses, including the right to nominate candidates. "Bishops of the Patriarchal Throne's dioceses in Greece are hereafter elected and replaced by the system of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece based on a list of candidates drawn up by the Athens Holy Synod of the Church of Greece and approved by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which has the privilege to nominate candidates, and barring the transfer of bishops from diocese to diocese," the Act of 1928 states. Vacancies and elections of bishops to patriarchal New Territories dioceses had to be officially transmitted to the patriarchate. The bishops were required to send the patriarchate a copy of their annual reports on the state of their dioceses. The Act of 1928 also allowed Metropolitan bishops in patriarchal dioceses to appeal church punishments - including suspension or defrocking - to the patriarchate.
Those rights were rarely honoured by the Greek
Church over the last 75 years. Archbishop
Christodoulos argues that then patriarch Basil and
archbishop Chrysostomos rescinded a number of the
terms of the Act in an exchange of letters in
1929, but Constantinople insists that this
"private correspondence" can in no way supersede
an official Act. The late archbishop Seraphim did
on a few occasions send the list of candidates for
approval. It was Seraphim who requested that the
Act of 1928 and the Tome of 1850 be recognised in
the 1975 Constitution (recognition was kept in the
2001 revision), passed after the fall of the Greek
dictatorship. It was the first time those key
documents gained constitutional protection, a fact
overlooked by those who invoke the 1977 Church of
Greece Charter to argue that patriarchal
privileges were later circumscribed by Greek law.
Critics say that Seraphim upheld Constantinople's
rights over its dioceses in Greece in return for
the patriarchate not objecting to his sacking of
many bishops elected during the junta period on
the grounds that they were uncanonically chosen. |
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