The Patriarchates

"Primacy of honour" was given to the patriarch of the original capital of the Roman Empire, Rome.  The Bishop of Rome was also Patriarch of the West.  The Patriarchs of the West were held in high regard in the early days of the Church, because they had a reputation for always making the right decision when conflicts in Church teaching were brought to them for arbitration.

The Patriarch of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), was given primacy of honour after Rome because the city was the seat of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. Between 320 AD and 1453 Constantinople was the centre of the Eastern Christian Empire.

The canonical rights of the Patriarch of Constantinople were defined by the councils of Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451). In the 6th century he adopted the title Ecumenical Patriarch. The patriarch does not possess administrative powers beyond his own territory, and he does not claim infallibility. His position is simply a primacy among equals. The other churches recognize his role in convening and preparing Pan-Orthodox consultations and councils.

There are three ancient Orthodox Patriarchates who owe their positions to their distinguished pasts: those in Alexandria, Egypt; Antioch, now centred in Damascus, Syria; and Jerusalem. At the moment the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem are Greek speaking. The Patriarch of Antioch was Greek speaking until 1898 but because he heads a significant Arab Christian community in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and the Arabic Peninsular, he is now Arabic speaking.

The patriarchate of Moscow and all Russia is the largest Orthodox church today by far, having survived a most difficult period of persecution after the Russian Revolution of 1917. It occupies the fifth place in the hierarchy of autocephalous churches, followed by the patriarchates of the Republic of Georgia, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. The nonpatriarchal churches are, in order of precedence, the archbishoprics of Cyprus, Athens (Greece), and Tirana (Albania), as well as the metropolitanates of Poland, the Czech Lands and Slovakia, and America.

The autocephalous Orthodox Church in America, officially established in 1970, has as its stated goal the unification of all Orthodox Christians in the United States and Canada on a territorial basis. Nonetheless, large ethnic jurisdictions, particularly the Greek Archdiocese of America, are administratively connected with mother churches abroad.

Doctrine

In its doctrinal statements and liturgical texts, the Orthodox Church strongly affirms that it holds the original Christian faith, which was common to East and West during the first millennium of Christian history. More particularly, it recognizes the authority of the Ecumenical Councils at which East and West were represented together. These were the Councils of Nicaea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (680), and Nicaea II (787).