Greece, Bulgaria, and the Other Autocephalous Churches

A survey of the autocephalous Churches not treated in their own files: the Church of Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Albania, Poland, and the Czech Lands and Slovakia — together with the two autocephalies whose status is still contested across the Orthodox world, the Orthodox Church in America (1970) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (2019). Running through several of these stories is the nineteenth-century rise of national churches and the conciliar condemnation of “phyletism.”

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Church of Greece

The Church of Greece is the offspring of the Greek War of Independence. When the new Greek state took shape, the bishops within its borders — until then under the Ecumenical Patriarchate — were cut off from a Constantinople still inside the Ottoman Empire. In 1833 the Bavarian-led Regency of King Otto, on the advice of the cleric-statesman Theoklitos Pharmakidis, unilaterally declared the Church autocephalous, placing it under a permanent synod and the crown — an arrangement modeled on Protestant state-church structures and resented by many as a subordination of the Church to the state (Church of Greece, Wikipedia; “Autocephaly or Subjugation to the State? The Church of Greece after the Revolution,” orthodoxhistory.org, 7 October 2021). The breach with Constantinople lasted seventeen years. It was healed by the Tomos of 29 June 1850, in which Patriarch Anthimus IV recognized Greek autocephaly from that date forward, while attaching conditions: the Church of Greece must commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch, receive its Holy Chrism from Constantinople, and refer major questions to the Mother Church (Tomos of 1850, Wikipedia, used as a locator for the text).

A lasting peculiarity is the “New Lands” arrangement. The territories added to Greece after 1912 (Macedonia, Epirus, parts of Thrace and the Aegean islands) remained canonically under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which by an agreement of 1928 entrusted their day-to-day administration to the Church of Greece “in trust.” These metropolitans thus belong canonically to Constantinople while functioning within the Church of Greece — a dual loyalty that periodically generates friction. Crete and the Dodecanese, by contrast, remain directly under Constantinople. The Church of Greece also retains close legal ties to the Greek state, which pays clergy salaries and recognizes Orthodoxy as the “prevailing religion” in the Constitution.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Condemnation of Phyletism

The Bulgarian story turns on a word that became a permanent term of Orthodox theology: phyletism. Bulgarian national feeling, chafing under Greek-speaking hierarchs, led in 1870 to an Ottoman decree creating a Bulgarian Exarchate, and in February 1872 to the consecration of an exarch in defiance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In September 1872 a council at Constantinople, chaired by Patriarch Anthimus VI and joined by the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch and others, condemned and anathematized “phyletism” — defined as the introduction of ethnic or national divisions within the Church, the organizing of the Church by race or nationality rather than by territory and faith. The council declared phyletism contrary to the Gospel and the Fathers, and placed the Bulgarian exarchate in schism (Phyletism, Wikipedia; “The 1872 Council of Constantinople and Phyletism,” ocl.org and stephanebigham.com; “The ‘Bulgarian Schism’ Began 150 Years Ago,” orthodoxhistory.org). The concept matters far beyond Bulgaria: it is the canonical principle invoked against the modern “diaspora” pattern of overlapping ethnic jurisdictions in the same city.

The Bulgarian schism lasted until 1945, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate lifted it and recognized Bulgarian autocephaly. On 10 May 1953 the Bulgarian Church declared itself a Patriarchate (restoring a dignity last held in the medieval Tarnovo patriarchate), electing Patriarch Cyril; Constantinople’s recognition of the patriarchal rank followed on 27 July 1961 (Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Wikipedia, and bg-patriarshia.bg/en/history, used as locators). Most recently, after the death of Patriarch Neofit (announced 13 March 2024), the Patriarchal Electoral Church Council on 30 June 2024 elected Metropolitan Daniil of Vidin as the new Patriarch of Bulgaria, in a close second-round vote (69 to 66); his enthronement was attended, for the first time, by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (sofiaglobe.com; vaticannews.va, July 2024). [Disputed: Western and some Orthodox commentators characterized Daniil as comparatively “pro-Russian” and read the election as reflecting the war-era divisions within Bulgarian Orthodoxy (voanews.com; religionnews.com, 5 July 2024); the Bulgarian Church presents the election simply as a canonical succession. As of 2026 the characterization remains contested.]

The Church of Cyprus

The Church of Cyprus is one of the oldest autocephalous Churches, its independence vindicated at the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431) against the jurisdictional claims of Antioch. The council ruled that, “ancient custom” not warranting Antiochene ordinations on the island, the bishops of Cyprus should ordain their own — a decision long cited as a charter of Cypriot autocephaly (Church of Cyprus, Wikipedia and OrthodoxWiki; Third Ecumenical Council, OrthodoxWiki). The Archbishop of Cyprus holds ancient privileges (the autocephalia including the right to sign in red ink and carry an imperial scepter). In the modern era the Church was inseparable from the national cause under Archbishop Makarios III (Mouskos), Archbishop 1950–1977 and the first President of the Republic of Cyprus (1960–1977, with an interruption in 1974), who embodied the ethnarch tradition of the hierarch as national leader (Makarios III, Wikipedia and Britannica).

The Orthodox Church of Albania

The Albanian Church is the great twentieth-century resurrection story. Under the militantly atheist regime of Enver Hoxha, Albania declared itself the world’s first officially atheist state (1967) and physically destroyed or repurposed its churches; the Orthodox hierarchy was effectively annihilated. After the fall of communism, the Ecumenical Patriarchate sent the Greek missionary bishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) to Albania in 1991; he was enthroned as Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and All Albania in 1992 and rebuilt the Church almost from nothing — reopening and constructing hundreds of parishes, ordaining native clergy, and founding a seminary, all while insisting (against political suspicion of a “Greek” church) on the Albanian character of the renewed body (Anastasios of Albania, Wikipedia; balkaninsight.com, “Albania Says Farewell to Archbishop Who Restored Orthodox Church,” 30 January 2025). Archbishop Anastasios died on 25 January 2025, at the age of 95. He was succeeded by Archbishop Ioannis (John), regarded as his spiritual son, who was enthroned at the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Tirana on 29 March 2025 (oikoumene.org, “Albania’s Orthodox Church enthrones new Archbishop Ioannis”; catholicnewsagency.com).

Poland and the Czech Lands and Slovakia

Two Slavic autocephalies carry the marks of the Moscow–Constantinople rivalry over how autocephaly is granted.

The Polish Orthodox Church governs a community of Belarusian and Ukrainian Orthodox left within interwar Poland’s borders. It received autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 13 November 1924, an act Moscow rejected as interference in its territory. After the Second World War the communist authorities pressed the Church toward Moscow; in 1948 the Moscow Patriarchate declared the 1924 grant void and issued its own autocephaly, which is the act the Polish Church now keeps and which all Churches recognize (Polish Orthodox Church, Wikipedia and cnewa.org).

The Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia received autocephaly from Moscow on 9 December 1951; Constantinople, regarding the body as merely autonomous under its own omophorion, withheld recognition until it issued its own Tomos of autocephaly on 27 August 1998 — a tomos with conditions (chrism and appellate oversight reserved to Constantinople). The two grants coexist uneasily, and Constantinople has periodically pressed the Church to renounce reliance on the 1951 act (Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, Wikipedia; orthochristian.com). Both cases illustrate the unresolved ecclesiology of who may create an autocephalous Church.

The Two Contested Autocephalies

Beyond the universally recognized Churches stand two whose autocephalous status the Orthodox world has not settled.

The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) received autocephaly from the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970. It is recognized by Russia and a minority of Churches but not by Constantinople and several others, which nonetheless treat it as canonical; the dispute is over status, not communion. This is the same ecclesiological fault line — may a mother Church grant autocephaly on its own authority, or does it require a pan-Orthodox or Constantinopolitan act? — that runs through the Polish and Czech-Slovak cases, and it is treated fully in the American collection (see Tomos of Autocephaly 1970).

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) received a Tomos of autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 5–6 January 2019, after the unification council of December 2018. Moscow broke communion with Constantinople in October 2018 over the move. As of 2026, the OCU is recognized by the Churches of Constantinople, Greece, Alexandria, and Cyprus, while most other Churches — including Russia, Serbia, Antioch, and Georgia — have withheld recognition (Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Wikipedia; Church of Greece synodal decision, 12 October 2019). The OCU question is the contemporary mirror image of the 1970 OCA dispute, with the grantor and objector roles reversed; it is treated at length in the contemporary world-Orthodoxy material (see Ukraine: Autocephaly and the 2018 Schism).

See Also

References

  • “Church of Greece” and “Tomos dated 29 June 1850.” Wikipedia (used as locators for the 1833 declaration and 1850 tomos). “Autocephaly or Subjugation to the State? The Church of Greece after the Revolution,” orthodoxhistory.org, 7 October 2021.
  • “Phyletism.” Wikipedia; “The 1872 Council of Constantinople and Phyletism,” Orthodox Christian Laity (ocl.org) and Père Stéphane Bigham (stephanebigham.com); “The ‘Bulgarian Schism’ Began 150 Years Ago,” orthodoxhistory.org. (Council of Constantinople, September 1872; condemnation of ethno-phyletism.)
  • “Bulgarian Orthodox Church” and “Patriarch of All Bulgaria.” Wikipedia; bg-patriarshia.bg/en/history. (Schism healed 1945; patriarchate 10 May 1953; Constantinople’s recognition 27 July 1961.)
  • “Vidin Metropolitan Daniil elected as new Bulgarian Orthodox Church Patriarch,” sofiaglobe.com, 30 June 2024; “Metropolitan Daniil elected Patriarch of Bulgaria,” vaticannews.va; “With new patriarch, Bulgarian Orthodox Church turns toward Moscow,” religionnews.com, 5 July 2024.
  • “Church of Cyprus” and “Third Ecumenical Council.” Wikipedia / OrthodoxWiki; “Makarios III,” Wikipedia and Britannica. (Autocephaly affirmed at Ephesus, 431; Makarios Archbishop 1950–1977 and President from 1960.)
  • “Anastasios of Albania.” Wikipedia; “Albania Says Farewell to Archbishop Who Restored Orthodox Church,” balkaninsight.com, 30 January 2025; “Albania’s Orthodox Church enthrones new Archbishop Ioannis,” oikoumene.org. (Sent 1991; enthroned 1992; died 25 January 2025; Ioannis enthroned 29 March 2025.)
  • “Polish Orthodox Church.” Wikipedia; cnewa.org. (Constantinople autocephaly 13 November 1924; Moscow autocephaly 1948.)
  • “Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.” Wikipedia; orthochristian.com. (Moscow autocephaly 9 December 1951; Constantinople Tomos 27 August 1998.)
  • “Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine” and “Orthodox Church of Ukraine.” Wikipedia. (Tomos 5–6 January 2019; recognition by Constantinople, Greece, Alexandria, Cyprus as of 2026.)