Other Orthodox Churches

In addition to the 14 churches already mentioned, there are other “autocephalous” churches whose ecclesiastical independence (autocephaly) is not recognized by all other Orthodox churches. As their classification in the hierarchy of churches is also disputed for this reason, they are presented here in chronological order.

The Orthodox Church in America was “released” into autocephaly by the Moscow Patriarchate (i.e. separated from its own church structure) as early as 1970. The Patriarchate of Moscow considers itself the “mother church” of American Orthodoxy because the first Orthodox missionaries came from Russia at the end of the 18th century, first to Alaska and then to the northwest of the American continent, so that the Russian Orthodox Church had already founded an episcopal see in North America in 1840. However, the Moscow Patriarchate's claim was disputed by the Patriarchate of Constantinople because it claimed jurisdiction over the entire Orthodox diaspora and had founded a Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in 1921. Despite the dispute over the recognition of autocephaly, the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America are today members of the “Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops” in the USA, whereby the other Orthodox churches indirectly accept the legitimacy of this church.

The Orthodox Church in Ukraine (OKU) is the second example of an autocephalous church that is not recognized by all Orthodox churches. Here, the initiative came from the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2018, which wanted to overcome the division among the country's Orthodox Christians by founding an autocephalous church in Ukraine. The “Unification Council”, convened in December 2018, was attended by all the bishops of the two Orthodox churches previously classified as “schismatic”, but only two bishops of the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” (UOC), which had previously been considered legitimate. Nevertheless, in January 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew presented the newly elected head of the OKU with the “tomos” (certificate) of autocephaly, which led to the break-off of church communion between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople and to a consolidation of the schism among the Orthodox in Ukraine. So far, the autocephaly of the OKU has only been recognized by four Orthodox churches (Constantinople, Alexandria, Cyprus and Greece), while the other churches have criticized the move or have been reticent.

The third and most recent case in this series concerns the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia, which split from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1967 and has been considered “uncanonical” ever since. Within a few weeks in 2022, it was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and reconciled with the Serbian Church. Because the latter considers itself to be the “mother church” of the church in North Macedonia, the Serbian Patriarch presented the head of the Orthodox Church of North Macedonia with the tomos of autocephaly on 5 June 2022, which was sharply criticized by Constantinople because the Ecumenical Patriarchate claims the authority to confer autocephaly exclusively for itself. To date, the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia has been recognized by six other Orthodox Churches (Antioch, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia).

The above examples make it clear that the emergence of new, independent (autocephalous) church structures in the Orthodox Church is highly controversial, so that these processes massively jeopardize the stated unity of the Orthodox Church.

In addition to the autocephalous (completely independent) churches, there are also a number of autonomous Orthodox churches, which can also regulate their internal church affairs independently, but whose head requires confirmation by the patriarch of the respective mother church.

In Estonia, there is an autonomous Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, which is subject to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as well as a metropolis of the Moscow Patriarchate, which was founded when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. The dispute over church structures in Estonia led to a brief interruption in communion between Constantinople and Moscow in 1996. There are still tensions among the approximately 200,000 Orthodox Christians in the country today. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Orthodox Christians belonging to the Patriarchate of Moscow also distanced themselves from Patriarch Kirill, so that there are signs of a rapprochement with the church linked to Constantinople.

In Finland, the Orthodox Church has a special position; it is not only the sole Orthodox Church that celebrates the church year entirely according to the new (Gregorian) calendar, but also the only one in a non-majority Orthodox country that officially has the status of a “state church”. It was granted this status in 1922 in connection with the efforts of the young Finnish state to distance itself from Russia. The Finnish Orthodox Church has its own theological training center in Joensuu and is very active in ecumenical dialogue.

The Moscow Patriarchate also granted autonomous status to some churches in neighboring states in the 20th century: The Orthodox Church of China was granted this status as early as 1956 but was subsequently subjected to massive persecution—like all other Christians in China. In recent years, the Moscow Patriarchate has begun to train Chinese candidates in its clergy academies in order to gradually rebuild an indigenous Orthodox clergy. The situation of the Orthodox Church of Japan, which has been autonomous since 1970 and today comprises two dioceses with around 150 parishes, is considerably more stable.

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem includes the autonomous Archbishopric of Mount Sinai, which is practically identical to the Brotherhood of St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai. It is the oldest Orthodox monastery in the world that has survived to the present day and houses valuable manuscripts and numerous icons from the earliest times within its walls. In 1575, the Ecumenical Patriarch declared the monastic community autonomous, with the abbot elected by the monks being consecrated archbishop by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.