In recent weeks, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) has taken steps to consolidate her overlapping dioceses. As she progresses toward internal canonical regularity, the time will soon come for a new appeal to Constantinople for a tomos of patriarchal status. For the Orthodox Church, a new tomos means an opportunity to give new canonical expression to her ancient ecclesiology.
By Benjamin Martin
Because the promotion of a Local Church from the status of an autocephalous metropolitanate to the status of a patriarchate entails a change in the taxis of the diptychs, the coming appeal of the OCU invites all the Local Churches to consider the issue of the diptychs.
This invitation extends even beyond the Orthodox Church. Back in 1994, Armenian Archbishop Aram, now Catholicos of Cilicia, noted that progress toward restoring communion between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches should include an examination of the diptychs.
Given the opportunity on the horizon, the Kremlin propaganda outfit Union of Orthodox Journalists has already sought to distort the conversation. Last summer, they accused some hierarchs of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church of agreeing to recognize the autocephaly of the OCU in exchange for the promotion of the Bulgarian Church in the diptychs. Whether true or not, it is a shame that they and others can treat the diptychs as a place of competition for worldly honor.
Nevertheless, I think that the Church ought to take seriously the inadvertent suggestion of the Kremlin: (i) that the Local Churches recognize the autocephaly granted to the OCU in 2019 and (ii) that the Bulgarian Church, given her antiquity, rise in the taxis. There should be no sense of exchange of one for the other. Each of these developments independently sets right an aspect of Orthodox praxis.
The promotion of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church would also entail the demotion of the Russian Orthodox Church. This too, I believe, is for her ultimate benefit. Were I a member of the Russian Church, ashamed of the cowardice and blasphemy of her present leadership, I would earnestly desire for her to suffer a canonical penalty like this. Then, once her hierarchy accepts the penalty, I could have greater confidence that they will have begun to convert from their present errors.
So what follows is a proposal to reform the taxis of the diptychs. This proposal preserves the order of the Pentarchy. The Churches of the East and Armenia follow in sixth and seventh, as they do in the Catholic Church, even though communion with them has not yet been restored. The Church of Georgia comes in eighth, since she belongs among the three, surviving, ancient catholicosates. Then follow the patriarchal daughters of Constantinople – anticipating the elevation of Ukraine to patriarchal status – in the order in which they received the Orthodox faith from their mother church. Next come the autocephalies in Byzantine territory, followed by the autocephalies in Latin territory – anticipating a division of the Czech and Slovak Church and a tomos of autocephaly from Constantinople for the Greek Catholic Metropolitanate and other Byzantine jurisdictions in Hungary. Finally, there are the Autonomous Churches in the East, understanding Finland and the Baltic States to belong traditionally to the Latin West.
It may take many years for Orthodoxy to achieve consensus on the extremely sensitive issue of the diptychs. I hope that the foregoing might contribute toward this end. In the meantime, may discussion of the topic neither foster competition for worldly honor nor impede our progress toward unity.