Folia Canonica 5. (2002)

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "Tra Chiesa universale e Chiesa particolare", Budapest, 2nd February 2002 - Gennadios of Sassima: The Canonical Status of the Ecumenical Patriarch in the Canonical Order of the Orthodox Churches: Nature and Extension of its Authority

THE CANONICAL STATUS OF THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH

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archs (Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem), in the permanent synods in Constantinople, and to a much greater extent in the local synods.1

The Patriarch of Constantinople, rejects any plenitudo potestatis ecclesiae and holds his supreme ecclesiastical power not as episcopus ecclesiae universalis, but as Ecumenical Patriarch, the senior and most important bishop in the Orthodox world. He does not wield unrestricted administrative power. He is not an infallible judge of matters of faith. Always the presupposition of his power is that in using it, he will hold two principles: conciliarity and collegiality in the responsibilities of the Church and not any intervention in the internal affairs of the other churches; in other words the two basic canonical principles of the supreme administration of the Church which were set out in the canon 2 of the Council of Constantinople.

Meanwhile, the Ecumenical Patriarch as principal port-parole amongst all the patriarchs of the Orthodoxy holds not only the “primacies of honor” (seniority of honor or prerogatives of honor)2, but also prerogatives of real ecclesiastical power. Therefore as result he has been and is supreme administrator and judge for the faithful of his own jurisdictional area. He also acts as such for the entire Orthodoxy on general ecclesiastical matters and concerns, but always in cooperation, collaboration and consultation with the other heads of the churches. All Christians, but particularly the heads of autocephalous churches, have been able to approach his throne, not just to show respect, but also in accordance with canonical order to ask for guidance, receive direction and be given final judgment. In addition, he was the church leader whose consent was necessary in every ecclesiastical act. Without such consent, the act would lack all authority.

Here it is necessary to distinguish the function of two technical and functional used terms like, power and service which are indeed mutually contradictory, because power usually destroying any idea of service; this has frequently been seen in history. However, when the Ecumenical throne exercises the power given it by the canons and by history, the aspect which predominates, is that of offering service in the entire Orthodox economy, thus imitating and carrying on the unique example of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who being Lord and God and bringing about salvation of the human race by His three-fold office, “did not consider” all these things “to be a windfall... but emptied Himself’ (Phil. 2,7) in the belief that for this alone was He called, that “He came not be served but to serve”.

In the past the Ecumenical throne has been acutely sensitive in exercising the responsibility deriving from its position and role of the “first throne”, consistent

1J. SOKOLOFF, The Byzantium Guardian of Orthodoxy, in Ekklesiastikos Pharos X/XI, 49-50, in particular see 38-39.

2Cf. V. Phidas, The Institution of the Pentarchy of Patriarchs, vol. 1, Athens 1969, 35ff; See also the excellent article The Ecclesiatical title of “Hypertimos and Exarch", in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 44/1—4 (1999) 213ff.