Keywords

1 Introduction

The sixteenth century opens a new period in History and the Theology of the Church and Christianity. This period which could literally be characterized as “post-ecclesiological” for reasons which will be discussed below. The beginning of this period could, indicatively, be dated back to the time of the Reformation (1517), though, of course, many precursory signs had already appeared much earlier, especially in the ecclesiology formed at the time of the Crusades (1095–1204).

The five following centuries (sixteenth to twentieth centuries) provide us with enough historical evidence and theological facts to define this as new and innovative period, compared to the completely different ecclesiological practice which preceded it, but also an unprecedented age, hitherto unknown, which sealed the end of the Ecclesiology, as lived and developed by the Church during the previous fifteen centuries.

After this observed ecclesiological deviation and its introduction, which was de facto and not because of some ecclesiological evolution towards a “post-ecclesiological” age, it was natural for various new ecclesiologies to appear/emerge, such as confessional ecclesiologies (Protestants), ritualistic Footnote 1 ecclesiologies (Catholics), and ethno-phyletic ecclesiologies (Orthodox Christians), or better yet, to respect the order of their historical appearance and also ritualistic, confessional and ethno-phyletic ecclesiologies. These are essentially hetero-collective ecclesiologies, which were constituted according to militant and surrogate principles and which have been dominating since then not only to characterize all of ecclesial life, but also to dictate the statutory texts shaping the existence and functioning of all Churches of that age and also today.

Today, we are in an historico-theological position to distance ourselves from the facts of the historical and ecclesiological past and can re-examine the causes which provoked these ecclesiological deviations. We propose to directly discuss here in a purely dialectic and critical mindset and without any polemic temptation, the three ecclesiologies which are so different in their origin and their perspective and yet have a common denominator, are alike, contiguous and coexist, albeit without any communion or identification between them. This common denominator goes by the name co-territoriality, a serious ecclesiological problem recorded during the whole second millennium, the same millennium which was also confronted with numerous unsolvable issues of an exclusively Ecclesiological nature. This is in contrast to the first millennium the Christological issues were basically resolved. In other words, when a Christological problem appeared, the Church during the first millennium intervened conciliarly and resolved it, something which, as will become clear, does not occur in the second millennium. These three ecclesiologies are the following:

  1. 1.

    The Ecclesiology of the Crusades (thirteenth century)

  2. 2.

    The Ecclesiology of the Reformation (sixteenth century)

  3. 3.

    The Ecclesiology of Ethno-Phyletism (nineteenth century)

We now examine this interrelated, newly appearing and heterocentric ecclesiological trilogy in more detail.

2 The Ecclesiology of the Crusades (Thirteenth Century)

As an ecclesiological fact, the reciprocal rupture of communion of 1054 only concerned the two Patriarchates of the Church, that is, the Patriarchate of Rome and the Patriarchate of Constantinople. However, this rupture extended itself de facto to the other Patriarchates of the East as the Crusades quickly characterized it as a Schism. It was proven later that this term referred to a unique fact which from an ecclesiological and canonical point of view could legitimize the establishment of new homonymous Churches on territories of already existing Patriarchates and Churches of the East given that the rupture of communion by itself could not legitimise such a thing.

Indeed, the political movement of the Crusades gave a new twist to the rupture of communion of 1054 and proclaimed it to be a schism, that is, the canonical and ecclesiological fact which considers an ecclesial body as being detached from the whole and, consequently, inexistent in a given location; but it created and pushed the order of ecclesiological things in a new direction. Thus two categories of Churches were created alongside the two pre-existing Patriarchates of the East. Homonymous Latin Patriarchates were established in the East (the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem which was established at end of the first crusade, 1099 and later also the Latin Patriarchate of Antioche (1100), and the non-Autocephalous Footnote 2 Catholic Church of Cyprus [1191], etc.). This fact occurred by itself – if we accept that we have a rupture of communion and not a schism – officially engenders the ecclesiological problem of co-territoriality (1099).

However, this unprecedented emergence of co-territoriality does not stop here. Alongside all these Latin ecclesial entities were also established Latin ritualistic Patriarchates and Eastern Catholic Churches (Maronite Patriarchate, Melchite Patriarchate, Syrian Catholic Patriarchate, etc.), under the hyperoria (“across the boundaries”) and the hierarchical isosceles (equivalent) jurisdiction of the Patriarchate and the Pope of Rome on one and the same territory.

The jurisdiction was hyperoria which was always in the case of the rupture of communion since new Latin and ritualistic Patriarchates were being created in the canonical territories of the Eastern Church. But it was also isosceles, because, although the Patriarchates were all equal among themselves, they were all subordinate to and commonly dependent on the Patriarchate of Rome. This ecclesiological aberration was also unheard of and has been maintained to this day (cf. the existence of two different types of Church in the same territory (conviventia), but also is of two totally independent Codes of Canon Law not communicating with each other). It is during this very time that a new conception of the Primacy of the Patriarch and the Pope of Rome appeared, one quite different than the ecclesiological experience of the first millennium. We can consider the Patriarch and the Pope of Rome as both are in fact “Primus inter inferiores” (mono-jurisdictional primacy) while, in the ecclesiology and praxis of the Church of the first millennium, the First Patriarch (the President) of the ecclesial communion of the five Patriarchs (conciliar Pentarchy) established during the 4th Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) was “Primus inter pares” (communional and synodal primacy). This discussion is beyond the scope of the present text. In other words, one structure of a pyramid type came to replace the structure of the type constellation.

Since the thirteenth century the Ecclesiology of the Catholic Church introduced for the first time in history an ecclesiological form, viz., the establishment of a Church at a location of dual co-territoriality. On one hand it was co-territoriality with Patriarchates, with which it is not – or even may be – in rupture of communion, and on the other hand, co-territoriality with other self-established Churches of different ritus. The latter, however, are in complete communion or, as it is acceptable to say, united with Rome, though they all coexist as ecclesial bodies and entities in one and the same territory. This is how we end up, since from the end of the middle ages having Catholic Churches of different ritus on the same land. This state is what we could more precisely call internal co-territoriality (ad intra). But we also end up with a Latin Roman Catholic Patriarchate together with other ritualistic Roman Catholic Patriarchates at a place where a Patriarchate already exists (recall for example the case of Jerusalem). This is external co-territoriality (ad extra).

This dual co-territoriality results from the political situation created by the Crusades and imposed and perpetuated itself until the Reformation. In other words, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century we have, on one side, ecclesiastic mono-territoriality and mono-jurisdiction in Western Europe on the land of the Patriarchate of Rome. On the other side we have encouragement by the latter of ecclesiastic co-territoriality followed by the exertion of hyperoria (multi)jurisdiction on the territories of other Churches of the East which, from that point onwards both internal and external co-territoriality are established (and coexisted). In these new ecclesiological idioms, one could perceive the beginnings of the development of global ecclesiology, starting primarily after the Reformation.

However, despite the political pressure of the time, the stance of theology, which lives with the vision of re-establishing ecclesial communion and resolving the ecclesiological problem, remains strong in the Western Christian world. The two Councils, that is. the Council of Lyon (1274) and of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1439), gathered together bishops (who called each other brother during these Councils) who were in rupture of communion and not in a situation of schism (otherwise there would be no point in summoning such Councils). There is also the continuing settlement of monks from the East on Mount Athos from the beginning of the fourteenth century which clearly shows that the desire for an ecclesiological solution to the rupture of communion was still alive, despite all the politically dictated, though still solvable, co-territorial behaviour.

3 The Ecclesiology of the Reform (Sixteenth Century)

It was the Reform which caused the emergence of the ecclesiological problem of co-territoriality on the territory of the Patriarchate and Church of Rome. Indeed, in the sixteenth century, this ecclesiological aberration of co-territoriality was for the first time conveyed to Central and Western Europe, fragmenting both internally and territorially the Patriarchate of Rome, just as the other Churches of the East which had previously been internally fragmented. Here, it is worth rememberingFootnote 3 how co-territoriality emerged confessionally and how it contributed to the aggravation of this ecclesiological problem.

The ecclesiological experience of the first millennium occurred in a given location, the unique canonical criterion permitted the establishment and existence of a “local” or “locally” established’ Church that was exclusive territoriality and ecclesiological mono-jurisdiction. The Reformation was then not so much because of its spatial separation from the Church of the West, from whence it came, but rather because of its different mode of existence. It introduced a new criterion needed for the establishment of a Church, a criterion ecclesiologically and canonically inconceivable previously. Indeed, the newly formed ecclesial communities of different confessions, whose existence at that time was entirely autonomous, needed an ecclesiological hypostasis, which could neither be based on the ecclesiological experience of the Church, such as it was until then, nor on the institutional structure of the local Church-diocese. The reason for this was simple: these communities started existing and coexisting on a territorial region where a Church was already present, that is, a Church already endowed with ecclesiological territorial identity (Church at a location – Ecclesia in loco: Church that is at Rome).

It was crucial, however, to find a way on one hand for these Communities to be Church, which is in fact why the Reform took place. On the other hand it was important to have some element to differentiate them from the pre-existing Church, with which they did not want any identification whatsoever. Martin Luther did not have any intention to create a new Church, but it was impossible to do differently. The use of any local designation would not only cause confusion, but would also require the adoption of equivalent institutional structures such as a bishop, diocese and territorial name. That was what happened in the Crusades when a schism (sic) had already been declared a priori, which legitimized the exact reproduction of the pre-existing structures and designations of the Patriarchates and the Churches of the East.

However, the Reform neither outwardly proclaimed a schism with the Church of the East, from whence it “came,” nor engaged in an ecclesiological procedure of rupturing communion or any analogous process. It was interested in obtaining an ecclesiological hypostasis but, as a Reform, it definitely wanted to differentiate itself. In Lutheranism and Calvinism, that is, in traditional Protestantism where dogma is emphasized above all, a dependence of the Church exclusively on the Confession of Faith (Confessio Fidei [cf. Confession of Augsburg – 1530]) is observed. So the Reformation chose, fatally but necessarily, the adjectival designation coming from the confession of each Protestant leader, avoiding at first the use of a local designation. And the need for confessionalismus in Ecclesiology was established as well as the confessionalisation of the Church, first inside Protestant area, and then outside it. In short, the schism of ecclesiological unity in the West caused the emergence of confessionalismus and resulted in the newly formed Churches being designated by their confession rather than their territory; not after the name of a location, but using a confessional designation and an adjectival designation (for example, Lutheran Church, Calvinist Church, Methodist Church, Evangelist Church, etc.).

In summary, the Reform unintentionally enlarged and systematised co-territoriality as a form of ecclesiological existence, but then its self-fragmentation into further confessional Churches revealed within Ecclesiology the same corruptive symptom. With astonishing similarity the same characteristic ecclesiological symptom of dual co-territoriality appeared here as well, that is, external co-territoriality due to the coexistence of each confessional Protestant Church with the Catholic Church from which it came and internal co-territoriality since several Protestant Churches coexisted on the same territory and in the same city (conviventia) without achieving the fullness of communion attained by an ecclesial body in one location as envisioned by the Pauline Ecclesiology of the New Testament, viz., the exclusive basis (sola scriptura and fundamentum fidei) of Protestant Ecclesiology. Therefore, there was also not even more mono-confessionalism within the Protestant Family (Confession). In the beginning, however, there was only one and unique confession, but confessionalistic self-fragmentation and non-formal proliferation. And so, despite the vigorous proclamation on behalf of the Protestants that Pauline Ecclesiology is the only New Testamentary truth, the confessional Ecclesiology of co-territoriality is, nevertheless, found within it, not only annihilating every Pauline and New Testamentary vision of the establishment of a Church at a given location, but also relativizing the constantly repeated position of the sola scriptura.

4 The Ecclesiology of Ethno-phyletism (Nineteenth Century)

For Orthodox Christians things were even more complex and much can be said about the issue. However, we will limit ourselves to two aspects: (a) the existence of internal co-territoriality in Orthodox Ecclesiology, to which an extra negative ecclesiological characteristic is added, viz., the multi-jurisdiction level, and (b) the non-existence of external co-territoriality. We begin with the latter since, in practice, the choice of this ecclesiological position appeared first historically.

First, despite contradictory views between Orthodox Christians on the Orthodox Church today, the year 1054 is not characterised as a schism, but rather as a rupture of communion. The Orthodox Church never declared it as such throughout the entire second millennium. Thus we have an ecclesiastical event as a schism which is not justified by historical and canonical sources. So “interruption of the communion” is not an accomplished schism. Apart from the fact that “all lasting schisms lead to heresy” (a phrase attributed to John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), famous preacher and Patriarch of Constantinople) and consequently to the complete detachment from the ecclesial body, the Orthodox Church should declare a schism. It would have had to take the same ecclesiological actions as the Church of Rome after the Crusades, and to establish an “Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome,” something which, staying completely consistent with itself, it has not done for the last millennium and unwaveringly continues to refuse to do. In addition, for the same reason, it would not have accepted that the three common Councils of the Second Millennium were held, or at least it would not have taken part in them (Lyon 1274, Ferrara-Florence 1438–1439, Brest-Litovsk 1596). (Actually, the third Council of Brest-Litovsk 1596 was summoned during the same century as the beginning of the Reformation). However, the Council of Trento (1545–1563), gave the definitive coup to the politics of church union that was promoted at that time. Since the seventeenth century ecclesiological disruption within the body of the Catholic Church in conjunction with the religious wars in the East engendered other priorities and things took a different turn, something which clearly showed up in the Second Vatican Council 1962–1964.

Therefore, it is an ecclesiological error when Orthodox Christians use the term “schism” to refer to the events of 1054. It is about a borrowed terminology and a characterization from a homeopathic reaction. This is another characteristic of the “Babylonian captivity of Orthodox Theology.”Footnote 4 Thus, the refusal of the Orthodox Church to declare the “rupture of communion of 1054” as a “schism,” and also, by extension, the refusal to establish an “Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome,” reveals that it lives in hope of re-establishing communion and for this reason only, does not practice external co-territoriality. We ought to recognize then, regarding this issue, that not only Pauline Ecclesiology, but also conciliar and patristic Ecclesiology “of a single Church at a given location” are clearly preserved in the Orthodox Church and its Ecclesiology.

However, the same view does not apply in the case of internal co-territoriality. We ought to state that even on this issue the Orthodox Christians have surpassed the Catholics and Protestants’ ecclesiological deviation, since, apart from co-territoriality, they also exert and practice co-jurisdiction as well as multi-jurisdiction (multilateralist and hyperoria). (We pretend to be in communion, without there being actual communion since, as we shall observe below, extreme care and vigilance are taken to privilege ethno-phyletic assets and not an ecclesiological communion). This point precisely shows that contemporary orthodox ecclesiology is an ecclesiology with stratifications and symmetrical deviations, revealed not only in orthodox ecclesiological practice across the world today, but also in the statutory practice of the Orthodox National Churches as we shall see below. Two examples of statutory dispositions with non-ecclesiological content are sufficient to highlight the enormity of the existing ecclesiological problem. It would be useful to recall one article from the Statutory Charters of a Hellenophone and Slavophone Church, that is, the Statutory Charter of the Church of Cyprus and the Statutory Charter of the Church of Russia, in order to put them in the perspective of our ecclesiological research.

  • Members of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus are:

    • all Cypriot Orthodox Christians, who have become members of the Church through baptism, and who are permanent residents of Cyprus (the juridical principle of jus soli) as well as

    • all those of Cypriot origin (the juridical principle of jus sanguinis), who have become members of the Church through baptism, and are currently residing abroad (Article 2, Statutory Charter of the Church of Cyprus- 1980).

  • The jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church extends to people of orthodox confession residing in the USSR [1988]; residing on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church [2000], as well as

    • people Footnote 5 who reside abroad and who voluntarily accept its jurisdiction (Article I, § 3, Statutory Charter of the Church of Russia- 1988 and 2000).

Both articles are representative of Statutory Charters with three main and common non-ecclesiological properties:

  • First, the jurisdiction of these Churches extends itself, deliberately and principally, to people, just as in the ecclesiology of the Reform, and not exclusively to territories. In other words and without further analysis, the exertion of ecclesiological jurisdiction on people simply means that this single statutory fact gives these Churches the right to intervene, by definition, into the canonical bounds of other locally established Churches. While we all know that autocephaly, according to Pauline Ecclesiology, is granted to a given location, to a territory with explicit boundaries and on purely geographic criteria, today usually geo-state and not a nation. So the notion of autocephaly is essentially that found in the New Testament Ecclesiology in contrast to the Old Testament insofar as the latter identifies the chosen people with the nation. Consequently, the jurisdiction of a locally established Autocephalous Church is exerted on a specific territory and never on an entire Nation, much less on scattered people. “People,” therefore, are defined not on “canonical territory” which a Church invokes only in self-defence against “intruders” who, conforming to their Statutory Charter, plan to establish an exterior (hyperoria) co-territoriality on its “canonical territory.” This is done to prevent external ecclesiastical interventions on its own ecclesial territory on the part of some other jurisdiction (or some other “confession”) acting according to the same principles, since this Church itself statutorily practices such ecclesiastic interventionism on the canonical territory of other Churches.

  • Second, the Churches in question statutorily declare that they are unwilling, for any reason, to limit the exertion of their jurisdiction to territories situated within their canonical boundaries as they should ecclesiologically since not only are they both locally established Churches but also because of the principle of Autocephaly, which determines their ecclesiological and institutional existence, demands it. However, they insist on expanding beyond their canonical boundaries, since their Statutory Charters gives them this right.Footnote 6 In ecclesiological practice, this is called institutional interference and, most of all, institutional and statutory confirmation of co-territoriality. In other words, this practice is an institutional ecclesiastic attempt to reinforce co-territoriality within ecclesiology.

  • Third, and most importantly, these Churches, when referring to territories outside their boundaries, knowingly and purposely make no clear distinction between territories plainly of the “Diaspora” and principal “canonical territories” of other locally established Churches. By extension, this particular statutory reference to people obliterates the elementary canonical distinction of “canonical territories” and “territories of the Diaspora,” thus creating not only the definition of internal co-territoriality (this time founded on a statutory basis with the results of a multilateral hyperoria multi-jurisdiction) but also on another anti-ecclesiological phenomenon and this characteristic: the notion and practice of global ethno-ecclesial jurisdiction. This newly formed idiom, just like in the case of the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, begins to define a global Ecclesiology which is limited to a national(ist) level this time. It also results in the formation of numerous global orthodox national Ecclesiologies.

Thus, despite inherent contradictions the Statutory Charters of the Churches of Cyprus and Russia introduce a dual ecclesiological-canonical system for the exertion of their ecclesiastic jurisdiction, a system which is built ecclesiologically speaking, on an inherent contradiction:

Internally, within the boundaries of the body of the locally established Church, they ecclesiologically exhibit “canonical territory,” that is, territoriality and mono-jurisdiction.

But, externally, beyond the boundaries of the body of the locally established Church, they statutorily claim “hyperoria jurisdiction” that is, co-territoriality and multi-jurisdiction.

This fact in itself, by definition, constitutes a corruption and an alteration of the Ecclesiology of the Church and results, if I may to use the expression, in an ecclesiological hotchpotch. On this point, the Ecclesiology of the Church of the New Testament, of the Canons and the Fathers, bears no relation, none at all, to the Statutory Charters and vice versa. In this way, we affirm the famous adage which underlines the eonistical priorities of the Christians: “Siamo primo Veneziani e poi Christiani” (translation: Principally, we are Venetians and then Christians).

“The fullness of time has come” (Gal 4, 4), and we must realise that the statutory ecclesiology of National Orthodox Churches today is deeply problematic. The deficiency of the Statutory Charters is not so visible inside a country, although the recent theory about ethno-cultural “canonical territory” – which reminds us of the international juridical principle of the jus soli – does expose a few problems. However, this deficiency is more tangible outside the country, in the territories which we refer to, though we should not, as part of the “diaspora.” The problem also lies in the fact that these Statutory Charters contain elements which are not only ethno-phyletic, but also of confessional, juridical and most of all, non-canonical and non-ecclesiological. They remind us more of a section from a more general ethnocratic manifesto than they reflect the Ecclesiology and Theology of the Church. These official statutory texts of the twentieth century once again attest to the “Babylonian captivity of Orthodox Theology” of the Church. This time they are related to state nationalism and the dominant national ideology, and to its metamorphosis into an ethno-theology which consequently engendered ethno-ecclesiology as the dominant characteristic of the post-ecclesiological age for Orthodox Christians. Of course, this age is not characterized by the term itself, but by the reality the term reflects, viz., a reality, which on a more profound level can be found in the priority given to ecclesiastic ethno-culturalism (ethnoculturalismus).

As actors of “multilateralism” (multilateralismus), for reasons which today are known, clear and obvious, Orthodox Christians today blame the Crusades of Western Christians, but they are unable to recognize that their ecclesiological stance, statutorily and institutionally, which follows in the footsteps of the Crusades and their Ecclesiology. An ecclesiological, not ethno-phyletic, look at the cases of co-territoriality, for example, in Estonia, Moldavia or the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) suffices to point out the ecclesiological-canonical confusion which rules over orthodox geo-ecclesiastical circles today.

In summary let us examine a related issue associated with the mentality that the ethno-phyletic content and ethno-cultural perspective of such statutory Charters spreads.

Essentially, the Church has always been Eucharistic and, as far as geographical areas are concerned, territorial in the expression of its identity and its presence in history. Pauline ecclesiology, as well as the whole patristic ecclesiology which followed, has never designated a “local” or “locally established” Church in any other way than through a geographical name as the terms themselves indicate. The defining criterion of an ecclesial community, an ecclesial body or an ecclesiastic circumscription, has always been the location and never a racial, cultural, national or confessional category. A Church’s identity is described, and has always been described, by a local designation, that is. a local or locally established church (for example, Church which is at Corinth (1 Cor 1, 2; 2 Cor 1, 1), Church of Galatia (Gal 1, 2), Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Patriarchate of Rome, Church of Russia, etc.). But a Church preceded by a qualitative adjective (for example, Corinthian Church, Galatian Church, Jerusalemite Church, Roman Church, Russian Church, etc.) has never previously existed as it exists today. And this is because, in the first case, we always refer to the one and only Church established at different locations (for example, the Church being at Corinth, at Galatia, at Rome, in Russia, etc.), whereas in the second case it appears not to refer to the same Church, since it is necessary to describe it using an adjective (ethno-phyletic or confessional category) in order to define it and to differentiate it from some other Church: Serbian, Greek or Russian Church – just as we say Evangelic, Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran Church. We have seen that the Lutheran Church, having lost its local “canonical” support for reasons which were confessional and related to the expression of its identity, resorted to other forms of self-definition. Similarly, within the territory of the “Orthodox Diaspora,” while we cannot in any way say “Church of Serbia of France,” which would be ecclesiologically unacceptable, specifically because it would cause total confusion between the Churches. We can instead, for purely ethno-phyletic reasons relating to the expression of its identity, easily say, as we do, not only orally but also in institutional and statutory texts, “Serbian Church of France”Footnote 7 or “Russian Church of Estonia.”

5 The One Church and the Many Churches

The conclusion of this brief ecclesiological analysis of the usage of adjectival designations is that we have one, and only one, Church in Corinth, only one Church in Galatia, and only one Church in Jerusalem. However, these are not three different Churches, but one Church, the one and the same Church of the Body of Christ, which is found in Corinth, Galatia and Jerusalem. In this sense there are no, and cannot be any, “sister Churches” as separate ecclesial bodies, but one unique Church in different locations. In this ecclesiological context, the word “sister” is completely unwarranted, because it creates two bodies where only one can exist. This designation does not exist in the Ecclesiology of the first millennium. The use of this term presupposes and, most of all, implies unsaid confessional or cultural projections in the one indivisible Body of the Church. In precisely the same way, we do not have a Russian Church, a Bulgarian Church, a Jerusalemite Church; these would be three Churches and not one. But we have one Church, one and the same Church of the Body of Christ, found in Russia, Bulgaria, Jerusalem. This explains why each ethno-ecclesiastic Statutory Charter is heading, through its position and its premises, towards a deviant perspective and not towards the communion of locally established Churches, as was the case beforehand with the Canons of the Church which were universally common and the same for everyone.

Comparing the principles which govern the three aforementioned Ecclesiologies, it is remarkable to note the external elements they have in common. With the Catholics, for example, the adjectival designation of the locally established Church stems from the ritus, i.e., the designation of the respective Church as “Maronite,” or “Melchite,” “Greek Catholic,” “Uniate,” etc. With the Protestants, similarly, the adjectival designation of the locally established Church stems from the confession, that is, the designation of the respective Church as “Lutheran,” “Calvinist,” etc. By exact analogy, the same happens in the National Orthodox Church, where the messianism of the Nation, another form of a confession of faith, consciously or subconsciously prevails, while, at the same time, a perverse relation and dependence of the Church on the Nation and the dominant national ideology is observed. And so, derived from this dependence on the State-Nation, the adjectival designation follows naturally, that is, Serbian, Romanian, Russian, for each Church respectively.

This new and unheard of phenomenon of ecclesiastical adjectival designation can be explained with little difficulty as, subconsciously, since the ecclesiological center of gravity moved from being territorial to ethno-phyletic, or, in the corresponding case in the West, ritualistic or confessional. We have replaced the local designation with an adjectival designation, corresponding to the deviant ecclesiological experience, and, if adjectival categories are used, driven by precisely the same need for self-designation motivating the use of confessional adjectival categories. However, as far as Ecclesiology is concerned, there is no such thing as a ritualistic or confessional Church or, in the corresponding case, a national ethno-phyletic Church.

Even though these terms may appear to be equivalent (isomorphic), for example. the Church of Romania or the Romanian Church, and though the difference in terminology may seem quite superficial, we maintain, according to what we have seen above, that there is a real and significant difference between using the name of a place and using an adjectival epithet because these reflect two different conceptions of the Church, revealing either ecclesiological or deviant and heterocentric subconscious intentions. However, as far as the actual content is concerned, the chasm separating them is very vast, just as is the chasm between the “ecclesiological” and the “non-ecclesiological”.

6 Comparative Approach of the Triple Question

These three divergent ecclesiologies, developed during the last eight centuries of the second millennium (thirteenth to twentieth centuries), have essentially led the Church into the post-ecclesiological age. This is the age in which we live, in which we try to give superficial solutions, either through Councils like the Second Vatican Council and the proposition to increase Ecumenism, or through increasing efforts to federalise Protestant Churches, or even by the fruitless attempt to summon a Pan-Orthodox Council, which has been in preparation, to no avail, for almost half a century. It is certain that the solution will neither be ritualistic or ecumenistical, nor confessional or federative (fusion within the confusion), and certainly not ethno-phyletic or multi-jurisdictional, but will definitely have to be ecclesiological and canonical, which may appear distant, if not utopic, in today’s age of post-ecclesiality which has been characterised as the age of modern Christianity, a Christianity which remains woefully multilateralist and non-ecclesiological.

In this comparative approach to the issue, we could add the fact that the emergence of the Reform imposed a de facto situation of co-territoriality, creating, where a Church (Patriarchate) of the West already existed and after the passing of the Religious Wars and, much later, with the emergence of Ecumenism, the evident and uncontested asset of co-territoriality of modern ecclesiology. Since then co-territoriality becomes the exclusive de facto ecclesiological situation for everyone and a perennial ecclesiological fact, unanimously accepted, and, finally, a constitutive element of territorial expression of every locally established Christian Church and Confession. Also all the ecclesial locally established communities gave the impression that they prefer to be and to live in statu confessionis more than in statu Ecclesiae. Thus today co-territoriality constitutes the basic common characteristic of all the Ecclesiologies of Christian Churches:

  • For the Catholic Church, let us recall one example. In Jerusalem there are five Catholic Patriarchates, all coexisting, governed by two unilateral Codes of Canon Law.Footnote 8 The emergence of Uniatism is also part of the same ecclesiological problem, as well as Rome’s efforts to sustain co-territoriality, born by the practice of Uniatism.

  • Protestant Churches multiply themselves informally on the same land and across the world trying to solve the problem through federalisations.

  • For the Orthodox locally established Churches, let us also recall one example: in Paris there are six coexistent orthodox bishops with equivalent or synonymous – sometimes even homonymous – overlapping ecclesiastic jurisdictions (despite this being explicitly forbidden by the Ecclesiology of the 1st Ecumenical Council of Nicaea [325]Footnote 9 and the 4th Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon [451]Footnote 10), and all the aforementioned statutory facts of co-territoriality.

  • To these few representative examples could be added the Ecclesiology of the World Council of Churches (WCC), with its conscious deliberate pluralistic coexistence as dominant ecclesiological criterion, and, let us not forget, the communion of Anglican Churches, the Armenian Churches and the self-called “Orthodox Catholic Church of France” (ECOF).

  • Also, the 17 different Old Calendarist Churches in Greece exhibit, to an astonishing degree, the same characteristic symptom of dual co-territoriality (external with respect to the Orthodox Church of Greece, but also internal with respect to the relations these 17 homonymous and self-proclaimed “Genuine (sic) Orthodox Churches of Greece” have between each other), and, let us not forget the “Russian Hyperoria Church” with the exercise of a world ecclesiastical jurisdiction and with a behaviour, by definition, of co-territoriality.

Consequently, the problem for the Churches face is not primarily ritualistic, confessional or ethno-phyletic, but above all an ecclesiological problem and a problem of ontological communion of the Churches in Christ.

7 The Three Ecclesiologies

Never before during the 2,000 year history of Christianity has there been such a broad and far-reaching violation of the Church’s Ecclesiology as the one experienced during the “post-ecclesiological” age of the last eight centuries (thirteenth to twentieth centuries). The blame lies with all of us, Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians. The organization of the Churches according to a code, a confession or a national status has ignored, and continues to ignore, repeatedly and deliberately, the ecclesiological canonical tradition stemming from the vital ecclesiastical praxis of the Church of Christ, as inherited from the New Testament, the Ecumenical and Local Councils and the Fathers. Instead it draws its inspiration, though it ought not to, from the realities and conditions of the eonistic “post-ecclesiological” age, without there being the possibility or even the slightest will to find our way back from “how far [we] have fallen” (Rev 2, 5).

As can be concluded from the previous analysis, if it really proves to be true, that is the Crusades effectively created, de facto, a new ecclesiastic situation that influenced – not to say imposed on, Ecclesiology and its evolution. Then Reformation brought forward the problem of ecclesiological co-territoriality, a problem which had already been present since the time of the Crusades (1st Crusade – 1099). The main characteristic of this new ecclesiological situation was the establishment of co-territorial Churches instead of territorial Churches. Therein lies the ecclesiological problem of co-territoriality. In other words, Churches not being in full communion, but rather coexisting with other Churches. Churches with a ritualistic, confessional or ethno-phyletic and, most of all, non-ecclesiological basis and hypostasis (ritualistic, confessional and ethno-phyletic conviventia). A ritualistic, confessional or ethno-phyletic hypostasis which defines and dictates the Codes of Canon Law, the official texts of Protestant Confessions, the Statutory Charters of Orthodox National Churches but also their underlying ecclesiology. These constitute the image and the characteristics of the currently prospering and flourishing “post-ecclesiological” age.

This study discusses how in Modern Times, Orthodox Ecclesiology has strongly been influenced by fully developed protestant Ecclesiology, and less so by Catholic ecclesiology, due to the latter’s uni-dimensional ecclesiastical structure on a global scale, engendered by the rupture of communion of 1054 and the ulterior ecclesiological development centred on a single Patriarchate-Church across the world. Perhaps this also explains the easy coexistence of Protestants and Orthodox Christians in the World Council of Churches (WCC), the crowning achievement of the post-ecclesiological age (Table 91.1).

Table 91.1 The ecclesiology during the post-ecclesiological age
Full size table

This is the ecclesiological puzzle illustrating the meaning, the characteristics, but also the perspectives of the “post-ecclesiological” age. Out of these three Ecclesiologies:

  • The Catholic Church has never condemned ritualistic Ecclesiology (thirteenth century) as a deviation from the Ecclesiology of the Church. On the contrary, Ecclesiological ritualism continues to inspire the different ritualistic Catholic Churches and determine their beginnings.

  • Protestants also never condemned confessional Ecclesiology (sixteenth century) as deviating from Pauline Ecclesiology. On the contrary, Ecclesiological Confessionalism even continues to inspire Protestant Churches and determine their beginnings, after moving definitely from the Biblical Pauline Ecclesiology. So, although theologically unjustified, the very absence of any condemnation diminishes their responsibility.

  • Orthodox Christians, however, when ethno-phyletic Ecclesiology started flourishing and prospering (nineteenth century), immediately summoned the Pan-Orthodox Council of Constantinople and condemned Ecclesiological Ethno-Phyletism as heresy (1872). Heresy!… Out of all Christians, only Orthodox Christians had the theological courage to take action conciliarly and condemn such a deviating form of Ecclesiology as heresy, revealing the magnitude of the ecclesiological awareness pervading them at least at that time. After that Council, however, almost all National Orthodox Churches had nothing to show for themselves, statutorily or canonically, other than ethno-phyletic Ecclesiology, that is, statutorily speaking, the heresy they condemned conciliarly. So today, everyone behaves ethno-phyletically, acts ethno-phyletically, and organizes their “ethno-ecclesial diaspora” (sic), while continuing to organise themselves ethno-phyletically to this day (twenty-first century).

This is why Orthodox Christians, in contrast to the Catholics and the Protestants, will be held inexcusably responsible for having adopted such an anti-ecclesiastic behaviour, despite the ad hoc conciliar decisions and recommendations which contribute to the fragmentation of the Church body wherever it is invited and established over the world.

This clearly and strongly attests to the fact that the age we are living through is unmistakably post-ecclesiological, in the time when we know very well that Ecclesiology concerns the mode of existence of the Church. If this is really so, at a time where everyone (Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians) speaks of Eucharistic Ecclesiology, the following question can be asked: in the time of improper Ecclesiology how far is the Eucharist possible? For the Fathers of the Church, if faith was improper, the Eucharist was impossible! But what of the case of Ecclesiology?

Finally, the three Ecclesiologies we have explored share the same pathology, regardless of differences in their theology or confession or even Church so that when speaking of the pathology of a Church’s ecclesiology, the same principles are generally valid for the ecclesiology of other Churches too. This includes all their consequences, taking, nonetheless, the specifics and proportions of each Church into account. Thus, there are three “sister” ecclesiologies (by analogy to “sister Churches”), sharing similar and analogous characteristics… three Ecclesiologies which are not in communion, simply because they are disjointed. Three “sister” Ecclesiologies which are completely unrelated to the Ecclesiology of the Church… The New Testament will have to be… rewritten, to theologically justify contemporary Ecclesiologies and their practice… The reestablished in Christ people of God in the New Testament is against every exclusiveness and foreign vis-à-vis any isolationism (particularismus). Because of a subjective personal or collective choice in charge of the rest of the all, the tendency is to isolate a part of the all (particularismus) and through this isolation, to separate, and finally, to divide a body and, by extension, the unity of a body.

The cultural demands of peoples today in our multicultural society are more powerful than the ontological answers that Churches provide. Churches will have to choose whether to conserve the Pauline Ecclesiology of the New Testament which has guided them for fifteen centuries or to give in to the confessional, ritualistic, cultural or nationalist demands of the post-ecclesiological age, which have become the unquestionably established ecclesiology of the present. Certainly, and by the look of things of the future in the latter case, the Church of Christ will be trailing behind the tragically eonistic course of the peoples; the fault will lie with the Churches rather than leading the eschatological way already traced out by the Resurrection (Rev 22, 20).

The votes of France and of Holland during the European referendum (29/5/2005 and 31/5/2005 respectively) were whether to accept a common European constitution. By rejecting this referendum, it was demonstrated that these two countries freed themselves from nationalism and rigid “etatism [statism].” Both have played a leading role in the European ideal and construction, which genuinely fought the nationalist past in Europe. In short they could escape their past. So how could countries still under Europe’s influence ever succeed? Not only did these countries not free themselves, but, to this day, they also, by some ecclesiastic institutional means or other, claim that it is the idea of the State-Nation, in other words, the nationalism of the State, or better yet, the phyletic nationalism which determines the ecclesiology of the Church and the canonical resolution of every ecclesiological issue. In this case, the voice of the Canons of the Church and her Ecclesiology can scarcely be perceived in the face of the powerful echo of the current Orthodox ethno-ecclesial Statory Charters. So this voice can nary be heard in the turmoil caused by the corrupted ecclesiological echo in this post-ecclesiological age.

8 Summary: New Ecclesiologies and New Ecclesio-geographical Challenges – The Emergence of Post-ecclesiological Modernity

The disunity of the Churches makes it impossible for them fully and effectively to bear Christian witness in the public sphere. In the course of the second Christian millennium, the three major Christian traditions – Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox – have come to distance themselves from the territorial principle of ecclesiology according to which the Church must be one “in each place.” From the time of the Crusades (1095–1204), the Roman Catholic Church began to establish Latin Patriarchates parallel to the pre-existing Oriental Local ones and create the ecclesiological problem of co-territoriality (1099). Gradually, and especially since the introduction of “Uniatism” (1596), Catholic ecclesiology came to allow churches of different ritual traditions to exist within a single territory. This anti-ecclesiological and anti-canonical conviventia creates a new epoch for the Church, an epoch which is obviously post-ecclesial. Therefore, Protestantism, emphasizing the “confession of the faith” which created the ecclesiological problem of confessionalism (1517) as the foundation of the Church came to admit the co-existence (co-territoriality-conviventia) in a single place of churches of different confessions. As for Orthodoxy, it did not consider the interruption of communion with the Western Church (1054) as a full schism, and did not, therefore, attempt to create anything resembling a parallel “Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome.” But since the nineteenth century, the emigration of Orthodox Christians to regions outside the traditional territory of their respective churches, together with the growth of Ethno-Phyletism (1872), led to the creation of multiple Orthodox bishoprics (co-territoriality-conviventia), based exclusively on ethnic criteria (multi-jurisdiction), in full communion with each other. National Orthodox Churches sometimes go so far as to claim a kind of extra-territoriality to enable them to minister to their compatriots abroad.

This research makes a contribution to the ecclesio-canonical problem of co-territoriality through the three major Christian Ecclesiologies of the second Christian millennium:

  1. 1.

    The Ecclesiology of the Crusades (thirteenth century)

  2. 2.

    The Ecclesiology of the Reform (sixteenth century), and

  3. 3.

    The Ecclesiology of Ethno-Phyletism (nineteenth century)

While Catholics have never distanced themselves from their “Ritualistic” ecclesiology, nor Protestants from their “Confessionalism,” the Orthodox did formally and synodally condemn “Ethno-Phyletism” in 1872. For that very reason, the survival of ethno-phyletist tendencies in Orthodoxy church practice is all the more reprehensible. The only way forward for all three confessional families is to return to the sound principle of Pauline ecclesiology in the quest for unity in each place. In this post-modern world of (religious) individualism and (ecclesiastical-ecumenical) relativism, only a witness of true unity and far away from one post-ecclesial geographical conviventia can viably make the churches’ voices heard in the universal public sphere.