GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH

GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH is a broad term used to describe several historical expressions of the life of the Christian church. The terms Greek Christianity and Greek church are often used as synonyms for it, but with different nuances. This article seeks to clarify the term Greek Orthodox church by describing Greek Orthodox Christianity through its historical development to its twenty-first century expressions.

The Early Church and Greek Christianity

In their broadest meaning, Greek church and Greek Christianity can refer to the earliest development of Christianity as it moved from its Jewish matrix into the Greek cultural world of the Roman Empire. In this sense it is contrasted to Jewish Christianity. Cultural life at the time was imbued with the Greek heritage: language, philosophy, religion, literature, and political values. In the early Christian tradition, Greek often meant pagan or Gentile, but it referred, as well, to Christians who came to the faith from a polytheistic background as distinguished from Jews who accepted the messiahship of Jesus. Much of the New Testament and the earliest Christian patristic documents were written in the Greek language. Thus, insofar as early Christianity was a religion of conversion, it reflected its immersion in Greek language and thought.

Greek Christianity and Latin Christianity

Greek Christianity soon came to be distinguished from other cultural embodiments of the Christian experience, especially Latin Christianity. The early development of Latin Christianity has its roots in the Greek tradition as exemplified by Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–c. 200). The Greek approach to Christianity was strongly theological, seeking to come to as careful a comprehension as was possible of the mysteries of the Christian faith. It expressed itself, as well, in rich worship traditions and iconography, on the one hand, while cultivating monastic, ascetic, and mystical Christian traditions on the other. But by the late third century the special characteristics of the Latin cultural milieu began to influence the church in the West and formed a more practical, legally oriented Christian expression. Nevertheless, Greek and Latin Christianity at this period were not contrasting forms of the faith but were complementary to each other.

Byzantium's Greek Christianity

The Christian church in the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire (325–1453) retained and developed the ancient traditions of Greek Christianity. Organizationally, this fostered more of the early church's sense of local autonomy, in which the council remained central to church life. The early Christian tradition, as expressed in the Greek fathers, Eastern monastic spirituality, early canonical practice, and liturgical life became normative for Byzantine Christianity. Distinct Christian traditions, however, differentiated from the Greek tradition, producing other ecclesial identities. These were the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Nestorian church, and the Roman Catholic Church.

The Oriental Orthodox churches (each with a national component and traditionally characterized as monophysite) and the Nestorians became ecclesially distinguished from Greek Christianity by the fifth century. Latin Christianity, following its own inner dynamic, and strongly influenced by the rise of Frankish and Germanic political and economic power in western Europe, developed into a distinct ecclesiastical reality. This distinction was formalized with the Great Schism between the two great halves of Christendom that occurred over a period from the ninth to the early thirteenth century. The schism between Greek East and Latin West was made permanent by the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. It then became a linguistic convention to refer to the church in the West as "the Roman Catholic Church" and the church in the East as "the Greek Orthodox church."

Greek Orthodoxy and Slavic Orthodoxy

With the rise of Slavic Christianity, a new ethos affected the identity of the Greek Orthodox church. This development was a direct result of Greek Orthodox missionary policy in the ninth through the twelfth century, which fostered indigenous cultures, liturgical languages, and clergy in each mission church. Originally, the church hierarchy was composed of Greeks. But each of the various Slavic and other peoples eventually obtained their own hierarchies. All of these new churches, however, received the Christian faith in its Greek form (in contradistinction to the Latin/Roman form). But while there was a deep-rooted spiritual identity with the ancient Greek Orthodox tradition of Christianity, there came into being a new Slavic identity within these churches.

What intensified the mix of traditional Greek Orthodox Christianity and the Orthodox Christianity of local nonethnic Greeks was the millet system put in place by the Muslim conquerors of the Byzantine Empire (1453). As a means of governing the Orthodox Christian peoples, as well as all other ethnic-religious groups, the Muslims understood them to be one people, or nation (the millet ). The patriarch of Constantinople was recognized as the head of the Orthodox Christian nation with civil as well as religious duties. Greek metropolitans and bishops were appointed over the various Orthodox peoples to exercise this new administration, which included responsibilities for collecting taxes, assuring the observance of the law, and the loyalty of the Orthodox Christian populations to the central government. The combination of spiritual and secular responsibilities created many difficulties and occasioned abuses, but it also provided many opportunities for service to Orthodox unity. Thus, the ecumenical patriarchate served as a focal point in the defense of the Orthodox faith from incursions of Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries intent on proselytizing the Orthodox during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Numerous councils were held for this purpose. With only a few exceptions, all of the documents arising out of this movement were written originally in Greek.

At the same time, the ecumenical patriarchate, both as a representative of the Turkish authorities and as an agency of Greek ethnic influence upon the indigenous cultures of these Orthodox peoples, began to be perceived in some ways as an alien force. When, in the first half of the nineteenth century, various national wars of independence were initiated against the Muslim Ottoman Empire, they were often concurrently actions of independence from the Greek cultural influence of the patriarchate of Constantinople as well as from its political influence. This led to the formation of independent (autocephalous) national churches. A partial exception was the Church of Greece. Its separation from the ecumenical patriarchate was forced by political considerations only.

Generally, the new order of things required a church organization and consciousness that would demarcate the newly organized autocephalous churches from the ethnic Greek traditional character of the ecumenical patriarchate, while concurrently acknowledging fully its historical ecumenical character as primus inter pares (first among equals) of the Orthodox world. In this manner, the Orthodox churches of Russia (1448), Serbia (1879), Romania (1885), Bulgaria (1870), Czechoslovakia (1922), Finland (1923), Poland (1924), and Albania (1937) came into being. Thus, for example, today it is possible to differentiate Greek Orthodoxy from Slavic Orthodoxy and Romanian Orthodoxy as cultural realities within the canonically unified Eastern Orthodox church.

Greek Orthodox Churches Today

In the modern and ethnic sense, Greek Orthodoxy is understood to include those churches whose language, liturgy, and spirit keep Orthodoxy and the Greek ethnic cultural tradition united. These churches are the Church of Greece, the patriarchate of Constantinople (in part because it is also the international center of world Orthodoxy), the patriarchate of Alexandria, the patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Church of Cyprus, and the ethnic Greek diaspora jurisdictions throughout the world.

The Church of Greece

The most restricted meaning of Greek Orthodox church refers to the autocephalous Church of Greece. Prior to the Greek War of Independence, which began in 1821, Christianity in what is now known as Greece was, for most of its history, part of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople. Even though the church was self-declared autocephalous in 1833, it understands itself to be in direct continuity with the founding of Christianity in Thessalonica, Philippi, Corinth, Athens, Nicopolis, and other Greek cities by the apostle Paul. Given the Orthodox tradition that ecclesial order often follows civil governmental patterns, over the centuries the church in Greece has come under various patterns of ecclesial jurisdiction. Following the early period, when metropolitan sees had been established in the major cities, Greece came under Constantinople, where it stayed—with a few interruptions—until the nineteenth century. Originally, the autocephalous Church of Greece included only the southern part of the modern nation of Greece, since only that area was liberated in 1830. Over the years, as the Greek nation expanded, the church also grew in territorial size and numbers. But this equation of the boundaries of the state and the jurisdiction of the Church of Greece is not absolute. Several areas of the nation of Greece are ecclesiastically under the control of the ecumenical patriarchate: the Dodecanese, Crete, and Mount Athos. The Orthodox church is the official church of Greece, while at the same time freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution. The vast majority of Greece's population of over ten million people are baptized Orthodox Christians. In addition to the archbishop of Athens, there are eighty-five bishops in seventy-seven dioceses and almost seventy-five hundred parishes.

The patriarchate of Constantinople

With the establishment of the modern secular Turkish state in 1921, under Kemal Atatürk, the position of the patriarchate of Constantinople has suffered severe weakening. Following the destruction of the Greek military forces in the Greco-Turkish war of 1922, an erosion of the Greek population of Asia Minor has continued unabated. It began with the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey as mandated in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne. Only the Greek population located in western Thrace and Constantinople (Istanbul) was exempted from the removal to Greece. The treaty also guaranteed the independence, freedom, and permanence of the patriarchate in its location in Constantinople, but it soon became a pawn in the political conflicts of Greece and Turkey. The conflict of Turkish and Greek interests in Cyprus has been the occasion for the patriarchate to become a pressure point against Greek interests.

In 1955, after years of general harassment, government-inspired riots wrought havoc on the Greek community of Istanbul, in which not only private homes and shops but churches, cemeteries, schools, and other institutions were vandalized and destroyed. Economic and administrative pressures forced a large part of the Greek Orthodox population to leave the last remaining enclave of Greek Orthodoxy in Turkey. Only a couple thousand now remain, as the patriarchate clings to its legal rights to remain in its historic city.

The patriarchate's numerical strength resides in the numerous Greek Orthodox dioceses, or eparchies, within its jurisdiction in the diaspora. In addition to four eparchies in Turkey, the Patriarchate of Constantinople exercises jurisdiction over the Archdiocese of Crete, with eight metropolitan sees; the four metropolitan sees of the Dodecanese; the historic monasteries of Patmos and Mount Athos; the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, with ten dioceses; the Archdiocese of Australia, with five archdiocesan districts; the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain and the Exarchate for Western Europe, Ireland, and Malta, with eight bishops, in addition to the archbishop; the Metropolis of France and the Exarchate of Iberia, with three metropolitan regions; the Metropolis of Germany and the Exarchate of Central Europe, with three bishops and the archbishop; the Metropolis of Austria and the Exarchate for Italy and Hungary; the Metropolis of Belgium and the Exarchate for the Low Countries, with the archbishop and one bishop; the Metropolis of Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Northern Lands, with one bishop; the Metropolis of New Zealand and the Exarchate for India, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, with the archbishop; the Metropolis of Switzerland and the Exarchate of Europe, with the metropolitan who also presides over the Orthodox Center at Chambesy, Switzerland. The Ecumenical Patriarchate maintains a permanent representative at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Although there are some exceptions, nearly all of the people making up the congregations of these ecclesiastical jurisdictions are of Greek background.

The patriarchate of Alexandria

Egypt was one of the first areas to come under the influence of Islam in the eighth century. The larger portion of the Christian population that survived belonged to the Coptic church. Nevertheless, the Greek Orthodox patriarchate of Alexandria continued to exist in Egypt throughout the centuries. Its major constituency consisted of a well-organized Greek community that was strongly entrenched in leadership positions in commerce, finance, and education. Numerous educational and cultural institutions were supported by the Greek community. In addition the patriarchate of Alexandria had canonical control over all of Orthodoxy on the African continent. By and large these jurisdictions were composed of Greeks in the various African nations and some missionary churches. The numerical strength of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Egypt was broken with the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. The Greek population of Egypt lost much of its economic and social status and began to emigrate. Nevertheless, in 2002 the patriarchate continued to serve about 350,000 Orthodox Christians whose members worship in the Greek, Arabic, and several native East African languages. There are thirteen metropolitan sees.

The patriarchate of Jerusalem

Though severely tried throughout the years of the Muslim conquests of the Holy Land, the patriarchate of Jerusalem was able to sustain itself until the Crusaders conquered the city of Jerusalem in 1099. The Greek Orthodox patriarch was expelled and replaced with a Latin patriarch. This situation lasted until 1177. In 1517 the area came under the control of the sultan in Constantinople while the church continued to struggle to maintain its rights to the holy places of Jerusalem. In the mid-nineteenth century, international agreements affirmed the rights of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate over the ancient churches of the Holy Sepulcher. Changing political circumstances in the area have required the negotiation of agreements regarding the status of the patriarchate with the British, Jordanians, and Israelis. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the patriarchate counted 130,000 members with sixteen bishops and maintained under its jurisdiction the archdiocese of Sinai, in present-day Egypt.

The Church of Cyprus

The Church of Cyprus, consisting exclusively of Greek Cypriots, received its independence as an autocephalous church through the eighth canon of the Council of Ephesus (431), but its history goes back to New Testament times (Acts 11:19). Its bishops participated in the Council of Nicaea (325). Although the Orthodox church suffered severe repression during the period of Latin domination (1191–1571), it retained its Greek Orthodox character. Under the Turks (1571–1878) the Orthodox hierarchy was fully acknowledged. The Orthodox church is very close to the people of Cyprus, especially since the 1974 Turkish invasion of the island nation when almost half of its members were made refugees in their own land. In 2002, the Church of Cyprus counted more than 442,000 members with six dioceses, seven bishops, and twelve hundred priests.

The Greek Orthodox diaspora

The Greek Orthodox Christians found throughout the world today in traditionally non-Orthodox lands are primarily under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The various ecclesial jurisdictions are mentioned above. Those in English-speaking lands are the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, the Archdiocese of Australia, the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, and the Metropolis of New Zealand. Of these, the American jurisdiction is the largest.

The Archdiocese of North and South America was established in 1922. Sixty years later it consisted of the archdiocese and ten dioceses with 488 parishes, 569 churches, 530 priests, and 670,000 duly recorded members, although it serves a much larger number of persons who identify themselves as Greek Orthodox Christians. It supported 24 parochial schools and 412 afternoon Greek schools. The church also has two institutions of higher learning, Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. It maintains an orphanage and several old-age homes. In 1984 it supported 518 catechetical schools for children and 186 adult religious education programs. By 2002 the archdiocese counted 540 parishes and 800 priests, and a membership estimated at 1.5 million. Nearly every parish has a "Philoptohos [Friends of the Poor] Society" and one or more youth groups. It publishes a bimonthly newspaper, The Orthodox Observer, and a scholarly theological journal, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, through the Holy Cross School of Theology. This pattern of organization and functioning is the model for the other churches of the Greek Orthodox diaspora.

See Also

Eastern Christianity; Russian Orthodox Church; Schism, article on Christian Schism.

Bibliography

Campbell, John, and Philip Sherrard. Modern Greece. New York, 1968. A useful chapter on the place of the Orthodox church in modern Greece.

Florovsky, Georges. "Patristics and Modern Theology." In Procès-verbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes: 29 novembre-6 décembre 1936, edited by Hamilcar S. Alivisatos. Athens, 1939. A historic call for a return to the Greek fathers. The final clause, italicized for emphasis, reads "let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox."

Frazee, Charles A. Orthodox Church in Independent Greece, 1821–1852. Cambridge, U.K., 1969. A detailed account of the establishment of the autocephalous Church of Greece.

Geanakoplos, Deno John. Byzantine East and Latin West: Two Worlds of Christendom in Middle Ages and Renaissance; Studies in Ecclesiastical and Cultural History. New York, 1966. An excellent study on the topic, with important insights on the cultural sources of the ecclesiastical conflicts.

Karmiris, Ioannes N. "Nationalism in the Orthodox Church." Greek Orthodox Theological Review 26 (Fall 1981): 171–184. An effort to explicate the broad Greek cultural impact upon Orthodox Christianity, while distinguishing the Orthodox faith from modern Greek nationalism, without contrasting it.

Runciman, Steven. The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence. Cambridge, U.K., 1968. The definitive work on this subject.

Vaporis, Nomikos Michael, ed. Post-Byzantine Ecclesiastical Personalities. Brookline, Mass., 1978. Biographies of several major Greek figures in the Orthodox church under Ottoman rule.

Vryonis, Speros, Jr. Byzantium and Europe. New York, 1967. A good, broad cultural introduction to Byzantine history, with a focus on the relationships between East and West. Illustrated.

Ware, Timothy. Eustratios Argenti: A Study of the Greek Church under Turkish Rule. Oxford, 1964. Reprint, Willits, Calif., 1974. A fine case study of the practical dimensions of Greek Orthodox Christian life under the Ottomans.

Stanley Samuel Harakas (1987)