THE ISSUE OF GRANTING AUTOCEPHALY AS A CHALLENGE TO ORTHODOXY'S UNITY

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of granting autocephaly in the context of historical and modern contradictions in the interOrthodox dialogue. The thesis is revealed about the existence of two models of obtaining autocephalous status for one or another local church – Greek and Moskow, which inevitably involves the emergence of various kinds of contradictions and conflicts outside the boundaries of this issue, namely – the right to serve one's flock in the diaspora, which means creating in it own organizational structures – parishes, dioceses, metropolitans, exarchates, independent decision-making on granting autocephaly to their part, and therefore none of the other churches has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of another autocephalous church. It is substantiated that the contradictions surrounding this issue are conditioned both historically and in the context of church law. If we talk about the first, during the centuries of existence of the Orthodox Church, a kind of"international" church law was not developed regarding the generally accepted mechanism of granting autocephaly through the concept of the Pentarchy, which emphasized the exclusive closure of the ancient Patriarchate. As for church law, in this context, two scenarios are distinguished: the victory of one sovereign over another (when one side, that is, one or another local church significantly prevails over the other). In this case, one of the parties loses its sovereignty and recognizes the supreme authority of the other party. The second is reaching a compromise, which is expressed in the conclusion of an agreement between the parties. However, the second option does not mean that this agreement cannot be violated, since there is no body that monitors the implementation of agreements. Therefore, it is proven that the space of relations between autocephalous Churches is the space of clash of sovereign wills, and therefore the problem arises in the development of a new ecclesiological concept that will make contradictions within Orthodoxy impossible.