EO Cathedrals

dunno aside from maybe being a place where an auxiliary bishop can serve

I don't know if this would play a part or not, but there can be only one Divine Liturgy served on the altar on any given day, whereas Catholics can serve multiple Masses.

tampasteve said:

I have seen some places, such as Red Square in Moscow, often have one or more cathedrals in an area. This seems to differ from RC or Anglican/Lutheran traditions which only have one cathedral for the seat of the Bishop (but may have co-cathedrals too). Can anyone explain this to me? Thank you in advance!

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The OCA has more than one cathedral in the area of a diocese. For instance, the Eastern PA Diocese has a cathedral in Wilkes-Barre, Holy Resurrection Cathedral IIRC, and also St. Stephen's Cathedral in Philadelphia.

You can reply that Moscow's Kremlin area is a small area, whereas Eastern PA is a big area. But the point that I am making is one of principle and ecclesiology. If you can have more than one cathedral of a diocese in a diocese's territory (like in Eastern PA), then you could choose to put those two cathedrals close to each other (like in Moscow).

My understanding with Eastern PA is that the seat used to actually be in Wilkes-Barre, so although it's in Philly now, they didn't want to downgrade Holy Resurrection from cathedral status.