Who Heads the OO Church?

copticorthodoxy

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Pope Tawadros II the 118th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of St. Mark see

Pope%20Tawadros%20EPA.preview.jpg
 
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ArmenianJohn

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The Armenian Church has a Catholicos; this is Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians:

catholicos-karekin-ii-pix.jpg


There is another Catholicos because due to the history of Armenia the Catholicosate was moved to Cilicia (another Armenian Kingdom) in 1058; it was later moved back to Etchmiadzin (where Karekin II is) in 1400's but the Catholicosate in Cilicia remained and still is there to this day. Etchmiadzin is considered the "higher" of the two but they are kind of equal also. It is never an issue as the two do not conflict with each other, it is merely an organizational issue due to the history of the Armenians. This is Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia:

armenian-pontifical-visit.jpg


Incidentally I am Cilician Armenian and my Church is under Aram I, but it is seamless if I go to any other Armenian Apostolic Church, there's no difference.
 
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dzheremi

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Interesting. Is one particular See seen as more ancient, authoritative, or central than another?

Not really. There are some arguments for Alexandria or Antioch, based on their place as prominent sees in early Christianity and related arguments, but the ordering of the patriarchs in the liturgy shows that even those churches whose partisans sometimes claim that don't themselves behave as though they are more authoritative or whatever. For instance, it is required by agreement with those churches that we mention the Syriac Orthodox patriarch and the Eritrean patriarch (the real one, Abune Antonios, not the government puppet) in every liturgy, whereas the others may be mentioned as appropriate (say, if we have Ethiopians or Armenians worshiping with us). If it were a matter of antiquity or associated authority, surely we would mention the Ethiopian patriarch before the Eritrean, as the Eritrean Church has only been autocephalous for a very short time. But it is not like that.

There is a recognition, of course, that as a matter of historical fact in the temporal procession of events, Alexandria is the 'mother church' of both the East African Orthodox Tewahedo churches (seeing as how Axum received her first bishops from Alexandria during the time of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic), and hence they may be appealed to in times of trouble for those churches. The repressive and frankly evil Eritrean government sent some lackeys to Alexandria in the time of HH Pope Shenouda III to get his blessing for the puppet patriarch they had set up after they illegally (uncanonically) deposed HH Abune Antonios, but were turned away after being told we would in no way be blessing or recognizing that. While their request was insane, the fact that they requested it of Alexandria was sensible. But that doesn't make Alexandria 'first' in some ordering or whatever (see post #6 on the first page). We are not really like the Chalcedonian churches in this way. (Sorry, Coptic people. The Egyptian Church is still awesome, but let's not overstep the boundaries of the ancient canons received at Nicaea et al.)

I also had no idea that the Malankara Orthodox had been excommunicated by Syriac Orthodoxy. Really?

It's a bit of a strange issue, because how do you excommunicate an autocephalous group that by its very nature will not recognize your decision? It's a bit like the RC-EO schism of 1054, if you think about it: the Roman legates placed the bull of excommunication upon the altar, which made the schism 'offical' I guess, but it has always been the EO contention as far as I know that to do so in the first place was not lawful, as it was not within Rome's power in the first place to unilaterally excommunicate half of the Christian world. Similarly, from what I have been able to gather, the Syriac Orthodox (i.e., those loyal to the Patriarch of Antioch/not autocephalous, called in India 'Jacobites', even as that term began as an insult) do not recognize what the Malankara Orthodox Syrians have done (see here), while the Malankara Orthodox Syrians, who apparently have the government on their side, do not recognize the right of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate to interfere in their affairs (see here), as they have their own local bishop to whom they are loyal before Antioch (the Jacobite Orthodox too have their own bishop, who heads the local Holy Synod in India but is also under the authority of Antioch and its Holy Synod, as explained in the first link).

So it's a pretty big mess, but as the second link (which is clearly slanted towards the Malankara Orthodox Syrian/autocephalous church's view, in line with the government's decision, which unfortunately does not end the schism as is written there; schisms cannot be ended by legal/state fiat) indicates, it is also a rather new schism, given how recently there was agreement between the parties, even to the point of coming together to elect one bishop to shepherd them both. So we who recognize both (as the Coptic Orthodox Church quite awkwardly does, from all indications) can only pray for an end to this Indian schism. We have hope in the recent example of the end of the schism between the canonical Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the expatriate "Synod in Resistance", which objected to the elevation of HH Abune Paulos as patriarch for various reasons (sort of parallel to the EO ROCOR situation, which has likewise been resolved by the grace of God). That schism was admittedly newer, beginning only in 1991, but it lasted for 27 years before being healed. So such things are possible, by God. Lord have mercy.
 
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dzheremi

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Yeah, I don't think the Syriac Orthodox recognize them, which is weird given their Syriac patrimony, but perhaps understandable given the sometimes very violent nature of the schism in India, which after all involves also several million Syriac Orthodox Indians who are loyal to and consider themselves an integral autonomous diocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church. But as far as I know, the rest of the OO have not 'taken sides' in this, which I think is a very smart move, even as it pains us all to see it continue. This is, if I may be honest to the point of perhaps stepping on some toes, a relative 'down side' of our rather more free/loose conception of ecclesiology relative to the Chalcedonian churches, who have a much more rigid relation to one another due to sharing liturgies and general practice in addition to theology (in the EO case, since all the Eastern Chalcedonians were 'Byzantinized' in the centuries following Chalcedon as the influence of Constantinople spread over Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, regularizing their liturgies and commemorations), or sharing a very strong ecclesiological vision even when they do not necessarily share liturgies and practices (in the case of the Eastern and Oriental sui juris churches of the Catholic communion). We cannot really step in and tell another autocephalous Church of the communion "This is what you have to do", unless we are asked to mediate in some way, or unless there is a serious violation of the common faith that places a given church outside of the communion (as was the charge of the Syrians against the Armenians for a few centuries before their eventual reunion).

When the Eritrean government lackeys came to Alexandria looking for the blessing of the Coptic Orthodox Church for their government-installed 'patriarch' (a man who had taken the name Dioscorus), the most we could really do is send them away disappointed with the message that we would not recognize any but the lawful Abune Antonios. We could not actually directly interfere in their affairs, because Eritrea had already been granted autocephaly some years earlier by Alexandria (over the objections of the Ethiopians at the time, by the way), and we do not play the game of "You are only autocephalous until the government of your country does something we don't like" (this would effectively make both churches into arms of their respective nations in a political argument, and we know from history how dangerous that can be). So we pray also for the situation in Eritrea, which, as you can read in the thread I posted a little while ago, has only gotten worse in recent months with the government's further abuse of the legitimate patriarch, whom they have already had under house arrest for well over a decade and have now convicted of 'heresy' by their puppet synod in a desperate bid to strip him of his legitimacy before the world (no doubt in response to the relatively consistent international pressure placed on them to release him from captivity and restore him to his rightful throne). Lord have mercy!
 
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ArmenianJohn

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