THE PROBLEM OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTOCEPHALY The recent quarrel between the patriarchates of Constantinople and Moscow over Constantinople’s proclamation of an autocephalous Ukrainian Church raises once again the problem of ecclesiastical autocephaly that has so plagued the Orthodox Church over the course of the last millennium. Let us first offer a definition of ecclesiastical autocephaly. Following the canonist Sergei Troitsky (1878-1972) in his article “Church Autocephaly” (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1948), we may define a Church as autocephalous if it is “self-headed”, having its own supreme or sovereign power independent of that of any other autocephalous Church, whose bishops elect their first bishop and the rest of the hierarchy, and are able to judge their own hierarchs, including the first hierarch, independently of any other church hierarchy. In addition, an autocephalous Church “enjoys full freedom in producing holy myrrh for itself, canonizing its own saints, composing new hymns, determining the time of the liturgy, etc.” However, an autocephalous Church is not independent in its dogmatic and canonical definitions, which have to conform to the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, and is also subject to the decisions of all truly Orthodox Ecumenical and Pan-Orthodox Councils. If we exclude the five patriarchates that came into existence in the first Christian centuries – Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem – autocephalous Churches have come into existence in the following three ways:- 1. By the Decision of an Ecumenical Council. In this way were born the autocephalies of the Churches of Georgia, Cyprus and Sinai. In later ages, for their protection in the face of overwhelming external pressure, the Church of Georgia was absorbed into the Church of Russia, and the Church of Cyprus into the Church of Constantinople. But these absorptions, or annulments of autocephaly, were recognized as temporary, and therefore did not significantly hinder the reassertion of autocephaly in later ages. 2. By the Grant of a Mother or “kyriarchal” Church . In this way were born the autocephalies of the Churches of Bulgaria and Serbia in medieval times, and of many other Churches in the twentieth century. In most cases the Mother Church has been the patriarchate of Constantinople; in a few cases it has been the patriarchate of Moscow. One characteristic of this method of autocephaly-creation has been its instability: the Church that grants the autocephaly feels itself entitled to take back this grant for one or another reason. Thus in 1766-67 the