THE Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew of Constantinople, has reasserted his primacy after 34 years in office over the world’s divided Orthodox Churches, insisting that he should be viewed as “first without equals” rather than as primus inter pares, or “first among equals”.
“The Constantinople primacy isn’t just a prestigious title — the Ecumenical Patriarchate has certain prerogatives and powers, and has exercised them over centuries as the Church’s first throne,” Patriarch Bartholomew said, in a recent interview with a French broadcasting network.
“Of course, neither I nor my successors will renounce rights granted to us by Ecumenical Councils and by the practice of church life. These age-old rights will remain a precious asset for serving our Orthodox brothers across the earth.”
The 85-year-old Patriarch spoke as Russian Orthodox leaders and their church allies continued to dispute his authority to grant autocephaly, or independence, in 2019 to a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
He said that his Patriarchate had granted autocephaly to the Churches of Russia and the Balkans over previous centuries, and remained confident that Ukraine’s two rival Orthodox denominations would unite sooner or later.
“Our Patriarchate made its decision, believing the Church of Ukraine had a right to independence: it had addressed numerous requests to us not only in recent years, but in the 1920s and even earlier,” Patriarch Bartholomew said. He was born on the island of Imbros, Turkey, in 1940 and ordained in 1969 after national service with the Turkish army and studies in Rome, Bossey, and Munich.
“Since the Ukrainians had their own indigenous Church, we exercised our canonical right to grant them autocephaly. . . The Ecumenical Patriarchate has no intention of cancelling its decision — I want to make this clear.”
The Ecumenical Patriarch is based in Istanbul and holds direct jurisdiction over 3.5 million Christians in the eastern Mediterranean, but is recognised as holding primacy among the world’s nine Orthodox patriarchates and 16 independent Churches, together numbering around 250 million believers.
Patriarch Bartholomew said that he had “tried to give impetus to Orthodox co-operation” ever since his election in 1991 by convoking meetings of Primates and hosting a Holy and Great Council of Crete in 2016, which had presented a “united voice of Orthodoxy” despite boycotts by the Churches of America, Antioch, Georgia, and Russia.
He said that he had inherited his concern for ecology and “God’s Creation” from his predecessor, Patriarch Demetrios I (1914-91), and had maintained official dialogues with Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Protestants, as well as with Jews and Muslims, believing that these were indispensable “for the good of humanity”.
“The Patriarch’s task is difficult and heavy with responsibilities for someone fully assuming Orthodoxy’s first patriarchal throne: he must be vigilant, never sleeping peacefully,” Bartholomew said in the French interview.
“If we apply the principle of love to daily life and relations with one another, problems will be resolved much more easily, with good humour and respect for differences. We will not need to resort to anathemas, dismissals, weapons, and wars.”