The authority of the ecumenical patriarch in the Orthodox Church: A historico-canonical analysis

During the 20th century, the exact role and the scope of jurisdictional authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch was an object of attention of both theologians and historians. The problem of defining the Patriarch was reactualized through the intensification of conciliar negotiations of Orthodox Churches. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the pretensions of the Ecumenical Patriarch for universal jurisdiction over the entire Orthodox Diaspora, and the pretensions for the right of final arbitration in the ecclesial matters of the entire Orthodox communion, do not have a support in the Orthodox Ecclesiology. This will be argued in a historical analysis of the relevant prescriptions of the Eastern Orthodox Canon Law, which will be placed into the context of the history of the Christian Church, primarily of the Patristic period, since there disciplines play a vital role in the Orthodox understanding of Ecclesiological Tradition.