The causes of the Council of Constantinople (1872) on phyletism

This article examines the historical and political causes of the Council of Constantinople of 1872, which condemned phyletism, that is, the subordination of ecclesiastical organization to national affiliations. Drawing on the work of Greek historian P. Matalas, Vassilis Pnevmatikakis offers a geopolitical analysis of the Greek-Bulgarian ecclesiastical dispute in the context of the assertion of Balkan nationalities in the nineteenth century. The article highlights two competing conceptions of Christian Hellenism: a national vision of Western inspiration, which led to the autocephaly of the Church of Greece, and a traditional and unifying vision, defended by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The main contribution of this study is to show that phyletism was not solely the doing of the Bulgarian Church, but ran through the entire Balkans, including influential circles of the Greek Church, while the great powers, notably Russia, instrumentalized these ecclesiastical tensions for political ends.