A few remarks on autocephaly

This article by Father Jivko Panev, a Serbian canonist, offers a historical and ecclesiological study of the concept of autocephaly, tracing its origins back to Christian Antiquity and the Byzantine Middle Ages. In the face of contemporary debates dominated by the nationalist tensions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the author chooses to situate autocephaly within the framework of the ecclesiastical organization of the Byzantine Empire, drawing on conciliar canons, imperial decrees, and synodal acts. The central idea is that autocephaly originally designates the right of bishops of a given territory to elect their peers without outside interference, and not a national ecclesial identity. The article shows how the confusion between autocephaly and the national Church gave rise to phyletism, condemned by the Orthodox Church. The principal contribution lies in the rigorous reconstruction of historical cases of ancient and medieval autocephaly, offering a canonical counterpoint to modern nationalist excesses.