Autocephaly, questions from a Roman Catholic

This article offers a theological reflection on the phenomenon of ecclesial autocephaly in Orthodoxy, conducted from a Roman Catholic perspective. The author adopts an approach of critical inquiry, drawing primarily on the ecclesiology of Vatican II. The central idea is that the category of "nation," often invoked to justify autocephaly, does not possess ecclesiological relevance in the strict sense: only the categories of local Church and whole Church are theologically foundational. The author shows that the identification of an autocephalous Church with a politically independent nation risks degenerating into ecclesial nationalism, threatening the catholicity constitutive of every Church. The contribution of the article lies in bringing the Catholic ecclesiology of the communion of Churches into dialogue with Orthodox structures of autocephaly, raising precise questions about the visible bonds of inter-ecclesial communion and the effective exercise of primatial and synodal functions.