Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Apostles Orthodox Christian Church, Cheyenne, Wyoming

There are definitely exceptions to the rule, but generally, I don't try to actually comment much on religion on this weekly post.  Having said that, I'm not finding myself doing that in two consecutive weeks with this post, as both this one, and last weeks, have to deal with trends.  This week actually deals with a trend that's the opposite of last weeks.

First, this week's post:

Holy Apostles Orthodox Christian Church, Cheyenne Wyoming. 

This is Holy Apostles Orthodox Christian Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  This church was built in 2012 and is located on the edge of Cheyenne. 

This church is interesting in several ways, one of which simply the way it is named.  The Church is what would normally be called a Greek Orthodox church but presents itself as an "Orthodox Christian" church.  This stands in contrast to what we typically find with the various Orthodox churches which usually identify an ethnic component to them, such as Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox.  Indeed, while the various Eastern Orthodox churches are in communion with each other, they are all autocephalous and there are real distinctions between them at least to the extent that each of them has their own hierarchy.

They are also very traditional in many ways and to find one that doesn't note the ethnic component is simply unusual for them.  Also unusual is the design of this church which is highly modern (unfortunately in my view, as I don't care for this external office building appearance). 

While not knowing for sure, I suspect that these departures from tradition here were intentional and reflect an effort to deal with a decreasing ethnic component in the Orthodox Churches which they are going to have to deal with in order to survive. At the same time, however, it also may reflect an increased interest in the Orthodox community among traditionalist Protestants of various kinds who have investigated their own churches origins in the wake of numerous doctrinal changes in recent years.  There's been a bit of a boom, more than a ripple but less than a tidal wave, of traditionalist protestants coming into the Orthodox Churches, typically the Greek Orthodox Church, as a result of that.  This church, in its name and design, seems to be designed with an eye towards accommodating that. 

As is obvious, even the original post deals a fair amount with trends, but this is a most interesting one.

To be Orthodox, nearly anywhere, has for much of history, indeed for all of history since the Great Schism, meant to identify strongly with an ethnicity in sort of a unique way.  Dated roughly to 1054, the Great Schism was the separation of the Eastern and Western branches of the Church.  Except to learned Catholics and Orthodox, the Schism is fairly difficult to understand and my guess is that most church going members of any religion, save for most of the Orthodox and a fair number of Catholics are fairly unaware of it.  Indeed, they have to be, as to be quite learned, as a Christian, of the Schism is virtually to require a person to a member of either the Orthodox or Catholic faiths, as a full understanding of it doesn't leave much room to go in any other direction, excepting the Oriental Orthodox (which is yet another topic).

I've dealt with the Schism here before, and I don't intend to do so again now, but I note it as one of the byproducts of it was to leave the Eastern Orthodox without the head of the Church that they recognized before the Schism, i.e., the Bishop of Rome, as the head of the Church and that has meant, over time, that a lot of national churches have developed. Indeed, while originally the head of the schismatic branch, from a Catholic prospective, was the Metropolitan of Constantinople, today the largest branch of the Eastern Orthodox is the Russian Orthodox Church, which itself has a couple of branches due to the Russian Civil War.  I'm not going to go into that, however, either.

What I am going to go into is this interesting trend.

The schism has been remarkably persistent even though the two branches of the Church did manage to reunite in the 1400s before pulling apart again in the late 1400s.  While some date the Great Schism to 1054, it can also be tracked, in a way, to 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks and the Schism seemingly took on its long character.  The last Mass celebrated at the Sophia Hagia, it's worth noting, was a Latin Rite Mass as the city fell.  Anyhow, since that time the Orthodox churches tended to be highly national in character, while the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church (the Roman Catholic Church) tended not to be, even though there were certainly countries that were, and are, "Catholic Countries". While the latter may be true, there are Roman Catholics in absolutely every country on earth. . . even, it is known, in Christian hostile Saudi Arabia.

So the trend we note above is really an interesting one.  

Some Orthodox Christians have noted that as the world globalizes it will not be possible for the Orthodox national churches to remain national churches, and they shouldn't even want to.  For the time being, the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest branch, is probably fine being that, but the others are much less so.  Interestingly, at the very point at which they really can't do that long term, they're attracting new members, as the post linked in above notes.

The reason has to do with, mostly, converts from Protestantism.  There are, to be fair, some converts from Catholicism also, but then there have always been converts from Orthodoxy to Catholicism as well.  Indeed, an often missed story is that entire branches of the Orthodox communion have reunited with Rome, which is why there are Ruthenian Catholics and Byzantine Catholics of the Eastern Rite, amongst others.  Indeed, at one time large sections of the Russian Orthodox were set to return before events conspired against that, and oddly enough some of the Old Believers have in fact reunited with the Catholic Church.

But Protestant conversions to Orthodoxy is really a new thing.

This has to do with big changes in the various Protestant faiths on doctrinal matters that conservative or simply observant members of those faiths have not been able to accommodate. That's lead to some of those churches to see real divisions among themselves, with the Anglicans in particular exhibiting that.  This has lead to those churches splitting into multiple branches.  But beyond that, it's also lead to a lot of soul searching in various conservative Protestant groups with the result being that some have determined to become Catholic or Orthodox.

Going from a Protestant denomination to the Orthodox may seem like a huge stretch.  The Orthodox are highly traditional, as are Eastern Rite Catholics, in terms of their religious observance.  But that trip isn't as odd as it might seem.  In this day and age when so much information is available, knowledge on the nature of the early church is readily available, and for students of that, ultimately the choice is left to try to maintain that a person's Protestant denomination maintains Apostolic succession and tradition, or to become Orthodox or Catholic.  Becoming Orthodox is a big departure for most from what they're used to, but because it is such a massive departure, to some that trip may be all the more easy to take.  As noted here before, even in Wyoming there was one entire Protestant congregation that made that determination.

The Orthodox seem to be aware of that, and the church depicted above exhibits that knowledge.  Orthodox Churches are often highly traditional in appearance, and in fact downright beautiful, and its often easy to identify the ethnicity of the congregation.  In this case, neither is true.  But the identification of the church as "Orthodox Christian" sends a clear message.

Interesting development.

Lex Anteinternet: The Year in Review | Catholic Answers (Mid Week At Work) And also the Orthodox Schism

Easter (Greek) Orthodox Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  This new Greek Orthodox Church's sign simply indicates its "Orthodox Christian", but now there's a schism in the Eastern Orthodox world.

I linked this in earlier here on this blog:

Lex Anteinternet: The Year in Review | Catholic Answers (Mid Week At...: The Year in Review | Catholic Answers Really fascinating economic discussion starting at 20:00. I've been posting some topics on Dis...

I did that due to the interesting discussion on Distributist economic principles, but there's a discussion starting at about 10:00 on the schism that's developed in Eastern Orthodox world this past year that's quite interesting.

Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Denver.

It's been hard to get news on that topic, and this approaches it in a fashion I had not heard before with information I had not previously heard.

Ukrainian Catholic (not Orthodox) Church in Belfield North Dakota.  This church wouldn't be par tof that schism, of course, but it does reflect the schism of 1054 when the Apostolic Churches experienced the Great Schism which remains yet to be fully healed.

Churches of the West: Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew states a reunion between the East and West is inevitable.

Churches of the West: Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew states a r...:

Note, because of its original Russian news agency source, some have been expressing doubt on the following story.

Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew states a reunion between the East and West is inevitable.

More than that, he essentially said there are no barriers to it.

This is unlikely to be front page news in the United States, but it is in fact a major development.  Patriarch Bartholomew is the Archbishop of Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarch.  In that position, he's regarded as the first among equals in Eastern Orthodoxy, although its also noted that the Pope as the Bishop of Rome is generally regarded as the First Among Equals in the church as a whole.

All this may leave Americans in particular a bit lost, as the United States, even with Catholicism being the single largest Christian denomination, is a Protestant nation and even American Catholics frequently have a poor understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy (or even of their own faith).  But this is a huge event.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches were separated in the Great Schism, which occurred in the 1054, was briefly repaired in 1453, and which has existed since then.  Efforts to put an end to the schism have occurred since the onset and in recent decades its been noted that serious progress was made in ending the schism permanently.  Mutual excommunications were lifted some time ago and a meeting within the past decade made a significant amount of progress before breaking down, which seems to have been over objections from members of the largest Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church.

Part of the process of healing the rift has been the realization that what seemed to be significant theological differences between the two churches often didn't really exist.  Now the Patriarch has stated that they don't exist.

Patriarch Bartholomew made the comments while taking part in the evening service at a the Catholic Abbey of Our Lady of St. Rémy in Rochefort, Belgium this past week.  He attended Vespers with Abbot Alexis of Xenophontos Monastery and Hieromonk Theophilos of Pantocrator Monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece.  While in attendance, Partholome sat upon the Bishop's Throne at the monastery.

The Patriarch, while at the monastery, reportedly held an unofficial talk with a collection of Orthodox monastics in attendance and told him, in his opinion, there was no longer any theological differences between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church.  None of the Orthodox audience raised any objections to the statement but some took it emotionally and weeped upon hearing it.  He further indicated that the rift today reflects history, rather than theology.

The reaction of the other Orthodox clerics is significant as for some time the real opposition to a reunion has seemingly been centered in the rank and file level of the Orthodox clergy and the conservative wing of the laity.  Without going into it in depth, it is clear that nearly all of the supposed differences between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches has in fact been addressed to the point where the differences are hardly there.  There do remain some stumbling blocks, however, the principal one being the role of the Pope.  The Catholic churches uniformly regard the Pope as the monarch of the faith and above all other clergy.  The Orthodox accord him the position of the first among equals, but do not agree that he has a superior authority in that role to the heads of the various Orthodox churches.  Somewhat ironically, Patriarch Bartholomew has been involved, in his role as the Ecumenical Patriarch, in a controversy over the Orthodox church in Ukraine with his having recognized the autocephalus status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church there, which the Russian Orthodox Church has declared to be in schism.

That isn't the only reaming difference, there are some significant ones.  But many of the ones that have been cited as differences over the years are now gone.  A very strong protective instinct in the Orthodox community combined with Orthodox churches having traditionally been strongly identified with ethnicity has operated as a bar to reunion in recent years and it's my guess that this will slow it now, although its also my guess that a reunion is closer than people might think and in fact inevitable, as Patriarch Bartholomew has stated.  The Eastern Orthodox themselves have been fairly rapidly moving away from being ethnic churches in recent years and have benefited in that in the west from the conversion of disaffected Protestants who have been discouraged by the direction of their own churches.  With this evolution going on, the likely question will be how long it will take in order for the Easter Orthodox to come back into full communion with the Catholic Church.

My additional guess, at least right now, is that if that's in the short term, say ten to twenty years, which is quite possible, it will see some further schisms as some small branches of the Eastern Orthodox balk at the move and, more significantly, the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox Church, might.  Long term the Russian Orthodox will return as well, but it has been the most resistant to date.  Perhaps ironically a large portion of it had previously returned before reversing directions, although that occurred centuries ago.

All in all, however, Patriarch Bartholomew is no doubt largely correct in his comments and his statements are encouraging.  Orthodoxy is the second largest single branch of the Christian world, making up 300,000,000 of the world's 2.4 Billion Christians.  Catholicism makes up 1.15 Billion, with Protestant churches combined making up the remaining 900,000,000 Christians.  Contrary to what is commonly reported, globally all branches of Christianity is growing and Catholicism is rapidly expanding in the third world and in areas of northern Europe which had been lost to it during the Reformation.  The number of Orthodox has doubled over the last century but, unlike Catholicism or the various Protestant faiths it has not seen an expansion outside of its traditional territories and in some of those territories in the Middle East there are serious threats to Christians which are resulting in their emigration out of them.  Countering that, however, as noted the Orthodox have seen a rise in membership in North American as disaffected Protestants have entered Eastern Orthodoxy.

If the Orthodox and Catholic churches were to reunite it would give a massive, and many would argue necessary, boost to the Eastern Rite in the Church. The Church has always retained the Eastern Rite and in recent years the Eastern Rite has been growing in North America as well, for reasons which are related to what is noted above.  But if the Orthodox were to reunite with the Catholic Church it would mean that overnight 1/5th of all Catholic would be members of the Eastern Rite, a much higher number than to today, and for the first time since the 15th Century the Church would have a large number of Eastern Bishops, whose absence has been sorely felt.  Likewise, a infusion of Eastern Rite cardinals would occur.

Defeated People: The Old Believers

 Church of St. Nicholas, Old Believer (with clergy) church in Nikolaevsk Alaska.

As the very few readers of this blog know, I was recently in the Homer Alaska area, and I happened to enter one of the small communities there made up of Old Believers.  That there even were Old Believers in the area came as a surprise to me, so being curious of mind I looked some stuff up about them.

Not that I wasn't previously aware of them, or unaware that there were some in Alaska.  They fit this category nicely.

So, who are the Old Believers?

To understand this story requires some familiarity with Russian Orthodoxy. Given as this isn't a theological article, and as even it were it would have to be written by somebody other than me, I won't discuss that at length, but what I will simply note is that Russia was Christianized by the Eastern Christianity.  That isn't, I'll note, the same thing as saying that it was Christianized by the Orthodox, as that was prior to the Great Schism.  The Russian branch of the Eastern Church became autocephalus in 1589, however, which was after the Great Schism had occurred, and after the periodic efforts to repair it ultimately failed.  It's a complicated story, and it wouldn't be true that all Russian bishops have always been outside of communion with Rome, but most have been and that is all a separate story.

Anyhow, between 1652 and 1658, the  Russian Orthodox Church made a number of reforms, most of which, quite frankly, seem quite valid as they corrected errors between Greek and Russian translations, and the like.  Some of the differences in practices changed were so slight, that modern readers can hardly believe that they would have caused a schism, but they did, and the Old Believers were having none of it.  They were fairly immediately repressed with their refusal to go along declared an anathema.  

Now, to many in the western world today this story would seemingly play out with this group causing a splinter, but that being principally the end of the story, except of course to them. But, in 17th Century Imperial Russia, this could not have been the case, so they were accordingly repressed.

"Vasily Surikov - Боярыня Морозова - Google Art Project" by Vasily Surikov - ogHGQgd1Ws9Htg at Google Cultural Institute. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.  Created on 31 December 1886.  Published before 1923 and public domain in the US.  T his work depicts noblewoman Boyaryna Morozova at the time of her arrest, depicting in her hand the old way of giving the sign of the cross, rather than the new way, one of the sticking points of the Old Believers.

So there were arrests and repression.

But they kept on keeping on, and in fact, although a minority of Russian Orthodox, they kept on keeping on all the way up to the Russian Revolution.  And this in spite of the fact that no bishops went with them, which meant  that what clergy that did go with them died off within a relatively close time to the schism, leaving them it what would seemingly be a true crisis for a member of any of the apostolic churches.

They even kept on after the Russian Revolution during which time the Russian Orthodox Church was enormously suppressed.  At that point, some fled, going to China, and ultimately from there to South America.  While some remain in South America, many later relocated to the United States, with some subsequently relocating to Alaska.

Cafe in Nikolaevsk, Alaska, an Old Believers village.

They're still around, although this story has evolved a bit in the last forty years.  Some groups around the world have reincorporated clergy, being satisfied, in their view, with the orthodoxy of at least some bishops.  The Russian Orthodox Church has, for its part, issued an apology for the early repressions of them, although that has not served to bring them back into the Russian Orthodox fold.  But the modern world has been a challenge for them, in retaining their ongoing viability.  Some villages remain extremely isolated and exclusive, while others do not.  It'll be interesting to see what becomes of them.

Be that as it may, if the much more numerous Amish have managed to remain a distinct group, one would suppose the Old Believers will as well, unless the solvent of modern western life, combined with a reproachment with Orthodoxy, causes things to slowly break down, and perhaps even provide redress, for their complaints.

Sunday, November 12, 1623. Josaphat Kuntsevych, Bishop of the Ruthenian Catholic Church (Ukrainian Catholic Church, was martyred in Vitebsk, Belarus.

On this day in 1623 Josaphat Kuntsevych, Bishop of the Ruthenian Catholic Church (Ukrainian Catholic Church, was martyred in Vitebsk, Belarus, which was the part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.

He had been ordained in as an Eastern Catholic priest in 1609.  Living in a region in which the Orthodox Church had been strong, he faced opposition in his clerical duties but movement towards union with Rome was building in the area and as there was building assent to the Union of Brest.  In 1620 this began to be opposed when Cossacks intervened in the region.  In 1623, Josaphat, by then a Bishop, ordered the arrest of the sole remaining priest who was offering Orthodox services in Vitebsk which resulted in his murder by some Orthodox townspeople.  Some have suggested that, however, Lithuanian Protestants were secretly the instigators of the action.

His body is in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, and he is recognized as a martyr by the Church.

This points out a lot of interesting aspects of history that in the United States, and indeed many places, are poorly understood.  For one thing, there have been repeated efforts to reunite the East and West in Apostolic Christianity, and on several occasions they've been highly successful.  The seeming final breach between the East and West did not really come until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and indeed at that time the East and West were largely reunited. Following the return of the schism, over the next 500+ years various churches in the East have returned to communion with Rome.  The Schism should have completely ended following the Council of Florence, in which the Eastern Bishops agreed to reunion, but resistance at the parishioner level precluded it, just as can be seen to be a factor here.  Resistance higher up, sometimes violent, has also had an impact, however, as at least in one occasion Russian Orthodox Bishops affecting a reunion were murdered.  At the present time, it seems clear that the Metropolitan of Constantinople, the senior Bishop of the Eastern Orthodox, would end the schism as to his church but for fear of parishioner and cleric level resistance.

Rodrigo de Arriaga professed vows to become a Jesuit Priest.  He was one of the leading Spanish Jesuits of his day.

Saturday, January 24, 1874. The Pratulin Massacre.

On this day in 1874 the Pratulin Massacre occurred in which the Imperial Russian Army shot down thirteen Greek Catholic (Ruthenian) congregants who had gathered to protest the forced assignment of a Russian Orthodox Priest to their parish.

The city today is in Poland, on the border with Belarus.

Ruthenians are members of an Eastern Rite Church which was first separated from the West at the time of the Great Schism, but which came back into communion with Rome in 1646.  Contrary to what might be supposed, particularly today, after time and distance passed from the 1054 schism and its renewed 1492 schism various Eastern Rite bodies that were in the Orthodox communion did start to come back in, with it indeed being the case that several Russian Orthodox Bishops came back in.  In Imperial Russia, however, this was violently opposed, including in the case of at least one of the bishops.  In the instance of Pratulin, this was one of several such instances as Russian Orthodox clerics were assigned to Ruthenian parishes against their will.

What's wrong with Russia? It was never part of Rome.

By Ssolbergj - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2992630

SPQR Senātus Populus que Rōmānus.Translated, the Senate and People of Rome.  The motto of the Roman Empire, whose legions marched under that banner in service of its Emperors.

"I will burn other people's villages with a cheerful smile."

"It ain’t a war crime if you had fun."

"Behind us, there is a house on fire. Well, let it burn. One more, one less."

Russian wall scribbling in liberated Ukrainian territory.

What's wrong with Russia?

People have been asking that question for years, maybe centuries.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. 

Winston Churchill

No, it's really not.

What it is, is something it isn't.  It was never part of the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire was the most extensive expression of the Greco-Roman world and their culture.  The Greeks had commenced the work that Rome would end up finishing, or rather the Catholic Church would end up finishing, well prior to Rome's rise, however.  The great Greek philosophers came into being prior to even the expansion of the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, infusing its culture with the outlook of the Western world.  Under Alexander the Greeks spread throughout the Mediterranean region, but the Romans picked it up, and the Greek world view, and massively expanded it.

Indeed, the influence of the Greeks and the Romans was so extensive that a student of early Christianity can't help but be impressed by the extent to which Christ and his disciples lived in a Judea that had been heavily impacted by the Greeks. The version of the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament pretty clear is the Septuagint, the Greek version.  Most, maybe all, of the New Testament was originally written in Greek.  Thoughts expressed in the New Testament are such that there have been those who have speculated that they could not have been expressed in Hebrew, had Hebrew remained the language of the Israelites, and that therefore Divine Providence was at work.  Early Christian Church fathers applied Greek philosophy to their understanding of Theology.¹ 

The Romans built on what they obtained from the Greeks, and they built the concept of a multicultural empire.  Rome started off a city state monarchy but in the end, it was a multicultural empire in which anyone within it could become a Roman citizen under certain circumstances.  Its unifying features was a uniform legal code and two languages, Latin and Greek.  You could be a cultural German, but if you could learn Latin and adhere to Rome's legal code, you had a chance to be as Roman as an Italian born in Rome.

The Church, and there was only one, came in and added the concept that there was only one moral code for everyone in the world, and your status and culture didn't trump that.  It also came in with a strong ethos of support for the plight of the poor and the equality of everyone before God.  Real women's rights came in with the Church, and the end of slavery was made inevitable by it as well.  The supremacy in religious matters of the Roman pontiff pointed out that even the government was subject to the Natural Law, and that it didn't create it.

We are all Romans.

The influence of Rome spread well beyond the Empire, even during the Roman age, and that was through Christianity.  Rome made it all the way up to the Teutoburg, but not beyond that.  Christianity did, however.  It may have taken the Northern Crusades to bring the Poles in, but brave missionaries to bring in the Scandinavians, but they did.

In the East, the Baltic was part of the Greek world, and hence the Roman world.  St. Andrew the apostle travelled into what is the southern Ukraine, via the Black Sea, and preached at least in Scythia.  Some maintain that he saild the Dneiper and preached in Kyiv.

Ukraine was the subject of missionary work in the 800s.  St. Cyril and Methodius, brothers, passed through Ukraine during their missionary work.  Western Ukraine, which is where the Ukrainian Catholic Church has its presence today, was Christianized first.

St. Cyril and Methodius.

Under St. Vladimir The Great, a Kyivan king claimed by both the Ukrainians and the Russians, the Kyivan Rus were firmly brought into the Church.   But of note, Vladimir had been born a pagan and converted to the Church (again, there was only one) in 988 after traveling to the West and studying the non-pagan religions. He died in 1015 at age 57.

Now, 1015 is a very late date.  St. Andrew had been in the region in 55AD.  St. Cyril and Methodius in the late 800s.  But as late as 988 paganism still existed in the lands of the Rus.

And in 1054, the Great Schism commenced.

Now, the Rus did take to Christianity, of that there can be no doubt. But the Great Schism put their Church outside the Latin world to some degree.  Islam was already on the rise, and the Byzantine Empire would fall in 1453.  In 1448 the Russian Church obtained de facto independence, although in 1439 history nearly took a different course with Russian Orthodox representatives recognized Rome as the head of the Church at the Council of Florence. Sadly, their union was prevented from taking effect.

So basically, the Russians were on the edge of the world. The Great Schism, the collapse of the Roman Empire, and then the collapse of the Byzantine kept them there.  Ukraine had been part of the Greco-Roman world, and to some degree, it remains so, especially the further west in Ukraine you go.

And this matters.

Outside of the Moscow elite and a very small urban elite, Russia is one great big blue-collar country.

Fiona Hill

Russia definitely has a cultured development and the Russians are a great people. But they're a people where western concepts have never taken root, including the concept that power devolves from the people, and not the other way around. Even those who have attempted, and there have been many, to change that, have uniformly failed.

It's a culture that has developed great works of art and literature, while remaining insular and focused on itself.  Outside of Russia, everyone is some sort of odd stranger, and the Russians have, from time to time, imagined themselves as the archetype of Slavs.  The culture has a hard time not accepting that to some degree.

And it's a rough place to live in part because of this.  People die young, often due to conditions and alcoholism.  Male deaths outstrip women's by quite some margin.² Brutality and acceptance of horrible conditions exists where it has departed elsewhere.  Russia's military retains an ethos of cruelty that stems back to ancient times and manifests itself in horrific ancient behaviors. 

And hence, there's really no mystery.  

Russia wasn't part of the Greco-Roman world.

Ukraine, however, was.

Footnotes.

1. There's a common myth that Islam preserved the works of the Greek philosophers, and Christians got them from them.

In reality, Islam got the texts of the Greek philosophers from Chaldean Christians, who had preserved them.  Latin Christians did get them from Islamic Arabs, but it is important to note that Islamic Arabs got them from Chaldean Christians.  

As it happened, Hellenized Islamist theologians were later dismissed and regarded as heretical in Islam.

2.  As an odd expression of this, it's often frequently noted that younger Russian women are disproportionately beautiful, before age and conditions change this at a rate not experienced in the West.   It's been seriously suggested that this is due to natural selection, as the population of women always exceeds that of men, thereby giving physically attractive women a heightened competitive genetic advantage.

Churches of the West: Holy Protection Byzantine Catholic Church, Denver, Colorado.

I recently posted on Holy Protection Byzantine Catholic Church on our companion blog, Churches of the West.  That post is here:

Churches of the West: Holy Protection Byzantine Catholic Church, Denver ...: This is Holy Protection Byzantine Catholic Church in Denver Colorado. Many people, when they hear the word "Catholic", imm...

The entire entry is below, followed by my commentary.

To add what I posted in the entry linked in, as is sometimes the case with Catholic churches, I not only took a photograph, as it was Sunday, I attended there.

I won't say that I attended "Mass", as the Eastern Rite doesn't use that word.  It uses the term Divine Liturgy instead.

Holy Protection Byzantine Catholic Church, Denver Colorado

This is Holy Protection Byzantine Catholic Church in Denver Colorado.

Many people, when they hear the word "Catholic", immediately have what, in the English speaking world, are frequently referred to as "Roman Catholics" in mind.  In fact, however, "Roman" Catholics are Latin Rite Catholics whose churches use the Roman Rite.  Roman Catholics make up the overwhelming majority of Catholics, and indeed the majority of Catholics, on earth.

They aren't the only Catholics however.   The Roman Rite itself is just one of several Latin, or Western, Rites.  There are also several Eastern Rites, of which the Byzantine Rite is one.

The Byzantine Catholic Church, which is also called the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church, uses the same liturgical rite as the Greek Orthodox Church and shares the same calendar.  It dates back to the conversion of the Rusyn people in the Carpathians to Christianity in the 9th Century.  That work, done by St. Cyril and St. Methodius brought to the Rusyn people the form of worship in the Eastern Rite.  They Rusyn church initially followed the Orthodox Churches following  the schism of 1054, but in 1645 the Ruthenian Church started to return to communion with Rome, resulting in the Rutenian Byzantine Catholic Church, which is normally called the Byzantine Catholic Church in the United States.

Immigration from Eastern Europe brought the Church into the United States. Originally a strongly ethnic church, in recent decades it has become multi ethnic and its strongly traditional character has caused it to obtain new members from both very conservative Latin Rite Catholics as well as very conservative former Protestants.  Indeed, while this church is very small, it has been growing and now has a Byzantine Catholic outreach to Ft. Collins, Colorado, where it holds services in Roman Catholic Churches.

We pick up from there.

When people hear the world "Catholic", they tend to think of what they sometime call "Roman Catholics".  The term "Roman" Catholic is itself a post Reformation English term, which the English tagged on to the Church in their effort to justify the position that the Church of England had a theological basis for separating from the Church.  Serious conservative members of the Anglican Communion still take that position and I suppose that Episcopal clergymen are schooled in it in some fashion, although it appears to be the case presently that the Episcopal Church is ordaining at least some members of their clergy who attend seminaries in a remote fashion, which is very much the opposite of how the Catholic Church does that.*  Anyhow, there aren't really "Roman" Catholics, although in the English speaking world Latin Rite Catholics have themselves adopted the term and don't regard it as a pejorative, as it originally was.

I heard some statistics on it the other day and I won't get them precise, but they were interesting in what they conveyed.  The largest single religion in the world, and in spite of what some modern statisticians might suggest almost all humans are members of a religion, is Christianity.  Christianity is in fact growing in most of the world and only in the rich Western World is there really a more lackadaisical approach to faith.  Even in parts of the globe where Christianity has historically had a difficult time penetrating this is the case.  About 30%, for example, of Koreans are Christians.  While numbers are very hard to come by, good anecdotal evidence suggest that post 9/11 conversions to Christianity in the Middle East rank in in the millions in an area in which open conversion is illegal.  Conversion by Muslims immigrating to some regions of Europe have been so high that they've filled the pews in Churches in some regions that were formally only used by locals.  Both France and Germany, in some areas, have seen large conversions of that type.

Of Christians on Earth, the largest denomination by far, if we want to put it in those terms, are Catholics. Catholics dwarf all other denominations, something that's hard to grasp in the U.S. as the U.S. was and is a Protestant country.  Indeed, of interest there, the U.S. and areas strongly influenced by the US are really the only regions of the world were certain types of Protestantism that refuses to acknowledge that the Catholic Church dates back to Christ in an uninterrupted fashion, although both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches both have uninterrupted Apostolic Succession and can note the same.  That statement surprisingly amounts to fighting words for some Protestant denominations in the English speaking world but in an era in which resources are so easily obtainable it cannot really reasonably be debated by anyone any longer and indeed most of the larger original Protestant churches don't debate that and never have.  The Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is part, for example fully acknowledges that as do all branches of Lutheranism.  Some other branches of the old Protestant world have claimed apostolic succession, thereby recognizing its importance and the Catholic history on it, and others have gone so far as to occasionally find bishops in the Orthodox or Old Catholic faiths who are willing to do ordinations in an effort to clear up any question regarding it, which again acknowledges the position.  The original "protest" wasn't over that, which was always fully acknowledged.  People who insist on debating it are debating a non point, as its indisputable and if a contrary position is a person's only theological point, it's a lost one.

The point on that isn't to start such a debate, but to note something else.  Most Catholics are in the Latin Rite, which actually is several rites, and of these most are in the Roman Rite.  Hardly any Catholic has ever been in a Catholic Church that celebrates another rite.  Something like 80% of the Christians on Earth are Roman Rite Christians and if we include the the Protestants who are familiar with that style of worship, and many do, its even higher.

The percentage of Christians who are Eastern Rite is really small.  If we include both the Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholics its still only around 10% or less of all Christians. 

But it's growing.

Okay, we've discussed the Great Schism here before and we're not going to go into that, but as we've previously noted, the Eastern Rites of the Church date back to prior to the schism and all Eastern Rite churches use the same forms of worship.  Lost to a lot of people, that means that there are plenty of Catholics, although a small minority of Catholics over all, who worship in the Eastern Rite.

But there are getting to be more.

The Byzantine Catholic Church is more fully referred to as the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church.  There's also a Greek Byzantine Catholic Church. The two use the same liturgy and their services would be very similar, but the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church is extremely small and has a different history.

The Ruthenians were one of several Eastern Rite churches that followed Constantinople when the Great Schism occurred.  Indeed most, but not all, of the Eastern Rite did that, reflecting the Eastern Rite's strong association with Constantinople.  Ironically, perhaps, the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church reflected the fact that not everyone in the Eastern Rite in Greece did, and that in fact there remained churches that continued to accept the Bishop of Rome as the head of the church rather than the "first among equals", as the Orthodox have stated it.  The Ruthenian Church, however, did wholly follow Constantinople at first but, in the 17th Century, came back into communion with Rome, something that a variety of Eastern Rite churches have (not all Eastern Rite churches, it should be noted, followed Constantinople even at the onset).  The Church had a presence in the United States since the second half of the 19th Century as Eastern European immigrants brought it over from Eastern Europe. At first it frankly unfortunately had a rocky relationship with the larger Latin Rite, which was in fact attributable the the Latin Rite's view at the time that in a country where Catholics were a minority it was better if everyone who was Catholic was Latin Rite. That view has long since passed however and today the Catholic Church not only encourages the Eastern Rites in the U.S. but discourages anything that would stand to erode them.

Now they're not only not eroding, they're growing.

This is an interesting phenomenon in and part its due to the collapse of conservative doctrine in the old Protestant churches. As conservatives in those churches have found themselves unable to accept the adoption of positions that run counter to what Christians have held for eons, they've looked out at other churches that retain the traditional holdings and nothing is more traditional than the Eastern Rite, be that in the Orthodox or the Catholic spheres.  

Indeed it's the Orthodox who have primarily benefited from this development, and they're aware of it. As we posted here some time ago, the new Orthodox church in Cheyenne holds itself out as an "Orthodox Christian" church, not a "Greek Orthodox" church, which it is.  In fact, as this evolution occurs, those cultural monikers matter less than they did.  The Greek Orthodox in the U.S. hold Divine Liturgy in English.  So does the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church.

And like the Orthodox, the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church is also expanding, and in part for the same reason just noted above.  It's not really hard to find at the present time converts in a Byzantine Catholic Church.  In our recent trip we met a very devout parishioner who self declared as a convert.

In addition, however, to Protestants entering the Byzantine Catholic Church, it's clear that Latin Rite Catholics are as well.  And some of this is for the same reason, while some of it is not.

Conservative Roman Catholics who have grown weary of the reforms of the 1970s which seem to hang on in some parishes have, in some instances, gone over to Eastern Rite Catholic churches where the big reforms never took hold.  About the only thing really notable in terms of reforms in Eastern Rite Catholic Churches is that the services are in English, not the original languages.  This is true, however, of the Eastern Rite in general.  Additionally, Eastern Rite Catholics are really serious Catholics, their knowledge boosted by their minority status.  The service we attended was shockingly serious, with the Priest addressing, in what started off as a children's liturgy, the Problem of Evil.  And he addressed it in a remarkably effective fashion.

In recent years there's been a struggle, mostly in the large Latin Rite, over reforms and direction.  It's pretty clear to nearly every observer that those who would take the Church even further in the "spirit" of the 1970s have a losing argument and that this will have a negative effect.  It's also clear, from the slow return to things that predates those developments, that the opposite has a strong positive attraction to many of the Faithful.

In this context, there's lessons to be learned from the Eastern Rite.  It's growing, and its attractive to an element of those in the Latin Rite.  It has conservative, but married, Priests.  This is not to say that the Latin Rite needs to become Eastern, but it shouldn't ignore the positive examples that the Eastern branch is giving.**

_________________________________________________________________________________

*Indeed, one of the reforms of the Counter Reformation was the introduction of the seminary system in the Catholic Church, as the Church concluded that the Reformation had been caused in part by badly educated clergymen.  That system has existed for the past 500 years and recently its been enhanced in the original direction.  It was common, up until the last couple of decades, to allow very young men, indeed not really young men so much as boys, into seminaries but reflecting social evolution this is no longer true.  Seminarians now are at the college age, at least.

**That example isn't as well received by everyone, I'd note.  In this case, of us four, my son and I were hugely impressed for a variety of reasons.  My wife and daughter were not.  In that latter example, they frankly found it just too foreign.

In speaking with a colleague who was a cradle Catholic, who fell away from Christianity in college, who re found it in the form of Evangelical Protestantism late in college, and then came back to the Catholic Church as a lawyer, he'd experienced the same thing in a different fashion.  Noting what I noted above, he studied the early history of the church and found that it was in fact, as is clearly demonstrable, "Catholic and Apostolic" and therefore briefly went into the Greek Orthodox church which can legitimately claim to be Apostolic (with the Orthodox and the Catholic church separated by a schism, something that's severe, but not as severe as the gulf between them and Protestant churches).  Anyhow, his wife had been raised in a Protestant church, as was mine, and she was likewise shocked by how foreign the Eastern Rite is.  In contrast, the Antiochian Orthodox Church in Gillette, Wyoming is made up completely of converts from an Evangelical Protestant church that converted after engaging in a study of the early church.  

Autocephalous? Eh? A Sunday Morning Scene Post.

 

Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Denver

Usually we post a photo of a church, from our companion blog, Churches of the West.  Every now and then, however, we do something a little different, and this is one of those times.

It occurs to us that yesterday here we used the word "autocephalous" and, while we gave a little bit of an explanation, we assumed a lot in giving it.  Indeed, so much so that the overwhelming number of readers who are likely to stop by here are going to have no idea whatsoever what we were posting about in that context.

So today, we try explain that.  What is "autocephalous".  Well, it's the English translation of the word αὐτοκεφαλία.

Okay, there we go.

Well, that doesn't help at all, does it?

Autocephalous means, let "self headed".  So, when we used it in context it means a Self Headed Church within the Eastern Orthodox Communion.

But what does that mean?

By this point in this article, Eastern Orthodox Christians, well schooled Catholics and some others know what I mean, but most others will not.  And even a few who are vaguely familiar with what is meant by this don't really understand what it is. And frankly, because discussing this area, and particularly discussing the branches of Orthodoxy by a person who is not Orthodox, is tricky, this is dangerous ground where I'm likely to stumble a bit. So this will be the Kindergarten level explanation of autocephaly.

This is a concept that exists in the Eastern Orthodox churches for a variety of historical reasons, most of which I won't touch upon.  But to even grasp any of that, you have to start with the Apostolic churches.  Those are the churches that can trace their establishment back to the Apostles. 

 

 St Peter and St. Paul Orthodox Church, Salt Lake City Utah.  This is an Located quite near downtown, the church features the quote, above the front door; "It was in Antioch that they were first called Christians.".  The Antiochian Orthodox Church is the branch of the Orthodox Church associated with Orthodox Arabs, one of several Apostolic churches with strong Middle Eastern roots and a retained Middle Eastern presence, although they are much threatened there today.  Salt Lake, which of course is associated with the Mormon faith, has at least three Orthodox churches as it also has a Greek Orthodox cathedral and a Russian Orthodox church.  All of these churches are Eastern Orthodox and are therefore in full communion with one another.

All of the recognized Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church are Apostolic churches.  While people like to imagine that they're fighting tooth and nail all the time (which is grossly exaggerated, quite frankly) this is a historical fact, not a matter of theological debate.  Indeed their principal, but not sole, item of debate is what that means between themselves as the Catholic Church takes the position that St. Peter had primacy amongst the Apostles in a true jurisdictional sense, while the Orthodox have taken the position from some point a thousand or so years ago, and probably back a bit further than that, that St. Peter had primacy as "the first amongst equals".  This is a significant matter in that Peter was the Bishop of Rome and therefore, in the Catholic view, the successor of St. Peter as the Bishop of Rome is the head of the Christian Church, where as the Orthodox take the view that the Bishop of Rome is the first amongst equals. As there are a variety of Eastern Orthodox churches there is some variance in how this would be said, but that's basically it. That's not, it should be noted, the sole topic at issue in the debate between them, but it's a significant issue.

 St. Peter holding the keys to the kingdom. To the Orthodox, Peter is the first of the apostles, but equal to the rest.  To Catholics, he had primacy.

There exists a schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Church that has existed for some time, more or less since some point in the 11th Century although it was healed briefly in the 15th Century and came back into existence also in the 15th Century.  I'm not going into that here but I'm noting it only to note that there are other schisms that play into this overall story.  For example, there exists a Polish National Church and the Old Catholic Church, both of which are also Apostolic, tracing the lineage of their Bishops through the Catholic Church.  The Eastern Orthodox also have at least one schism I'm aware of, that being the Old Believers.  And there are at least two Protestant Churches that claim to be Apostolic Churches as well but which are not recognized by the Catholic Church as such (and I don't think they are by any main branch of the Eastern Orthodox, although in some quarters there was a little flirting with this at one time).  These churches are those in the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran churches.  This is a bit muddied in the case of the Lutheran churches, actually, and there's some differing view within that community.  The Methodist church also claims apostolic succession in a complicated fashion which we'll only barely touch on. A few other groups do as well, but for the most part those get increasingly complicated and strained.

While this post is not intended to serve as a theology lesson, the Catholic Churches and all of the Orthodox churches, including those Orthodox Churches such as the Coptic Church which are not Eastern Orthodox but rather Oriental Orthodox, all hold that ordination must be done by a validly consecrated Bishop and in the proper form and they always have, going back to Apostolic times. Again, as I am not a theologian I'm not going to get into it, and it is complicated to a degree, I'm not going to try to set this out in any advanced form. But the gist of it is that in the view of the Apostolic Churches in order to have valid Holy Orders and Sacraments you need a Bishop who confers Holy Orders in the proper form.  So, that's why the Orthodox of all types and the Catholic Church recognize each others sacraments as valid even though there is a schism between them, and that's why the Catholic Church recognizes the same as to a church like the Polish National Church.  Practices within the church differ as to how this should be done, but the churches recognize each others Communion and Confession, for examples, as perfectly valid.

It's interesting to note in this context, and it serves, I hope, to demonstrate the point, that both the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic churches recognize the validity of the Holy Orders and sacraments of the Oriental Orthodox, who are quite different in some ways, and quite similar others, to both of them.  Due to historical developments, these churches were only able to send representatives to the first three ecumenical councils; the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the Council of Ephesus in 431.  History conspired to prevent their attendance at later councils.  Most Americans are completely unfamiliar with these churches but, in some larger cities in some parts of the country, you can find examples of them, usually the Coptic Church of Alexandria or the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Saint Mary's Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Denver Colorado. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is a non-Chalcedonian (Oriental Orthodox) church. This church is located in north eastern Denver. Parishioners always wear white on Sunday's in this denomination, in recollection of their Baptismal garments. 

Before we go further, lest we create confusion and anger, all of these churches recognize the usual form of Protestant baptism as valid (but not some that are outside of the usual form) and at least the first marriage of any type, including marriages that have no religious ceremony at all, or are non Christian, except in the cases where their own members marry outside of the church without a dispensation.  As this isn't a treatise on these topics I'll stop there lest I create more confusion than I already have.  But, it's interesting to note that all of these faith would never "re Baptize" a baptized Christian that was baptized in the usual form (there are exceptions in some faiths that use different forms, IE., not really the standard Christian baptism). 

Whew. . . that's a long winded introduction to autocephalous. 

Okay, back to that. 

In the Eastern Orthodox world, and in the Orthodox world in general, history has meant that the various Bishop's seats became very spread out early on and there were very real difficulties in their communicating with each other.  In the Catholic world, at the same time, this was much less the case.  In Eastern Orthodoxy, therefore, there came to be a day during which the Patriarch of the Church found that it would best serve the Orthodox in some areas if their churches became self governing.  So, for example, the Russian Orthodox Church was made autocephalous.  It had its own Bishops, etc., and it was made autocephalous by the Patriarch of Constantinople so that it could govern itself.  

Holy Transfiguration of Christ Cathedral in North Denver.  This Cathedral is a Cathedral of the Orthodox Church in America, a church which traces its origin to the Russian Orthodox Church after the Russian Revolution.  Russian Orthodoxy in the United States has a bit of a complicated history on the topic of autocephaly post 1917.  There are two bodies that descend from the Russian Orthodox Church in the US today, and I frankly don't quite understand the relationship between the two, but this Cathedral in Denver reflects part of Denver's Russian Orthodox community.  The church dates to 1898. 

Now, as this can get really confusing, it should also be noted that various Oriental Orthodox Churches are also self governing and as that would lengthen this thread out infinitely, I'm not going into that.  As noted above there are more than one Oriental Orthodox churches, they are all in communion with one another, and they are all self governing.  They all have relationships with the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic church in modern times and they are all fairly close given the history cited above. 

I should further note that while the rift between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church has not been fully healed (while I'd also note, as noted above, that rift is less of a rift than others suppose) the Eastern Orthodox are all Eastern Orthodox.  So just because the Russian Orthodox Church has a different head than the Greek Orthodox Church does not mean that they are not in full communion with each other.  Indeed, I'd note that at least members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the Ukraine simply refer to the Russian Orthodox Church as "the Greek Church".

 

Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Church in Ninilchik Alaska.  This community has had a Russian Orthodox Church since 1846, but this structure dates to 1901.  It is a regular Russian Orthodox Church in the Orthodox Church of America's Diocese of Anchorage, subject to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church in America, which is one of two bodies that formed in the U.S. to govern Russian Orthodox Churches following the Russian Revolution.  The Orthodox Church in America is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church that started to govern its affairs separately when Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow directed all Russian Orthodox churches outside of Russia and was originally the Russian Greek Orthodox Church in America.  It was granted autocephaly by the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia in 1970 and changed its name at that time, although the validity of that action is disputed by some.

Got it? Well good to go.

So, um. . . aren't you going to complete the pictures for the other churches referenced above.

Well. . . I will, but only with great trepidation.

Is there autocephaly in the Catholic Church?  Well, the Catholic Church doesn't use that term, and the answer would be, I think basically no, in the sense of the term as used above.  That's because autocephalous in the Orthodox sense means those churches basically report to no one, although they are in communion with each other.  I.e., all Eastern Orthodox are in communion with one another (save for schisms, such as that of the Old Believers) and all Oriental Orthodox are in communion with one another (keeping in mind that this doesn't mean that they believe that only their own Holy Orders and sacraments are valid, it doesn't mean that, as the Orthodox and the Catholic churches all recognize that in regards to each other).  But the Catholic Church does have several Rites and those Rites are in fact mostly self governing.

 

Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Lander Wyoming.  This church was unique in Wyoming (and might still be) at the time I took this photograph as the Priest there was "bi ritual", which meant that he could offer the Divine Liturgy in the Latin Rite and an Eastern Rite, and the church did in fact conduct services at different times in different Rites.  Things like this are not terribly uncommon in some localities.  Additionally, it is not terribly uncommon in some localities for Catholic churches to host an Orthodox parish community if they lack their own church.

This is confusing for people who aren't familiar with the Catholic Church and indeed many people use the term Roman Catholic Church and the Catholic Church interchangeably. In fact, Catholics don't use the term "Roman Catholic" officially at all, although its become so common that many Latin Rite Catholics have fully adopted the term.  The Latin Rite of the Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world and so the confusion is natural enough, but there are also twenty three non Latin Rite Catholic churches.

Yes, twenty three.  That means that are twenty four churches within the Catholic church.

Each one of these churches has its own primate, i.e. a cleric who is its head. For example, the relatively well known Maronite church has Patriarch Moran Mor Bechara Boutros al-Rahi ( بشارة بطرس الراعي the 77th Maronite Patriarch of Antioch.  He's also a Cardinal.

What, the are non Latin Rite Cardinals in the Catholic Church?  

Yes, there are.  And of course, there would be.

All of this is noted as the various twenty four churches in the Catholic Church are in fact mostly self governing.  They all have a primate who is at the head of their church, just like the autocephalous Orthodox churches do.  They differ, however, in that the Pope is the overall had of the Church, and the Pope is also head of the Latin Rite as he's the Bishop of Rome.

Now, just to keep the complication level up, recall that the Orthodox also recognize the Bishop of Rome as the first of the Bishops. They regard him as the first among equals.

So, there isn't autocephaly in the Catholic Church, but there is quite a bit of independence between the various Rites.

Catholic Cathedral of the Madeline, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Well then, (straying into dangerous territory) what about the Protestant churches you mentioned.  Aren't they basically autocephalous churches in schism?

Well, I suppose that would depend on your views but neither they nor the Catholic church regard them that way.  And part of that, from the Catholic point of view, has to do with Apostolic succession.

 

 Anglican Church of the Resurrection, Casper Wyoming.

Let's start with the Anglican Communion, which is the group of Protestant churches (although they do not all view themselves that way, for which Apostolic succession is most frequently claimed.  This is enormously complicated by the fact that the Anglican Communion itself is a collection of churches with widely varying views on almost every topic.  Some in the Anglican Communion, and usually those who view their church as a type of Catholic church not in communion with Rome, hold Apostolic succession to be both real and necessary.  For example, John Newman, while an Anglican cleric and a prime mover in the Oxford movement, wrote "We must necessarily consider none to be really ordained who has not been thus ordained".  Newman, of course, later came to the conclusion that Anglican orders were not valid and he converted to Catholicism, becoming a Cardinal.  Many conservatives in the Anglican Communion continue to hold this opinion and regard their church as a separated one with valid Apostolic succession dating back to the schism that took place under King Henry VIII.  Of note, most of the bishops, but not all of the priests by any means, went with Henry when he separated the English church from Rome.

Church of the Holly Family Anglican Catholic Church in Casper, Wyoming.  This church would nto be recognized as Catholic by the Catholic Church, but it is part of the conservative branch of the Anglican Communion that regards the Anglican Communion as a separated Catholic church.

This topic became serious enough in the Anglican world that it ended up being a topic addressed by Pope Leo XIII who found that Anglican claims to Apostolic succession were "absolutely null and utterly void".  This was due to the changes that were made to the very Protestant and radical King Edward VI.  It is for this reason that Anglican clergymen entering the Catholic church as Priests, which has not been uncommon in recent years, are ordained as Catholic Priests.  And this points out the difficulty in this topic as Apostolic succession is not necessarily regarded as important by all Anglicans.  The Anglican Communion has a wide variety of views on matters, ranging from liberal to conservative, and one of the things they vary on is the nature of Apostolic succession.  To complicate maters even further some Anglican conservatives regards some of Anglican Priests as validly consecrated and others as not being, including Bishops, but as this isn't a treatise on that topic, I'll not go into it.  I'll conclude, however, by noting that Pope Leo's proclamation was troubling to certain branches of the Anglican Communion who have attempted to rectify it by having ordinations done by Old Catholics, which the Catholic Church regards as schismatic.  Old Catholic holy orders are valid, in Catholic eyes.

 

Anglican Church of the Holy  Trinity in Toronto, Ontario.  Sort of reflecting the history of Canada and Toronto, this very traditional church is apparently a liberal Anglican Church.  Toronto was once a bastion of English conservatism in Canada, which it certainly is not today.

Something similar sort of oddly may, or may not have, happened early in the history of the Methodist Church, but it's not really known for sure.  The Methodist movement was started by John Wesley but it wasn't originally a separate church, but a movement within the Anglican Church.  Wesley instructed his followers to receive the sacraments from Anglican Priests, and stated; "We believe it would not be right for us to administer either Baptism or the Lord's Supper unless we had a commission so to do from those Bishops whom we apprehend to be in a succession from the Apostles."  So he clearly viewed Apostolic succession as necessary.  At some point his views may have modified, as the Methodist started to ordain their own ministers.  However, some also claim that Wesley was secretly ordained by a visiting Greek Orthodox Bishop, so he had, they claim, Apostolic succession.  The formal split of the Methodist from the Anglican church came in 1805, and as I know little about it, I'll stop there.

Holy Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, Denver Colorado., built in 1887.  It's difficult to photograph, as it's nearly always in perpetual shade as very tall buildings have been built up around it. This is, unfortunately, compounded here as these photographs were taken on a very dreary day.  Of note, the church declares that it is the Holy Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, but in modern terms it's usually called the Holy Trinity Methodist Church or the Holy Trinity United Methodist Church.  Separation from the Anglican Church came in 1805, but the name of the Methodist Church continued to reflect its origin for many years thereafter.

Anyhow, I don't think anyone would regard it as autocephalous in the way we've been discussing it, although its history is interesting in regard to the view of its founder on Apostolic succession.

 

 

Terrible photograph of the unusual St. Philip's Catholic Church & ELCA Peace Lutheran Fellowship, Basin Wyoming.  In spite of the very real separation between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church, they shared the same church structure in Basin.  I believe that right now (or at least recently) the Catholic Church was not using this church as another is available in a nearby community.

I guess that leaves us with the Lutheran Church.  Interestingly there is a split of views, sort of like that in the Anglican Communion, but perhaps more pronounced.

Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Casper Wyoming.

The Lutheran Church really took hold in Scandinavia, and there the church very much takes the position that it has preserved Apostolic succession.  Indeed, in the Scandinavian countries the Lutheran churches take the position that they did not create a new church at all, but rather that the Lutheran movement in their countries simply improved the existing church.  This position is taken to a lessor degree, however, in Germany, whose Lutheran churches were merged by order of the government with the Calvinist churches in 1817.  Still, the conservative elements in Germany, and some in Scandinavia, have taken the step of receiving ordinations in their communions from schismatic Catholic bishops of the types discussed above to attempt to make certain that their Holy Orders and sacraments are valid.  Other Lutheran groups, however are indifferent to the question, in part reflecting early church governance under Luther.  An aspect of this, additionally, is that in Germany the sitting Catholic bishops did not go along with Luther, not one, so there were no ordinations thereafter that could have been regarded as valid, from a Catholic prospective.  In Scandinavia, however, the sitting Catholic Bishops retained their positions, which is somewhat ironically due to the conversion of the countries being forced by the crown, which had promised not to do it, but there were changes (apparently) to form, although I can't comment on them as I do not know what they were.  It's clear that the Catholic Church does not regard the Lutheran Church as schismatic but completely separated, just as the Anglican Communion is regarded, so no autocephaly here.

 

Church of St. Nicholas, Old Believers Russian Orthodox, Nikolaevsk Alaska.  The church is an Old Believers Russian Orthodox Church in an Old Believers community.

As a complete side note, its interesting that when faced with the same dilemma that the German Lutherans were faced with early on, and maybe the Methodist were, that being no Bishops who would ordain Priests for them, the Russian Old Believers made a completely different choice.  They took Apostolic succession so seriously that they simply lacked any clergy at all as their ordained Priests died.  The pain of this was deeply felt and in recent years they have obtained ordained Priests from Orthodox Bishops that are willing to ordain Priest for them and with whom they are theologically comfortable, but for many years this ultra conservative group, fully supportive of Apostolic succession and fully aware of the need of valid sacraments, went without as no Bishop would support the. The Russian Orthodox Church as tried to bring them back in, and has even apologized to them for acts during the separation, but they aren't having that, so far.