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The Patriarch Who Defied the Ottoman Empire
Previously, I told the story of the Ecumenical Patriarchs from the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until the resignation of the weak and ineffective Patriarch Constantius II in 1835. Today we’re…
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The Ecclesiological Vision of Patriarch Bartholomew
Thirty years ago, October 22, 1991, the 51-year-old Metropolitan Bartholomew of Chalcedon was elected Ecumenical Patriarch, inaugurating a new era in not only the Patriarchate of Constantinople but the Orthodox Church globally. One of…
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The Ecumenical Patriarchate at the Mercy of the Sultan
At around five o’clock in the afternoon on Holy Saturday, 1821, Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory was celebrating the Vesperal Divine Liturgy at the Phanar when Ottoman police surrounded and seized Gregory and the other bishops…
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Autocephaly or Subjugation to the State? The Church of Greece after the Revolution
The Greek War of Independence began 200 years ago, in 1821, and one of the big consequences of the war was the estrangement of the Orthodox Church in revolutionary Greece from its mother church…
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Turkish Interference in the 1972 Ecumenical Patriarchate Election
Athenagoras Spyrou was elected Ecumenical Patriarch in 1948 thanks largely to the influence of the United States government, particularly Secretary of State George Marshall. At the time, Marshall had consulted the powerful Greek-American businessman…
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Jerusalem Wasn’t Really Autocephalous from 1669-1845
From the fall of the Byzantine Empire until the 17th century, it was customary for the Patriarch of Jerusalem to appoint his own successor, usually by making the chosen heir the Metropolitan of Caesarea.…