The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 200–260 million members. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops in local synods. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the Pope of Rome, but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by all as primus inter pares of the bishops.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, like the Catholic Church, claims to be the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Autocephaly is the status of a hierarchical Christian Church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in mostly all Eastern Christian denominations like Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and few Independent Catholic churches. The status has been also compared with that of the churches of the Anglican Communion.
The term exarch comes from the Ancient Greek ἔξαρχος, exarchos, and designates holders of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical.
The Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia is a self-governing body of the Eastern Orthodox Church that territorially covers the countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Archbishop Rastislav of Prešov was elected by the Extraordinary Synod held on January 11, 2014, as the new primate. On December 9, 2013, the Synod removed Archbishop Simeon of Olomouc and Brno from his position as Locum Tenens, and appointed Archbishop Rastislav in his place, an action against which Archbishop Simeon protested and which was deplored by Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.
The Bulgarian Exarchate was the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the Ecumenical See in 1945 and the Bulgarian Patriarchate was restored in 1953.
The Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric, or simply the Macedonian Orthodox Church, is the largest body of Christians in the Republic of North Macedonia. It claims ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Republic of North Macedonia and is also represented in the Macedonian diaspora. In 1959, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church granted autonomy to the Macedonian Orthodox Church in the then-Socialist Republic of Macedonia as the restoration of the historic Archbishopric of Ohrid, and it remained in canonical unity with the Serbian Church under their Patriarch. In 1967, on the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, the Macedonian Holy Synod unilaterally announced its autocephaly and independence from the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Serbian Holy Synod denounced the decision and condemned the clergy as schismatic. Thenceforth, the Macedonian Church has remained unrecognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and all the other canonical Orthodox churches in defense of Serbian opposition. Since May 2018 however, the Church′s status has been under examination by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The primate of the Macedonian Orthodox Church is the Metropolitan of Skopje and Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia and of Justiniana Prima.
The Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church is a Byzantine Rite sui juris particular Church in full union with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Orthodox Church in Italy is an effort to establish a national Orthodox church in Italy, bringing all the Orthodox parishes and missions under an Italian metropolitan bishop, but only some independent groups have adhered to it.
The Eastern Orthodox Church in Bulgaria has deep roots, extending back to the 5th and 7th centuries when the Slavs and the Bulgars, respectively, adopted Byzantine Christianity in the period of the First Bulgarian Empire (681-1018). Prior to this official conversion, Christianity had spread to the region during Roman and early Byzantine times. After the 1054 Great Schism, the Church of Bulgaria remained in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and other Eastern Orthodox Churches. It bears the distinction of being the oldest Slavic Christian Church in the Orthodox communion.
Religion in Bulgaria has been dominated by Christianity since its adoption as the state religion in 865. The dominant form of the religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity within the fold of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. During the Ottoman rule of the Balkans, Sunni Islam spread in the territories of Bulgaria, and it remains a significant minority today. The Catholic Church has roots in the country since the Middle Ages, and Protestantism arrived in the 19th century.
The history of the Eastern Orthodox Church is traced back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. The Apostles appointed successors, known as bishops, and they in turn appointed other bishops in a process known as Apostolic succession. Over time, five Patriarchates were established to organize the Christian world, and four of these ancient Patriarchates remain Orthodox today. Orthodox Christianity reached its present form in Late Antiquity, when the Ecumenical Councils were held, doctrinal disputes were resolved, the Fathers of the Church lived and wrote, and Orthodox worship practices settled into their permanent form.
The Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada, and Australia is one of fifteen dioceses of the Church of Bulgaria. The diocese is led by Metropolitan Joseph (Bosakov), however he submitted his resignation on February 26th, 2013, which seems to be still pending.
Bulgarian Australians are Australian citizens of Bulgarian ancestry. According to the 2006 Australian census, 2,680 residents of Australia were born in Bulgaria. Of these, 850 lived in New South Wales, 840 in Victoria, 340 in Queensland and 340 in South Australia. Some 4,870 people indicated full or partial Bulgarian ancestry. Some unofficial estimates claim that the number of Bulgarians in Australia is around 20,000; others, who count the Bulgarian Australian and the later Macedonian Australian diaspora together for historical reasons, estimate a total number of around 100,000.
Phyletism or ethnophyletism is the principle of nationalities applied in the ecclesiastical domain: in other words, the conflation between Church and nation. The term ethnophyletismos designates the idea that a local autocephalous Church should be based not on a local [ecclesial] criterion, but on an ethnophyletist, national or linguistic one. It was used at the Holy and Great [Μείζων Meizon "enlarged"] pan-Orthodox Synod in Constantinople on 10 September 1872 to qualify "phyletist (religious) nationalism", which was condemned as a modern ecclesial heresy: the Church should not be confused with the destiny of a single nation or a single race.
Saint Clement of Ohrid was a medieval Bulgarian saint, scholar, writer and enlightener of the Slavs. He was one of the most prominent disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius and is often associated with the creation of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts, especially their popularisation among Christianised Slavs. He was the founder of the Ohrid Literary School and is regarded as a patron of education and language by some Slavic people. He is considered to be the first bishop of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, one of the seven Apostles of the First Bulgarian Empire and one of the premier saints of modern Bulgaria. Saint Clement is also the patron saint of the Republic of North Macedonia, the city of Ohrid and the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Slavs form a religious grouping of the Slavic peoples, including ethnic groups and nations that predominantly adhere to the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith and whose Churches follow the Byzantine Rite liturgy. Orthodoxy spread to Eastern Europe in the Early Middle Ages through Byzantine influence, and has been retained in several countries until today.
