Phyletism

After their emancipation from Ottoman rule, the Balkan churches freely developed both their national identities and their religious life. Theological faculties were created in Athens, Belgrade, Sofia, and Bucharest. The Romanian Orthodox Church introduced the full cycle of the liturgical offices in vernacular Romanian. However, these liberal developments were often marked by nationalistic rivalries.

The term phyletism was coined at the Holy and Great pan-Orthodox Synod that met in Istanbul (then Constantinople) in 1872. The meeting was prompted by the struggle of the Bulgarian Orthodox against the domination of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in the 1850s and 1860s. Discontent with the supremacy of the Greek clergy in Bulgaria had started to flare up in several Bulgarian dioceses as early as the 1820s. It was not, however, until 1850 that the Bulgarians initiated a purposeful struggle against the Greek clerics in a number of bishoprics demanding their replacement with Bulgarian ones as well as other changes such as the use of Bulgarian language in liturgy and fixed salaries for bishops. By that time, most Bulgarian religious leaders had realised that any further struggle for the rights of the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire could not succeed unless they managed to obtain at least some degree of autonomy from the Patriarchate of Constantinople.[2]

On 10 August 1872 the Synod issued an official condemnation of ecclesiastical racism, or "ethno-phyletism", as well as its theological argumentation. In condemning phyletism, the Synod in Constantinople had, in fact, defined a basic problem of modern Orthodoxy.[3]

Both the Bulgarians and Greeks have been accused of phyletism during this period, the Greek clerics in particular for trying to impose the Greek language on non-Greek ethnic groups, such as the Slavic population of Macedonia and Thrace, and for spreading nationalistic ideas of a Greater Greece. Konstantin Leontiev, a prominent writer on the subject, notes that both sides were equally responsible for the schism, but differentiates the two:

“Both you [Greeks] and the Bulgarians can equally be accused of phyletism, that is, of introducing ethnic interests into Church questions, and in the use of religion as a political weapon; but the difference lies in the fact that Bulgarian phyletism is defensive, while yours is offensive. Their phyletism seeks only to mark out the boundaries of their tribe; yours seeks to cross the boundaries of Hellenism...[4]

Although the Eastern Orthodox Churches condemned phyletism in 1872, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has declared that "nationalism remains one of the central problems of the Church." Phyletism has been a threat to Orthodox unity since at least the rise of nationalism in the 19th century, and its impact on Orthodoxy in America—and in other areas of ethnic diaspora communities—throughout the 20th century and to the present-day is well known.[5]

The conditions behind modern-day phyletism are different from those surrounding the 1872 decision of the Synod in Constantinople. In the latter half of the 20th century, there has been a vigorous and sometimes contentious debate among the Orthodox concerning the problem of the Diaspora, specifically the organization of the Orthodox Church in countries to which Orthodox have emigrated, particularly since the Russian Revolution. The problem is that Orthodox dioceses (officially called "jurisdictions") in the Diaspora are superimposed on each other. The result is that there are usually several Orthodox bishops of different Orthodox churches in Diaspora cities. This situation violates the canonical principle of territoriality – that each city and province should have its own unique bishop.

• Bulgarian schism
• Ethnic religion
• Kinism, a sect of Calvinism
• Messianic Judaism, an ethnically defined denomination of Evangelical Protestantism
• Moscow–Constantinople schism (2018)
• National church
• Day Of Slavonic Alphabet, Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture

• The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 4 (the articles of the council can be found on this page)

• Russian Autocephaly and Orthodoxy in America: An Appraisal with Decisions and Formal Opinions. New York: The Orthodox Observer Press, 1972.
• Trempelas, Panagiotis. The Autocephaly of the Metropolia in America. Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross School of Theology Press, 1974.
• Moscow Patriarchate Faces ‘Parade of Sovereignties’ Within Orthodoxy (Opinion of Church Historian Vadim Venediktov)
• The Phenomenon of Ethnophyletism in Recent Years