PECULIARITIES OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE ON THE CHURCHES OF THE BYZANTINE TRADITION

Abstract

The relevance of the topic is to highlight the causes of the current crisis of the Ecumenical Orthodox Church and the significant level of politicization of world religious processes. It is noted that this is primarily due to geopolitical and financial factors. The existence of ancient and “new” autocephaly creates a certain inferiority of the latter, despite the principle of church equality and the powerful financial and human factor of the new national churches. The study focuses on the phenomenon of the Church in its ecclesiological sense, which today is affected by significant geopolitical upheavals and globalization changes. The political subtext of many church decisions of the twentieth century is pointed out. The purpose of the article is to highlight the problem of political influence on church-administrative processes related to the formation of new autocephalous churches. The aim of the article is to study the real equality, administrative and political independence of each of the Local Churches. In the relations between independent church administrations, the supremacy of the old autocephaly over the new ones is felt. The methodological bases of the research were historical and comparative methods, comparative approach, traditionalism, hermeneutics, religious anthropology, philosophical symbolism, methods of analysis and synthesis. Results of the research. It is proved that the formation of two approaches (Greek and Slavic) to the understanding of the structure of the system of universal Orthodoxy was the cause of the crisis in the church. It is established that the organizational form, structure of the church and its management have undergone transformational processes due to changes in political regimes and the shifting of state borders. Note the important principle of the church’s response to changing state or political conditions – “structural pluralism”. Structural pluralism is characterized by the elasticity of church requirements for the decision on ecclesiastical independence. Under the influence of the state, such decisions are either made or rejected and then appeal to other rules and regulations. It is proved that a characteristic feature of autocephaly was the state and political regulation of this process. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the state lost coercion and control in the church sphere, which led to numerous divisions and the emergence of parallel jurisdictions in many countries.