Page 209 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

T H E P R O B L E M O F E T N O P H Y L E T I S M
The Problem of Etnophyletism
Let us now focus our attention on the changes endured by
the Orthodox Church in the transition from Ottoman im-
perial rule to the age of nationalism.
Under the Ottomans, the Church, despite difficult histori-
cal circumstances, drew on its immense symbolic and moral
power and its organization around the Ecumenical Patriarch-
ate to safeguard its unity and catholicity, cultivating a shared
Orthodox identity and mentality among the populations of
Southeastern Europe. During the subsequent age of national-
ism, the Church found itself involved in an acute conflict be-
tween Christian ecumenicity and nationalism in the broader
geographical region of its jurisdiction. During this period,
new nation-states in the region, giving pride of place to the
idea of the nation over the unity and catholicity of the Ortho-
dox Church, claimed unilaterally their autonomy from the
Ecumenical Patriarchate, transferring the old Byzantine idea
of “autocephaly”—originally unrelated to nationalism—to the
demand for independent national Churches.
The great and serious ecclesiological stakes involved in the
nationalization of the Orthodox Churches in the Balkan states
became particularly clear in the case of the Bulgarian Church.
In its effort to establish an Exarchate for Bulgarian Orthodox
in Constantinople itself, it provoked the condemnation of
ethnophyletism by a major Synod convoked in Constantino-
ple in 1872, creating a schism that lasted until 1945. The char-
acterization of ethnophyletism as a heresy by that Synod made
it obvious that, unfortunately, the Orthodox Church, even
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