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16 The Armenian Church

family includes the Armenian, Coptic, Syrian,
Ethiopian, Indian-Malabar, and Eritrean
churches. They are autocephalous churches.
Although they display a large variety of
cultural and liturgical differences, they con-
fess the same faith, share common doctrinal
teachings, and are in full sacramental com-
munion with each other.
The Eastern Orthodox family comprises
four groups. The first group is composed
of the four ancient patriarchates, which
historically occupy a special place among
the local Orthodox churches belonging to
the same family; they are the Patriarchate of
Alexandria, the Patriarchate of Antioch, the
Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has
a position of primacy of honor within the
Eastern Orthodox family. The second group
consists of the five patriarchates of later
origin: Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria,
and Georgia. The third group is made up of
the other autocephalous churches: Cyprus,
Greece, Poland, Albania, the Czech Lands,
and Slovakia. The fourth group includes the
autonomous, but not independent, churches
of Sinai, Finland, Japan, and China. Al-
though the Oriental Orthodox and Eastern
Orthodox families share many liturgical
traditions and theological teachings, they
are not in eucharistic communion with each
other. The major cause of this division is the