‘Themes in Contemporary Theology’ E-Lecture Series

St Andrew’s ‘Themes in Contemporary Theology’ series continued on 27 August with a special presentation by the Very Rev. Grand Ecclesiarch Aetios Nikiforos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Director of the Private Patriarchal Office, whose presentation was entitled ‘His All-Holiness Bartholomew I: The Canonist Patriarch.’ Zooming directly from the Mother Church in Constantinople, Fr Aetios was introduced by the Sub-Dean, Assoc. Prof. Philip Kariatlis, and warmly thanked the Dean, His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, for the invitation to give this presentation. He highlighted that it was an especially fitting topic since 2021 marks the sixtieth anniversary of His All-Holiness’ ordination to the holy diaconate (recently celebrated at Imbros), and likewise the thirtieth anniversary of his election as Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch.

Delineating that while His All-Holiness is well known for the epithets ‘The Green Patriarch’ and ‘The Patriarch of Solidarity,’ Fr Aetios mentioned that we must also acknowledge him as ‘The Canonist Patriarch.’ Indeed, just as his predecessors on the Ecumenical throne were guardians of the canons of the Orthodox Church, so too does His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew exemplify this role. Fr Aetios then gave a brief biographical sketch of His All-Holiness as the young Deacon Bartholomew beginning his long-lasting relationship with the canonical discipline at the Theological School of Halki (Heybeliada, Princes’ Islands). Indeed, during his final years at Halki, he wrote his bachelor’s thesis in the field of canon law, choosing the topic of ‘Reconstitution of the Dissolved Marriage.’ In the fall of 1963, Deacon Bartholomew started his postgraduate research/doctoral studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute which forms part of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, with a scholarship provided by Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras (1886-1972). With the Second Vatican Council acting as a backdrop, he could not help but notice the renewed interest of Roman Catholics—and the Oriental churches in communion with them—in canon law, which inspired him in his quest to see the canons of the Orthodox Church—in some disarray because of their lack of organisation—properly codified.

There was indeed an Orthodox background to this interest also. In 1930, on Mt Athos, a preparatory commission at Vatopedi monastery sought for the codification of the holy canons that were included as a list of the themes to be addressed at the Holy and Great Council of all Orthodox jurisdictions (that took place in Crete in 2016). In 1936, the first congress of the faculties of Orthodox Theology under the Professor Amilcar Alivizatos called all the local Autocephalous Orthodox Churches to promote the codification of the canons. This was also reiterated at the Pan-Orthodox congress in Rhodes in 1961. In any case, Deacon Bartholomew successfully defended his dissertation in 1968. He spent time in Munich immersed in a new methodological technique in canon law and was helped by famous German canonists in this regard.

In his dissertation, Deacon Bartholomew defended the necessity of the codification project and provided a roadmap for the clarification of such an endeavour which included: the preference of a single common code for all Orthodox churches; adjustments to the shape and size of the canonical corpus for those dealing with canonical discipline (i.e. not moral theological issues); the abolition of canons no longer in use (the footnoting in the code of such ‘dead’ canons to show their historical importance); canons to reflect contemporary ecclesiastical developments among local Autocephalous Churches; Greek as the official language of the code, etc. His dissertation was subsequently published by the Patriarchal Institute of Thessaloniki and applauded by renowned Orthodox theologians like Fr John Meyendorff. While subsequent Orthodox congresses in Chambesy in 1968 and 1976 — the latter a pre-conciliar congress (that is, in preparation for the Holy and Great Council) — did not take up the issue of canons, the Holy and Great Council itself pronounced canonical decrees that can be seen as part of the Church’s ongoing codification of the canons. In the lively Q&A that followed, Fr Aetios spoke about the contribution that scholars can also make to the codification of the canons, something that, as a prerogative of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, is of continued importance for the Orthodox Church.