Church of Greece structure
The structure of the Church of Greece is unique in that it does not included all the area of the nation of Greece within its jurisdiction. The Orthodox ecclesiastical structure in the nation of Greece reflects the secular political actions during the formation of the nation of Greece beginning from its establishment in the second decade of the nineteenth century.
The Church of Greece was formed after a portion of the present day nation won its independence from the Ottoman empire in the 1820s and received autocephalous status from the Church of Constantinople in the mid 1800s. This area included the southern part of the peninsula of Greece consisting mainly of the Peloponnese peninsula and included Athens and Attica and some of the Greek islands. Following the Balkan Wars in the first decades of the twentieth century, Greece grew, adding to the nation of Greece the territories in Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace, referred to as the New Lands, many of the islands in the Aegean Sea, and the island of Crete. However, ecclesiastical jurisdiction over most of these territories remained with the Church of Constantinople. Following World War II, the Dodecanese Islands in the southern part of the Aegean Sea also became part of the nation of Greece but ecclesiastically remained under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople.
During the period following World War I, agreements were reached among the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Church of Greece, and the Government of Greece concerning the News Lands in which the New Lands remained within the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople but de facto were made part of the Church of Greece for administration under an agreement between the churches of Athens and Constantinople and under which the Ecumenical Patriarch is commemorated. [1] Thus, the structure of the Orthodox Church within the nation of Greece is divided into three categories:
- that part fully under the jurisdiction of the Church of Greece as the Archdiocese of Athens,
- that part consisting of the New Lands that is jurisdictionally under the Ecumenical Patriarchate but administered as part of the Archdiocese of Athens, and
- that part, Crete and the Dodecanese Islands, that is fully under the jurisdiction and administration of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Metropolises of the New Lands in Greece that are within the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople but de facto are administered for practical reasons as part of the Church of Greece under an agreement between the churches of Athens and Constantinople: