A diocese is the term later applied to an independent Church region that was run by rules or canons (kanon in Greek) that were applied and practiced through the “principle of the monarchic episcopate.” Monarchic meant that one bishop led one city, region, or maybe a country. Beyond that level, councils were held with other bishops, elders, deacons, people. It seems that councils where issues needed to be resolved were held at the locations where it originated. For example, the council of Jerusalem convened to settle disputes about whether gentile Christians had to observe certain Jewish rituals to be a member of the Church. It wasn’t held at Rome or Antioch, nor was it settled by Alexandria or the regions of Asia Minor. Diocese used to be an older administrative unit of the Roman empire that included provinces or a governor’s jurisdictional territory (dioikesis - across the house, housekeeping in Greek). But it would be a mistake to think that the way that the Roman empire was run is identical to that of the Church just because a term was borrowed from that time and cultural experience. While there may be some comparison between a provincial governor’s responsibilities over a region like that of a bishop, there is not an emperor bishop or imperial bishopric role identified in the canons of the Church or by apostolic tradition, or in any writings of the holy fathers.
Metropolitan Hilarion doesn’t give much detail on what canons are, how they are used, their source, writings. He mentions the Apostolic Institutions, a very early document of the faith. Canon is a church rule or even a “law” so to speak. The principle of Church unity is holy orders through love, not Judaic observance of laws. The mystical heart matters in the application of rules. Canon could mean a rod for measuring. The Greek word is borrowed from the Hebrew kaneh. It’s a straight a reed stick used as a standard. Canons imply wisdom that is found only in the experience of the glowing glory of God. Christ is the true reed that shoots out of dead dirt and grows up out of the ground — the resurrection manifested in every local land or canonical territory. We recognize that Christ is the power of growth and the glue that holds dioceses, archdioceses, patriarchates together over the ages. His Body is the reality revealed through the unity of bishops who shepherd flocks of peoples, shoals of fish overflowing, and homelands toward the altar of the Eucharist. That is the miraculous reed of rules we follow. The subtle, poetic heart of Hebrew and Aramaic gives us another ancient image that was recounted by the Holy Apostle John the Theologian’s vision and by the Holy Prophet Ezekial. They describe who held the measuring reed and how the temple and altar was to be measured and approached. Ezekial prophesies: And he brought me thither, and behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate. We also know that the gospels recount Christ being given and holding a reed in his hand (also seen as a rood or cross in our icon of Christ) after his flogging. The reed or cross is what we use to measure all things in life and in death, in church governance and right order, in sherpherding and in duties, and in personal relationships.
Today “local Church” means that there is a larger organizational structure that includes dioceses that are led by patriarchates, metropolias, and archdioceses and primates and hierarches (first rulers and holy rulers) with corresponding ranks: patriarch, metropolitan, archbishop, archpriest. In this layer of the Church, collegiality is the operating principle of governance and order. Direct intervention of one bishop over another is not a canonical way to express order or unity in the history of the Church. In other words, there doesn’t exist any principle of episcopus episcoporum (a bishop of bishops) in a monarchic sense that would give one bishop the right to intervene into the business of another bishop’s church. The Antiochian Orthodox Church or the Patriarchate of Antioch, for instance, has the highest dogmatic authority at that local level, like the Patriarchate of Moscow or the Russian Orthodox Church, through councils of bishops or synods (meetings). Some local Churches have “national councils,” like in Russian territory, and some don’t. Here at St. John the Forerunner, we are in the Patriarchate of Antioch and in the Archdiocese of North America and in the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America. As we have read about the example of Russia and Baptism of the lands of the Rus’, patriarchates often have a local history of Christianization in either a city or a country of loosely related peoples and cultures. The expectation that every Church should speak the same language and have a strict kind of uniformity is probably a unique modern perspective among western Christians. There is always tension between rigidity and freedom. It shouldn’t be surprising that God works in each place and in his own way with the people that are currently in a country or cultural pocket of a territory. It wouldn’t be out of character with the Holy Trinity that the Church works differently with people in Texas than in California, as well as all of the Americas: the U.S., Mexico, South America, Alaska, and Canada. Another unsurprising fact is that a large portion of Europe is historically Orthodox, not Roman Catholic or Protestant: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Macedonia, Georgia as well as minorities in Czechia and Slovakia (Rusyns or Carpathian Rus’), and Calabria, Italy. That makes up about 95% of contemporary Orthodoxy. It’s worth noting that Patriarchates or local Churches are often based out of major cities, not based strictly on ethnicity or patriotism as a foundation: *Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Moscow. And the Orthodox Church in America includes the canonical territory of the USA, Mexico and Canada – the North American continent, as it’s listed in this chapter by Metropolitan Hilarion. Many Spanish speakers are aware that we in the USA as well as in Mexico are all North Americans. We share a similar history and culture, especially in Texas, in the same broad sense of saying European or Asian. Spanish is a very American language as well as French and English and other Native American languages. Some native Alaskans have been practicing Orthodoxy much earlier than us in Texas. Like newer Orthodox Churches in Finland and Japan, the North American Orthodox Church may some day have its own independent structure or autocephaly (self-rule). As of now, because of so much immigration and missionary activity here, an autocephalous North American Orthodox Church has not solidified. A pan-Orthodox council, according to Metropolitan Hilarion, isn’t necessary to ensure catholicity and unity in Holy Orthodoxy. It isn’t clear if that is also the view of other patriarchates. Metropolitan Hilarion explains that there is no “mechanism” at the global level for direct control over catholicity or unity or even autocephaly and dissolving pressing problems. He may be hinting at the absolute authority that the Roman pontiff holds. But other patriarchs have expressed the view in interviews that a meeting of all the primates would be beneficial to settling problems that would affect the unity of world Orthodoxy. The heavenly Jerusalem is the kingdom of heaven. Wherever all bishops meet, whenever they all meet to agree, the heavenly city is present. Unity isn’t something to be imposed by fear or force, but by abiding in love, in Christ Jesus who is the head of all Churches in heaven and on earth.