The Myth of the ‘Barbarian Lands’

In 2014, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople convened a “unification synod” in Ukraine. It aimed to unite three groups: the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church plus two schismatic sects, the “Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate” and the “Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.”

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church rejected the Council’s authority and refused to attend. The UOC had been granted autonomy by its mother church, the Russian Orthodox Church, in 1990. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, therefore, had no right to interfere in its canonical territory.

So, who was right?

To answer this question, we need to go back about sixteen centuries.

Constantinople’s Ancient Primacy

It has been said that the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople assumed the title of “first among equals” from the Pope of Rome following the Great Schism. The reality, however, is that Constantinople’s eminence among the college of bishops well predates the 11th century.

Consider, for instance, the Fourth Ecumenical Council (A.D. 451). Canon 9 of Chalcedon establishes Constantinople as the highest appellate court in the Church. Canon 17, likewise, declares that “if any one be wronged by his metropolitan, let the matter be decided by the exarch of the diocese or by the throne of Constantinople.” As the eminent canonist Fr. Alexander Rentel observes: “No other canon in the entire corpus is such supra-diocesan primacy spoken of for any bishop except for the bishop of Constantinople.”

We speak of the Ecumenical Patriarch as enjoying a “primacy of honor” or a “primacy of love.” And so he does! Yet this should not subtract from the fact that Constantinople also enjoys a primacy of power, as assigned to the Great Church by the ancient canons.

Chalcedon and the ‘Barbarian Lands’

However, some have argued that, in recent centuries, the Ecumenical Patriarchs have tended to overestimate their own authority. They have been accused of assigning themselves a role within the Orthodox Church comparable to that of the Pope within the Roman Catholic Church. And, in doing so, they have been accused of violating the rights of autocephalous and autonomous churches around the world.

Much of this (alleged) overreach comes down to—you guessed it!—the Fourth Ecumenical Council. Specifically, it has to do with Constantinople’s interpretation of Canon 28 of Chalcedon. It states the following:

[I]n the Pontic, the Asian, and the Thracian dioceses, the metropolitans only and such bishops also of the Dioceses aforesaid as are among the barbarians, should be ordained by the aforesaid most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople; every metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses, together with the bishops of his province, ordaining his own provincial bishops, as has been declared by the divine canons; but that, as has been above said, the metropolitans of the aforesaid Dioceses should be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople, after the proper elections have been held according to custom and have been reported to him.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate claims that the phrase “barbarian lands” refers to every country and province that did not, at the time of Chalcedon, possess an autocephalous Church of its own. In other words, the Council Fathers granted Constantinople sovereignty over Eastern and Northern Europe, most of Asia, and (without knowing it, of course) all of North America, South America, and Oceania—or so the Phanar claims. This has come to be known as the Barbarian Lands Theory.

But is this an accurate reading of Canon 28 of Chalcedon?

Joachim III and the Tomos of 1908

Matthew Namee, the well-known Orthodox historian, has offered an important challenge to this thesis. In an essay published four years ago at Pubic Orthodoxy, he notes that “The standard canonical commentators—Zonaras, Balsamon, Aristenos—all interpret the phrase literally, referring to specific barbarian groups who were adjacent to Pontus, Asia, and Thrace.” What’s more, “At the turn of the 19th century, St. Nikodemos repeats this interpretation in the Pedalion.” According to Namee, “The modern theory is nowhere to be found.”

The earliest reference to the Barbarian Lands Theory that Namee can find occurs in 1908. In that year, Patr. Joachim III (d.1912) issued a Tomos invoking Canon 28 as proof that Constantinople alone is allowed “to canonically reach beyond the boundaries of its own region.”

Yet, as Namee points out, Joachim did not assert Constantinople’s sovereignty over the entire United States. He was far more modest. The Tomos merely claimed that Constantinople—rather than the Church of Greece—was responsible for the “spiritual protection” OF THE GREEK DIASOPORA. Having established this privilege, however, the Tomos immediately transfers jurisdiction to the Church of Greece.

Meletios IV and the Praxis of 1922

After the Tomos was issued, Meletios Metaxakis—then Archbishop of Athens—established the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America. A few years later, Metaxakis himself was elected Ecumenical Patriarch. He was enthroned on March 1, 1922, as Patr. Meletios IV. One of his first acts was to issue a Praxis reverse the Tomos of 1908, transferring jurisdiction back to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

According to Namee, the Praxis of 1922 marks the beginning of the Barbarian Lands Theory. According to the Praxis itself,

[Constantinople] reinstates immediately complete and intact Her ruling canonical rights, and immediate supervision and governance—without exception—of all Orthodox Communities found outside the boundaries of each of the Autocephalous Churches, whether in Europe, or America, or anywhere else; bringing them immediately under the immediate Ecclesiastical dependence and guidance, and determines those that arise thereafter will belong only to Her and from Her possess the validity of their Ecclesiastical formation and actuality.

The Praxis goes on to say:

The canonical ordinances and the centuries-old practice of the Church ascribe the Orthodox communities which are found to be outside the canonical boundaries of the individual Holy Churches of God under the pastoral governance of the Most Holy, Apostolic, Patriarchal, Ecumenical Throne.

Again, according to Namee, this (effectively) the birth of the Barbarian Lands Theory.

Canon Law or Power Politics?

One must then ask, how did Meletios “develop” such an erroneous interpretation of Canon 28 of Chalcedon? Surely he didn’t just make it all up... right?

Well, as Namee notes in his biographical essay on Metaxakis, Meletios IV is one of the most nakedly self-serving figures in Church history. As Namee points out, “Meletios’ fortunes were linked to those of Prime Minister Venizelos.” It was Venizelos (a fellow Freemason) who secured Meletios the position of Archbishop of Athens in 1918.

In 1923, he was ousted as Ecumenical Patriarch; then, in 1926, he was elected Pope of Alexandria. Meletios then decided that Alexandria should assume the mantle of primus inter pares. He made it his goal to “resume his old title as head of the Eastern Church and to have Alexandria assume its ancient authority as the capital of that Church.”

So, while Constantinople did historically enjoy a robust primacy, it’s equally certain that the Barbarian Lands Theory lacks any basis in the ancient canons. Indeed, its main “theorist” was a cynical operator who dropped it as soon as it became inconvenient.

‘Barbarian Lands’ in the 21st Century

The current Ecumenical Patriarch is nothing like Metaxakis in this regard. Like most “Phanariots,” he believes that Constantinople has been invested by God with a responsibility to shepherd the whole Church—“by hook or by crook,” so to speak.  His devotion to the New Rome is not an act or a ploy, but a conviction he feels deeply.

Nevertheless, the Barbarian Lands Theory has led Metaxakis’s successors—including Bartholomew—to overstep their authority. They have sown confusion and disorder in the Orthodox Church by interfering in the canonical territory of other autocephalous/autonomous Churches.

In Ukraine, this interference has born particularly bad fruit. In 2018, Bartholomew invoked Canon 28 to “reclaim” Ukraine for the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2018. How? Well, the Kyivan Church wasn’t founded until A.D. 988—about five centuries after Chalcedon. Ukraine is therefore a “barbarian land” and falls under Constantinople’s suzerainty.

At the end of its “unification synod,” the Ecumenical Patriarchate declared the creation of a new, “autocephalous” body: the Orthodox Church in Ukraine (OCU). The Zelenskyy administration has spent years seizing buildings from the UOC, arresting its bishops, conscripting its clergy, and beating its lay faithful—all in the name of the OCU, which Bartholomew legitimized.

Barbarians for Constantinople

As we’ve seen, the Barbarian Lands Theory lacks any basis in the Apostolic or Patristic tradition. It is a failed experiment in 20th-century “church politics”—one that was quickly abandoned by its own chief theorist. In practice, it has yielded nothing but confusion, schism, and even persecution.

For what it’s worth, many have also claimed that the Barbarian Lands Theory has hurt Constantinople as well. Rather than strengthening its position within the Church, it has inspired feelings of anger and resentment. This has weakened the love and fidelity which Orthodox Christians naturally feel for the Great Church.

We are not here to attack Constantinople’s primacy. On the contrary, we are here to defend its primacy—its ancient, authentic primacy. In the Orthodox Church, true primacy is built on the fundamental equality of all bishops and local churches. It is, therefore, incompatible with the novel and dangerous “Barbarian Lands Theory.”

Michael W. Davis is General Editor of the UOJ–USA. Follow him on Twitter @paisiosdavis.

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