The Participation of the Laity in the Exercise of Jurisdictional Power within the Orthodox Church: A Canonical Study
The Participation of the Laity in the Exercise of Jurisdictional Power within the Orthodox Church: A Canonical Study

Summary/Abstract: In the specialist literature of the Eastern Orthodox Church, canonical studies devoted to the norms governing the participation of laypeople in the exercise of the Church’s jurisdictional power are relatively few and, in most cases, lack a holistic approach that includes references to both the biblical text and the texts of the early liturgical-canonical literature and canonical collections of the third and fourth centuries. Therefore, insofar as time and space have permitted, we have sought in the present study to examine and evaluate the testimonies provided by these sources, correlating them with the provisions of the canonical legislation of the first Christian millennium. In order to illustrate how the participation of the laity in the exercise of jurisdictional power was understood and implemented throughout history, we have also made use of the canonical doctrine of the Eastern Church, as reflected especially in the commentaries of the twelfth-century Byzantine canonists. Finally, in order to provide the reader with an understanding of how the participation of the laity in the exercise of the Church’s jurisdictional power is realised today, we have examined and evaluated the Statute for the Organisation and Functioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church as an example of the normative framework of a local Orthodox Church.

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