Facets of faith for Oct. 17, 2009

• By LEILA PITCHFORD-ENGLISH
• Advocate News Features staff
• Published: Oct 17, 2009

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will visit Louisiana to preside over “Restoring Balance: The Great Mississippi River,” a Religion, Science and the Environment Symposium, which begins Wednesday in New Orleans.

After the event ends on Oct. 25, he will visit New York and Washington D.C.

As part of his ministry, Patriarch Bartholomew challenges people to adopt environmental conservation as a necessary part of spiritual life. Other issues he speaks about are martyrdom and persecution that many in the Orthodox churches have faced, and peace and reconciliation among Christians and with those of other faiths.

A simplified way to describe this visit would be that this is similar to the pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church, coming to lead a seminar.

Patriarch Bartholomew is head of the Orthodox churches, the Eastern branch of Christianity. For many Americans, Eastern Christianity has lots of mysterious names and titles. Here’s a breakdown of some of the terms associated with Patriarch Bartholomew.

Eastern Orthodox churches

The Associated Press Stylebook defines this as “a group of churches that have roots in the earliest days of Christianity and do not recognize papal authority over their activities.”

These churches split from the Western church in the Great Schism of 1054. They are independent groups aligned by nationality.

These groups recognize the patriarch of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey) as their leader, but a leader who is “first among equals.”

Ecumenical Patriarch

This is the title that places Bartholomew as head of the Orthodox churches. Ecumenical patriarch means “worldwide father.” He is given that title because he is the Archbishop of Constantinople. The various Orthodox churches agreed to recognize the person holding this position as their worldwide leader in a move approved in the year 587.

In this role, he doesn’t have authority over other archbishops, but does have the ability to call for meetings of church leaders. He is sometimes asked to intervene in problems among the leadership of other Orthodox churches.

Sources: http://www.patriarchate.org/; http://www.rsesymposia.org/;  Associated Press Stylebook