The Diptychs

The lists of names commemorated aloud at the Liturgy: the primates of the autocephalous churches, each in his place, read by the bishop or the priest at the anaphora. They are the plainest instrument the Orthodox Church has for saying who is in communion with whom, because a name is either said or it is not, and everyone present hears which. A church that breaks communion strikes a name from them, and restoring communion means putting it back. The order of the lists is the order of honour, and the churches do not all keep identical lists, which is one of the ways a dispute about rank shows itself without anyone having to announce it.