Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

The Church of Constantinople, the New Rome, whose archbishop has held the first place of honour among the Orthodox since Rome fell away, following the canons of the Second and Fourth Councils that gave the capital a place second only to Old Rome. From the Phanar in Istanbul the Patriarch leads a small flock in Turkey and a wide one abroad, with Mount Athos, Crete, the Dodecanese and many dioceses of the diaspora. What that first place includes is not agreed. Constantinople holds that it may convene the Churches, receive appeals from clergy of other Churches, and grant autocephaly by its own act. Moscow and others answer that primacy of honour gives no jurisdiction outside its territory, and that autocephaly needs the consent of all. The disagreement became a break in 2018, when Constantinople moved to grant autocephaly in Ukraine and Moscow ended communion with it. Patriarch Bartholomew has led it since 1991.