The Celtic Orthodox Church ( COC ; French : Église orthodoxe celtique ), also called the Holy Celtic Church , is an autocephalous Christian church founded in the 20th century in France .
31-800: Since 25 December 2007, the Celtic Orthodox Church has been in communion with the French Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of the Gauls , forming the Communion of Western Orthodox Churches (CWOC). The Celtic Orthodox Church claims to be part of the Jules Ferrette episcopal succession line . The Celtic Orthodox Church was founded in the 20th century by Jean-Pierre Danyel [ fr ] . He
62-692: A diocese in Western Churches. Historical development of eparchies in various Eastern Churches was marked by local distinctions that can be observed in modern ecclesiastical practices of the Eastern Orthodox Church , Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches . The English word eparchy is an anglicized term that comes from the original Greek word ( Koinē Greek : ἐπαρχία , romanized: eparchía , lit. 'overlordship', Byzantine Greek pronunciation: [e.parˈçi.a] ). It
93-740: A given local church congregation (in turn possibly associated with a given denomination) or an interdenominational group of several local area congregations, some are established as parachurch voluntary associations or student societies , and others form out of casual non-denominational friend groups/social groups among individual Christians in some way affiliated with universities, colleges, schools, other educational institutions, community centers, places of employment, or at any other place, entity, or among neighbors and acquaintances, made up of people who worship, congregate, and socialize together based on shared religious beliefs. Eparchies Eparchy ( Greek : ἐπαρχία eparchía "overlordship")
124-597: Is a transliterated form of the Greek word κοινωνία , which refers to concepts such as fellowship, joint participation, partnership, the share which one has in anything, a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution. In the Politics of Aristotle it is used to mean a community of any size from a single family to a polis . As a polis, it is the Greek for republic or commonwealth. In later Christianity it identifies
155-433: Is an abstract noun , formed with an intensive prefix ( ἐπι- , epi- , lit. ' over- ' + ἄρχειν , árchein , lit. ' to be ruler ' ). It is commonly Latinized as eparchia . The term can be loosely translated as the rule over something (literally: an overlordship). The term had various meanings and multiple uses throughout history, mainly in politics and administration, starting from
186-556: Is an ecclesiastical unit in Eastern Christianity that is equivalent to a diocese in Western Christianity . An eparchy is governed by an eparch , who is a bishop . Depending on the administrative structure of a specific Eastern Church, an eparchy can belong to an ecclesiastical province (usually a metropolis ), but it can also be exempt. Each eparchy is divided into parishes , in the same manner as
217-718: Is the Anglican Communion . If the relationship between the churches is complete, involving fullness of "those bonds of communion – faith, sacraments and pastoral governance – that permit the Faithful to receive the life of grace within the Church", it is called full communion . However, the term "full communion" is frequently used in a broader sense, to refer instead to a relationship between Christian churches that are not united, but have only entered into an arrangement whereby members of each church have certain rights within
248-801: Is used in local variants, and also has various equivalents in local languages. Eparchies of the main Eastern Orthodox churches: In the Eastern Catholic Churches , eparchy is equivalent to a diocese of the Latin Church , and its bishop can be called an eparch (equivalent to a diocesan of the Latin Church). Similarly, an archeparchy is equivalent to an archdiocese of the Latin Church and its bishop can be called an archeparch (equivalent to an archbishop of
279-681: The koinonia embraces concepts conveyed in the English terms community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy. Koinonia can therefore refer in some contexts to a jointly contributed gift. The word appears 19 times in most editions of the Greek New Testament. In the New American Standard Bible , it is translated "fellowship" twelve times, "sharing" three times, and "participation" and "contribution" twice each. Koinonia appears once in
310-683: The Hellenistic period , and continuing throughout the Roman era . In the Greco-Roman world , it was used as a Greek equivalent for the Latin term provincia , denoting province , the main administrative unit of the Roman Empire . The same use was employed in the early Byzantine Empire until major administrative reforms that were undertaken between the 7th and 9th centuries, abolishing
341-508: The Sainte Église catholique Gallicane autocéphale . Danyel received the title of "Bishop of Redon ". On 19 December 1959, Danyel proclaimed himself metropolitan under the title Tugdual I, Archbishop of Dôl . Danyel "revived Druidic rites" and added to his title "Sa Blancheur l'Humble" ("His Whiteness the Humble") which he claimed was of Druidic origin. His full title was therefore: "His Whiteness
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#1732772406708372-604: The ancient Celtic Church of Brittany and took the name of one of the Christian founding saints of Brittany, Tugdual . Danyel founded the Abbaye de la Saint Présence at Bois-Juhel, Saint-Dolay , "where he lived as an hermit in emulation of the ancient Celtic monks ". He "soon attracted disciples" and was elected as the first bishop of the restored Celtic Church. He was consecrated bishop in 1957 by Archbishop Irenaeus of Arles (Comte Charles-Borromée d'Eschevannes), primate of
403-695: The Humble Tugdual I, Archbishop of Dôl, Abbot of Saint-Dolay, Kayermo and Keroussek, primate of the Holy Celtic Church, President of all the non-Roman Christian and Apostolic Churches". In 1963 or 1964, the organisation consisted of 10 bishops and two to three lay people . The church was called at the time the Sainte Église celtique en Bretagne (Holy Celtic Church in Brittany). On 11 August 1968, Danyel died. After his death, his hermitage
434-609: The Orthodox Church of the British Isles remained independent. With the departure of Mar Seraphim, the Celtic Orthodox Church had no primate. Mael was elected primate of the Celtic Orthodox Church by its Holy Synod in 1994 and remained as such until his death in 2014. The current primate is since 2014 Metropolitan Marc (Jean Claude Scheerens). In 1996, the Celtic Orthodox Church canonised Danyel, its founder. The Celtic Orthodox Church has two eparchies , France and
465-730: The Roman Rite). Individual eparchies of some Eastern Catholic Churches may be suffragan to Latin Church metropolitans. For example, the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Križevci is suffragan to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb . Also, some minor Eastern Catholic churches have Latin prelates. For example, the Macedonian Greek Catholic Church is organized as a single Eparchy of Strumica-Skopje , whose present ordinary
496-695: The United States. The group currently has two bishops and nine parishes and is present in France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. Koinonia Koinonia ( / ˌ k ɔɪ n oʊ ˈ n iː ə / ), communion , or fellowship in Christianity is the bond uniting Christians as individuals and groups with each other and with Jesus Christ. It refers to group cohesiveness among Christians. Koinonia
527-750: The ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint , in Leviticus 6:2 It is found in 43 verses of the New Testament as a noun ( koinōnia 17x, koinōnos 10x, sugkoinōnos 4x), in its adjectival ( koinōnikos 1x), or verbal forms ( koinōneō 8x, sugkoinōneō 3x) . The word is applied, according to the context, to sharing or fellowship, or people in such relation, with: Of these usages, Bromiley's International Standard Bible Encyclopedia selects as especially significant
558-508: The body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8) is a belief among some Christians. Their communion is believed to be "a vital fellowship between all the redeemed, on earth and in the next life, that is based on the common possession of the divine life of grace that comes to us through the risen Christ". Since the word rendered in English as "saints" can mean not only "holy people" but also "holy things", "communion of saints" also applies to
589-513: The final consolidation of the provincial (metropolitan) system in the 4th century. The First Ecumenical Council (325) confirmed (Canon IV) that all bishops of each civil province should be grouped in one ecclesiastical province , headed by a metropolitan (bishop of the provincial capital). Since civil provinces were called eparchies in Greek, the same term was used to define ecclesiastical provinces. Such use became customary, and metropolitan provinces came to be known as eparchies . Throughout
620-603: The following meanings: The Eucharist is the sacrament of communion with one another in the one body of Christ. This was the full meaning of eucharistic koinonia in the early Catholic Church . St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "the Eucharist is the sacrament of the unity of the Church, which results from the fact that many are one in Christ." By metonymy , the term is used of a group of Christian churches that have this close relationship of communion with each other. An example
651-602: The idealized state of fellowship and unity that should exist within the Christian church, the Body of Christ . This usage may have been borrowed from the early Epicureans—as it is used by Epicurus' Principal Doctrines 37–38. The term communion, derived from Latin communio ('sharing in common'), is related. The term "Holy Communion" normally refers to the Christian rite also called the Eucharist . The essential meaning of
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#1732772406708682-703: The late antiquity and the early medieval period, within Eastern Orthodox terminology, the term eparchy remained a common designation for a metropolitan province i.e. metropolis ( Greek : μητρόπολις , Latin : metropolis ). During the later medieval period, terminology started to shift, particularly within the Patriarchate of Constantinople . The process of title-inflation that was affecting Byzantine bureaucracy and aristocracy also gained momentum in ecclesiastical circles. In order to promote centralization, patriarchal authorities started to multiply
713-521: The name Mael in 1980 by the primate of the Celtic Orthodox Church, bishop Seraphim (Norton-Newman) . The Orthodox Church of the British Isles and the Celtic Orthodox Church split in 1994, when under Mar Seraphim (William Henry Hugo Newman-Norton) the Orthodox Church of the British Isles joined the Coptic Orthodox Church and changed its name to British Orthodox Church . The Celtic Orthodox Church and some other groups previously under
744-590: The numbers of metropolitans by elevating local bishops to honorary metropolitan ranks without giving them any real metropolitan powers, and making them directly appointed and thus more dependent on Constantinople. As a consequence, the use of the word eparchy was expanded to include not only proper metropolitan provinces, but also the newly created honorary metropolitan sees that were no real provinces, and thus no different then simple bishoprics except in honorary titles and ranks. In spite of that, such honorary metropolitan sees also came to be called eparchies . This process
775-574: The old provincial system. In modern times, the term was also employed within administrative systems of some countries, like Greece and Cyprus . Since it was commonly used as the main Greek designation for an administrative province of the Roman Empire, the term eparchy consequently gained an additional use among Greek-speaking Christians , denoting ecclesiastical structures on the provincial level of Church administration, within Eastern Christianity . Such terminological borrowing resulted from
806-543: The other. If a church recognizes that another church, with which it lacks bonds of pastoral governance, shares with it some of the beliefs and essential practices of Christianity, it may speak of "partial communion" between it and the other church. The communion of saints is the relationship that, according to the belief of Christians, exists between them as people made holy by their link with Christ. That this relationship extends not only to those still in earthly life, but also to those who have gone past death to be "away from
837-426: The sharing by members of the church in the holy things of faith, sacraments (especially the Eucharist ), and the other spiritual graces and gifts that they have in common. The term "communion" is applied to sharing in the Eucharist by partaking of the consecrated bread and wine, an action seen as entering into a particularly close relationship with Christ. Sometimes the term is applied not only to this partaking but to
868-484: The whole of the rite or to the consecrated elements. A Christian fellowship is a community, social club , benefit society , and/or a fraternal organization whether formal or informal of Christians that worship, pray, cooperate, volunteer, socialize, and associate with each other on the foundation of their shared Christian faith. Members of Christian fellowships may or may not be part of the same church congregations or denominations , although many are associated with
899-469: Was abandoned. In 1977, three monks who were from an abbaye in Montpellier founded by a Celtic Orthodox priest, Paul-Edouard de Fournier de Brescia in 1973, came to the hermitage and built a church on the site. By 1979, the Celtic Orthodox Church was part of the Orthodox Church of the British Isles of William Henry Hugo Newman-Norton . Paul-Edouard Fournier de Brescia was consecrated bishop under
930-614: Was ordained priest by the Mariavite bishop of France in 1951, after failing to obtain an ordination from any Russian, Romanian or Greek Eastern Orthodox bishop. However, he doubted the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches would recognize the validity of his ordination. Thus, he "received all the orders again on 1 March 1953" from Metropolitan Lutgen of Antwerp of the Église catholique du rite dominicain . Lutgen had received his episcopal consecration from Hugh George de Willmott Newman . After this, Danyel decided to work to restore
961-578: Was systematically promoted, thus resulting in a major terminological shift. Since the fragmentation of the original metropolitan provinces into several titular metropolises that were also referred to as eparchies , the Patriarchate of Constantinople became more centralized, and such structure has remained up to the present day. Similar ecclesiastical terminology is also employed by other autocephalous and autonomous churches within Eastern Orthodox community . In those who are non-Greek, term eparchy