In preparing reviews of notable books recently published in the field of theology and related disciplines, we could not overlook the book “Canonical Amorphs (Essays on Canonical Oikonomia)”. Its author is Gregory Papathomas, Metropolitan of Peristeri from the Ecumenical Patriarchate and professor of canon law. The book was translated into Ukrainian from Modern Greek and published in Kyiv in 2025 by the Mission of the Stavropegia of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine, with the support of the Center for Scientific, Theological, Publishing, and Educational Projects of St. Andrew the First-Called.
The overarching themes of this collection span several interconnected areas: the evolution of historical models of the relationship between the Church and society (from imperial and ethnic models to an open multicultural space), the crisis of the territorial principle in Orthodox ecclesiology, the phenomena of co-territoriality and multi-jurisdictionality, the canonical competences of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, pastoral challenges posed by mixed marriages and interreligious interaction, as well as internal structural tensions, which the author describes as “crises” of Orthodoxy. The key thread linking these themes is the desire to understand the canonical tradition not as a rigid norm, but as a living tool for organizing church life in new historical circumstances.
The relevance of this book in the Ukrainian context is determined not only by broader ecclesiastical discussions regarding jurisdictional boundaries and the nature of church unity, but also by the specific situation surrounding the formation and institutional development of new Orthodox structures in Ukraine.
Issues such as competence of appeal instance, the territorial principle, the relationship between ethnic factors and ecclesiology, as well as the coexistence of multiple jurisdictions within a single territory, take on a concrete rather than abstract dimension here. In this sense, the writings of Metropolitan Gregory Papathomas offer a framework for canonical analysis that transcends political or national-ideological interpretations and appeals to the internal logic of the church law.
The book contains the following chapters:
- From the Church of the Empire and Ethnicity to the Church of Open Multicultural Societies,
- The Orthodox diachronic counterproposal to the concept of a “national church”: the autocephalous church,
- The oppositional relationship between the local church and the ecclesiastical “diaspora”,
- The Era of Meta-Ecclesiology,
- Various Jurisdictional and Canonical Competences of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
- Open Ecclesiastical Communitarianism: Mixed Marriages and Adult Conversion,
- The Crisis and Crises in the Orthodox Church.
On our website, you can read more detailed reviews of this and other books by following this link: https://www.academic-initiative.org.ua/en/book-reviews/
