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The article presents a study of the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church focusing on the changes it went through politically and theologically as national Orthodox Churches gained independence in many of the Slavic countries. The author questions the applicability of the major theological doctrines of the Orthodox Christianity such as the Symphony, the Counciliarity and the Autocephaly in the modern context. Other topics such the Orthodox respect and use of the native language, the relations with the political leaders of the sovereign state are also discussed. Finally an overview of the history Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire is proposed.

In 1784 King Stanisław August Poniatowski undertook a splendid progress across the south-western parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The official account of the journey prompts the reflection that even in this linguistically and confessionally mixed part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the precedence over other confessions of the Catholic Church of both rites, Latin and Ruthenian, was axiomatic. By the mid-eighteenth century, about five-sixths of the Commonwealth's population, the vast majority of the noble citizenry, and the entire legislature were Catholic. However, Catholics of the Latin rite constituted only about half of the population. Most Catholics of the Ruthenian rite (Uniates) were in only nominal obedience to Rome; they were the object of a struggle for the allegiance and salvation of souls, conducted between an advancing Catholic Church and a retreating Orthodox Church. The fault line between Eastern and Western Christendom ran through both the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Orthodoxy retained strongholds in both parts of the Commonwealth. However, the position of the 'Latin' Church was, in most ways, significantly weaker in the Grand Duchy, where the majority of the inhabitants were Uniates. Adapting recent mutations in 'confessionalization theory', this paper first reviews the confessional balance, and the privileges, structures, educational institutions, and missionary work of the Catholic Church (of both rites) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the second half of the eighteenth century. It then asks how the dramatic events of Stanisław August's reign (1764-95) affected Catholic supremacy. These changes included the enforced removal of the Catholic monopoly of the legislature in 1768, the impact of the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772, the Orthodox revivals under Bishops Georgii Konisskii and Viktor Sadkovskii, as well as the formulation of new policies intended to promote loyalty to the Commonwealth and social cohesion during the Four Years' Sejm (1788-92). It concludes that the partial 'deconfessionalization' of the polity had (or might have had) a proportionately greater impact on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania than on the Polish Crown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the results of the 1887 census effectuated in the Sarajevo Mitropoly (orthodox archbishopric diocese) of Bosnia-Herzegovina soon after the Austro-Hungarian occupation of this area began in 1878. The author argues that the census primarily reflects the Orthodox Church situation under the Muslim Ottoman regime as its most significant data had been in fact collected under the Ottomans when the orthodox church was solely obedient to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, before the Austrians interfered in ecclesiastical affairs allowing for the Patriarchate's spiritual power only. Yet, the data from 1887, mostly of demographic nature, informs us on the political and sociological shift brought about by the new regime and how the Orthodox Church had to adapt to it.

Advice had to be given carefully to the Emperor in Byzantium. This article looks at two addresses delivered to Alexios I Komnenos in the latter part of the 11th Century by Theophylact of Ohrid and John the Oxite. Both were senior clerics who sought to counsel the Emperor to abandon risky policies which had brought limited success to Byzantium. The methods of the two orators differ sharply, with one urging Alexios gently and through flattery, and the other providing a stinging critique of Komnenian rule, offering a dramatic diagnosis of the problems affecting Byzantium at this time. This is at least partly a reflection of a changing political situation in and around Constantinople between 1088-91. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]