THE HIERARCHICAL AUTHORITIES OF THE CHURCH AND THE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTES PART II
THE PATRIARCH AS THE HIERARCHICAL AUTHORITY OF THE INSTITUTES OF CONSECRATED LIFE
Keywords:
ecclesial, authorities, autonomy, eparchial bishop, local hierarch, roman pontiff, major archbishop, right, approval, internal governanceAbstract
CCEO c. 410 describes the religious state as a stable mode of common life in an institute approved by the Church. Approval by the competent ecclesiastical authorities and the consequent relationship of the religious institutes with the ecclesial authorities, while keeping the rightful autonomy, are among the essential elements of the ecclesial nature of religious state. In this respect, the hierarchical ordering of the Eastern Churches is different from the Latin code. The existence of patriarchal/major archiepiscopal institutes and the role of the patriarch/major archbishop in the life of the religious members and institutes are foreign to the Latin code. Having dealt with the relations of these institutes with the Apostolic See in the first part of this article (see, Iustitia, vol. 8/2 [2017] 193-216) this second part of the article presents in a systematic order the various aspects of the relationship of religious institutes and their members with the patriarch/major archbishop, to the eparchial bishop and to other local hierarchs, as envisaged in the canons of CCEO, in comparison with the norms of CIC.
