This independent position by ancient custom was recognized, against the claims of the Patriarch of Antioch, at the Council of Ephesus (431 CE), and by an edict of the Byzantine emperor Zeno. The church had sent a cogent argument on its own behalf to the Emperor, the alleged body of its reputed founder Barnabas, just then having been most opportunely discovered at Salamis. Its independence was confirmed by the Trullan Synod in Constantinople, 692. Attempts were made subsequently by the patriarchs of Antioch to claim authority over the Cypriot Church, the last as recently as 1600, but in vain.
The OrthodoxChurch in Ukraine was moving toward autonomous status in the early 2000s, although this move was a point of dispute with the Russian patriarchate.
By the 10th century Bulgarian was the language of the church, and in the early 10th century, by decree of Tsar Simeon, it became an autocephalous patriarchate in defiance of Constantinople.
The OrthodoxChurch of Greece is headed by the archbishop of Athens and all Greece, who serves as president of a synod of bishops that governs the church.
Orthodox acceptance of the seven councils resulted in the exclusion from their communion, on grounds of heresy, of the Nestorian, Jacobite, Coptic, and Armenian churches; it also involves holding a sacramental doctrine of grace ex opere operato (see grace) and of veneration of the Virgin Mary, two points differentiating the Orthodox from Protestants.
The number of Orthodoxchurches recognizing one another as such is indefinite because of the fluid state of the relations of Orthodox bishops in countries to which communicants have emigrated.
The Orthodoxchurches of Finland and of Poland, founded after World War I, lost most of their members when the eastern sections of the countries were repossessed by the Soviet Union in World War II.
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