Byzantine ivory relief representing coronation of German Emperor Otto II and his wife, Empress Theophano, a Byzantine Princess
The Eastern Orthodox Church has a presence in Germany. With up to 2 million adherents, the Church is Germany's third-largest Christian denomination after Roman Catholicism and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). It has grown due to immigration from Eastern Europe, especially Romania, Greece, the former Soviet Union, and the former Yugoslavia.
According to the 2011 census, 2% of the population identified as Orthodox, although this encompasses a number of different churches.[1]
Some Orthodox churches have been working since 1974 in the Council of Christian Churches in Germany (ACK). The five Orthodox churches have represented for several years in a joint delegation. Likewise, The Orthodox churches are involved in most regional and local working group of the ACK.
There are also bilateral relation with the German Bishops' Conference and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) with discussions on theological issues. For example, several documents were adopted in 2006 to dogmatic questions in a joint working group of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Germany and the German Bishops' Conference. As of 2007, this working group has been redesigned and extended.
German Orthodox Church
For ecclesiological and historical reasons, there is no "German Orthodox Church." In 1990, the German Orthodox Holy Trinity Monastery in Bodenwerder founded the first German Orthodoxmonastery which, although being ecclesiastically independent, was under the spiritual protection of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.[2]
Interdenominational organization
The Eastern Orthodox Episcopal Conference of Germany (Orthodoxe Bischofskonferenz in Deutschland), established in February 2010, includes 10 diocesan bishops and 7 vicar bishops. It covers about 1.5 million Eastern Orthodox Christians living in Germany. The President of the Conference, in accordance with the order of the Diptychs, the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, is the Metropolitan of Germany Augustinos (Labardakis).
^The ROC severed full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2018, and later severed full communion with the primates of the Church of Greece, the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and the Church of Cyprus in 2020.
^ abcdefghAutocephaly or autonomy is not universally recognized.
^UOC-MP was moved to formally cut ties with the ROC as of May 27th 2022.
^ abSemi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church whose autonomy is not universally recognized.
