OrthodoxWiki:Style Manual

This is the OrthodoxWiki Style Manual. Refer to it when writing new articles. It is currently tentative and therefore still under development.

Introduction

This Style Manual constitutes the official style protocols for OrthodoxWiki. When editing articles or creating new ones, this document should be used as a reference point and guidelines for all content. It is strongly recommended that you add it to your watchlist so that you can track whenever it's updated and incorporate the changes into your editing, helping to keep the whole site in conformity.

The Style Manual is "enforced" primarily by the users of the site but also by the administrators. Enforcement comes in the form of composing articles according to the manual the first time they're created and also by continual editing to conform to the Style Manual. That means that we rely on you to help us keep things in order by using the Style Manual.

Importing Articles from Wikipedia

It is permitted (and even encouraged) to import relevant articles from Wikipedia. However, when doing so, keep a few things in mind. First, all material from Wikipedia is not necessarily public domain. Most of it is probably released in several different forms of limited license, usually entailing that the material may be freely distributed so long as no monetary profit is made from it. The key thing is to look closely at the notes on the article. This especially applies to images being imported.

It is also important to strip out irrelevant links. Leave only links that are relevant to OrthodoxWiki. Things to strip out include year links (even for an historically oriented church like ours, there's probably not going to be enough of historic significance in the Church going on in a single year to warrant a whole article about it), city names, and so on. Place name links should be left in only if, for instance, they are the name of a place which is almost exclusively of religious significance (e.g., Iona). We don't need an article for Constantinople, however, mainly because anything specifically religiously relevant to the city is likely to be covered in other articles.

Things to leave in that might not otherwise be obvious: leave in dates (e.g., November 13), historic persons who have had an impact on the Church (even if not members, e.g., Arius or Julian the Apostate), events along those same lines (e.g., the Fall of Constantinople), and so on.

Also be sure to do searches on OrthodoxWiki to examine existing articles so that internal links might be made in a consistent way -- for instance, use First Ecumenical Council (the established OrthodoxWiki way) instead of First Council of Nicaea (the established Wikipedia way).

Additionally, "Orthodoxize" the articles. Things which to secular scholars might appear to be biased might simply be a statement of truth for the Orthodox (e.g., "The Orthodox Church is the sole Church founded by Jesus Christ"). That doesn't mean that anything negative about the Church's members should be glossed over, but be sure to keep in mind that OrthodoxWiki is an Orthodox Christian website, and so things here are written and edited from that point of view.

Types of Articles

What kind of articles is OrthodoxWiki looking for? Ostensibly, anything directly to do with the Orthodox Christian faith and life is appropriate. In addition, however, articles especially on historical subjects and persons related to Church life are also appropriate. So, while there are articles on saints and bishops, there are also articles on emperors and heretics. Therefore, while creating articles and making links within them, consider what might be generally appropriate for OrthodoxWiki.

For examples, browse around existing articles, click on the links already within them, and if you have information on subjects already being linked to, feel free to contribute to existing articles or create new ones. And, as always, don't worry about breaking OrthodoxWiki or messing things up, because your work will become part of the community effort and thereby be honed and improved, ever bringing us closer to achieving our goal of being a nearly endless compendium of information access and exchange regarding Orthodox Christianity.

Neutrality and the OrthodoxWiki Bias

OrthodoxWiki purposes to present the Orthodox Christian viewpoint throughout the site. Articles on OrthodoxWiki will be, so far as is reasonably possible, worded from a neutral point of view (NPOV). That is, disputes between Orthodox Christian groups will be characterized and described rather than entered into. Continue reading for further clarification. (Also see Wikipedia:NPOV for Wikipedia's version of the NPOV policy, which is essentially compatible with OrthodoxWiki policy.)

Further, for administrative purposes, OrthodoxWiki is governed by what is called the Mainstream Chalcedonian Bias (MCB). By Chalcedonian we refer to those churches of the Orthodox Church who hold to the decrees of the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon (A.D. 451). By Mainstream we refer to those "official" churches comprised of the fourteen or fifteen autocephalous and four autonomous churches generally recognized as the "mainstream" of the Orthodox Church -- for those of us in North America, this will be all SCOBA jurisdictions and those with whom they're in communion.

What the Bias Means

The main places that the bias will apply will be in terms of naming. Naming is of course important, and the names by which we call things indicate what we believe about them. As is evident to anyone who knows anything of Church History, names are a potentially inflammatory topic. What might be termed namespace will be given priority in terms of the MCB. So, for instance, an article called Church of Alexandria will refer to the Chalcedonian body by that name, whereas one called Church of Alexandria (Coptic) will refer to the non-Chalcedonian body by that name. It applies similarly with regard to parallel hierarchies along other disputational lines, so the official chuch in Greece will have its article named Church of Greece and not Church of Greece (State Church) (which is how some groups might refer to it).

Additionally, the MCB is in effect in terms of the content in articles, so articles on MC churches will not include content indicating in direct factual terms that they are heretics, schismatics, etc.

What the Bias Does Not Mean

The MCB does not mean that non-mainstream or non-Chalcedonian persons or groups are unwelcome to write or edit articles on OrthodoxWiki. It also does not mean that such groups or their members will be the subject of polemic in encyclopedic articles, though some non-encyclopedic articles may include polemic from any point of view if it is appropriately labelled regarding its own biases. So, instead of saying "the Church of Greece has fallen into heresy, schism and is entirely uncanonical," we might say, "the Church of Greece is regarded as heretical, schismatic and uncanonical by Group X."

The best thing on OrthodoxWiki we can do with regard to any dispute, no matter what side we're on, is to characterize the dispute in the terms of the major disputants, rather than entering into that dispute and bringing the conflict here. That is, so far as we can, we try to word our articles from a neutral point of view (NPOV).

The MCB is not a judgment on any group or persons. It's simply a protocol for the OrthodoxWiki project.

Why Have the Bias?

It's for administrative reasons as much as anything else. OrthodoxWiki is owned and operated by a priest of the Orthodox Church in America, a mainstream Chalcedonian church. Also, if we think carefully, we realize that there must be some sort of bias regarding the issues outlined above, or else we'd have the potential for perpetual renaming and revision wars, all in one massive conflict. OrthodoxWiki is, after all, editable by anyone with an Internet connection.

Additionally, the administration feels that the bias is warranted along what might be termed "definitional usage" lines -- that is, the rest of the world, when looking for information about Orthodoxy, tends to think definitionally in MCB terms. That is, it would probably look for an article on the Church of Russia (i.e., the Moscow Patriarchate) rather than one on the so-called Suzdalites when searching for "Russian Orthodoxy." Thus, the MCB helps prevent confusion.

Of course, the MCB cannot prevent all confusion or conflict, but we hope that it will help. Where extra attention needs to be paid, extra care will be taken when the time comes. We ask you that, while we are certainly trying to be Orthodox, we take special care also to be Christian.

Churches

Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches

Refer to autocephalous and autonomous churches by this form when creating new articles and links: Church of Place. Referring with the adjectival form of the place (e.g., Smogarian Orthodox Church) is not only essentially incorrect but furthers the ethnic stereotyping of the Church. Thus, instead of Smogarian Orthodox Church, you would use Church of Smogaria.

The only current exception to this rule is the Orthodox Church in America, whose autocephaly is still in debate. To call it the Church of America would be to lend it a status not currently agreed upon (nor really even claimed by the OCA itself).

Non-Chalcedonian, Roman Catholic, and other Churches

Many Non-Chalcedonian and Roman Catholic churches have parallel sees to those among Chalcedonian Orthodox, so distinction needs to be made. Refer to these parallel sees with this convention: Church of Place (Common Identifier). So, the Coptic church centered in Egypt would be Church of Alexandria (Coptic), or the Syrian Catholic Church would be the Church of Antioch (Catholic).

For non-Latin Rite churches within the Roman Catholic Church, using Roman in the name could be misleading for two reasons:

• Such churches typically do not refer to themselves as Roman, often stressing that fact very strenuously.
• Such a designation may also mislead readers into thinking that such churches are Latin Rite, which they usually are not.

The fact that these churches are subject to the Vatican would be noted in the relevant articles.

In other places, there are no parallel sees, so one would simply use the Church of Place convention, e.g., the Church of Armenia.

Non-Mainstream Churches

Such churches will generally be referred to by whatever official name they call themselves, e.g., the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (a.k.a. the "Suzdalites") rather than as the Church of Russia. If they claim a title identical with that of one of the mainstream Chalcedonian churches, an appropriate modifier would be included in parentheses, e.g., Church of Alexandria (Smogarian).

Dioceses, Archdioceses, Metropolises, etc.

Articles on component parts of autocephalous and autonomous churches should be named by their official self-naming convention. Examples: Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

Extinct Churches

When writing articles on great churches that no longer exist, exist only as minor or titular sees, or whose modern successors appear to be in permanent heresy or schism, use the Church of Place convention and be sure to include the article in Category:Church History. Examples include the Church of Carthage, the Church of Rome (as distinct from the modern day Roman Catholic Church), and the Church of Persia (as distinct from the Assyrian Church of the East, i.e., the Nestorians).

There is some potential ambiguity here, especially regarding the Oriental Orthodox, but let's keep them as an exception, mainly due to their closeness with the Chalcedonian Orthodox and the ongoing talks regarding reunification.

Categories

All articles on church bodies should be included in Category:Jurisdictions.

Saints

Articles about saints should be titled with the most common English version of how the saint is known, e.g., Seraphim of Sarov rather than Serafim Sarovskii or Cosmas and Damian rather than Kosmas and Damianos.

Don't use "Saint" for article titles

Saints should not include "Saint" (or any variant thereof) in the article names. That can be taken care of in the body of the article. Not only would it mess with alphabetization and searching to have every article name for a saint start with "saint," but there would also be potential issues with regard to which form we use: Saint, St., St, S., or S (all are currently in use in English convention). Additionally, there are potential quibbles over which persons are considered saints or not (Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustine of Hippo, or Blessed Augustine of Hippo). Not using "saint" for article titles also means that the necessity of moving articles will be lessened should a person already with an article be declared a saint. The note can simply be made in the article body.

Categories

All articles about saints should be included in Category:Saints and include a link to the saint's feast day(s), e.g., November 13.

Bishops

Basic Style

When creating articles about bishops, name the article with the following style: Firstname I (Surname) of See, so if there is a bishop named Moses Jones who is the fifth bishop named Moses of the Patriarchate of Springfield, the name of the article would be: Moses V (Jones) of Springfield. In cases where no surname is known, it is of course omitted, which will especially be the case with ancient bishops, e.g., John I of Antioch.

Additionally, most sees will not usually have need of the ordinal (the I, II, III, etc.), so if the bishop is of a more minor see (as most are), the ordinal would be omitted, e.g., Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh. It's typically used only to refer to the primate of an autocephalous church, e.g., Alexei II (Ridiger) of Moscow.

Sainted bishops (and other historic personages)

Exceptions would be saints or other historical figures who are generally known by other names. For instance, instead of having an article named John I (Chrysostom) of Constantinople, we simply have John Chrysostom. Or instead of Cyril I of Alexandria, we have Cyril of Alexandria. Some ambiguity will exist for recently glorified bishops, e.g., Raphael of Brooklyn rather than Raphael (Hawaweeny) of Brooklyn, because the former is currently the more commonly used form.

English names

Additionally, use the most commonly used English form of the name of the bishop. So, instead of Vartholomaios I (Archontonis) of Constantinople, use Bartholomew I (Archontonis) of Constantinople. Some ambiguity will of course exist here, especially with names that are not commonly used in English-speaking countries.

Categories

Also be sure to include the bishop in Category:Bishops, and if he is the bishop of an important see, include him in the category of that see's bishops, e.g., Category:Patriarchs of Constantinople.

Other notes

The primary argument against naming articles with the bishops' first name in ALL CAPS is that such a usage is not common when referring to saints, and it is not a universal custom, anyhow. Certainly, within the text of an article a writer may choose to use ALL CAPS for bishops' names, but when creating articles or linking to existing or potential articles, the above convention should be followed.

A potential problem with this naming style is that a bishop may be transferred to another see, thus requiring the moving of the article to incorporate the new name. This wouldn't happen often, however, and having the move will be helpful if searchers are looking for the bishop under his old title.