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:I see no inconsistentcy. There is a difference between being autocephalous and having that autocephaly universally recognized. Moreover, there is no "common view" of the Church around the world. The article on Byzantine responses [[Responses to OCA autocephaly ]] gives details as to those Churches that recognize the OCA's autocephaly(five autocephalous Churches), those who have not recognized but also have not objected(four auotepehlaous Churches), and those who object(five autocephalous Churches). (I am ''not'', BTW, a priest in the OCA.) --[[User:Fr Lev|Fr Lev]] 13:14, May 24, 2008 (UTC) ::I really don't understand. How can we on this objective level say that the OCA is autocephalous if the majority of the Orthodox churches do not recognize this statement? [[User:Deusveritasest|Deusveritasest]] 09:47, May 27, 2008 (UTC) :::Well, because they are autocephalous (i.e. elect own head of Church). The recognition of that is, really, neither here nor there: because they elect their own head, they are autocephalous. The recognition of their autocephaly is a separate matter. &mdash; by [[User:Pistevo|<font color="green">Pιs</font><font color="gold">τévο</font>]] ^{''[[User talk:Pistevo|<font color="blue">talk</font>]]'' ''[[User talk:Pistevo/dev/null|<font color="red">complaints</font>]]''} at 10:53, May 27, 2008 (UTC) ::::So then what does it even mean for a church to not recognize the autocephaly of the OCA? Does this actually indicate that they view the nature of the Church differently, for example viewing the OCA as an autonomous jurisdiction of the Russian Church? Or do these churches actually recognize that the OCA functions as an autocephalous body, and rather their unrecognition means something different? [[User:Deusveritasest|Deusveritasest]] 21:20, April 29, 2009 (UTC) As to the majority of Orthodox Churches not accepting, this is somewhat misleading. If one numerates the autocephalous Churches as individual bodies, five of them (35.7%) accept it, four of them (28.6%) take no position, and five of them (35.7%) reject it. In other words, an equal number of Churches have accepted it as have rejected it.  We might also numerate the Churches by their respective memberships. Using membership figures from a Greek source, Bishop Kallistos Ware’s ''The Orthodox Church'', the Churches that formally accept the OCA’s autocephaly have a combined membership of between 63.85-98.85 million (either 60 or 70%); those that have neither accepted nor rejected, 25.96 million (25 o5 19%); and those that formally reject the OCA’s autocephaly, 15.86 million (either 15 or 11%). The variation depends upon whether one takes the smaller or larger figure for the Russian Church. --[[User:Fr Lev|Fr Lev]] 02:34, May 28, 2008 (UTC)