Western Orthodoxy

For centuries, there have been autonomous Eastern-Rite Catholic churches, i.e., hierarchical churches in full communion with the Vatican, but which the Pope allows to follow customs and rules like those of the Eastern Orthodox Church, (e.g., they confirm newly baptized infants via chrismation, they have married priests, their churches have iconostases, etc.). Similarly, the practices -- resembling Episcopalian worship -- of certain parishes within Eastern Orthodoxy have been called Western Orthodoxy. This group, the Western Rite Vicariate of the American Archdiocese of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, has neither autocephaly (complete hierarchical independence) nor autonomy (governance of internal affairs, but its primate is appointed by and answerable to a parent jurisdiction's synod), but reports ultimately to the Patriarch of Antioch.

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Western Orthodoxy