Patriarchy - what is it? From the school curriculum, I remember that there was also a matriarchy, and that they mean the successive superiority of one over the other - men over women and vice versa.
Characteristics of male dominance
The power of a man has other definitions, for example, androcracy or andrarchy, which represent the same unconditional supremacy of men, like patriarchy. What is it - the power of the father (original translation) or the social structure of society, in which all power is concentrated in the hands of the stronger sex? Both. This form of social organization, when a man is the leader or "dominant element", has its own characteristic features, for example, patrilineality, in which absolutely everything, including inheritance, is passed down through the paternal line. Or patrilocality, when the place of residence of each member of the family is determined by the husband. The very first part of these words "patri" indicates that the husband always dominates, and even with polygyny, when there are many wives, all power remains inhis hands.
Patriarchy as human thinking
But this is within the framework of one family, but on a national scale, patriarchy - what is it? This is a society in which a gender ideology is inherent, when a boy grows up with the concept of gender inequality and male priority as something taken for granted, when all rights, including the right to choose, all duties, decision-making and responsibility for their execution belong to men. In modern society, the form of patriarchy is rather hidden, it is not declared by the state, but the norms of gender relations developed over thousands of years, the standards of behavior are laid down in people at the subconscious level.
Religious meaning of the term
However, the term under study is used not only to refer to secular concepts, in Orthodoxy it is one of the most common words. In a religious sense, patriarchy, what is it? It is synonymous with church. In our times, as in pre-Petrine times (the great tsar abolished the patriarchate, and this institution was restored as a result of the decision of the Local Council of 1917-18). Tikhon was elected patriarch, who led the church until 1925. The term under study denotes a system of hierarchical construction of church authority. In general, in Russia, for the first time, the patriarchate was introduced in 1589, and the first head of the church was Job. During the years of Soviet power, the patriarchate resumed in 1943, during the war. Sergius Stragorodsky was at the head of Russian Orthodoxy until 1944, in which he died.
Alexey who replaced himI spent the entire blockade in the besieged city and was awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad". His last name in the world is S. V. Simansky, he was the Moscow Patriarch from 1945 until his death in 1970. All subsequent heads of the Russian Orthodox Church did everything possible to revive Orthodoxy and the spiritual he alth of the nation. Since 1971, the MP was headed by Pimen, in the world Sergei Mikhailovich Izvekov, who died in 1990. He was replaced by Alexei Mikhailovich Ridiger, who became patriarch in 1990 under the name of Alexy II. The current head of the MP since 2009 is Kirill (in the world Gundyaev Vladimir Mikhailovich).
Large autocephalous
Large Orthodox Patriarchates (given according to the diptych) - Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Moscow and a number of autocephalous (autonomous within one state, for example, Bulgarian, Hungarian, etc.) churches, mainly located in the territories countries of Eastern Europe, all of them together (and there are only 15 official ones) represent Universal Orthodoxy.
Of course, there are dozens of churches that have left Orthodoxy, but belong to it historically, such as the "Greek Old Calendarists" or "Churches of the Russian tradition" - there are many different ones, but these are not the patriarchates of the Orthodox Church.
Another name for the Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of the existing autocephalous local churches. There are 136 dioceses on the vast territory of Russia. In addition to these, there are severaldozens of stauropegia, which include monasteries, laurels, brotherhoods and cathedrals, directly subordinate to the patriarch (in this case he is called the holy archimandrite) and independent of the diocesan authorities. And all this we alth has another official name - the Moscow Patriarchate, or MP. It ranks fifth in the list of names commemorated in the liturgy - the diptych, and is recognized by all as the only legitimate canonical Orthodox Church in the territory of the CIS countries. It is interesting to note that before the MP and the Moscow Patriarchate until 2000 were used as interchangeable phrases. Now the Moscow Patriarchy represents all the institutions that are directly under the jurisdiction of the patriarch. The Moscow Patriarchate does not include the Old Believers, the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The Moscow Patriarchate has a main document - the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church. It states that the Local Council, the Council of Bishops and the Holy Synod, headed by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, are the highest authority and church administration.
