autocephality means The right of autonomy for a church; specifically, the right to resolve all internal problems on its own authority and to appoint its own bishops, including the head of the church, without any obligatory expression of dependence on another church. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 71 out of 100.
Why this word is great
AUTOCEPHALITY — [Noun] The ecclesiastical right of a church to govern itself independently, including the appointment of its own bishops and head, without obligatory subordination to a higher external authority. From the Greek auto- ("self") + kephalē ("head") + the English suffix -ity (denoting a state or condition). Unlike autonomy, a broad, secular concept of self-rule, or autocephaly, its standard ecclesiastical twin, autocephality is the rarer, latinate variant, emphasizing the precise, willful condition of canonical independence. It is the crackle of a patriarchal seal on a parchment of self-determination; the architectural silence of a cathedral that no longer awaits directives from a distant metropolis; and the solemn weight of a bishop’s staff raised by a local synod—a declaration that sovereignty can also be a quiet, liturgical fact, the institutional form of a whispered creed: that authority, too, must sometimes come home.
noun
- The right of autonomy for a church; specifically, the right to resolve all internal problems on its own authority and to appoint its own bishops, including the head of the church, without any obligatory expression of dependence on another church.“The Macedonian Orthodox Church is struggling for the recognition of its autocephality by the other Orthodox Churches.”