Word.ws English Dictionary

autocephality

autocephality 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.

Noun

autocephality (uncountable)

  1. 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.2011, Ina Merdjanova, Patrice Brodeur, Religion as a Conversation Starter: Interreligious Dialog for Peacebuilding in the Balkans, →ISBN, page 1916

Origin of autocephality

From auto- + cephal- + -ity.

Questions about autocephality

What does autocephality mean?
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.
What part of speech is autocephality?
Autocephality is a noun.

Words near autocephality in the dictionary

  1. autocentromere
  2. autocephalia
  3. autocephalic
  4. autocephalicity
  5. autocephalies
  6. autocephality
  7. autocephalous
  8. autocephaly
  9. autochanger
  10. autochangers
  11. autochaperone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: autocephality (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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