Sobor

Sobor of 1917, following the election of Saint Tikhon as Patriarch of Moscow.

A sobor (Church Slavonic: собор, "assembly") is a council of bishops together with other clerical and lay delegates representing the church as a whole in matters of importance, equivalent to synod in the Western churches. It may also be a designation for certain types of church buildings.

The term is found among those Eastern Orthodox Churches that use a Slavic language (the Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian Orthodox Churches), along with the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Assembly

A sobor is distinct from a synod, which is a gathering composed only of bishops. Sobors are held irregularly, only as need arises; whereas a synod meets regularly and deals with the ordinary governance of the church. The presence of clerical and lay delegates is for the purpose of discerning the consensus of the church on important matters; however, the bishops form an upper house of the sobor, and the laity cannot overrule their decisions.

Important sobors in the History of the Russian Orthodox Church are:

• The Stoglavy Sobor (Sobor of a Hundred Chapters) in 1551
• The Moscow Sobor of 1666–1667, to deal with disputes surrounding the ecclesiastical reforms of Patriarch Nikon
• The All-Russian Sobor of 1917, which restored the Moscow Patriarchate and elected Saint Tikhon as the first modern Patriarch of Moscow
• The All-Russian Sobor of 1988, called on the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus' to guide the church in the wake of glasnost and the loosening of the Soviet grip over the church

A bishop may also call a sobor for his diocese, which again would have delegates from the clergy, monasteries and parishes of his diocese, to discuss important matters. Such diocesan sobors may be held annually or only occasionally.

Sobor also means assemblies of other kinds, such as a zemsky sobor, which in 16th- and 17th-century Russia was a high government council convened by the Tsar.

Church building

Main article: Katholikon

The term sobor is also used to designate an important church (somewhat like the use of the term basilica in the Roman Catholic Church). Originally, a sobor was a large church in a major city (not necessarily the cathedral) at which all the faithful of the city would gather (see synaxis) to celebrate certain important feasts.

Unfortunately, "sobor" is often translated into English as "cathedral" and that can cause confusion. In Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, Russia, for example, there is a placard in Russian and in English describing the building as having been "кафедральный собор", rendered in English as the "cathedraly cathedral".

See also

• Stoglavy Sobor
• Moscow Sobor of 1666–1667
• Sobor on the Blood
• Sobornost
• Station days

External links

• 'Sobor' in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• A photograph of an American sobor