I already gave the cites for who is autocephalous:
http://aggreen.net/autocephaly/autoceph.html
It’s already been cited before, by me. It’s a good list of Autocephalous and Autonomous Orthodox jurisdictions. Try actually reading the thread.
While not usually harped on by Western writers, there does seem to be a sort of general misconception that the Ecumenical Patriarch is in some way equivalent to the Pope. In articles about Orthodoxy, one can often see the EP referred to as the “spiritual head” of Orthodox Christianity, which is patent hogwash. The EP is the spiritual head of a few thousand Greeks in Turkey, Mt. Athos, the various overseas Greek dioceses, and a few miscellaneous communities. The EP is given primacy of honor, as first among equals, but what he does or does not do does not really affect me, or the millions of other Orthodox not falling under his jurisdiction.
Dogface, I do agree with tomndebb that you’re being a bit free with your accusations. Most Western commentators are not actively lying, but merely misinformed.
The typical not-overly-informed Catholic or Protestant, or random layman, is aware that (a) the Protestants are divided 20,000 different ways, (b) the Catholics take the Pope as authority, and © there’s these other weird ethnic people that don’t follow the Pope, but give honor and respect to the Archbishop of Constantinople. Logical if erroneous conclusion is that he heads the Orthodox Church the way the Pope does the Catholic Church. The problem is exacerbated by the media’s tendency to go for simplistic explanations with sound bites from people taken as leaders of whatever. I was under a similar misapprehension until I started learning something about Orthodoxy
“Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance.”
Minor nitpick-style question: I was under the impression (from an article I read about a year ago) that about 20 dioceses in Thrace and (Greek) Macedonia were under the jurisdiction (omophor?) of Constantinople, rathr than Athens. True?