Examples of Parallel Bishops and Hierarchies

 Evagrius of Constantinople (+380):

“In the year 370 died Eudoxius, the heterodox bishop of Constantinople, after holding the see nineteen years. [Emperor] Valens happened a short time previously to have left Constantinople for Antioch, so that the election was sure, in such exciting times, to take place without consultation with him. Arianism was in great force at the capital of the East; the Arians at once chose Demophilus. The [Orthodox] Catholics, or, as Socrates calls them, the Homoousians, thinking it a favourable opportunity to get a bishop of their own (they had not had one in Constantinople since the death of Paulus, twenty years before), chose Evagrius, a person otherwise unknown.” 

- A History of the Councils of the Church, From the Original Documents, Second Revised Edition, by Charles Joseph Hefele, T & T Clark (Edinburgh: 1883), Vol. 2, p. 419.

Paulinus of Antioch (+370):

“Taking a hasty part in the affairs of the much divided church at Antioch, where the Catholic party was itself broken into two sections, the followers of [St.] Meletius and the followers of [St.] Eustathius, Lucifer [of Cagliari] ordained Paulinus, the leader of the latter section, as bishop of the church.” 

- A History of the Councils of the Church, From the Original Documents, Second Revised Edition, by Charles Joseph Hefele, T & T Clark (Edinburgh: 1883), Vol. 3, p. 750.

Bishop Paulinus was soon recognized by the Orthodox West in Rome and Alexandria as the canonical Orthodox Bishop of Antioch until his death in 370 A.D., in opposition to St. Meletius of Antioch.

St. Gregory the Theologian (+390):

The faithful of Constantinople, which for over forty years had been in the hands of heretics, then called for the holy bishop to come from Nazianzus to their aid. Snatched once again from the delights of divine contemplation by concern for the well-being of the Church, he brought to the imperial City the irresistible strength of his word and the power of his miracles. The mansion of the relatives where he stayed was soon resorted to by ever growing numbers of the Orthodox, who were greatly stirred by his preaching. Consequently, the house was transformed before long into a church dedicated to St Anastasia ('Holy Resurrection') because the Faith, which had died at Constantinople, was as it were revived there, thanks to the word of Saint Gregory.

- The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church, by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra (Ormylia: Holy Convent of the Annunciation of Our Lady, 2001), Volume Three, p. 290.

St. Eusebius of Samosata (+379), St. Basil the Great (+379) and St. Athanasius the Great (+373):

“Notwithstanding the apparently non-canonical character of the proceeding, Eusebius ordained numerous bishops on his way from Thrace to the Euphrates. Acacius at Beroea, Theodotus at Hierapolis, Isidore at Cyrus, Eulogius at Edessa, were among the number. All these names were appended to the creed of Constantinople [that is, the Second Ecumenical Synod].”

- A History of the Councils of the Church, From the Original Documents, Second Revised Edition, by Charles Joseph Hefele, T & T Clark (Edinburgh: 1883), Vol. 2, p. 372.

“First, it should be noted that acting outside one's jurisdiction is illegal. Therefore, the great Basil, although he was the wisest and holiest of all, still sought the opinion of the holy Eusebius as to whether it was permissible to ordain someone in another province in times of necessity. Second, it is right to assist suffering and persecuted Churches in times of need, and to ordain bishops and presbyters for them, and to practically act within those Churches almost as if they were their bishops themselves, as Saints Eusebius and Athanasius did.” 

- Patriarch Dositheos II (Notaras) of Jerusalem (+1707), Ιστορια περι των ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις πατριαρχευσαντων [“History of the Patriarchs in Jerusalem”, a.k.a. the “Dodekabiblos of Dositheos,”], Vol. 1, pages 500-502.

The “Johannite” bishops and clergy supporting St. John Chrysostom after his second deposition and exile (5th century):

See the article “Saint John Chrysostom and the ‘Schism’ of the Johannites,” by Protopresbyter Anastasios Gotsopoulos at https://www.orthodoxtraditionalist.com/post/saint-john-chrysostom-and-the-schism-of-the-johannites.

The hierarchies of the opposing Saints Arsenios Autoreianos (+1273) and Joseph I Galesiotes (+1283) of Constantinople (13th century):

The Arsenite / Josephite division occurred following the unjust deposition of Patriarch Arsenios Autoreianos of Constantinople in 1265, who had excommunicated Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos for blinding his 11-year-old co-emperor, John IV Laskaris. Following the death of Emperor Michael and the appointment of Patriarch Joseph I Galesiotes, and the latter’s absolution of the former, parallel synods existed between the supporters of saints Arsenios and Joseph between 1265 and 1310.

See The Last Centuries of Byzantium, by Donald M. Nicol, Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Russian Catacomb Church / Josephites (20th Century):

“The names of the bishops and priests of the Catacomb Church are kept in the strictest and most reverent secrecy. It is impossible to say with any accuracy how many there are, although information regarding the activity of more than ten secret bishops has even penetrated the Iron Curtain. Some of the secret bishops are now abroad. There are also metropolitans in the Catacomb Church. If it is no possible to ascertain the number of the priests (who are mostly secret hieromonks), we can say that it is known only that there are all too few of them to feed the flock that desires the ministry of such shepherds in the Soviet Union. Those hungry souls are ‘as sand of the sea,’ to quote a secret bishop.”

- “The Catacomb Church in the Soviet Union,” by Professor Ivan Andreyev, Orthodox Life, March-April 1951, p. 14.

Parallel bishops in the US and Western Europe (20th-21st centuries):

“Contrary to the version of the past presented by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, the first epiphany of Orthodoxy in America was precisely a ‘jungle of ethnic ecclesiastical colonies.’... One is forced to conclude that at no point in its history was American Orthodoxy administratively united. Ethnic divisions and ‘overlapping jurisdictions’ have existed from the earliest days of Orthodoxy in America.”

- Matthew Namee, “The Myth of Unity and the Origins of Jurisdictional Pluralism in American Orthodoxy,” presented at the St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary Summer Conference in Crestwood, New York on June 20, 2009.