Brothers and sisters: Peace and Good to all of you in Jesus’ Name.
We’ve discussed so far the common Tradition the Catholic and the Orthodox Church hold in common, as well as their common “apostolic geography” and preservation of the “apostolic succession”, that is, the transmission of the oral and written Word of God from the Apostles to their successors, the Bishops. On this post, I wish to focus on the office of “bishop” itself.
Origins and Nature of the Office of Bishops
As we’ve discussed before, the Catholic Church the word “bishop” derives from the Greek term “epískopos” meaning “guardian” or “overseer.” In the Greek-speaking parts of the Orthodox Church this is still the ancient term used to designate this office. The term and the office are grounded on Scripture (cfr. Acts 20:17, Titus 1:5,7 and 1 Peter 5:1) and as we’ve also discussed before, it appears that these New Testament writers didn’t clearly distinguish between the office of bishop and the state of presbyter. However, the sacred writers implicitly created a distinction because, while an epískopos is clearly an office to which a man is elected or named, a presbúteros is something that a man is, a state a man achieves due to age. Hence, in all likelihood, although all epískopoi were presbúteroi, not all presbúteroi were epískopoi. It was a matter of common sense and order for the early Church, one that avoided a “many chiefs, not many indians” situation as we may say today.
What appears certain is that by the year A.D. 110, when St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote his letters to the Churches in Asia, the sole, monarchic bishop at the head of an assembly of presbyters, deacons and lay faithful had become the single paradigm of local church government. Both the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches receive St. Ignatius’ insights as to the nature of the episcopate as originating in the early Apostolic Tradition of the Church:
"Plainly therefore we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 6:1.
"your godly bishop" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 2:1.
"the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons also who are most dear to me, having been entrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 6:1.
"Therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father, [being united with Him], either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 7:1.
"Be obedient to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ was to the Father [according to the flesh], and as the Apostles were to Christ and to the Father, that there may be union both of flesh and of spirit." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 13:2.
"In like manner let all men respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the council of God and as the college of Apostles. Apart from these there is not even the name of a church." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallesians 3:1.
"follow your bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father, and the presbytery as the Apostles; and to the deacons pay respect, as to God's commandment" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 8:1.
"He that honoureth the bishop is honoured of God; he that doeth aught without the knowledge of the bishop rendereth service to the devil" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 9:1. (Source: Wikipedia)
The Current Teaching of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches
Echoing the early Apostolic witness, the Catholic Church teaches the following:
888 Bishops, with priests as co-workers, have as their first task "to preach the Gospel of God to all men," in keeping with the Lord's command.415 They are "heralds of faith, who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers" of the apostolic faith "endowed with the authority of Christ."416
The sanctifying office
893 The bishop is "the steward of the grace of the supreme priesthood,"423 especially in the Eucharist which he offers personally or whose offering he assures through the priests, his co-workers. the Eucharist is the center of the life of the particular Church. the bishop and priests sanctify the Church by their prayer and work, by their ministry of the word and of the sacraments. They sanctify her by their example, "not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock."424 Thus, "together with the flock entrusted to them, they may attain to eternal life."425
894 "The bishops, as vicars and legates of Christ, govern the particular Churches assigned to them by their counsels, exhortations, and example, but over and above that also by the authority and sacred power" which indeed they ought to exercise so as to edify, in the spirit of service which is that of their Master.426
895 "The power which they exercise personally in the name of Christ, is proper, ordinary, and immediate, although its exercise is ultimately controlled by the supreme authority of the Church."427 But the bishops should not be thought of as vicars of the Pope. His ordinary and immediate authority over the whole Church does not annul, but on the contrary confirms and defends that of the bishops. Their authority must be exercised in communion with the whole Church under the guidance of the Pope. (CCC)
The Bishops in the Catholic Church have a triple office of teaching, sanctifying, and governing the People of God, the Church. Likewise, the normative teaching of the Orthodox Church is as follows:
Through ordination the bishop receives the offices of Christ: prophetic, royal, and priestly. With the prophetic office he teaches and correctly so the word of truth. With the royal office he administers and governs the Church. With the priestly office he celebrates the mysteries, sanctifies, and guides the faithful towards salvation.
Here we must repeat, as we said before, that the bishop has the fullness of the priesthood. This is why he is the only one who can celebrate all seven sacraments. The deacon and the priest derive their priesthood from the bishop and that is why they must be in canonical and continuous dependence on the bishop; otherwise their priestly works are not valid. The priest celebrates all the sacraments except ordination, while the deacon cannot celebrate any of them on his own. The deacon is the helper of the priest and bishop in the celebration of the sacraments and in the execution of the responsibilities and practices that originate from the Priesthood. (CA)
Also,
A bishop is the successor to the Apostles in the service and government of the Church. The bishop thus serves εις τόπον και τύπον Χριστού (in place and as a type of Christ) in the Church. No bishop in Orthodoxy is considered infallible. None has any authority over or apart from his priests, deacons, and people or the other bishops. They have the responsibility of maintaining the unity of the Church throughout the world by insuring the truth and unity of the faith and practice of their diocese. The bishop represents his particular diocese to the other churches or dioceses, and represents the Universal Church to his own particular priests, deacons, and people.
…
Through the sacrament of holy orders bishops give order to the Church. Bishops guarantee the continuity and unity of the Church from age to age and from place to place, that is, from the time of Christ and the apostles until the establishment of God's Kingdom in eternity. Bishops receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to manifest Christ in the Spirit to men. Bishops are neither vicars, substitutes, nor representatives of Christ. It is Christ, through his chosen ministers, who acts as teacher, good shepherd, forgiver, and healer. It is Christ remitting sins, and curing the physical, mental, and spiritual ills of mankind. This is a mystery of the Church. (OW)
And,
The Orthodox Church is a hierarchical Church. An essential element in its structure is the Apostolic Succession of bishops. ‘The dignity of the bishop is so necessary in the Church,’ wrote Dositheus, ‘that without him neither the Church nor the name Christian could exist or be spoken of at all ... He is a living image of God upon earth ... and a fountain of all the sacraments of the Catholic Church, through which we obtain salvation’ (Confession, Decree 10). ‘If any are not with the bishop,’ said Cyprian, ‘they are not in the Church’ (Letter 66, 8).
At his election and consecration an Orthodox bishop is endowed with the threefold power of 1) ruling, 2) teaching, and 3) celebrating the sacraments.
1. A bishop is appointed by God to guide and to rule the flock committed to his charge; he is a ‘monarch’ in his own diocese.
2. At his consecration a bishop receives a special gift or charisma from the Holy Spirit, in virtue of which he acts as a teacher of the faith. This ministry of teaching the bishop performs above all at the Eucharist, when he preaches the sermon to the people; when other members of the Church — priests or laymen — preach sermons, strictly speaking they act as the bishop’s delegates. But although the bishop has a special charisma, it is always possible that he may fall into error and give false teaching: here as elsewhere the principle of synergy applies, and the divine element does not expel the human. The bishop remains a man, and as such he may make mistakes. The Church is infallible, but there is no such thing as personal infallibility.
3. The bishop, as Dositheus put it, is ‘the fountain of all the sacraments.’ In the primitive Church the celebrant at the Eucharist was normally the bishop, and even today a priest, when he celebrates Mass, is really acting as the bishop’s deputy. (Source: Bishop Kallistos Ware, Excerpts from the Orthodox Church, “Bishops, Laity, Councils”).
Convergences and Divergences
It is clear that both the Orthodox and Catholic Churches see the office of bishop as received in their respective communions as nearly identical realities. Moreover, a Catholic bishop usually recognizes the full episcopal dignity of an Orthodox counterpart and vice versa, with all the theological and canonical realities their shared office entails. This is mostly true except in those islands of opinions where the very ecclesiastical character of one Sister Church is denied for various reasons. These opinions notwithstanding, the fundamental theological understanding of the office of bishop is the same in both the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches.
This substantial agreement between the Churches regarding the origin, nature, and purpose of the office of bishops, however, does not by itself leads to communion, because both Churches differ as to who is and ought to be the locus of communion between the bishops: the Catholic Church teaches that this locus is the Successor of St. Peter in the Roman See; Orthodox deny the necessity of a visible locus of communion in the Church, preferring to speak of Christ himself as He who keeps the visible Church together, centered on him. Theologians participating in the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation express it this way:
7. The particular form of primacy among the Churches exercised by the bishops of Rome has been and remains the chief point of dispute between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, and their chief obstacle to full ecclesial communion with each other. Disagreement has often centered on the way in which the leadership exercised by Peter in expressing and confirming the faith of the other disciples (Matt 16.17f.; Lk 22.32; John 21.15-19) is to be realized in Church life. The Orthodox have emphasized that the role of Peter within the apostolic college is reflected principally in the role of the church. Roman Catholics have claimed for the bishops of Rome, since the fourth century, not only the first place in honor among their episcopal colleagues but also the "Petrine" role of proclaiming the Church's apostolic tradition and of ensuring the observation of canonical practices.
As our Consultation has suggested in its earlier statement, "Apostolicity as God's Gift in the Life of the Church" (1986; par. 12), "There is no intrinsic opposition between these two approaches." The Orthodox do accept the notion of universal primacy, speaking of it as a "primacy of honor" accorded to a primus inter pares; at the same time, they cannot accept an understanding of the role of the primate which excludes the collegiality and interdependence of the whole body of bishops, and in consequence continue to reject the formulation of Papal primacy found in Vatican I's constitution Pastor Aeternus. Engaged since the Second Vatican Council in further development of the doctrine of Papal primacy within the context of a collegially responsible episcopate (see especially Lumen Gentium 22-23), the Roman Catholic Church is presently seeking new forms of synodal leadership which will be compatible with its tradition of effective universal unity in faith and practice under the headship of the bishop of Rome. (Source: An Agreed Statement on Conciliarity and Primacy in the Church).
In another document, entitled Steps towards a Reunited Church: A Sketch of an Orthodox-Catholic Vision for the Future, the theologians engaged in this dialogue also pointed out:
It seems to be no exaggeration, in fact, to say that the root obstacle preventing the Orthodox and Catholic Churches from growing steadily towards sacramental and practical unity has been, and continues to be, the role that the bishop of Rome plays in the worldwide Catholic communion. While for Catholics, maintaining communion in faith and sacraments with the bishop of Rome is considered a necessary criterion for being considered Church in the full sense, for Orthodox, as well as for Protestants, it is precisely the pope’s historic claims to authority in teaching and Church life that are most at variance with the image of the Church presented to us in the New Testament and in early Christian writings. In the carefully understated words of Pope John Paul II, “the Catholic Church's conviction that in the ministry of the bishop of Rome she has preserved, in fidelity to the Apostolic Tradition and the faith of the Fathers, the visible sign and guarantor of unity, constitutes a difficulty for most other Christians, whose memory is marked by certain painful recollections” (Ut Unum Sint 88).
Nevertheless, these same theologians also stated in said document:
4. What We Share. Despite disagreement on the place of the bishop of Rome in the worldwide cohesion of Christianity, however, it seems to us obvious that what we share, as Orthodox and Catholic Christians, significantly overshadows our differences. Both our Churches emphasize the continuity of apostolic teaching as the heart of our faith, received within the interpretive context of the historical Christian community. Both believe our life as Churches to be centered on the Divine Liturgy, and to be formed and nourished in each individual by the Word of God and the Church’s sacraments: baptism, the anointing with chrism, and the reception of the Eucharist mark, in each of our Churches, the entry of believers into the Body of Christ, while ordination by a bishop sets some of them apart for permanent sacramental ministry and leadership, and the marriage of a Christian man and woman within the liturgical community forms them into living signs of the union of Christ and the Church. Both our Churches recognize that “the Church of God exists where there is a community gathered together in the Eucharist, presided over, directly or through his presbyters, by a bishop legitimately ordained into the apostolic succession, teaching the faith received from the apostles, in communion with the other bishops and their Churches” (Joint International Dialogue, Ravenna Statement [2007] 18). Both our Churches, too, recognize the importance of various kinds of primacy, as the Ravenna statement further affirms: “Primacy at all levels is a practice firmly grounded in the canonical tradition of the Church,” even though “there are differences of understanding with regard to the manner in which it is to be exercised, and also with regard to its scriptural and theological foundations” (ibid. 43)…
We will be returning to Steps towards a Reunited Church: A Sketch of an Orthodox-Catholic Vision for the Future later, for it will serve as one guide in our quest to reconciliation. In the meantime, I have no illusions of resolving the conflicting views held by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches regarding the origin, nature, scope, limits, and ends of the Petrine Primacy in any number of blog posts. Clearly, more than talking theologians need to be involved if we are to break Bread and drink from the same saving Chalice together as one visible Church. The initiative belongs to the Holy Spirit, the One who keeps the Church going and going, the “energizer” in that Energizer Bunny which is the Church, He who keeps the Church going and going and going...
We are so close to each other and yet…our love is not complete! Let us pray than one day, we are one, as the Triune God is one, as Jesus is in the Father and the Father in him.
In the next blog post, we will explore the common view Catholics and Orthodox share regarding the hierarchical nature of the Church.