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Published by The Word,
January 1996
Primacy & Episcopacy
By Charles R. Ajalat
ONE OF THE
CONSEQUENCES OF SIN IN OUR FALLEN WORLD IS THIS
TENSION IN CHURCH ADMINISTRATION BETWEEN POWER AND
HOLINESS; BETWEEN HAVING THE EFFICIENCY OF A
SINGLE HUMAN DECISION-MAKER AND ALTERNATIVELY A
SYSTEM WHERE EVERYONE IS SO CONSTANTLY FILLED WITH
THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT...
A number of years
ago, I asked one of the great theologians of the
Church, Metropolitan George Khodre of Lebanon,
what was the hardest part of being a bishop, he
paused and smiled, “To exercise authority with
love.” In a succinct, profound statement, he made
both a fundamental point about all humanity, and
described a fundamental tension in the government
or administration of the Church.
One of the
consequences of sin in our fallen world is this
tension in Church administration between power and
holiness; between having the efficiency of a
single human decision-maker and alternatively a
system where everyone is so constantly filled with
the grace of the holy Spirit that love and concord
of mind rules every joint decision, true
conciliarity.
AN ONGOING
TENSION
The people of God
from the beginning have been plagued with this
tension between power and holiness, even before
the new people of God, the Church, was born
through the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost
day. In the Old Testament we read that “The Lord
is King forever and ever.”(1) And yet
the Jewish people were not satisfied with this and
said to Him, “Give us a king…”(2) They wanted one
human figure to order them, rather than to be
directly under the kingship of God.
With the death
and resurrection of Christ and the coming of the
Holy Spirit, one might think it would have been
different. After all, we now can be “partakers of
the divine nature.”(3) And the Church
is indeed “a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him who
called you out of darkness into His marvelous
light.”(4)
In fact, our
Lord, Jesus Christ addressed directly the problem
of Church “government.” He said to us, “You know
that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them
and those who are great exercise authority over
them, yet it shall not be so among you, but
whoever desires to become great among you, let him
be your servant.”(5) But in much of
Church history, it has been difficult to adhere to
principles of spiritual servanthood and for the
entire Church to “stand fast in one spirit with
one mind striving together for the faith of the
gospel.”(6)
From the very
beginning there were differences of opinion even
among the leaders of the Church. The Council of
Jerusalem came into being to deal with the first
major dispute in the Church, which happened to
arise in Antioch: Must Gentile converts keep the
law of Moses, particularly the rite of
circumcision?(7)
The Church in
Jerusalem, while not having a legal jurisdiction
over Antioch, has been referred to in history as
the “Mother of Churches”, and in the first century
had a position of primacy or priority or
witnessing confirmation for the Church in other
areas.(8) It was natural as a result of
the historical context that it would play the role
of “first among equals” with regard to the dispute
over circumcision.
By the end of the
first century this primacy or priority of witness
passed to the Church living in Rome; witness the
writings of Sts. Ignatius, Clement, and Irenaeus.(9)
The Orthodox understand this priority to have been
given to the Church itself and not to the head of
the Church as a person. Not one of his successors
played the leadership role that St. Peter did
during his lifetime.
Key Orthodox
scholars, however, accept as fact that the
Churches beginning in the late first century
looked to the Church living in Rome, in the words
of St. Ignatius of Antioch, to “preside in love.”(10)
The respect that was granted to the Church
living in Rome was based on it being the servant
of all, as well as the political influence of the
City of Rome, but not on a legal jurisdiction or
an authority of power.
As Church
administration developed in history, there were
four great centers of the Church: Rome,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem — the first
three being major commercial centers of the
Empire, and the fourth, being the Holy City. After
Constantine came to power in the fourth century,
there was not only the dramatic change of the
Empire becoming Christian, but he founded a City
he named after himself, Constantinople. Thus,
there became five great centers of the Church, in
order of priority: Rome, Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.
In the Great
Schism, generally pegged to 1054 A.D., Rome was
separated from the one holy, catholic and
apostolic Church: that is, the other four
Patriarchates. After the Great Schism the Church
of Constantinople, previously second in honor
after Rome, (Second Ecumenical Council, Canon
III), assumed the primacy and therefore the
position of “first among equals” of the Orthodox
Churches.
TWO VIEWS OF
LEADERSHIP
Church scholars
in dealing with “ecclesiology” (doctrine of the
Church) have described two major ways of looking
at leadership in the Church. The first is called
“universal ecclesiology”; the second, “eucharistic
ecclesiology.”
Simply stated,
universal ecclesiology holds that the universal
church is the sum of its parts, the local churches
(Thus, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3). This type of
thinking leads logically to an understanding that
there must be one patriarch or Pope (both rooted
in the meaning of “father”) heading this universal
church on earth.
Eucharistic
ecclesiology, on the other hand, holds that each
local eucharistic assembly (the local church
celebrating the divine liturgy) under its bishop
is the fullness of the Church. This does
not mean that each local Church is isolated from
the other churches. Rather, just as there is only
one Eucharist, each local Church in its fullness
is simultaneously also one with each other local
Church. (1 + 1 + 1 = 1)
In the
understanding of eucharistic ecclesiology, it is
still acknowledged that one Church may have a
position of primacy or priority, as long as these
terms are consonant with the idea of “presiding in
love,” For example, were different Church leaders
from different parts of the world and the faithful
together, then, as now, it would be expected in
terms of respect and honor out of love, that a
particular bishop from a particular Church would
preside over the eucharistic assembly or divine
liturgy.’’(11) Having such order in the
Church continues today through the diptychs, a
listing of the heads of autocephalous churches in
order of honor, not rank.
The Roman
Catholic Church, however, centered on the fact
that by the late first century the Church of Rome
was recognized to have a position of primacy,
first among equals. This development was
legalistically transferred into a primacy of power
or superior authority of the pope over other
bishops. Ultimately the Roman Catholic Church
developed the doctrine into the modern papacy
including the very recent Roman Catholic dogma of
papal infallibility (Vatican 1, 1870). Orthodox
understanding is that (1) there is one episcopacy
in which all the bishops share, (2) the position
of bishop is given by God’s grace, and (3) the
three ranks of clergy (bishop, presbyter [priest]
and deacon) do not recognize a rank higher than
bishop. Nor is there a rank of bishop to which
some other bishops are subordinate in the sense of
power.
If the Roman
Catholic Church was misled by universal
ecclesiology, so in part was the Orthodox Church
also misled. To be fair, the Orthodox Church,
beginning in the mid-third century (as a result of
the Roman Empire), has not implemented properly
the early Church’s understanding of there being
one episcopate. Sometimes we fail to create places
where all bishops share equally, whether in one
geographical area (a synod) or in various
geographical areas throughout the world, even
though in each of these instances there is in fact
a bishop who is first among equals. Rather, the
more recent view of many Orthodox Churches has
been a partial turning away from eucharistic
ecclesiology and a partial acceptance of universal
ecclesiology.
Thus, although in
looking at the Church worldwide, Orthodox do not
see it as the sum of the local churches, with a
single head, often when they look at their own
Patriarchate, they do see it as the sum of the
churches within the Patriarchate, having a single
head. The Patriarch is seen as having power or
authority over other bishops in his synod, rather
than to be the bishop presiding in love.
Further, these
Orthodox, whether it is consciously admitted or
not, often appear to see the Church as a number of
isolated Churches, generally along national
borders (contrary to the historic ecclesiology of
the Church), one in faith and worship, but only a
“part” of the universal Church.
The logical
conclusion of this thinking is that just as their
“autocephalous” or self-governing Churches have a
primacy of power (rather than a first among
equals) in their Synods, there must be a universal
primacy in the same sense for the one Church — a
papal view. But these Orthodox do stop the process
at the “autocephalous” level and say serious
decision making beyond that level must be
accomplished not by a Pope or Patriarch for all
Orthodox but by a pan-Orthodox Council.
When there was
one Empire, with the Emperor convening such
councils, it was much easier for the Church to
have pan-Orthodox councils. Perhaps,
notwithstanding hopes for a pan-Orthodox Council
by the year 2000, it is precisely the lack of
agreement on what primacy means that accounts in
some part for the fact that the Orthodox have not
had an ecumenical council since 787 AD.
PRIMACY AND THE
FUTURE
Primacy is also a
key part of future discussions between the
Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The
current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church has
appealed to the Orthodox Church for reunion
between the two Churches. In his recent
encyclical, Ut Unum Sint (“That they all
may be one,”) Pope John Paul II indicates an
understanding that the issue of primacy and its
meaning is a key issue to be resolved. While
inviting discussion about its meaning — an
important step forward — the Pope emphasizes that
if the Church is to work effectively, primacy must
include real authority: “With the power and the
authority without which such an office would be
illusory, the bishop of Rome must ensure the
communion of all the churches.”[12]
Before the
Orthodox Church can effectively discuss relations
with the Roman Catholic Church, however, it must
have a consensus in its own thinking of what
“primacy” means in terms of the theological
underpinnings of the Church. How are issues
decided when there is disagreement? Is there an
ecclesiological inconsistency between the
governing (administration?) of an autocephalous
Church and the relationships of the autocephalous
Churches to each other. If so, why? If there is an
inconsistency and should not be, then what should
the procedures be? How does one not intervene in
the internal affairs of an autocephalous Church
and yet have all of the
Churches bear
witness? How would such authority handle the
“leadership” of a Church, such as the Patriarchate
of Jerusalem, which is currently an embarrassment
to the entire Orthodox Church? (The 42nd
Convention of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian
Archdiocese of North America recently called upon
the Ecumenical Patriarch to request the
autocephalous Churches to convene to deal with the
situation of Jerusalem.) What does “primacy” mean,
if anything, in addition to presiding at the
Eucharist and having a right to call the Churches
together and preside at meetings?
Perhaps the first
issue must be: should there be rules? One could
argue this is precisely the introduction of
legalism into the affairs of the Church that leads
to something like the modern Papacy. On the other
hand, it is clear from early times that there have
been some rules — canons, if you will.
And perhaps the
most important in this area is Apostolic Canon 34:
“The bishops of
every nation must acknowledge him who is first
among them and account him as their head, and do
nothing of consequence without his consent but
neither let him (who is the first) do anything
without the consent of all; for so there will be
unanimity ...“ This is, however, a general rule
that without the existence of concord and love
results in paralysis.
AN ORTHODOX
SHORTFALL
Can there
sometimes be such concord and love in meetings of
the bishops? Absolutely and emphatically, yes! The
first episcopal assembly of the North American
bishops held November 30-December 2, 1994 at the
Antiochian Village, Ligonier, Pennsylvania showed
this decisively. In the words of the host bishop,
Metropolitan PHILIP: “I don’t ever remember such a
meeting of minds. . .I don’t ever remember that we
have had so much harmony in our deliberations as
we did at this conference.”
The prayers of
the clergy and faithful were indeed answered. The
Episcopal Assembly was, indeed, presided over in
love by the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch,
the first among equals, and was in accord with the
stated desires of the Mother Churches to have the
churches in North America — and in other areas
where Orthodox have immigrated — to witness to the
gospel of Jesus Christ together. The Episcopal
Assembly also called again for discussions between
the Church here and the Mother Churches abroad.
The relations
between the bishops here and the bishops in the
Mother Churches, however, seemed bereft of the
love and concord evidenced in the meetings of the
North American bishops. Misinformation, mistrust,
and fear that the North American Church was
plotting autocephaly (an issue not once mentioned
in the meetings) prevailed in some of the Mother
Churches, notably the Church of Constantinople,
the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Rather than such
“plots”, the bishops of North America focused upon
the re-evangelization of its flock and the
evangelization of North America and the need for
unity to achieve these goals.
The fear and
mistrust that prevailed overseas, led the
Ecumenical Patriarch, it is rumored, to forbid the
recently announced holding of the Second Episcopal
Assembly this Fall. Reaction in North America to
the Patriarch’s reactions have ranged from despair
and embitterment to anger and calls for
revolution.
The entire
episode shows the failure of an Orthodox policy
that treats each “jurisdiction or Mother Church”
as an isolated entity. Only heads of Churches,
primates, should be discussing matters regarding
their subordinates, their “children,” rather than
treating all bishops as equals. Each local church
must reflect the fullness of the church while
together also constituting one church. In my view,
there are presently no sufficient vehicles of
communication (how can there be love without
communication?) for the Orthodox Church worldwide
to function in an effective and coordinated
manner.[13]
Similarly, the
North American Church lacks a structure that
allows Metropolitans and Archbishops here the
flexibility to deal together effectively with a
North American culture that is different from the
experiences and cultures of the Mother Churches.
The episode
regarding the first Episcopal Assembly also shows
a failure of Orthodoxy to meet the challenges of
the modern era in a timely fashion. For instance,
over the last decades the breakdown of the family,
the primary unit of society, has exploded so that
now 60% of American children are growing up in
one-parent homes. But, in this same short period,
the Orthodox Church has been unable to convene
even four pre-conciliar meetings for the Great and
Holy Council — which if it is ever held will not
even deal with such issues.
The Orthodox,
after ten years of agreement between the
theologians of both Churches that there is no
theological division between the Eastern Orthodox
(Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Antiochian
Orthodox and others) and the Oriental Orthodox
(such as the Copts, Ethiopians and Armenians),
have still been unable to declare the common
Eucharist (or in the alternative to reject or deal
otherwise with the common declarations that have
been made). Meanwhile, the percentage of
Ethiopia’s 53 million people that have turned from
Orthodoxy (once over 50% of the population) to
evangelicalism has increased from 1% of the
population to 10% of the population. (There are
now 5,000,000 evangelicals in Ethiopia.)
Similarly, while
Moslems, Jews and Catholics determine the fate of
Jerusalem, the Orthodox are in paralysis, and
worse. While the Catholics have an indigenous
Patriarch with whom the populace can relate, the
Orthodox have a synod which has left the faithful
in the Holy Land shepherdless. Whether in
Jerusalem or in New York, if the Orthodox
tradition is to be preserved, the laity, the royal
priesthood14 must have a major say in
who their bishops are to be. “The people of the
Church have the right to a voice in the choice of
bishops.” 15
The situation in
Eastern Europe again shows Orthodox discord,
rather than unity. While the Roman Church makes a
unified attempt at moving forward in Eastern
Europe, in the Orthodox world we have a serious
split between the Second Rome (Constantinople) and
the Third Rome (Moscow) over Ukraine.
Constantinople without consultation with others,
including its own Exarch here in the West,
received American Ukrainians under its
jurisdiction — affecting, many believe, the
situation in Ukraine itself where three Orthodox
Churches claim legitimacy. Further, Constantinople
has, contrary to the wishes of the Church of
Russia, encouraged a separate Church of Estonia.
POSSIBLE
SOLUTIONS
How can these
problems of the Orthodox Church be remedied by
joint action in love? And how can the development
of backup rules help insure the working of the
Church as one with a legitimate role of primacy
and yet without discord or paralysis, whether on
the North American level or on the world level?
Here in North
America a signal from the Ecumenical Patriarch and
the Mother Churches assuring us that they would
welcome a second Episcopal Assembly in the first
quarter of 1996, would go a long way toward
rebuilding the credibility of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate which it had theretofore begun to
have. Such a signal could foster the concord and
love that must exist, both between the Churches
here, and between them and the Mother Churches.
Such blessings by the Mother Churches for a second
Episcopal Assembly could be conditioned upon the
fact that the Second Episcopal Assembly should
focus, as it has intended to, solely on the
pastoral problems and needs in North America.
On the worldwide
scale, the servant of all, who presides in love,
the Ecumenical Patriarch, should call together a
pan-Orthodox conference of all the Churches
including participants from North and South
America, Australia and Europe. It could be for a
week long period to examine not the historical
aspects, but the practical aspects today of
primacy, and to do so in the context of creating
an Orthodox World Council of Churches. In this
concrete, focused context, the conference could
deal with whether the fear of papalism can be
erased while simultaneously allowing the Orthodox
Church to effectively hear witness together to the
gospel of Christ in this ever-smaller planet we
all call home. As part of such work, the question
of how the Churches should build each other up by
common ministries in humanitarian aid and missions
and evangelism and other areas could be explored.
If an Orthodox
World Council of Churches, called together by the
Ecumenical Patriarch with the blessings of the
other Churches was created and met two or more
times a year in Geneva, it would provide a much
needed frequent and regular vehicle of
communication among the Orthodox Churches. With
such communication, hopefully would come more
trust and love. Such a forum, thus, could also be
a vehicle for problem-solving and could benefit
the entire Church as well as her participation in
ecumenical work.
Numerous issues
would, of course, have to be explored and
resolved. Should there be representation based on
the number of autocephalous and other churches but
balanced to take account of the populations of
faithful of the Churches? While respecting and in
fact strengthening the primacy of Constantinople,
should there be an Executive Committee of the
Council who would also have a vital role in the
conciliar process? Alternatively, should
institutions of balancing power in modern
democracies be explored, such as the American
separation of powers between the Executive,
Legislative and Judicial, with the power in the
Executive to veto and yet a two-thirds override by
the Legislature? Whatever the questions, and
whatever the answers, the need is to develop a
tool of frequent, regular communication. With a
set of rules that respects all and yet defines a
primacy in a way that helps the Orthodox Church
work effectively in the modern world, we could
certainly move ahead with more vigor.
OUR ONE HOPE
We are living in
a post-Christian era. The only hope for
transformation of our societies is Jesus Christ
through his Church, the one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic Church — the Orthodox Church. We
pray with all our hearts that each Orthodox bishop
here and throughout the world may examine his
heart and truly focus on the words of our Lord,
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it
over them, and those who are great exercise
authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among
you, but whoever desires to become great among
you, let him be your servant.”[16]
We pray that in
the ministry of servanthood, the first among
equals, the Ecumenical Patriarch, will be led by
God to encourage the work of the salvation of
souls in North America by requesting the Standing
Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the
Americas (SCOBA) to carry on with their second
Episcopal Assembly in early 1996. We further pray
that in the same ministry of servanthood the
Ecumenical Patriarch, in consultation with, or at
the request of, others of the Mother Churches,
will call together a conference in March or April,
1996, in Geneva to decide upon a “Constitution”
for an Orthodox World Council of Churches that
would begin meeting by the Fall of 1996.
In Christ Jesus,
all things are possible. May our bishops, clergy
and faithful not miss the opportunities our Lord
is giving us in these historic times.
Charles J. Ajalat
is Chancellor of The Antiochian Orthodox Christian
Archdiocese of North America. He is an
attorney-at-law by profession.
FOOTNOTES
1 Ps. 10:16.
2 1 Sam. 8:6.
3 2
Pet. 1:4.
4 1 Pet. 2:9.
5 Matt.
20:25-6.
6 Philip.
1:27.
7 Acts 15:
1-2.
8 Afanassieff.
“Presiding in Love” in The Primacy of
Peter, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992,
pp. 115, 119-23.
9 Id. pp.
124-35.
10 Ignatius,
Letter to the Romans, prol.
11 Id. pp. 109),
111 Also, Schmemann, “The Idea of Primacy in
Orthodox Ecclesiology” in The Primacy of Peter,
supra p. 165.
12 Ut Unum Sint,
par. 94.
13 “In modern
times, the unity of the Orthodox Church is
becoming a sort of abstract ideal, with no means
of manifesting itself in the real life of the
Church. Anyone who regards the pan—Orthodox or
Ecumenical Council as an organ manifesting the
Church’s unity is just putting things in the wrong
order, consequences before foundation. In fact,
the pan—Orthodox Council should be the consequence
of Orthodox Church unity; it should be guided by a
church or a bishop; and it cannot be a foundation
for this unity.” Afanassieff, supra, at
p.143.
14 1 Pet. 2:9
15 Bulgakov,
The Orthodox Church, p. 47; see also
Ware, The Orthodox Church,
p. 291
16 Matt.
20:25, 6.
From The
Word Magazine
Publication of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian
Archdiocese of North America
January 1996, pp. 7-11
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