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Academic Director, Senior Lecturer in Theology
St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College, Sydney, Australia
Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office
Introductory Remarks
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the bishop of each local Church[1] is the
authoritative organ charged with the responsibility to maintain the
Church's identity and continuity with that of the apostolic Church.
Accordingly, the bishop is not only the authorized teacher but also the
guarantor and witness to the apostolic faith held by all within the
worshipping community. Indeed, by virtue of that special gift of the
Holy Spirit – specifically known as the charisma veritatis [the gift of truth][2]
– bestowed upon him at his ordination, the bishop acts as the
discernible link to the authentic faith of the apostles thereby
safeguarding the continuity of the entire Church's life with that of the
apostolic Ekklesia.
Now, if throughout the history of the
Church, communion with the bishop has been considered to be that
concrete reality which manifests the intimate koinonia of each
local Church today with that of the apostolic one – since the bishop is
the direct connection between the apostles and the local Church over
which he presides – then the communion across all the different local
Churches in a particular point in time has been preserved by all bishops
coming together to meet in synod or council. Before examining the
biblical evidence for such a synodical mode of existence in the New
Testament Church – especially as it is most clearly seen in the
Apostolic Council of Jerusalem – a few remarks on synodality in general
are fitting.
The Synodical Structure of the Church – The Means Par Excellence for Upholding the Koinonia of All Local Churches
Historically, synodality in the Church concretely emerged as an extension of the koinonia within
the local worshipping gathering so that there could be a means for
eucharistic hospitality between faithful of different local Churches. In
this way, communion across these different ecclesial gatherings could
be safeguarded since faithful members of one local Church travelling to
another in a different city could indeed partake of Holy Communion
whilst on their journeys away from home. Together with this, a further
task for the synodical gathering of bishops, which emerged very quickly
in the early Church, was their coming together to reach and express a
'common mind' in matters of faith. Indeed, the decisions of such
conciliar gatherings were considered to have been taken under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit. Both these functions not only manifested
the communal dimension of all bishops' authority but also the profound koinonia between
the local Churches. Expressed simply, it was the synodical structure,
which gave each local Church – genuinely apostolic and 'catholic'
[namely integral] in itself, yet not self-sufficient – a visible means,
by which it could be truly united with all other local Churches
throughout the world. Accordingly, in the exercise of what St Cyprian of
Carthage (d. 258AD) called the 'harmonious multiplicity [concors numerositas]' of the college of bishops united together, the koinonia of
all the faithful within the different local Churches was also
expressed, since the bishops did not act in isolation but met in synod
precisely to bear witness to and voice the faith of their respective
communities.
Now, it also has to be said that insofar
as the Church of God lived fully and integrally in each local
eucharistic gathering – since it was the one Eucharist presided over by
the one bishop in communion with the faithful that safeguarded the
catholicity, namely the integrity of each local Church – this communion
of Churches, expressed in the synodical gathering of bishops, did not
stand above or have authority over the local Church. Nor was each local
Church to be thought as merely constituting a part of one world-wide
Church governed by one universal head. However, it has to be remembered
that the catholicity of a local Church could not be conceived apart from
its communion with other local Churches. For this reason, bishops
coming together in council expressed not only their 'mystical identity'
but also their equality and "the coincidence of the local Churches with each other in the same place, i.e. 'in the gnome of Jesus Christ'."[3] It follows, therefore, that the significance of the synodical structure of the ekklesia lay in its ability – as a result of the Holy Spirit's presence in it as we shall see – to guarantee an identity with the phronema [mind-set] of the apostolic Church, which therefore expressed the 'mind of Christ'.
Beyond its significance for visibly expressing the harmonious communion of the Ekklesia,
synodality was indeed a 'sign' of the communal being of God, thus
serving, as the theological basis for the early Church's conciliar or
synodical structures. According to Metropolitan Maximus (Aghiorgoussis)
of Pittsburgh:
The Holy Trinity
is a 'council', a unity of three divine persons who are in communion
with each other. Thus conciliarity is inherent in the Church, since the
Church is also a council, an image and reflection of the 'council' of
the Holy Trinity.[4]
For this reason, ecclesial synodality
remains a hallmark of Orthodox ecclesiology since it sees in this
structure the most authoritative expression of God's presence and koinonia with his Church. Affirming the indispensability of the synodical reality of the ekklesia, Archbishop
Stylianos (Harkianakis) of Australia wrote quite emphatically: "if at
any time the Church were to reject from its life even for a moment the
idea of the synodical system, it would cease automatically to be a
Church."[5]
It is precisely for this reason that one of the most significant issues
that must seriously be considered in contemporary Orthodox ecclesiology
is to what extent the synodical structure is properly functioning in
the Church today. Consequently, our attention is turned towards
identifying the precedent for ecclesial synodality in the New Testament
to see what can be learnt, and if things should be carried out
differently from what they actually are today in the current Church.
Apostolic Council in Jerusalem
The synodical mode of the
Church's existence is already evident in the New Testament, specifically
in the book of Acts which depicts the coming together of the apostles,
elders and indeed all the faithful members of the Church to discuss a
certain issue that had arisen in the New Testament Church. The Apostolic
Council of Jerusalem (ca 49 AD) as it came to be known, depicted in
Acts 15,[6]
constituted a highly significant paradigm for all subsequent councils
in that it defined the essential criteria for reaching common decisions
within the different local Churches.[7]
Now, the Council came together when "no small dissension and debate"
(Acts 15:2) arose so that the will of God could be discerned to the
gathering as a whole and not to any one isolated apostle of the Church.
The Jerusalem Council reveals that in the face of the growing dispute of
how to receive converts into the Christian communities, the Church
sought to resolve this matter by meeting together in council. On this
point, Fr Sergius Bulgakov succinctly remarked: "notwithstanding all the
plenitude of their power… the apostles decided all essential questions
in union with the people."[8]
Now, the central issue for
consideration, in brief, was the question of whether or not the practice
of circumcision was a necessary public expression and presupposition
for fellowship within the Christian Church. In the book of Acts we read
the following:
They determined
that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to
Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question… And when
they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the Church and the apostles and the elders; and they reported all things that God had done with them. (Acts 15:2 and 4).
In examining the Lukan account of the
Council, we see firstly that the entire Church participated in the
decision making process of the Church. Of significance is the fact that,
in wanting to deal with this question, it was the entire Church which
came together to receive Paul and Barnabas – who had come from Antioch –
and to hear their report (cf. Acts 15:4). It was this reality, which
maintained the relational or communal dynamic within the New Testament
faith community. Before the apostles and elders met to consider the
matter (cf. Acts 15:6), the entire Church had come together to hear Paul
and Barnabas' report of their work in Galatia (cf. Acts 15:4). In this
way, the importance of bringing together the diversity of charisms
of all baptised faithful in order to decide upon an issue was seen as a
fundamental prerequisite in the exercise of synodality within the
Church.
Continuing our reading of the Lukan
account of the Apostolic Council, we discover that this plenary
gathering was followed by extensive discussion specifically by the
apostles and elders (cf. Acts 15:6) whose role it was to discern the
mind of the whole body of the Church so that all could be "of one accord
[ὁμοθυμαδόν]" (Acts 15:25). Applied to our current situation, we can
conclude unequivocally that all major issues affecting the Church as a
whole today must be dealt with synodically in which all the bishops of
all local Churches are present giving witness to the respective faith of
the communities. That is, from the above it becomes clear that the
guiding principle by which issues must be dealt with within the Church
today is by all bishops meeting together in council with an equal voice
and vote, together with the possible participation of presbyters and
knowledgeable lay persons to contribute, yet without a vote of course.
This would be in line with what took place at the Council of Jerusalem
where the entire Church came together to contribute towards a solution
to the issue of circumcision that had arisen for those wishing to become
Christians, followed by an extensive discussion by the apostles and
elders. It is this relational reality that can uphold the Church's
communal mode of existence in its exercise of authority today.
Furthermore, we learn that the apostolic
meeting was drawn to a close with the promulgation of a decision – to
send a delegation and letter to Antioch. Commenting further on this
horizontal dimension of koinonia in relation to the Church's
authority, it must be noted that a favourable reception of the decision
taken at Jerusalem was also necessary in Antioch. Namely, it was not
enough for the mother Church in Jerusalem to make decisions for other
local Churches without the involvement of the latter. Rather, all had to
"rejoice at the consolation", especially those towards whom the
decisions were addressed. For this reason, Luke's account of the
Jerusalem Council tells us that emissaries were sent back to Antioch "in
peace" so that the decision could be deemed as truly having been
reached.[9]
Clearly, it was inconceivable for the mother Church in Jerusalem to
take decisions for another local Church without the consent of that
Church since this would destroy the communal relations of the two
Churches. And so, in order to uphold the genuine communal relations
between the two Churches, it was decided to send certain delegates along
with a letter to the Church of Antioch in order to convey the decisions
of the Council, and in this way to educe that Church's concordance.
Consequently in all this, the communal being of the Churches was
safeguarded and maintained.
Most importantly, the koinonia maintained
between the Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch did not come about simply
as the result of a consensus reached between the leaders of those
Churches – or indeed the assent of the two Churches – but more
importantly was the result of the Spirit's intervention and presence.
Accordingly, this highlighted the extent to which the Spirit was
actively involved in the pronouncement of conciliar decisions acting as
the ultimate 'author-ity' of these decisions, and thereby preserving the
Church's true fellowship with the apostolic witness.[10]
The phrase uttered by James, "and with this [decision] the words of the
prophets agree" (Acts 15:15) – rather than what one might have
expected, namely, "this decision agrees with the prophets" – would lack
meaning, and even betray an impious audacity on the part of James in
that it would imply that he was setting himself above the word of God,
if it were not for the Spirit's action in the pronouncement of the
Church's decrees. And so, this seemingly 'peculiar' phrase could only be
explained by the reality of God's continued presence in the Church – by
the Holy Spirit – who would continue to bestow the gift of discernment
and new insight for understanding the Scriptures.[11]
Indeed, this phrase in Acts 15:15 signified that the Gentile mission
was not only a divine gift initiated by God at the time of the Council,
but was one which God had foretold "from of old" (Acts 15:15) and now
had been brought to pass.[12]
From this it becomes clear that the Spirit's abiding presence in the
Church guiding it to all truth is seen when the Church came together in
council. It is for this reason that the synodical mode of the Church's
existence is of tremendous significance for the way the Church governs
itself.
Concluding Remarks
In all this, the all-important point
that must be remembered is that it was to the gathering as a whole that
the truth of God's teaching was given. And it is precisely for this
reason that the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem has constituted the
decisive paradigm for the government of the Church throughout history –
this is seen in the emergence of Episcopal synods in the first
centuries of the Church's existence after Christ – and must therefore
continue to guide the Church today. Indeed, it was this development of
the synodical structures within the life of the Church that came to
highlight not only the bishop's koinonia with the faithful of his local community, but also the koinonia
and interdependence of different local Churches across a larger
geographical region. On a local level, it was the bishop who preserved
the unity of the local Church since his ministry came to be identified
with that of headship, yet one intimately connected with all the
faithful within the Church and never over of apart from them. For this
reason, the Clergy-Laity Congresses held every four years in the Church
here in Australia show how all the faithful – the ordained and the laity
– must organically be united together in upholding the apostolic truths
of faith. And, following what we saw at the Apostolic Council of
Jerusalem, it is the Episcopal synods today, in which all bishops of the
respective dioceses/eparchies of a particular Patriarchate necessarily
participate, that must become once again the decisive means for
expressing the identity of faith and the unanimous 'oneness' of the
'many'.
[1]
If one takes Australia as an example, then the local Church, for those
Orthodox faithful of Greek descent but not exclusively so, is the Greek
Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, with His Eminence Archbishop
Stylianos of Australia as its presiding bishop.
[2] Cf. St Irenaeus of Lyons (d. 202AD) in his work, Adv. Haer. 4, 26, 2.
[3] (Metropolitan) John Zizioulas, Eucharist Bishop Church, trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff (Brookline Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001), 154.
[4] (Metropolitan) Maximos Aghiorgoussis, 'Theological and Historical Aspects of Conciliarity: Some Propositions for Discussion', The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 24.1(1979): 5.
[5] (Archbishop) Stylianos Harkianakis, Infallibility of the Church, trans. Philip Kariatlis (Sydney: St Andrew's Press, 2008), 129. In his 2008 keynote address at the 10th
Clergy-Laity Congress of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia,
His Eminence wrote: "if the institution of the synod is not respected
with fear of God, both in terms of its structure (precisely as
established by the teachings of the apostles and fathers with specific
sacred canons during the first common Christian millennium) then the
whole teaching concerning the church becomes falsified in its
fundamental principles, in which case we no longer have pure Orthodox
ecclesiology, nor of course a Christian more of living." Address
published in To Vema Tis Ekklesias Feb(2008): 4.
[6]
The Jerusalem Council is also referred to in Gal 2:1-4. Indeed, the
factual divergences in these two narratives have led biblical scholars
to question the reliability of the version as related by Luke in Acts.
As we shall see, however, the fundamental convergence – i.e., that of
God's desire for the incorporation of Gentiles in the Church – shows a
Church willed by God for the entire world, where diversity and koinonia would reign, as opposed to blind uniformity.
[7] Cf. Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts (London:
SCM Press, 2006), 175. With regards to the importance of the Council
itself, if Breck's analysis of the literary constructions of the New
Testament writings is correct, then according to his chiastic principle,
which he identified operating throughout the New Testament corpus, the
climax of the narrative occurs in the middle of a text – in the case of
the book of Acts, this would be the narration of the Jerusalem Council.
Such a conjecture is not without substance especially if one takes into
consideration the fact that before this, Acts depicted the movement of
all the apostles, particularly their mission towards the Jews, whilst
after this, Luke's attention turned invariably to Paul's missionary
journeys to the Gentiles. Cf. John Breck, The Shape of Biblical Language: Chiasmus in the Scriptures and Beyond (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1994).
[8] Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1988), 46-47.
[9] Cf. L. Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, 279.
[10]
Just as God broke the silence by sending his Word into the world, so
too, would he now send the Spirit to continue to illumine the Church
guiding it to all truth.
[11] Cf. the notes on Acts 15:15 found in The Orthodox Study Bible (Nashville, Tennesse: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997), 306: "Agree here translates sumphoneo, the
Greek word from which we get 'symphony.' In essence James is saying,
'This is in symphony with what God said through the prophets. Therefore
it is the work of God.'"
[12] Cf F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), 294.
