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R.
Jović: REVIEW FOR C. Hovorun, Scaffolds of the Church: Towards
Poststructural Ecclesiology (2017)
The
author made a long trajectory showing Church’s administrative development, from
community to the territory, and from territory to national model of
organization. The change from community to territory was already evident in the
canon 4 of the First Ecumenical Synod where church decided to turn to the territorial
model of church organization following the Imperial structure. The same could
be said for pentarchy, which was developed under the
influence of Imperial order and structural changes in the Imperial
administration itself. Territorial organization of the Church, which took place
already in 4th century, has been blended in 19th century with national freedom
movements, which followed old territorial model, but with a new brand name – canonical
territory.
Especially
important in this book is the author’s attempt to give a new interpretation of
“borders” in the church’s life and the Can- on Law. Using the Roman idea of
Empire, where Empire is always spreading in order to conquer the whole world,
the author makes a distinction between the terms such as frontier and borders.
Borders today have been understood as lines protecting one’s territory, while
frontiers in the Roman Empire represented starting points for further
expansion. In other words, Pax Romana never saw the end of
its expansion – expansion was unstoppable and the Empire could have taken over
the whole world. If some part of the world were not under Rome that was
considered only as temporary situation. Christianity was born in this world,
with sense of universality and infinity. Each part of the world is going to be
conquered by Empire, and the Church shared this thinking waiting to conquer the
rest of the world. This gives even more eschatological understanding of
borders, we do not only protect ourselves but we have been called to perceive
the whole world as a Church “in becoming”. The Early Church was less structured
and so more open for expansion and less interested in borders and questions of
what is beyond those borders of the church. Pastoral issues at that time raised
the question of borders of the church, namely in which way to accept those who
abandoned the church during prosecution. An exception were theologians from
North Africa, but even the Cyprian famous phrase “salus extra ecclesiam non
est” was not been accepted in the church worldwide.
Mr.
Hovorun takes on the difficult task of interpreting one more time the famous
can- on 28 of Chalcedon. In his interpretation, this canon has been laid into
the framework of two organizational types of the church, com- munitarian and territorial.
In his interpretation, the author convincingly proved his thesis that this
canon is about community and not territory. In order to illustrate the issue of
autocephaly the author presents the history of almost every Orthodox
autocephalous Church and the way they got autocephaly/ became autocephalous.
The book provides interesting insights into this issue, showing that
autocephaly movement in the nineteenth century was not bad all in all, but had
emancipatory effects on the Balkan people in particular.
Presenting
the Church organizational models as issues of Church scaffolds, which helped
Her to move through the history, the author is opposing the idea that
structures are part of Church’s ontology. The author re- marks that when we
believe that primacy is part of the nature of the church then naturally,
hierarchy becomes the same ontological part. However, in the opinion of Mr.
Hovorun, the Church is not hierarchical in Her Being. He gives examples of some
of Church functions, such as a bishop. Bishop was an adjective, episkopos – the
one who oversees. It was the title given to the priest. Soon the adjective
episkopos turned into noun and became a fixed and specific service distinct
from priests. St. Ignatius is specifically responsible for the development of
the idea of mono-episcopacy and Didascalia furthered this idea. Saint Ignatius’
idea obviously helped the Church to confront issues in his diocese but at the
same time had many side effects – the routinization of the services in the
church and reduction of charisma. That would bring the first opposition to this
mono-episcopacy idea in a Montanist movement who was nostalgic for an idea of
the Church before mono-episcopacy. Hierarchy was a product of Neoplatonism and
the Roman world so that three levels of the hierarchy (bishop, priest, deacon)
soon substituted all other charisms and services in the early church. Such
acceptance of hierarchy changed the perception of these services. Diakonia changed
from non-hierarchical order into hierarchical privilege. The gap between clergy
and laity, i.e. “the formation of administrative structures in the church
increased the distance between ordained clergy and laity.”
From
the time Christianity became the official religion, bishops were substituting
pagan priests whose service was to offer a holy cult for people. Church orders
slightly slipped into the same box, they focused on the sacraments and their
performance, taking less care for community itself. The celebration of Eucharist
became exclusive prerogative of the hierarchy as ministers of the holy cult.
The growing gap between people and hierarchy has created a gap between the
community and the Eucharist. Explaining this development in more detail the author
clarifies how it turned out that Eucharist be- came holy relict, and not the
communal act in the Church’s life.
At
the end, the author concludes that hierarchy does not belong to the Church’s ontology
but rather serves “as instruments of convenience and outcomes of conventions.”
Namely, the Church needs to accommodate Her structures like She always did
through- out history. The Church in today’s world should not be perceived as a
structure but more as a relationship. Priesthood in Christianity does not have
the role to “exploit the restrictions of access to the holy, but to help the
members of the community to use as fully as possible the abundance of grace
granted by Christ to everyone without measure (John 3: 34).” In other words,
church structures should not be perceived as ontological but relational,
something that Nick Crossley calls “relational sociology” discovering relational
character of social systems.
As
a conclusion of this massive work, we could quote the author himself concerning
the church structures as part of Church’s scaffolds in history, “All structures
have from time to time deviated from their initial purpose and rationale. Some
of them have perished as a result. Others have been renewed over time, such as,
for example, the clerical orders of bishops, presbyters, and deacons. In other
cases, completely new structures have emerged under old names, as has occurred
with autocephaly. It has always been up to the church to decide which structures
to forget and which to reinterpret or remake. This means that the church can
create new structures when it deems necessary.”
This
book is important giving us strategy on how to overcome problems in the realm
of the Orthodox Ecclesiology. I would highly recommend this book to those
especially interested in Orthodox ecclesiology and Canon Law believing that
this book will open their horizons in order to face other Christian communities
and the modern world in general.
Rastko
Jović
Published in Jović, Rastko. “C.
Hovorun, Scaffolds of the Church: Towards Poststructural Ecclesiology (2017).” Philotheos:
International Journal for Philosophy and Theology, 2017, 171–73.
