Bishop

A bishop is an ordained,

consecrated

, or appointed member of the

Christian clergy

who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight.

Within the

Catholic

, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox,

Moravian

,

Anglican

, Old Catholic and Independent Catholic churches, as well as the Assyrian Church of the East, bishops claim apostolic succession, a direct historical lineage dating back to the original

Twelve Apostles

. Within these churches, bishops are seen as those who possess the full priesthood and can ordain clergy, including other bishops. Some Protestant churches, including the Lutheran,

Anglican

and

Methodist

churches, have bishops serving similar functions as well, though not always understood to be within apostolic succession in the same way. A person ordained as a

deacon

,

priest

, and then bishop is understood to hold the fullness of the (ministerial) priesthood, given responsibility by Christ to govern, teach, and sanctify the Body of Christ. Priests, deacons and lay ministers co-operate and assist their bishops in pastoral ministry.

Term

The English term ''bishop'' derives from the Greek word ''epískopos'', meaning "overseer" in Greek, the early language of the Christian Church. In the early Christian era the term was not always clearly distinguished from '' presbýteros'' (literally: "elder" or "senior", origin of the modern English word "priest"), but is used in the sense of the order or office of bishop, distinct from that of presbyter, in the writings attributed to

Ignatius of Antioch

. (died c. 110).

History

The earliest organization of the

Church in Jerusalem

was, according to most scholars, similar to that of

Jewish

synagogue

s, but it had a council or college of ordained presbyters ( grc, πρεσβύτεροι ''elders''). In Acts 11:30 and Acts 15:22, we see a collegiate system of government in Jerusalem chaired by James the Just, according to tradition the first bishop of the city. In Acts 14:23, the

Apostle Paul

ordains presbyters in churches in Anatolia. The word ''presbyter'' was not yet distinguished from ''overseer'' ( grc, ἐπίσκοπος ''episkopos'', later used exclusively to mean ''bishop''), as in Acts 20:17, Titus 1:5–7 and 1 Peter 5:1. The earliest writings of the Apostolic Fathers, the

Didache

and the First Epistle of Clement, for example, show the church used two terms for local church offices—presbyters (seen by many as an interchangeable term with ''episcopos'' or overseer) and deacon.

In

Timothy

and Titus in the New Testament a more clearly defined episcopate can be seen. We are told that Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in

Crete

to oversee the

local church

. Paul commands Titus to ordain presbyters/bishops and to exercise general oversight.

Early sources are unclear but various groups of Christian communities may have had the bishop surrounded by a group or college functioning as leaders of the local churches. Eventually the head or "monarchic" bishop came to rule more clearly, and all local churches would eventually follow the example of the other churches and structure themselves after the model of the others with the one bishop in clearer charge, though the role of the body of presbyters remained important.

Eventually, as Christendom grew, bishops no longer directly served individual congregations. Instead, the Metropolitan bishop (the bishop in a large city) appointed priests to minister each congregation, acting as the bishop's delegate.

Apostolic Fathers

Around the end of the 1st century, the church's organization became clearer in historical documents. In the works of the Apostolic Fathers, and Ignatius of Antioch in particular, the role of the episkopos, or bishop, became more important or, rather, already was very important and being clearly defined. While Ignatius of Antioch offers the earliest clear description of monarchial bishops (a single bishop over all house churches in a city) he is an advocate of monepiscopal structure rather than describing an accepted reality. To the bishops and house churches to which he writes, he offers strategies on how to pressure house churches who don't recognize the bishop into compliance. Other contemporary Christian writers do not describe monarchial bishops, either continuing to equate them with the presbyters or speaking of episkopoi (bishops, plural) in a city.

"Blessed be God, who has granted unto you, who are yourselves so excellent, to obtain such an excellent bishop." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 1:1

"and that, being subject to the bishop and the presbytery, ye may in all respects be sanctified." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 2:1


"For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 4:1

"Do ye, beloved, be careful to be subject to the bishop, and the presbyters and the deacons." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 5:1

"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, eing 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 ccording 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.

— Lightfoot translation.

As the Church continued to expand, new churches in important cities gained their own bishop. Churches in the regions outside an important city were served by Chorbishop, an official rank of bishops. However, soon, presbyters and deacons were sent from bishop of a city church. Gradually priests replaced the chorbishops. Thus, in time, the bishop changed from being the leader of a single church confined to an urban area to being the leader of the churches of a given geographical area.

Clement of Alexandria (end of the 2nd century) writes about the ordination of a certain Zachæus as bishop by the imposition of

Simon Peter Bar-Jonah's

hands. The words bishop and ordination are used in their technical meaning by the same Clement of Alexandria. The bishops in the 2nd century are defined also as the only clergy to whom the ordination to priesthood (presbyterate) and diaconate is entrusted: "a priest (presbyter)

lays on hands

, but does not ordain." (''cheirothetei ou cheirotonei'')

At the beginning of the 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome describes another feature of the ministry of a bishop, which is that of the ''"Spiritum primatus sacerdotii habere potestatem dimittere peccata"'': the primate of sacrificial priesthood and the power to forgive sins.

Bishops and civil government

The efficient organization of the

Roman Empire

became the template for the organisation of the church in the 4th century, particularly after Constantine's Edict of Milan. As the church moved from the shadows of privacy into the public forum it acquired land for churches, burials and clergy. In 391,

Theodosius I

decreed that any land that had been confiscated from the church by Roman authorities be returned.

The most usual term for the geographic area of a bishop's authority and ministry, the diocese, began as part of the structure of the Roman Empire under Diocletian. As Roman authority began to fail in the western portion of the empire, the church took over much of the civil administration. This can be clearly seen in the ministry of two

pope

s:

Pope Leo I

in the 5th century, and

Pope Gregory I

in the 6th century. Both of these men were statesmen and public administrators in addition to their role as Christian pastors, teachers and leaders. In the

Eastern churches

, latifundia entailed to a bishop's see were much less common, the state power did not collapse the way it did in the West, and thus the tendency of bishops acquiring civil power was much weaker than in the West. However, the role of Western bishops as civil authorities, often called prince bishops, continued throughout much of the Middle Ages.

Bishops holding political office

As well as being archchancellors of the Holy Roman Empire after the 9th century, bishops generally served as

chancellor

s to medieval monarchs, acting as head of the ''justiciary'' and chief

chaplain

. The Lord Chancellor of

England

was almost always a bishop up until the dismissal of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey by Henry VIII. Similarly, the position of

Kanclerz

in the Polish kingdom was always held by a bishop until the 16th century. And today, the principality of

Andorra

is headed by two co-princes, one of whom is a Catholic bishop (and the other, the President of France).

In

France

before the

French Revolution

, representatives of the clergy — in practice, bishops and

abbot

s of the largest

monasteries

— comprised the First Estate of the Estates-General, until their role was abolished during the French Revolution.

In the 21st century, the more senior bishops of the Church of England continue to sit in the

House of Lords

of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, as representatives of the established church, and are known as Lords Spiritual. The Bishop of Sodor and Man, whose diocese lies outside the

United Kingdom

, is an ''ex officio'' member of the Legislative Council of the Isle of Man. In the past, the Bishop of Durham, known as a prince bishop, had extensive viceregal powers within his northern diocese — the power to mint money, collect taxes and raise an army to defend against the Scots.

Eastern Orthodox bishops, along with all other members of the clergy, are canonically forbidden to hold political office. Occasional exceptions to this rule are tolerated when the alternative is political chaos. In the Ottoman Empire, the Patriarch of Constantinople, for example, had de facto administrative, fiscal, cultural and legal jurisdiction, as well as spiritual, over all the Christians of the empire. More recently, Archbishop Makarios III of

Cyprus

, served as President of the Republic of Cyprus from 1960 to 1977.

In 2001, Peter Hollingworth, AC, OBE – then the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane – was controversially appointed Governor-General of Australia. Although Hollingworth gave up his episcopal position to accept the appointment, it still attracted considerable opposition in a country which maintains a formal separation between Church and State.

Episcopacy during the English Civil War

During the period of the English Civil War, the role of bishops as wielders of political power and as upholders of the established church became a matter of heated political controversy. Indeed, Presbyterianism was the polity of most Reformed Churches in Europe, and had been favored by many in England since the English Reformation. Since in the primitive church the offices of ''presbyter'' and ''episkopos'' were not clearly distinguished, many Puritans held that this was the only form of government the church should have. The Anglican divine,

Richard Hooker

, objected to this claim in his famous work ''Of the Laws of Ecclesiastic Polity'' while, at the same time, defending Presbyterian ordination as valid (in particular

Calvin's

ordination of Beza). This was the official stance of the English Church until the Commonwealth, during which time, the views of Presbyterians and Independents (Congregationalists) were more freely expressed and practiced.

Churches

Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglican churches

Bishops form the leadership in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran Church, the Independent Catholic Churches, the Independent Anglican Churches, and certain other, smaller, denominations.

The traditional role of a bishop is as pastor of a diocese (also called a bishopric,

synod

,

eparchy

or see), and so to serve as a "diocesan bishop," or "eparch" as it is called in many Eastern Christian churches. Dioceses vary considerably in size, geographically and population-wise. Some dioceses around the Mediterranean Sea which were Christianised early are rather compact, whereas dioceses in areas of rapid modern growth in Christian commitment—as in some parts of

Sub-Saharan Africa

,

South America

and the Far East—are much larger and more populous.

As well as traditional diocesan bishops, many churches have a well-developed structure of church leadership that involves a number of layers of authority and responsibility.

;

Patriarch

:Patriarchs are the bishops who head certain ancient autocephalous or sui iuris churches, which are a collection of metropolitan sees or

province

s. After the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea, the church structure was patterned after the administrative divisions of the Roman Empire wherein a metropolitan or bishop of a metropolis came to be the ecclesiastical head of a civil capital of a province or a metropolis. Whereas, the bishop of the larger administrative district, diocese, came to be called an exarch. In a few cases, a bishop came to preside over a number of dioceses, i.e., Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. At the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451, Constantinople was given jurisdiction over three dioceses for the reason that the city was "the residence of the emperor and senate". Additionally, Jerusalem was recognized at the Council of Chalcedon as one of the major sees. In 692, the Quinisext Council formally recognized and ranked the sees of the Pentarchy in order of preeminence, at that time Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. In the Catholic Church, Patriarchs sometimes call their leaders ''Catholicos''; the Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Egypt, is called ''Pope'', meaning 'Father'. While most patriarchs in the Eastern Catholic Churches have jurisdiction over a "ritual church" (a group or diocese of a particular Eastern tradition), all Latin Rite patriarchs, except for the Pope, have only honorary titles. In 2006,

Pope Benedict XVI

gave up the title of Patriarch of the West. The first recorded use of the title by a Roman Pope was by

Theodore I

in 620. However, early church documents, such as those of the First Council of Nicaea (325) had always listed the Pope of Rome first among the Ancient Patriarchs (first three, and later five: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,

Antioch

and Jerusalem—collectively referred to as the ''Pentarchy''). Later, the heads of various national churches became Patriarchs, but they are ranked below the Pentarchy.
; Catholicos: Catholicoi are the heads of some of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Rite Catholic sui iuris churches (notably the Armenian), roughly similar to a Patriarch (see above).
; Primate:A primate is usually the bishop of the oldest church of a

nation

. Sometimes this carries jurisdiction over metropolitan bishops, but usually it is purely honorific. The primate of the Scottish Episcopal Church is chosen from among the diocesan bishops, and, while retaining diocesan responsibility, is called ''Primus''.
; Presiding bishop

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