Page 167 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

T H E P R E S B Y T E R S : F R O M C O L L E G I U M T O D E L E G AT E D M I N I S T RY
Eucharist always on the bishop’s behalf and with his explicit
permission. For a long time, especially in the West, the bishop
would send a portion of his Eucharist to the parishes in order
to mix it with the presbyter’s Eucharist and thus make real the
idea that there is only one Eucharist in each place, that of the
bishop. This practice was known as fermentum. In the East,
what prevails even today is the practice of the antimension, a
piece of cloth containing relics of saints as well as the signature
of the local bishop, which affirms that it is the bishop that
makes the parish Eucharist valid, that there is only one Eucha-
rist in each place.
It is in the light of this evolution that we should place the
Ignatian term synedrion (συνέδριον). Ignatius speaks of the
presbyters as “holding the place of the synedrion of the Apos-
tles.” This “council” is also called a “council of God” and a
“council of the bishop.” If we take into consideration Ignatius’
image of the bishop as being “in the place of God,” we can
conclude that in both cases we have one and the same kind of
council: the collegium of the presbyters acting as counsellors
of the bishop.
The early Church very soon understood the bishop as the
image of Christ. He was the one who was seated “in the place
of God” precisely because in the assembly of the Liturgy he
occupied the place described as “the throne of God and of the
Lamb,” surrounded by the presbyters and confronted by the
“multitude” of the faithful. If the eucharistic assembly was
nothing less than “the ecclesia of God,” and the koinonia of it
the realization of the Church’s unity in each place, the head of
this assembly was automatically understood as the center of
all unity in that particular Church.
What Ignatius did not believe in was the monarchical bish-
op. The bishop is inconceivable apart from the presbyters,
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