Page 174 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
Diocese and Parish
One of the oldest and most enduring canonical questions
in the Orthodox Church arises from the existence of the
parish. In the earliest centuries, each local Church was gath-
ered as a single Eucharistic community around its bishop. The
bishop was not simply an administrator: he was above all the
president of the Eucharist, the shepherd and spiritual father of
the flock, and the visible center of unity in each place. The
principle was clear: one Eucharist, one bishop, one Church.
For practical reasons, however, especially with the rapid
growth of Christian communities in the third and fourth cen-
turies, this single Eucharistic assembly could no longer always
gather in one place. Smaller Eucharistic communities were
formed within the same diocese, presided over by presbyters.
Thus the parish emerged. This development answered a pas-
toral necessity, yet it also introduced a profound ecclesiologi-
cal tension whose consequences remain with us to this day.
As presbyters increasingly came to preside over parish Eu-
charists, the bishop gradually ceased to be experienced pri-
marily as the Eucharistic head of the local Church. His role
shifted toward administration: he became the overseer of a
large diocesan structure rather than the one who personally
gathered his people around the Eucharist. In this way, episco-
pacy became identified less with eucharistic presidency and
more with governance, jurisdiction, and authority understood
in legal terms. The bishop was increasingly justified not by his
living relation to the Eucharistic community, but by the ab-
stract notion of potestas, transmitted through ordination and
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