Page 176 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
toral and liturgical contact with their people. Their eucharistic
role became indirect and symbolic, while presbyters became
the ordinary celebrants of the Eucharist. This reversal of roles
deeply altered the understanding of ministry in the Church.
Originally, the presbyters formed a collegium around the
bishop, much as the Twelve surrounded Christ. Their ministry
was collegial, inseparable from the bishop and from one an-
other. But when one presbyter alone came to preside habitu-
ally over the Eucharist in each parish, this collegial character
was lost. The presbyter ceased to function as part of a presby-
terium and became individualized. In effect, by assigning to
the presbyter what originally belonged to the bishop, the
Church turned the presbyter into a kind of local bishop—and
in so doing, lost the original meaning of the presbyterate.
The consequences extended further. The deacon, whose
ministry had once been integral to the Eucharistic assembly,
became increasingly marginalized. The full structure of the
local Church—bishop, presbyters, deacons, and laity gathered
together in one Eucharistic body—began to disintegrate. A
Eucharistic community could now appear complete with only
a priest and congregation. The bishop became remote, the
deacon optional, and the Eucharist itself risked being reduced
to one sacrament among many rather than the event in which
the Church manifests herself in her fullness.
This historical development also affected theology. Once
episcopacy was detached from its eucharistic foundation, it
could be redefined in purely juridical terms. In such a frame-
work, bishops became dispensable. This is why later Christian
traditions, especially in the Reformation, found it possible to
abolish episcopacy altogether. If the bishop is no longer un-
derstood as the indispensable president of the Eucharistic
assembly, but only as an administrator with the power to or-
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