Page 182 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
Apostolic Succession and C ontinuity
The consciousness of the Church’s continuity with the apos-
tles is shaped from the beginning by a tension—one might
even say a fruitful duality—between what is historical and
what is eschatological. On the one hand, the Church lives
from her past with reverence and devotion; on the other, she
experiences herself as a manifestation of the Kingdom, a pres-
ence of the last things already given in her midst.
In the earliest sources, two fundamental approaches to ap-
ostolic continuity emerge. The first may be called historical.
Here the apostles are understood as those sent into the world,
entrusted with a mission. Continuity takes the form of a linear
movement: God sends Christ, Christ sends the apostles, and
the apostles transmit the Gospel by establishing Churches and
ministries.
In this sense, apostolic continuity appears as succession in
time—through transmission, teaching, and the preservation
of what has been handed down.
Yet alongside this, and no less originally, there exists an
eschatological approach. In this perspective, the apostles are
not primarily dispersed individuals but a united college, gath-
ered around Christ as in the Kingdom. They are not simply
links in a historical chain but the very foundation of the
Church as the presence of the Kingdom here and now.
Continuity, therefore, is not merely succession from past to
present, but participation in a reality that comes from the fu-
ture—the foretaste of the eschata revealed in the eucharistic
gathering.
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