Page 184 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
Truth into an object. The infallibility that accompanies it is
itself a charisma, and as such it remains continually subject to
the epiclesis of the community.
Thus, the bishop who exercises this “infallibility” is not
subject to the community understood as an objectified social
structure—for the Church is not a democracy—but to the
community as a charismatic event of communion. Infallibil-
ity appears, therefore, in the Spirit as a dynamic and circular
movement. It does not repose statically upon any structure or
ministry, but expresses itself through a particular ministry by
a dynamic perichoresis within the whole body. In this sense,
even a lay member, by virtue of participation in the charis-
matic body, may witness to the Truth, even to the point of
contesting a bishop’s deviation from it. Yet such witnessing, if
it is truly in the Spirit, can only take place through a continu-
al deepening of participation in the communion of the Church.
Here lies a paradox: every member bears witness to the Truth,
yet always in devotion to the Body and its structure.
This dynamic and epicletic understanding of truth and
ministry reveals the deeper role of the Holy Spirit in apostolic
continuity. The Spirit does not simply preserve what has been
given in the past; He brings the future—the eschata—into the
present. In Him, the Church’s memory becomes more than
recollection: it becomes a living participation in the risen
Christ, a “memory of the future.”
Thus apostolic continuity is neither a static inheritance nor
a purely historical guarantee, but an event constantly renewed
in the life of the Spirit.
Within this same perspective, the Eucharist appears as the
natural and proper context of ordination into any ministry.
This is not accidental. The one who ordains is also the head of
the eucharistic assembly. It is therefore not by chance that the
184