Page 186 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
C onciliarity or Synodality
Conciliarity belongs to the very being of the Church. It is
not a later administrative arrangement, nor a mechanism
devised for practical governance. The synod is born from the
Church’s Eucharistic nature, because the Church herself is
communion, and communion must always take visible form.
For this reason, the conciliar institution cannot be separated
from ecclesiology: it is rooted in the very mystery of how the
Church exists as one body in many places.
Its first image appears already in the Acts of the Apostles.
In Jerusalem, at the apostolic gathering, we see the primitive
form of synodality: “the apostles and the presbyters,” together
with the whole Church, discerning in the Holy Spirit. The
decisive word of that gathering—“it seemed good to the Holy
Spirit and to us”—reveals the essence of conciliarity: not pri-
vate judgment, but common discernment in communion.
Later in Acts, the expression shifts from “apostles and presby-
ters” to “James and the presbyters,” and this is deeply signifi-
cant. Here the local Church begins to appear gathered around
one who presides, anticipating the emergence of the bishop as
the center of Eucharistic and synodal unity.
This development becomes fully visible in Ignatius of An-
tioch. Ignatius gives us the decisive phrase: “the council of the
bishop.” In that expression, synodality is already present in
seed. Around the bishop, presbyters and faithful are gathered
as one Eucharistic body, and this inner structure of the local
Church becomes the model for wider synodality among
Churches. The synod is therefore nothing other than the ex-
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