Page 192 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
The same applies to Christology. Christ as the “anointed
one” is at the same time “one” and “many”—not one who be-
comes many, but one who is inconceivable without the many,
his body. There is no “head” without a “body,” no Christ with-
out the Spirit.
This principle is also fundamental in the Eucharist. There
is one Eucharist in the universal Church, and yet this one
Eucharist is at the same time many Eucharists. It is absurd to
ask which comes first. There is simultaneity between the one
and the many. Ecclesiology cannot depart from this without
distortion.
Thus, the Church is local and universal at the same time.
Locality and universality are interdependent, just as the one
and the many are interdependent in Trinitarian theology and
Christology.
The bishop embodies this unity. He is ordained for a par-
ticular Church as its head and center of unity, yet cannot be
conceived apart from the many, his community. He cannot
exercise authority without communion with the faithful; his
ministry requires the consensus fidelium, the “Amen” of the
people.
At the same time, the bishop of a local Church is also a
bishop of the universal Church. In him, locality and universal-
ity coincide as two aspects of one ministry.
The synodal system is a sine qua non condition for the
catholicity of the Church. Through it, the catholicity of the
local Church is safeguarded: it is prevented from becoming
self-sufficient, while communion with other Churches does
not destroy its integrity. Through synodality, we do not arrive
at a universal Church, but at a communion of Churches. Uni-
versality becomes identical with communion.
But primacy also belongs here. It too is a sine qua non con-
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