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Challenges and Priorities 215

other within the framework of church gov-
ernance is not consistent with the Armenian
Church’s ecclesiological self-understanding
and with its historical experience. The dis-
tinctiveness and complementarity of the
place and the respective role of clergy and
laity in the Church must be further clarified
and reaffirmed.
2) Authority is imperative for unity and
discipline in the Church. However, no model
of a single authority: autocratic, clergy-
centered, laity-centered, centralized, decen-
tralized, or people-centered, should be re-
garded as ideal. We must develop a model
and a practice of authority that is inclusive,
holistic, and people-oriented, in which the
interrelation of the primacy, the collegiality,
and the consensus fidelium are coherently
interwoven, clearly distinguished, and con-
cretely articulated.
3) There is a lack of clarity about the role
and function of the canons and bylaws in the
Church and how they should be imple-
mented. The church organizes its internal life
and ministry on the basis of canon laws. The
centuries-old canon laws of the Armenian
Church, which were compiled in the 8th
Century and reviewed in the 13th Century,
should be revised in view of the new con-
ditions of modern life. Because the Armenian
Church has a complex institutional structure,
comprising four Hierarchical Sees with dif-