The Apostolic Church
The Church as a
Eucharistic Community | The
First Persecutions and Martyrs
The Councils
as the Manifestation of the Church Unity
THE APOSTOLIC
CHURCH
The history of the Christian Church begins, with the descent of the Holy
Spirit on the Apostles at Jerusalem during the feast of Pentecost, the first
Whit Sunday. On that same day through the preaching of St Peter three thousand
men and women were baptized, and the first Christian community at Jerusalem
was formed.
Before long the members of the Jerusalem Church were scattered by the persecution
which followed the stoning of St Stephen. 'Go forth therefore,' Christ had
said, 'and make all nations My disciples' (Matthew xxviii, 19). Obedient
to this command they preached wherever they went, at first to Jews, but
before long to Gentiles also. Some stories of these Apostolic journeys are
recorded by St Luke in the book of Acts; others are preserved in the tradition
of the Church. Within an astonishingly short time small Christian communities
had sprung up in all the main centres of the Roman Empire and even in places
beyond the Roman frontiers.
The
Church as a Eucharistic Community
The Empire through which these first Christian missionaries travelled
was, particularly in its eastern part, an empire of cities. This determined
the administrative structure of the primitive Church. The basic unit was
the community in each city, governed by its own bishop; to assist the bishop
there were presbyters or priests, and deacons. The surrounding countryside
depended on the Church of the city. This pattern, with the threefold ministry
of bishops, priests, and deacons, was already established in some places
by the end of the first century. We can see it in the seven short letters
which St lgnatius, the Bishop of Antioch, wrote about the year 107 as he
travelled to Rome to be martyred. Ignatius laid emphasis upon two things
in particular, the bishop and the Eucharist; he saw the Church as both hierarchical
and sacramental. 'The bishop in each Church,' he wrote, 'presides in place
of God.' 'Let no one do any of the things which concern the Church without
the bishop . . . Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be, just
as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.' And it is the
bishop's primary and distinctive task to celebrate the Eucharist, 'the medicine
of immortality'.
People today tend to think of the Church as a worldwide organization, in
which each local body forms part of a larger and more inclusive whole. Ignatius
did not look at the Church in this way. For him the local community is the
Church. He thought of the Church as a Eucharistic society, which only realizes
its true nature when it celebrates the Supper of the Lord, receiving His
Body and Blood in the sacrament. But the Eucharist is something that can
only happen locally - in each particular community gathered round its bishop;
and at every local celebration of the Eucharist it is the whole Christ who
is present, not just a part of Him. Therefore each local community, as it
celebrates the Eucharist Sunday by Sunday, is the Church in its fullness.
The teaching of Ignatius has a permanent place in Orthodox tradition. Orthodoxy
still thinks of the Church as a Eucharistic society, whose outward organization,
however necessary, is secondary to its inner, sacramental life; and Orthodoxy
still emphasizes the cardinal importance of the local community in the structure
of the Church. To those who attend an Orthodox Pontifical Liturgy,' when
the bishop stands at the beginning of the service in the middle of the church,
surrounded by his flock, Ignatius of Antioch's idea of the bishop as the
centre of unity in the local community will occur with particular vividness.
But besides the local community there is also the wider unity of the Church.
This second aspect is developed in the writings of another martyr bishop,
St Cyprian of Carthage (died 258). Cyprian saw all bishops as sharing in
the one episcopate, yet sharing it in such a way that each possesses not
a part but the whole. 'The episcopate,' he wrote, 'is a single whole, in
which each bishop enjoys full possession. So is the Church a single whole,
though it spreads far and wide into a multitude of churches as its fertility
increases'. There are many churches but only one Church; many episcopi but
only one episcopate.
The
First Persecutions and Martyrs
There were many others in the first three centuries of the Church who
like Cyprian and Ignatius ended their lives as martyrs. The persecutions,
it is true, were often local in character and usually limited in duration.
Yet although there were long periods when the Roman authorities extended
to Christianity a large measure of toleration, the threat of persecution
was always there, and Christians knew that at any time this threat could
become a reality. The idea of martyrdom had a central place in the spiritual
outlook of the early Christians. They saw their Church as founded upon blood
- not only the blood of Christ but the blood of those 'other Christs', the
martyrs. In later centuries when the Church became 'established' and no
longer suffered persecution, the idea of martyrdom did not disappear, but
it took other forms: the monastic life, for example, is often regarded by
Greek writers as an equivalent to martyrdom. The same approach is found
also in the west: take, for instance, a Celtic text - an Irish homily of
the seventh century - which likens the ascetic life to the way of the martyr:
Now there are three kinds of martyrdom which are accounted as a Cross to
a man, white martyrdom, green martyrdom, and red martyrdom. White martyrdom
consists in a man's abandoning everything he loves for God's sake ... (Green
martyrdom consists in this, that by means of fasting and labour he frees
himself from his evil desires, or suffers toil in penance and repentance.
Red martyrdom consists in the endurance of a Cross or death for Christ's
sake.'
At many periods in Orthodox history the prospect of red martyrdom has been
fairly remote, and the green and white forms prevail. Yet there have also
been times, above all in this present century, when Orthodox and other Christians
have once again been called to undergo martyrdom of blood.
The Councils as the Manifestation of the Church Unity
It was only natural that the bishops, who, as Cyprian emphasized, share
in the one episcopate, should meet together in a council to discuss their
common problems. Orthodoxy has always attached great importance to the place
of councils in the life of the Church. It believes that the council is the
chief organ whereby God has chosen to guide His people, and it regards the
Catholic Church as essentially a conciliar Church. (Indeed, in Russian the
same adjective soborry has the double sense of 'catholic' and 'conciliar',
while the corresponding noun, sobor, means both 'church' and 'council'.)
In the Church there is neither dictatorship nor individualism, but harmony
and unanimity; its members remain free but not isolated, for they are united
in love, in faith, and in sacramental communion. In a council, this idea
of harmony and free unanimity can be seen worked out in practice. In a true
council no single member arbitrarily imposes his wil1 upon the rest, but
each consults with the others, and in this way they all freely achieve a
'common mind'. A council is a living embodiment of the essential nature
of the Church.
The first council in the Church's history is described in Acts xv. Attended
by the Apostles, it met at Jerusalem to decide how far Gentile converts
should be subject to the Law of Moses. The Apostles, when they finally reached
their decision, spoke in terms which in other circumstances might appear
presumptuous: 'It seemed right to the Holy Spirit and to us ...' (Acts xv,
28 Later councils have ventured to speak with the same confidence An isolated
individual may well hesitate to say, 'It seemed right to the Holy Spirit
and to me'; but when gathered in council, the members of the Church can
together claim an authority which individually none of them possesses.
The Council of Jerusalem, assembling as it did the leaders of the entire
Church, was an exceptional gathering, for which there is no parallel until
the Council of Nicaea in 325. But by Cyprian's time it had already become
usual to hold local councils, attended by all the bishops in a particular
civil province of the Roman Empire. A local council of this type normally
met in the provincial capital, under the presidency of the bishop of the
capital, who was given the title Metropolitan. As the third century proceeded,
councils widened in scope and began to include bishops not from one but
from several civil provinces. These larger gatherings tended to assemble
in the chief cities of the Empire, such as Alexandria or Antioch; and so
it came about that the bishops of certain great cities began to acquire
an importance above the provincial Metropolitans. But for the time being
nothing was decided about the precise status of these great sees. Nor during
the third century itself did this continual expansion of councils reach
its logical conclusion: as yet (apart from the Apostolic Council) there
had only been local councils, of lesser or greater extent, but no 'general'
council, formed of bishops from the whole Christian world, and claiming
to speak in the name of the whole Church.
Abridged, from Callistos Ware
The Orthodox Church, p. 12- p. 16 |