Apostolic Continuity of the Church and Apostolic Succession in the First Five Centuries Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon

Louvain Studies 21 (1996) 153-168

The subject on which I have been asked to speak is a vast one and its proper treatment would require much more space than the length of this paper can provide. Since the nature of this conference is not strictly or properly speaking historical, my paper will aim at submitting to your con- sideration some general observations concerning the development of the notion of apostolic continuity and succession in the early Church with the intention of drawing from the historical material some useful conclusions for the present-day ecumenical discussion of the subject of apostolic continuity and succession. For it seems to me at least that a closer look at the history of this idea in the formative period of the first four or five centuries of Church history would reveal to us a diversity of approaches to what has become a thorny and divisive issue in the Christian Church, thus opening up the possibility of overcoming the impasse that we have reached in ecumenical dialogue on this subject ever since the Reformation.

I. The Western Tradition of Apostolic Succession in the Early Church

1. A careful study of the Biblical and Patristic sources of the first centuries would reveal to us a dual approach to the idea of apostolicity and apostolic continuity. On the one hand the apostles are regarded as missionaries sent by Christ to preach the Gospel, ordain ministers and establish Churches. In this case the apostles are individuals dispersed all over the world more or less in the form of the Jewish shaliach.1 This

1. See K. H. Rengstorf, “âpóstolov,” in G. Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1964) 407-445. See G. Klein, 154 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON approach leads naturally to the understanding of apostolic continuity and succession in terms of linear history: God sends Christ ⇒ Christ sends the apostles ⇒ the apostles transmit the Gospel and establish Churches and ministries. We find this linear scheme of continuity clearly expressed in the Bible in passages such as Jn 20:21; Lk 10:16; Mt 28:18-20; Rm 10:13-17; 2 Tm 2:2; Tt 1:5 etc. In such an approach it is not surprising that Christ himself is called “apostle” (Heb 3:1). This linear historical understanding of apostolic continuity survives well and establishes itself fully in the Patristic era. The first clear evidence of this is to be found in I Clement (95 AD) which elaborates explicitly this theory of apostolic succession: “Following the instructions of our Lord Jesus Christ, fully convinced by His resurrection and firm in their faith in the word of God, the apostles went with the assurance of the Holy Spirit to announce everywhere the good news of the coming of the Kingdom of heaven. In the various villages and cities they proclaimed the word and thus made their premises and … established episkópouv kai diakónouv for the future believers” (42:2-4). It is not accidental that this text has been widely used to support the idea of apostolic succession. I Clement is explicit: “Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be quarrels concerning the ministry of episkope. For this reason they … established the forementioned (ministers) and made provision that when these die other worthy men should succeed their ministry” (44:1-2). This conception of succession is based on the belief that the Church is a historical institution, whose essential function is to perpetu- ate mission. Historicity, dispersion and mission constitute the fundamental ecclesiological presuppositions of this conception of apostolic succession.2 Along with these three characteristics we observe a fourth one, which underlies this conception of apostolic succession. It is the idea of transmission of authority through the notion of vicariousness or representation. This characteristic is organically linked with the Jewish ministry of shaliach to which we referred earlier. As the analysis of this concept

Die Zwölf Apostel: Ursprung und Gehalt einer Idee (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1961) 22- 38. For an elaboration of this idea in connection with the doctrine of episcopacy and apostolic succession, see K. E. Kirk (ed.), The Apostolic Ministry: Essays on the History and the Doctrine of the Episcopacy (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1947). For a critical view, see A. Ehrhardt, The Apostolic Succession in the First Two Centuries of the Church (London: Lutterworth, 1953). 2. More on this in J. D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, Contemporary Greek Theologians, 4 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985) 172ff. THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES 155 first by K. H. Rengstorff3 and later by G. Dix4 has shown, the idea of shaliach contains the notion of the “plenipotential,” i.e. of someone invested with authority to represent someone fully and in all matters. Such is the case, for example, in the N. T. sayings of our Lord “As my Father has sent me so do I sent you” (Jn 20:21) and “he that hears you hears me and he who rejects you rejects me, while he that rejects – or disobeys – me disobeys the one who has sent me” (Lk 10:16). 2. Our next source that bears upon the same approach to the apostolic continuity and tradition is St. Hippolytus. Hippolytus represents a landmark in the history of the idea of apostolic succession in that he synthesizes two trends, one presenting apostolic succession as a succession of Christ and another regarding succession as a continuity of the ministry of the apostles. These two trends are of decisive importance, as we shall see later, in the formation of the notion of succession in the early Church. The work of Hippolytus that bears directly on our subject is his Apostolic Tradition written in the beginning of the 3rd century but pre- serving Church practices and ecclesiological ideas that go back to the middle of the 2nd century, as it was shown by Harnack.5 This work contains liturgical material concerning the celebration of the Eucharist as well as the rite of ordination to various orders and ministries including the ordination to the episcopate. It is this latter that bears directly on our subject. An analysis of the prayer of ordination to the episcopate reveals that Hippolytus – and the Church of his time? – thinks of the bishop simultaneously as alter Christus and alter apostolus. In this prayer God is asked to (a) give the ordained bishop the “princely Spirit” which according to Psalm 51 (50):14 was given to the Christ, thus making him an “image of Christ” or one acting in persona Christi, and (b) “the authority You (God) gave to the apostles,” i.e. making him alter apostolus. If we combine this information with the fact that the prayer of ordination of the bishop is the only one containing reference to the offering of the Eucharist and presiding over it – something that the prayer of ordination of the presbyter does not mention in Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition – we conclude that the bishop according to Hippolytus succeeds or “images” Christ as the one who offers the Eucharist, while his

3. K. H. Rengstorf, “âpóstolov.” 4. G. Dix, “The Ministry in the Early Church c. A. D. 90-410,” in K. E. Kirk (ed.), The Apostolic Ministry, 183-303. 5. A. von Harnack, review of The So-Called Egyptian Church Order and Derived Documents, by R. H. Connolly, Theologische Literaturzeitung 45 (1920) col. 225. 156 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON capacity as apostolus relates to his power to “bind and lose” sinners and teach the people. In other words, Hippolytus preserves the notion of apostolic continuity which we encounter in I Clement, but combines it with a Christological view of succession, i.e. with the belief that succession perpetuates and affirms also the presence of Christ as head of the community, especially in its eucharistic form. This latter is, as we shall see, of great significance, since it clearly implies that succession passes through the community and is not a matter simply of transmission of authority from one individual to another. A similar view of apostolic succession is found in St. Irenaeus, with whom Hippolytus is con- nected. Irenaeus is known for his insistence on the continuity of apostolic teaching through episcopal succession as a reaction against the claim of the Gnostics that they have some kind of secret succession of teaching that goes back to the apostles (the Gnostics must have been the first ones to insist on succession of apostolic teaching). In this context Irenaeus speaks of the bishops as possessing a certain charisma veritatis, an idea which must be understood in the light of Irenaeus' insistence that there is a direct correspondence between veritas and Eucharist: “our opinion (gnÑmj), i.e. faith or doctrine agrees with our Eucharist and our Eucharist agrees with our faith,”6 he writes against the Gnostics. The bishop is a successor of the apostles not simply and purely as a teacher, but as the head of the eucharistic community. This view is echoed in Hippolytus' insistence that the Church is not a “school,”7 as the heretics treat it, but a community structured eucharistically, as the Apostolic Tradition presents it. It is for this reason that a work entitled by Hip- polytus as “Apostolic Tradition” contains in fact nothing – no doctrine as such – but liturgical instructions for the community. Apostolic tradition, which is equivalent to apostolic continuity, passes through the eucharistic community both for Irenaeus and Hippolytus. 3. Things begin to look a little different with another patristic source which has exercised decisive influence on the formation of the idea of apostolic succession, namely St. Cyprian. One of the most important elements of the ecclesiology of this Father is his view that the structure of the Church is based on the cathedra Petri. This does not mean that St. Cyprian proclaims a universalistic ecclesiology, as it was suggested by the late Fr. Afanassieff,8 since Cyprian understands the “cathedra Petri” not in relation to the Church universal but to every local

6. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses IV, 18, 5. 7. Hippolytus, Philos. 9, 12, 20. 8. See his “La doctrine de la primauté à la lumière de l'ecclésiologie,” Istina 2 (1957) 401-420. THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES 157

Church headed by a bishop.9 Thus, it is a fundamental principle of St. Cyprian's ecclesiology that every bishop sits at the cathedra of St. Peter. This means not only that all bishops are essentially equal, but also that they are all equally successors of the entire apostolic college headed by St. Peter. Now, this view of apostolic succession differs from that of St. Hip- polytus in one important respect. Cyprian seems to ignore the view of Hippolytus that the bishop is alter Christus, and to identify him fully and exclusively with the office of the apostle. In fact he explicitly says so in one of his epistles: “apostolus id est episcopus.”10 This view seems to have won the day eventually, at least in the West (also in Orthodox academic theology). The Hippolytan synthesis according to which succession involves also a representation of Christ as head of His community has been lost. As a result, we encounter in the Middle Ages two ideas that are absent in the first centuries. One is the view that apostolic succession passes from an individual apostle to an individual bishop11 and not from the entire apostolic college headed by Peter as well as Christ – which would mean that (a) each bishop is the successor of all the apostles, and (b) each succession involves the community of the Church headed by Christ. The other consequence of this loss of the Christological dimension of succession was the need to look for a vicarius Christi outside and independently of the apostolic college. These consequences were not intended by St. Cyprian himself who believed, as we have noted, that the apostolic college is unbreakable in its succession to every bishop. But they came as a natural outcome once the Christological discussion that tied up succession to the community and the unified apostolic college was lost.

II. The Syro-Palestinian Tradition of Apostolic Succession

While in the West already since the time of I Clement apostolic tradition tended to mean basically the retrospective connection of each bishop with the apostles (and eventually with a particular apostle, the founder of his Church etc.) another tradition seems to have followed a

9. Epistle 69 (66) 5; 43 (40) 5; De ecclesiae unitate 4. 10. Cyprian, Epistle 3:3. 11. Such a view is wrongly attributed to sources of the first centuries by authors, such as C. H. Turner, “Apostolic Succession: A. The Original Conception,” in H. B. Swete (ed.), Essays on the Early History of the Church and the Ministry (London: Macmil- lan, 1918) 93-114 and N. Afanassieff, “Réflections d'un Orthodoxe sur la collégialité des évêques,” Le Messager orthodoxe 8 (1965) 7-15. 158 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON different line which is worth considering carefully. This tradition appears in the area of Syria and Palestine, which in many respects has developed its own theological physiognomy in the early Church.12 It is to be found in the following sources.

1. St. Ignatius of Antioch and Sources Related to Him It is an interesting fact that in all historical and dogmatic studies on apostolic succession reference to Ignatius of Antioch is avoided. This could be attributed to the silence of this Father on the subject. And yet Ignatius does refer to apostolic continuity albeit in a way that does not fit our classical view of succession as we described it above. According to Ignatius the Church is realized in her fullness when- ever and wherever the faithful of a certain place following their bishop as Christ Himself unite under his presidency in one eucharistic community.13 The belief that the bishop sits “in the place of God” and is the living “icon of Christ” is central to Ignatius' ecclesiology. Hence there is no connection of the bishop with the office of the apostles in Ignatius. But the embarrassing thing is that in Ignatius' description of the structure of the Church the place of the apostles is occupied by the college of the presbyters.14 Does this mean that for Ignatius apostolic succession passes through the presbyters and not through the bishops? This would be a hasty conclusion to arrive at. If we study carefully Ignatius' ecclesiology, we shall notice that for this Father the continuity of the Church is not realized through historical continuity, as is the case with I Clement, but through the gathering of the faithful for the celebration of the Eucharist. In the eucharistic gathering Ignatius sees the image of the eschatological community. This means that for him the Church's continuity passes through the experience of the eschata and not through the retrospective reference to the past. This is a continuity involving a remembrance of the future such as the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom that we celebrate in the Orthodox Church has in mind when it says in the Anaphora that we remember not only Christ's death,

12. For example, with regard to Baptism and Confirmation it is noteworthy that in Syria and Palestine the latter preceded the former liturgically. See T. W. Manson, “Entry into Membership of the Early Church,” Journal of Theological Studies 48 (1947) 25-33. This priority of the Spirit in relation to Christ may not be totally unrelated to the peculiar view of apostolic succession in this region, since, as we shall see, this view is determined by a strong emphasis on the ecclesial community. 13. For a detailed discussion of the sources see Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, L'Eucharistie, l'Évêque et l'Église durant les trois premiers siècles, Théophanie (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1994). 14. Ignatius, Ad Magnesianos 6, 1. THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES 159 resurrection etc., but also “His second coming.” It sounds, of course, very strange to “remember” something that has not yet taken place. Just as it is strange to speak of succession and continuity coming to us not from the past but from the future, the eschaton. And yet this is what a eucharistic view of the Church involves. Ignatius' ecclesiology is of this kind. This eschatological outlook of the Church implies a view of the apostolic ministry which is different from the one we find in I Clement. Here the apostles are not individuals dispersed in order to preach the Gospel and ordain ministers as their successors. They form a college sur- rounding Christ in His eschatological function. Their function is to “sit on the twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19:28) and this they can do only in the context of the gathered people of God and under the headship of Christ. Succession in this case has a Christo- logical dimension and requires the community of the Church in order to function. It is a succession of communities and not of individuals. If the bishop is crucial in this kind of succession, it is because he is the head of a community imaging the eschatological gathering of all around Christ and not because he has received apostolic authority as an individual. The theological conclusions of this position will be drawn later on. For the moment let us stick to the historical evidence. The ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch survives in other Syro- Palestinian sources such as the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum, a document dated at the beginning of the 3rd century AD.15 In this document we find the same conception of Church structure: the bishop sits in the place of God or Christ, who feeds his people with the holy food of the Eucharist. There is no reference to the bishop as apostle. As in the case of Ignatius' epistles here too the bishop is surrounded by the presbyters who constitute his “council” (sunèdrion) which passes final judgement on all matters dividing the members of the community before they can take part in the Eucharistic communion. In other words, we have again the view that the Church is an eschatological community in which the apostolic ministry is exercised by the apostles headed by Christ in the presence of the community gathered together. The power to bind and lose, which is given to the apostles by Christ is in this case exercised by the bishop representing Christ together with the apostles who surround him and in the active presence of the community of the faithful. Apos- tolic continuity and succession take place in and through the entire structure of the community.

15. See the edition and translation by R. H. Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum: The Syriac Version Translated and Accompanied by the Verona Fragment (Oxford: Claren- don Press, 1969). 160 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON

2. The Pseudo-Clementine Literature Similar observations can be made in connection with another document of the Syriac tradition, the authority of which has been quite remarkable in that area during the 4th century, namely the Pseudo- Clementine literature, a work written in Syria some time between the late 3rd and the 4th century AD.16 From a study of this document we gather the following information concerning our subject: a. Apostolic succession occupies a central place in this document, which presents St. Peter as establishing bishops in areas he visits.17 b. It is noteworthy that according to the document we are considering Peter establishes only one bishop in each place he visits. This echoes the canonical provision (Canon 8 of I Nicea) that there should be only one bishop in each city – a provision related to the idea of one eucharistic assembly in each place (see Ignatius). c. An interesting point in the document is that St. James, the brother of Christ, occupies a central and extremely important place in the structure of the Church and in apostolic succession. The author of the document calls James “lord and bishop of the Church”18 or even “lord and bishop of bishops.”19 James is occupying the throne of the extreme High Priest, Christ. Just as Aaron is the head of the priesthood in Israel because he is the brother of Moses in the same way James is the head of the Church's priesthood because he is the brother of Jesus, who is likened to Moses. James succeeds Jesus in His function of High Priest.20 d. This important position attached to James in the Pseudo- Clementine Homilies is related to the importance given by this document to the Church of Jerusalem in apostolic succession. According to the Homilies Peter receives the bishops he installs in the Churches he

16. See H. Waitz, Die Pseudoklementinen: Homilien und Rekognitionen. Eine Quellenkritische Untersuchung, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchrist- lichen Literatur, 25; neue Folge, 10.4) (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1904). See also E. Schwarz, “Unzeitgemässe Beobachtungen zu den Clementien,” Zeitschrift für die neu- testamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 31 (1932) 151-199. See J. Quasten, Patrology, vol. 1: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1950, reprint 1993) 59ff. 17. For example, Zacchaeus in Caesarea (Pseudo Clementine, Homiliae III, 63) and Clement in Rome (Epistle of Clement to James, 2). 18. Epistle of Peter to James, Preface. 19. Epistle of Clement to James, Preface. James is called “Lord and bishop of bishops governing Jerusalem, the holy Church of the Hebrews, and the Churches rightly established by God's providence everywhere.” 20. Epistle of Peter to James, I-III. THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES 161 visits from a group of presbyters of the Church of Jerusalem.21 This means that the author of the Homilies sees in each local Church a continuity with the original community of Jerusalem whose structure is transferred and copied with James at the top of it. We have in this case a scheme of succession which can be traced back to the New Testament in the following way: 1. Gospels: Jesus Christ surrounded by the Twelve 2. Acts: “James and the Apostles” (early chapters) 3. Acts: “James and the presbyters” (later chapters) 4. Ignatius: “Bishop and the presbyters” (see Didascalia) 5. Pseudo-Clementine The Bishop as successor of James, and the Presbyters Homilies: of Jerusalem

In other words this Syrian tradition understands succession as a transmission not of a certain authority from individual to individual but of the original Jerusalem community in its entire structure having Christ as its head replaced in the first place by His brother James and finally by the bishop of every local Church. It is a continuity of communities. e. The deep theological implications of this scheme of succession are the following. Each local Church in its eucharistic structure is the image of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven (see Apoca- lypse), i.e. a repetition and a copy of Jerusalem as the point on which the dispersed people of God were expected to gather in the last days. The outlook is eschatological and not historical – exactly as we have noted in relation to Ignatius of Antioch. In each succession we have a continuity with Jerusalem as the image of the eschatological community in which Christ occupies the throne of God imaged on earth by the bishop. The bishop, therefore, as the successor of James is the living “icon of Christ” – an idea strongly promoted by the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies22 – not as an individual but as the head of his community which in turn is the image of the community of the New Jerusalem of the last days.

3. Hegesippus and the First Episcopal Lists of Apostolic Succession The observations we have just made about the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies are confirmed by another source which bears directly on

21. E.g. Homiliae XI, 36; XX, 2, etc. 22. Homiliae III, 70: the honor given to the bishop goes to Christ whose throne he occupies. 162 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON apostolic succession, namely Hegesippus. In the ¨Upomnßmata, frag- ments of which are preserved in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History,23 Hege- sippus speaks of “successions (plural) in every city as the law and the prophets and the Lord declare.” The author had visited Rome during the time of Pope Anicetus and had known personally many bishops. On the basis of personal research he compiled a list of the bishops of Rome (to be found in Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses III) as well as a short list of bishops of Jerusalem, listed by Eusebius together with a longer one of 15 bishops (up to Narcissus) which Eusebius gets from another source. Hegesippus, therefore, is the earliest source we possess with apostolic succession lists. Now, it is important to note that Hegesippus, too, belongs to what we have called here Syro-Palestinian tradition. He was born in Palestine and was, according to Eusebius, a Jew by birth having aramaic as his mother tongue. What is even more significant is that he not only knew well the Judeo-Christian community of Jerusalem but he seems to ide- alize it considering it to be the prototype of the Church up to the point when the community ceased to be headed by members of the family of David (i.e. of relatives of Jesus), in other words until the death of Symeon. After that the Church of Jerusalem fell into disrepute owing mainly to the behavior of Thebouthis who could not bear the fact that he was not appointed bishop and destroyed the Church. This idealization of the Jerusalem Church and its original Judeo- Christian leadership is related by Hegesippus with the importance he attaches to St. James. He not only regards James as the first bishop of Jerusalem but speaks of him as having succeeded Christ immediately after His Ascension. For him, too, the succession of James is not a succession in apostolicity, strictly speaking, but in the High Priesthood of Christ.24 The bishops, therefore, are according to Hegesippus, successors not in the cathedra Petri, as with St. Cyprian, but in the cathedra Christi (occupied in the first instance by James). That this view of succession did not survive long in the ancient Church is evident in the catalogues of bishops listed by Eusebius. Thus, it is extremely significant that all episcopal lists reported by Eusebius namely those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome, have on the

23. Ecclesiastical History IV, 22. See also II, 23. 24. Ibid. Symeon is elected as successor of St. James “because he was a second cousin of the Lord” (IV, 22, 5). Some historians have understood this as implying a kind of “caliphate” in the leadership of the Jerusalem Church, but the deeper meaning of this practice must be sought in the Christocentric character of episcopal apostolic succession to which we have been referring here. THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES 163 top of them not Peter but James.25 This must be a remnant of the original form of such lists. But when we come to Eusebius' own version we find at the top of these lists a certain apostle. This contradiction in Eusebius' presentation of the succession lists, namely on the one hand having James at the top of all lists, and on the other putting a certain apostle as the head of each particular list, reveals the transition from an earlier to a later stage in the development of the idea of apostolic succession, even in Palestine. From the 4th century onwards it is difficult to find a view of apostolic succession other than the classical one to which we are all accustomed, namely that the bishops succeed a certain apostle in the linear historical sense of continuity. And yet there are certain details that need to be mentioned. In the first place, the idea that the bishop is the “icon of Christ” has survived in both West and East, particularly in the latter.26 It would make little sense to hold this view of the bishop without relating it somehow to succession and continuity: it is a continuity with a Christological dimension without which apostolic succession looses its meaning. Secondly, it not without significance that all ordinations to the episcopate must take place in the context of the Eucharist, i.e. in the presence and participa- tion of the entire community. This means that succession has to come to us not only from the past but also from the future, from the eschatological community with which it is meant to relate each local Church at a given time in history. If this is combined with the fact that no ordination to the episcopate is possible without the mention of the place to which the ordained bishop is attached, it becomes clear that succession means in fact continuity of communities, not of individuals. Therefore, the basic elements of St. Ignatius' ecclesiology did not disappear alto- gether. They simply are there awaiting their incorporation into our concept of apostolic succession, which without them suffers from a dan- gerous one-sidedness and a contradiction between our lex orandi and our lex credendi.

25. See the commonly called Chronicle of Eusebius-Jerome as published by R. Helm, Eusebius Werke, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, 24 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1913) and especially the new edition (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1956). See E. Caspar, Die älteste römische Bischofsliste: Kritische Studien zum Formproblem des Eusebianischen Kanons sowie zur Geschichte der ältesten Bischofslisten und ihrer Entstehung aus apostolischen Sukzessionenreihen, Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, 2.4 (Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Poli- tik und Geschichte, 1926) and A. Ehrhardt, The Apostolic Succession. 26. See O. Perler, “L'évêque, représentant du Christ, selon les documents des premiers siècles,” in Y. Congar and B.-D. Dupuy (eds.), L'épiscopat et l'Église universelle, Unam Sanctam, 39 (Paris: Cerf, 1962) 31-66. 164 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON

Conclusion

We have tried in this brief presentation to outline the main ideas concerning apostolic continuity and succession in the first four centuries of the Church. This brief sketch of the historical evidence has shown that in the early Church the question we are considering here was a complex one. In speaking of continuity and succession we nor- mally have in mind a linear historical sequence coming to us from the past to the present and involving the psychology of a retrospective anamnesis. This is in line with our typical cultural formation influenced as it is by Greek, especial Platonic, thought in which remembrance or “anamnesis” cannot but refer to the past. It is different, however, with Biblical thought, which is conditioned by a culture different from that of the Greeks. As all Biblical scholars know the anamnesis of which the Bible speaks, above all in relation to the Eucharist, is not only an anamnesis of the past but also, if not mainly, the remembrance of the future, of the last days of the eschatological state of the Church and the world.27 This dual sense of anamnesis seems to be at work in the case of apostolic continuity and succession in the early Church. On the one hand there is evidence, particularly in the West, of an understanding of succession in strictly historical terms. This we encounter mainly in I Clement, to some extent in Hippolytus and again in St. Cyprian. It marks Western theology ever since leading up to the present time when academic theology, in both West and East, limits its view of succession to the establishment of factual historical evidence of an uninterrupted chain of episcopal ordinations. Yet, on the other hand there seems to have been in the early Church a strong tradition, represented mainly in Syria and Palestine of a view of continuity and succession that does not involve historicity in the usual sense but is interested mainly in securing a continuity of iden- tity of each local Church with the eschatological community as it was originally expected in and through the original church of Jerusalem and as it is, ever since the destruction and dispersion of this community, experienced in the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, in the community of the Eucharist. Faithfulness to this eschatological community was in this case the main requirement in the search for apostolic continuity and succession.

27. See especially J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London: SCM, 1966), passim and 237f. THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES 165

It is mainly this second view that accounts for the fact that apostolic continuity came to be expressed exclusively as episcopal succession.28 If we miss this we are in danger of misunderstanding what episcopal succession is about. This misunderstanding has in fact occurred when the first of these two views, namely the linear historical one, won the day in the Church. It became sufficient to speak of a con- tinuous chain of episcopal ordinations in order to establish apostolic succession, as if it were a matter of some sort of mechanical activity. It became also a matter of transmission of power and authority from one individual to another. It also led to an understanding of the apostolic college as something standing outside and above the communities if the Church and transmitting prerogatives of a self-perpetuating cast. It led to the appearance of titular and assistant bishops in a massive way as something normal ecclesiologically, and in brief it removed succession from its natural place which is the community of the Church. All this has been the result of the loss of the Christo-centric and eschatalogical approach to apostolic continuity and a replacement of it by the solely historical view. We need, therefore, to work out a synthesis of the two approaches, more or less in the sense in which we find it in St. Hippolytus of Rome or even in the New Testament itself. Such a synthesis would amount to the following points: 1. A “holistic” way of treating succession. We cannot isolate apostolic succession from apostolic continuity in general, i.e. from the rest of the Church's life as she carries over throughout history the Gospel preached by the Apostles. This “holistic” approach would mean that faith as well as sacramental life and ministry all form part of what is received and transmitted in and by the Church. We cannot, for example, expect to have true apostolic succession if the historic chain of ordinations is maintained, but there is deviation from the right faith. And we cannot speak of apostolic succession when there is only episcopal succession while the rest of the ministries, including the laity, are not participating in it. 2. This means that ordination as a sign and visible means of apostolic succession must be an insertion into the life of the community. When this happens the ordained bishop both gives and receives apostolicity from the community into which he is inserted. Apostolic

28. It is noteworthy that there have been no presbyteral succession lists in the first centuries although the presbyters were appointed to instruct the catechumens and teach the faithful (see prayer of ordination for presbyters in Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradi- tion). The bishop was ordained primarily in order to offer the Eucharist and preside over the eucharistic assembly (see prayer of ordination of the bishop in the same service). 166 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON continuity cannot be created ex nihilo through episcopal ordination unless it is somehow already there. And, equally, it cannot be taken for granted unless it is somehow affirmed, sealed and proclaimed through episcopal ordination. There is a reciprocal relationship between bishop and community in the realization of apostolic continuity through succession, which is analogous and equivalent to the mutual dependence between the historical and the eschatological views of continuity. 3. There is, therefore, no apostolic succession which could be lim- ited to the episcopal college as such or to some form of apostolic collegiality. The late Cardinal Yves Congar rightly rejected such a view of episcopal collegiality and asked for its revision.29 Every bishop partici- pates in the episcopal college via his community, not directly. Apostolic succession is a succession of apostolic communities via their heads, i.e. the bishops.30 4. If we take seriously into account the view expressed by St. Cyprian and implied in the Syro-Palestinian tradition we examined here, by understanding apostolic succession as succession of communities rather than individuals (or a college existing above or outside the communities) we implicitly raise the question of the special role in apostolic succession of particular apostolic sees. In the second century and on the occasion of the Pascal controversy Rome claimed special authority because of its relationship with Saints Peter and Paul. Equally the churches of Asia Minor reacted by saying that there, too, important apostles had died (a reference to St. John). If the historical view of succession is not conditioned by the dimension that we have called the eschatological one this kind of argument acquires predominance. It was under the impact of such a historical approach to apostolic succession that Constantinople later on tried to show that it draws its apostolicity from St. Andrew.31 This kind of argument, however, looses a great deal of its strength if the historical view of succession is conditioned by the eschatological one. In this case every local Church is equally apostolic by virtue of the fact that it is the image of the eschatological community, especially when it celebrates the Eucharist. St. Cyprian's view that

29. Y. Congar, Ministères et communion ecclésiale, Théologie sans frontières, 23 (Paris: Cerf, 1971) and L'Église une, sainte, catholique et apostolique, Mysterium Salutis. Dogmatique de l'histoire du salut, 15 (Paris: Cerf, 1970) 250f. 30. B.-D. Dupuy, “La succession apostolique dans la discussion œcuménique,” Istina 12 (1967) 398: “C'est le peuple fidèle en son entier qui porte conjointement avec les ministres la succession apostolique.” 31. See F. Dvorník, The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 4 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958). THE FIRST FIVE CENTURIES 167 each episcopal throne is a cathedra Petri does not in this respect differ from Ignatius' vision of every bishop “sitting in the place of God.” Cyprian's approach is more historical whereas Ignatius' is more eschatological. Both of them, however, see apostolic succession as a reality pass- ing through the local Church wherever this may happen to dwell. 5. Having said this we must not exclude the possibility that a particular local Church and its bishop may have a special function in the realization of apostolic continuity through each local community. Apos- tolic continuity is not something that concerns a particular local Church taken in itself; it is a matter concerning all the local Churches at a regional or even a universal level.32 Such a ministry, however, cannot be exercised by an individual but by a local Church. Apostolic continuity and succession, once again, have to pass through the community even if they are applied to a broader level. This is a demand stemming from the synthesis of the historical with the eschatological approach to apostolic continuity. 6. We have been speaking here of a synthesis of the historical with the eschatological, for we believe that both aspects are essential to apostolic succession. The Church is an entity that receives and re-receives what her history transmits to her (paràdosiv), but this transmission is never a purely historical affair; it takes place sacramentally or, if you pre- fer, eucharistically, i.e. it is experienced as a gift coming from the last days, from what God has promised and prepared for us in His King- dom. This passage of the historical tradition through the eschaton is what the Holy Spirit does in apostolic succession, since the Spirit brings about the last days into history (see Acts 2:17), wherever He blows. Apostolic Tradition ceases to be a gift of the Spirit if it is simply a matter of historical continuity. 7. These remarks relate to our ecumenical situation in a direct way. Some Churches seem to put the accent on historical succession whereas others have tended to regard that as secondary or even unnecessary. In the synthesis we are proposing both are essential. The Church cannot live without memory just as she cannot live without expectation and vision of her final destiny. It is the latter that gives meaning to the former and makes succession relevant to the Church's mission in the world. Having said this we must raise the question: what about those who for some reason or other back the historical form of apostolic succession? Here we must distinguish between those who reject historical

32. See J. D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 201ff and 236f. 168 METROPOLITAN JOHN OF PERGAMON succession out of theological conviction and those who, for accidental historical reasons (e.g. today's Orthodox Church of Albania) have inter- rupted their historical continuity. There is no particular difficulty with the latter, if there is the will to be re-inserted in historical succession. With regard to those, on the other hand, who reject historical succession out of theological conviction the ecumenical dialogue demands that we raise the question why and how they have arrived at this rejection. I venture to suggest that behind this rejection probably lies a denial of historical succession as it developed after the fourth century independently of what we have called here the eschatological and community aspect of apostolicity stemming from a Christo-centric and pneumatological view of continuity. A succession of individuals or of a “college” of individuals transmitting grace and authority from one another independently of the ecclesial community represents a kind of historical succession which does raise difficulties to anyone operating with a Biblical or Patristic ecclesiology. If, however, historical succession is purified from excesses and deviations owing to its detachment from the synthesis of the historical with the eschatological approach to apostolic continuity which we have been discussing here, we may reach a consensus on this thorny matter. Certainly, the way historical succession has come to be understood and practiced since the Middle Ages needs reconsideration. It must be conditioned by a theology of communion and transformed accordingly. This may make it more acceptable to those who have historically rejected it.