Erickson's Comments on the Episcopal Assembly/ Farley on the Presbyterate

The Reverend Fathers Ericsson and Farley have done us a great service in revisiting Ignatian ecclesiology, and we are deeply indebted to them for their wise contribution. However, I wonder if they realise the can of worms they have thus opened? (I think they may, but they may well be keeping their powder dry).

Ignatius was making his comments to an overwhelmingly Gentile Church, very few of which had generations of family history of worshipping Yahweh of the Bible. The Jewish Church in "Jerusalem-Central", however did not have such an impediment in their background.

In the first generation, Jewish-appointed Bishops to overwhelmingly Gentile congregations had to assume a higher prominence in Church-leadership than was the case in Jewish Churches in the "Jerusalem-Central" orbit - thus Ignatius' counsels to his Gentile presbyters.

However, it was always intended from the Jewish "Jerusalem-Central" Churches that once these formerly pagan converts had acquired sufficient generational experience in worshipping the Biblical Yahweh (now in three persons), the clergy in general, and especially the Bishops, would not need to be so central, and would assume the more peripheral role already in use in the "Jerusalem-Central" orbit.

However, the wide-ranging but inadequate Gentile response to Marcion ensured that a certain degree of clerical prominence in Gentile Churches was unnecessarily prolonged beyond the expectations of "Jerusalem-Central", and sadly, was made permanent by Constantinian ecclesiology.

With the Constantinian clergy monopolising both the Charisms of the Spirit, and the Sacraments and Sacramentals of the Church, we find its apogee (or should that be nadir?) in Papal Roman Ecclesiology - as recently advised to us by Fr Hopko.

Sadly, also, it was Constantinian ecclesiology that reduced the "axios" to a mere perfunctory formality that was never challenged in the face of Imperial force majeure. His appointment of Sylvester as Bishop of Rome was the first of tens of thousands in this tradition - where an effective lay "anaxios", supported by the Roman presbyters, would have thwarted the Silvestrine Imperial appointment.

Finally, the installation of Clergy - be they Priest or Bishop, at least in the "Jerusalem-Central" orbit, was initially "bottom-up", never the current "top-down" model.

In this orbit, the local congregation 'discerned' the charism of Priesthood, locally installed that person as their Priest, and invited the Bishop to demonstrate his "catholicity" by ordaining that installed-one as Priest. Moving up the scale, a similar story applied to the formation of Bishops.


Much of the angst in Orthodoxy today over clericalism is actually a "wake" for Constantian ecclesiology, and once this is realised, progress can be made. The US Antiochians with Met Philip could benefit immensely from this insight.