Zizioulas begins chapter six of Being as Communion by noting how scholastic theology has distorted our understandings of ordination and ministry. It did this, firstly, by viewing them as autonomous subjects apart from Christology or Trinitarian theology. And, secondly, by viewing Christology as an autonomous subject, unrelated to Trinitarian theology and to ecclesiology, something that has led to Christomonistic tendencies not only in relation to the person of Christ, but also in relation to His ministry which has become abstracted from the concrete ecclesial community. Such perspectives are incompatible with the vision of the Greek Fathers, whose vision Zizioulas outlines as follows:
(a) “There is no ministry in the Church other than Christ’s ministry,” so much so that the Church’s ministry is identified with that of Christ. (210)
(b) This identity is only possible if we allow our Christology to be conditioned pneumatologically.
What, therefore, the Spirit does through the ministry is to constitute the Body of Christ here and now by realizing Christ’s ministry as the Church’s ministry.
The implications of this include the following: (i) the ministry of the Church does not represent an “interim” period in the stages of Heilsgeschichte, but it exists as an expression of the totality of the Economy. We cannot, therefore, understand the nature of the ministry by seeing it simply in terms of a past (Christ’s ministry in Palestine) or a present (ministry as service to the needs of today) but of the future as well, namely as sustaining from creation the hope of the eschata, of sharing God’s very life, by offering a taste of that here and now; (ii) the identification of the Church’s ministry with that of Christ is to be seen in existential soteriological terms which have profound anthropological and cosmological implications. If soteriology means, as it was the case in the patristic period, not so much a juridical reality by means of which forgiveness is granted for an act of disobedience, but rather a realization of theosis, as communion of man – and through him of creation – in the very life of the Trinity, then this identification acquires existential importance: the Church’s ministry realizes here and now the very saving work of Christ, which involves the very personal life of the one who saves. (211-212)
(c) This makes the Holy Spirit constitutive of the very relation between Christ and ministry, something with important implications for theology, for it underlines the interdependence between ministry and the concrete community of the Church.
If we bear this in mind, we can understand better certain liturgical and practical elements in ordination, which theologians tend to bypass in constructing their views on the ministry. Thus, according to the ancient tradition common to both East and West, (i) all ordinations must be related to a concrete community, and (ii) all ordinations must take place within the context of the eucharistic assembly. … It is the eucharist, understood properly as a community and not as a “thing,” that Christ is present here and now as the one who realizes God’s self-communication to creation as communion with His life, and in the existential form of a concrete community created by the Spirit. Thus the eucharistic assembly becomes, theologically speaking, the natural milieu for the birth of ministry understood in this broader soteriological perspective. (213-214)
A vow of conversation 
February 15, 2009 at 7:50 pm
[…] Thus the bishop is a link between the local church and the universal church. This is very important to Orthodox Christians, and forms an important part of Orthodox ecclesiology. The link is in time as well as in space. Some other Christian bodies, such as the Roman Catholics and Anglicans, have bishops among their ministries, but they are not quite as significant in maintaining the unity of the body. For Roman Catholics the unity is through one bishop, the bishop of Rome, who is in effect a kind of bishop of bishops. Among Anglicans the ties are weaker, with some (the “high church”) believing that bishops are important and others (the “low church”) thinking that they are less so. For more on the difference between Orthodox ecclesiology and other ecclesiologies, see my article on Orthodoxy and emerging church revisited. For more on the theologybehind this see Zizioulas on ministry and communion. […]
February 16, 2009 at 5:16 am
It seems that another implication of Zizioulas’s argument is that the fullness of the universal church is contained in, but not necessarily limited to, the local church. Wouldn’t that be our catholicity?
Regarding Anglican bishops, my hope is that the current crisis will help Anglicanism to recover a more full expression of the episcopate. I think it has always been there but often not well expressed or lived. In the past couple of years the Archbishop of Canterbury has reaffirmed that the organ of union is the bishop.
February 16, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Mike, thanks for your comment. Zizioulas sees the local and the universal as coinciding in the Eucharist. For more, seethis post.
I wouldn’t dare to comment on the Anglican situation, except to say that it’s hardly surprising that an archbishop as rooted the patristic tradition as Rowan Williams is would point to the importance of the episcopate! And I think that it’s clear that this is an area that Catholics still need to deal with as well. Vatican II and the theological renewal preceding it certainly made great strides, but there is much work yet to be done.
February 16, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Anglicanism is at its best when it has lived out of its patristic roots. I hope we can see past the distractions and recover that tradition. That would, I believe, provide a way forward. Pray for us.
Thank you for your blog. I enjoy and look forward to reading your posts. Peace, Mike
February 17, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I think that we’re all at our best when living out of our patristic roots!
Thanks for your kind words.