One ecclesiological school of thought within Orthodoxy, particularly popular among the Russians, holds that the Church exists most fundamentally at the local level, in the community led by a local bishop and gathered around the Eucharistic table. The universal/Catholic Church is fully present in each local Eucharistic community.
Dear Edwin,
The teaching of the Fathers is balanced and takes into account both the local Church (as eucharistic community gathered around the bishop) AND the Universal Church.
The below is from Bp Kallistos Ware’s
The Orthodox Church, written btw when he was a layman in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
First, the view of the Church as a eucharistic community…
"The Empire through which these first Christian missionaries traveled 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 eacThe Empire through which these first Christian missionaries traveled 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 widely established by the end of the first century. We can see it in the seven short letters which Saint Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, wrote about the year 107 as he traveled 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. (To the Magnesians, 6, 1; To the Smyrnaeans, 8, 1 and 2; To the Ephesians, 20, 2).
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 (The Liturgy: this is the term normally used by Orthodox to refer to the service of Holy Communion, the
Mass), 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 center of unity in the local
community will occur with particular vividness.
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