The Regime of the Synodality in the Eastern Church of the First Millennium and Its Canonical Basis
Abstract
The synodal form of organisation — sought and established for His Church by Her Founder, that is, by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and affirmed by His Apostles — was also expressly reaffirmed by the canonical legislation of the Eastern Church of the first millennium. By adapting the form of administrative-territorial organisation of the Church to that of the Roman State — sanctioned by the canons of the Ecumenical Synods (cf. can. 4, 6 Sin. I Ec.; 2, 6 Sin. II Ec.; 9, 17, 28 Sin. IV Ec.; 36 Sin. VI Ec.) — in the life of the Eastern Church several types of synods appeared, starting with the eparchial (metropolitan) synod of a local Church and ending with the patriarchal synod, both still present in the autocephalous Churches of Eastern Orthodoxy.
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