The following is a summary of some tentative thoughts on the biblical meanings of "catholicity" and "authority" and their relations. My thinking in this matter is most influenced by the picture I see in the New Testament, the witness of early church writers (Irenaeus, Cyprian, etc.), and the thought of some recent Eastern Orthodox theologians (in particular Schmemman, Afanassieff, and Meyendorff). Nevertheless, my sphere of application and linguistic usage is that of Presbyterianism and reflects the thinking of certain Dutch Reformed ecclesiologists. Still, the general principles in what follow ought to be widely applicable.

The word and sacraments, present within the fellowship of believers, constitute the church. This is not to deny that the church is primarily a people or to reduce the church to its "institutional" features. Rather, any people must be marked out by some signs (as both Turretin and Aquinas note) and the people of God who are the church are marked out by their faith in Christ expressed in fellowship around the word and sacraments.

Therefore, whenever, by faith, a congregation receives Christ in the word and sacrament under the presidency of its pastor, it does not receive a piece of Christ or part of Christ (since Christ is not divided), but the whole Christ in his fullness. Therefore, that congregation is the Body of Christ--not in part, not a mere fragment, but in its fullness. Thus Paul can write to the Corinthian church, "You all are the Body of Christ!" (1 Cor 12:27). Catholicity is a characteristic of each and every congregation equally.

Thus the relation between a particular congregation, with its pastor, to wider church groupings is not the relation of "part to whole" or of "part to greater part." Rather each church is the one and same church with every other, even if not a mere identical repetition of other churches. But this also implies that there is a unity to the church and that every other church is indispensible for each church. Universal unity of the one Body of Christ is the unity of the Church, not merely the unity of Churches that somehow assemble together to form larger groupings and ultimately one universal organism. Rather, each church is the same church indivisibly (though uniquely) present where they gather.

None of this is to say that an individual congregation has no need for other congregations or is not dependent upon them. I'm not suggesting a sort of autonomous congregationalism. Rather, it implies that every other congregation existing at a particular time is absolutely inseparable and indivisible from every other because they all share in the same gift of Christ equally. It is when one congregation supposes it can dispose over that gift as its own private possession problems arise (that we pure folks over here are the "only true church," etc.) for that supposes that Christ can be divided. Of course, the indivisibility of the church does not imply that the relationship between one congregation and another will be precisely repeatable in its relation with any other congregation. This is not implied any more than the essential one-and-the-sammeness of every church implies that they are each mere identical re-iterations of one another. And so churches will associate with more local churches in ways that are different than associations regionally or nationally.

The authority in the local church is the pastor-bishop (for simplicity's sake I'll set aside issues of ruling elders and the like; you may weave them in as you wish). The pastor has authority within the church, over a particular congregation. His authority comes directly from Christ through the Spirit as a gift (charism) to the local congregation and is not derived from the authority of any higher body, whether the Presbytery or General Assembly (that is, roughly, archdiocesan and national councils). This is not to say, however, that the Presbytery has no role in the ordination of pastors (more on that below).

The New Testament does not know of any power or authority higher than that of a pastor who ministers in the name of Christ over his congregation (the Jerusalem council notwithstanding). Moreover, the authority of each pastor is the same as that of every other. That is part of why the (pastor's) ministry of word and sacrament in each congregation is part and parcel of the relation between every congregation. Thus every pastor shares in the one and same authority as every other (though again in not-strictly-repeatable ways; a 70 year old pastor with much experience and wisdom shares the same authority as a 35 year old pastor insofar as each teach the word and administer the sacraments, but that one-and-the-same authority is manifest uniquely in each).

If that is the case, however, there is a real sense in which an assembly of pastors (e.g., a Presbytery) cannot have any more authority than one pastor because the authority of each member of the assembly is the same as the authority of the whole. Thus there is no question of any one pastor (bishop, cardinal, pope) having authority over any other pastor or group of other pastors; nor is there any question of an assembly of pastors (Presbytery, Synod, General Assembly, Ecumenical Council) having authority over any pastor or group of pastors. The authority of each is the authority of every other. This also implies, that whatever authority assemblies have, it is no less than the authority of an individual pastor, nor is something that is derived from the consent of the congregations (no matter what juridical procedures may be in place constitutionally for choosing leaders). The authority of the pastoral assembly is as much the gift of Christ as the authority of any pastor.

Despite the possibility of juridical canons that seem to imply the contrary, Presbyterian polity bears witness to this basic outlook in a variety of ways. For example, when a pastor is ordained by a Presbytery it is as a man who is called by a local congregation to be its pastor. And when the ordination is completed with the laying on of hands by the other pastors of the Presbytery, it is the newly ordained who gives the apostolic blessing (benediction). This bears witness to the fact that as soon as the ordinand is ordained, he is a pastor of that congregation and, further, that since their pastor is present, it is not the perogative of any other member of the Presbytery to give the benediction. This is because the Presbytery does not have a special power over that congregation in the presence of its own pastor. Furthemore, while the other pastors of the Presbytery are the proper ministers of ordination, it is not a matter of them giving over some of their "power" as pastors (or overseeing power as the Presbytery) to the ordinand to make him a pastor too. Rather, as fellow pastors who share in the same gift, power, and call from the Spirit, they are, in the act of laying on hands, bearing witness to and giving testimony to the call of God and Spirit's gifts for the ordinand, gifts that are received by the ordinand in the laying on of hands. And so the Presbytery also bears witness to fundamental identity of God's gift in Christ in which they all share.

What then is the role of the Presbytery or General Assembly and what power or authority does it have? It is not one of power or authority over local churches for its power is not greater or fuller than the power of the pastor over the local church. Nevertheless, Presbyteries and the like are organs through which the unity and identity of individual churches (with one another as the church) is realized, maintained, and manifest. Such associations bear witness to that identity. Remember that each church needs the others and is dependent upon them. This interdependence is manifest in the Presbytery, General Assembly, etc., by each church bearing witness to its unity and identity with every other and all of them together bearing that same witness.

It is part of the church's ongoing witness as a missionary church to come together in various ways to carry out the business of the of church and to deal with those problems that inevitably arise within the church this side of eternity. The authority of the decisions of the assembled Presbytery or General Assembly bearing witness to the mind of Christ do not derive from the consent of the congregations (any more than the authority of the pastor does), nor do they derive from the juridical procedure set up by the denomination's constitution granting such assemblies certain rights. Their authority derives, rather, from the authority of Christ manifest in the office of pastor in which the members of the assembly share. Thus, the authority of their decision ultimately rests in the fact that they bear witness to the mind of Christ and so their decisions are true. And recall, the authority of the assembly is not a "higher power" than that of an individual pastor, but the same power that all pastors share. But the "order" that exists within the church through its Presbyteries and Assemblies is the necessary condition for the one mind of Christ to be manifest by each of the participating churches that together are the church because they are one and the same Body of Christ.

As a final note, it should be clear that I am not advocating any kind of congregationalism. For a church to isolate itself from other churches and seek its own interests is a direct contradiction of the fullness of Christ in which each church shares. If catholicity is to be an attribute of each local congregation ("Where Christ is, there is the catholic Church" Ignatius, "Letter to Smyrna" 8.2), then it follows that each church needs all the others since they too share fully in that catholicity. The fellowship within each congregation is the analogically same fellowship that exists among congregations. But the function of the Presbytery or Assembly is not to secure or create the unity of the churches, but to bear witness to it and manifest it (as did the Jerusalem council in Acts 15). This is why the Roman Catholic notion of the Pope as the sine qua non of unity and as having universal jurisdiction over the whole church is impossible (and this is not to deny the possibility of there being a single bishop who has universal primacy in some other sense). Nor can the papacy be simply replaced with a council that juridically functions in the same way.

These points also have some interesting implications. Historically and biblically, the church has always been organized locally, usually starting in a particular locale and then branching out into "daughter" churches of the earlier churches. Thus Paul writes to the "churches of Christ" (e.g., Rom 16:4; 1 Cor 4:17; Gal 1:21-22; etc.) which he specificies as the "church at Corinth" (1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1) or "of the Thessalonians" (1 Thess 1:1) or the church in a particular house (Rom 16:5; Col 4:15) or by some other local designation. But as churches work together, it appears to be regionally. Thus Ephesians was likely an encyclical letter to various churches in western Asia Minor. There is a close relation between the churches at Colossae and Laodicea (Col 4:13-16). Similarly, Titus has a role in all the churches of Crete (Tit 1:5) as Timothy may also have among the churches of greater Ephesus (1 Tim 5:17-22). The book of Revelation is written to seven churches all located together in Asia Minor.

In the New Testament, we also begin see the loyalty of "daughter churches" toward their "mother church." We first see this in the relation between the churches of Palestine (Judea, Samaria, etc.) and the mother church in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1, 25; 9:26, 31; 11:22; etc.). This is repeated on a larger scale in the relation of farther flung churches to the original Jerusalem church (Acts 15; Gal 2:1-10 + Acts 11:27-30; 1 Co 16:1-4; etc.). It can also been seen, however, in more local regional patterns between churches: the relation of Gentile churches to the church in Antioch (Acts 11:19-26; 13:1-3; 14:26-28; 15:30-41; 18:22; etc.); the role of Ephesus in Asia Minor (1 Cor 16:19 + Acts 18:26; 1 Tim; Rev 2-3); the likely role of Corinth in Achaia (Acts 18:2 + 19:1; 2 Cor 1:1; 9:2; Rom 16:1); on so on.

All of these points seem to me to imply that, in the overall scheme of things, the associations between local churches (whether Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, Methodist, Episcopal, etc.) are more important than the association of the local Presbyterian church with its denomination's General Assembly. How this implication is to be worked out practically in the relationships between local churches is precisely the ecumenical difficulty and the possibility for ecumenical progress.

Afanassieff, Nicholas. "The Church which Presides in Love" in The Primacy of Peter. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1992.

Meyendorff, John. "The Catholicity of the Church" in The Living Tradition. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press 1978:81-98.

Murray, John. "The Church: Its Definition in Terms of 'Visible' and 'Invisible' Invalid" in Collected Writings, volume one. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976:231-236.

Schmemann, Alexander. "The Idea of Primacy in Orthodox Ecclesiology" in The Primacy of Peter. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1992.