Indeed he is, as are all our bishops. So he was really a bishop, not an apostle. Do you understand the difference between an apostles, who has world-wide authority and a bishop, who have local authority only?
Yes, a bishop has authority over his local diocese, but who has the authority to establish the Church in a particular place, as the apostles and disciples did? The
bishop. For example, when our little Coptic community in New Mexico first began to meet over twenty years ago, there was no ecclesiastical structure in the state, so they couldn't get their own priest to hold their own liturgies. In the meantime, they wrote to the nearest Coptic Orthodox bishop and with his blessing and the blessing of his Greek Orthodox counterpart (since the Greek Orthodox are not in communion with us), they were allowed to be received by the local Greek Orthodox clergy until such time that they were enough in numbers to get their own priest(s) and start having their own liturgies. And when that time came, the priest was sent by order of the bishop, and hence the Church was established in some place where it hadn't been before.
This is the standard pattern, as you can also see by looking at the Coptic Orthodox Church in Bolivia, the Syriac Orthodox Church in Guatemala, and so on. Nothing is done without the bishop, as the bishop has the authority from the apostles themselves who, after all, ordained bishops to carry on their work.
Bishops are the legitimate successors to the apostles, not some modern day 'prophets' unrecognized by the Church. If this weren't the case, we wouldn't see the historical examples that we see, wherein (e.g.) Montanism and other 'new prophecy' movements were rejected by the Church. (Montanism arose in the late 2nd century; NYCGuy is very correct that this 'new prophecy' stuff has been going on for a long time, and has always been rejected by the Christian faithful.)
When the apostles lived, they would go around the world setting up churches, and they would ordain a bishop in a particular local area to be the leader of the local church.
Yep.
So world-wide vs local. A major difference between an apostle and a bishop. Athenasius was ordained to be the bishop of Alexandria. He was not ordained to be a world-wide apostle.
Yes, St. Athanasius was the Bishop/Pope of Alexandria, and his canonical territorial authority was thereby limited to Egypt and its related territories (Pentapolis/Libya, Nubia/Sudan). What you may not know, however, is that St. Athanasius was exiled several times during his papacy to areas of the Western Roman Empire (what is now Trier, Germany, and later to Gaul in the area of Holland/Belgium). Being received in those places as an honored guest of the bishop (at that time, Maximinus of Trier and Hosius of Cordoba, respectively), he continued to compose his annual festal letters, whereby the faithful were informed of, among other things, the date of the celebration of Easter for that year. (The historical role of the Bishop/Pope of Alexandria in determining the date of Easter goes back to the second century, even before St. Athanasius, and is the reason why part of his traditional title includes the phrase "Judge of the Universe" -- this is not to be understood literally, as that only applies to Christ, but uses "judge" in the old sense of "determine", as he determined the date for the celebration of Easter at a time when that was actually quite a sticking point in Christianity; see the Quartodeciman controversy for more on this.)
So it's not like "Oh, you're not in your See, therefore you have no authority." He was the guest of other bishops while residing in their canonical territories, but he still exercised his authority in those matters in which he customarily would have done so (as in the calculation of the date of Easter), and importantly continued to be recognized in exile by bishops of East and West as the sole legitimate Patriarch of the Egyptian Church. A bishop does not cease to be a bishop when he is traveling/exiled/otherwise away from his see.
So in a sense, I understand and agree with you (we OO are not like Roman Catholics; we do not have, desire, or recognize a "universal bishop" over the all Christians). In another sense, however, you are circumscribing the powers of the bishops in a manner which contradicts the historical witness of their authority, as in the case of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic. (And he is far from the only example that could be marshaled to make this point; he just happens to be the one we are talking about, but similar incidents involving, e.g., HH St. Dionysius' involvement in the Donatist controversy in North Africa are instructive -- this was a controversy involving the Roman churches of Carthage and elsewhere in North Africa, which brought St. Cyprian into conflict with the Roman Popes of his day, Stephen and Xystus, and yet HH St. Dionysius saw fit to communicate with all involved in order to strengthen the position of the party he felt was correct, as is right among bishops seeking conciliar agreement to avoid schism; in that case, it was a bit of clean up work, as I believe the affected churches had already been excommunicated at some earlier point, but the lesson still stands: A bishop's canonical territory outlines the areas under his direct control and administration; it does not limit him from being involved in matters outside of his diocese, so long as he respects that he does not have the authority to run another bishop's diocese.)
He and his followers gave him the name of 'the honorific', the apostolic',
I think you misread this portion of my post: the honorific is 'St. Athanasius
the Apostolic', rather than his more common title in the West (I believe it's 'the Great', but RC/EO may correct me on this, if I'm wrong).
which is like getting an 'honorary degree' from some college, but was really not a true degree.
Uh...it's an honorific. Honorifics themselves don't bestow any authority or particular rank upon the people holding them, but are generally given in recognition of the role the person receiving them is already in. Read: Roman Catholics didn't all wake up one day and decide to call Pope Francis "Your Holiness" -- that's the conventionalized way of addressing him in their church. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, bishops are addressed as "Sayedna" -- literally 'our master'. The Pope is addressed as "Sayedna al-Baba _____" (name), literally "Our master, Pope ____". The Pope gets the same honorific as a bishop because in Orthodox ecclesiology, the Pope is a bishop. (It's not really a separate 'office' like it is in Roman Catholicism, but rather the name of the most senior bishop of the Church.)
Jane is right. One of the special events in an apostles life is that they were a witness of the living Christ. Everyone up to Paul had actually lived with Jesus so they automatically were special witnesses. Paul, however, was not a companion of Jesus, so in order for Paul to be a special witness, Jesus had to appear to him and did so on the way to Damascus. This interview was short and sweet, but just what an apostle needed to be callled an apostle. So the model is set. You must know Jesus personally in order to be an apostle.
Okay. By that definition, we have many, many apostles. Most famously, St. Bishoy, the fourth century desert father, saw Christ on many occasions, and is known to have both carried Him upon his back, and to have washed His feet. Other saints as well, such as St. Shenouda the Archimandrite (my baptismal saint) are recorded as having seen and spoken with Christ personally. Does that make either of them apostles? Apparently according to Mormonism it would, but they're not referred to in that way in the Church they actually belong to.
(Pictured: depiction of St. Bishoy washing Christ's feet; Monastery of St. Mina, Mariut, Egypt)
So the question is not how many churches he set up outside of his area of authority, as a bishop of Alexandria, the question did he have an interview with Jesus Christ and was he called to be an apostle and given authority to go out on a world-wide apostolic mission to establish churches?
Neither of those are the question. He is a bishop. All bishops are given the authority to go on a world-wide mission and establish churches, because that's what the apostles did, and the bishops are the sucessors to the apostles.
So in any of his writings, did he mention that he had a visit from Jesus Christ and Jesus gave him instructions?
Not that I'm aware of (though I don't have any of his letters on hand at the moment), but that does not matter. The Christian Church does not function according to Mormon definitions of how a church should operate. I might as well ask you which of your community's 'apostles' can trace his lineage back to the twelve or to the seventy, as Christian bishops can, but that would be silly for much the same reason as your question is silly: it is self-evident that the Mormon church does not work that way, so the fact that they can't does mean anything beyond the fact that, according to Christianity, Mormons do not actually have bishops (which is obvious enough, since none were ordained by bishops of actual Christian churches, since Mormonism is not a part of Christianity, but is its own religion somewhat rooted or connected to Christianity by virtue of making use of its scriptures and terminology).
