So we aren't being all Orthodox-like and early-Christian-like and all that. Atleast according to the Orthodox guy who provided a history lesson. W
Instead we're being ... well, not historically Christian.
The Episcopalians have something like that though, with bishops and lay people voting. As if that is working out well for them. Their 'success' becomes our new model.
Indeed, Metropolitan Job’s statement is basically correct on the definition of a Synod in the Orthodox Church, and also you are correct in applying that terminology to the early Church, although there is one exception, that being at most of the ecumenical synods, the Pope of Rome was represented by legates, who may or may not have been bishops, but were acting as representatives for himself and the Latin-speaking Church, but they were afforded the same dignity as other attendees, with for example, the two present at Nicaea making contributions to the discussion, and also siding with St. Athanasius the Great, the protodeacon of Pope St. Alexander of Alexandria, who represents another exception, for he was at the time not yet a bishop, but rather the Protodeacon of the Church of Alexandria, a powerful position, and he was there to make a case to the bishops as to why Arius should be deposed, on behalf of the elderly Pope St. Alexander. Who like many of the bishops attending Nicaea (such as St. Nicholas of Myra, whose myrrh-streaming relics are in the Roman Catholic church in Bari, and the clergy there graciously allow Orthodox Christian pilgrims, who were the first to discover his relics were among those that miraculously stream myrrh when the relics were in the possession of the Orthodox, the same freedom as Catholic pilgrims to receive some of that blessed myrrh) had been tortured in the Diocletian persecution which had only ended eleven years previously, and which had claimed the earthly life of his predecessor Pope St. Paul of Alexandria, who received a crown of martyrdom.
Note that Alexandrian Popes do not have the same authority within their churches as the Roman Pope has; rather their function is the same as other Orthodox primates, in that it is limited to presiding over the Holy Synod of the Church of Alexandria, which consists only of bishops. I do recall hearing of some Holy Synods also having archimandrites and the hegumens of major monasteries present. About 8 years ago however the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Norrth America, who at the time was the Metropolitan of Bursa (formerly known as Chalcedon, which during his Metropolitanate went from being a diocese with one parish church with about 15 members to being a ceremonial diocese like so many others in Asia Minor, such as Nyssa and Thyateira, with no parishes or laity, since he failed to protect the congregation from Turkish opposition to its existence, although to be fair we don’t know that he did not try, and it may well be that he fought very hard to keep the church open, I have not been able to find out one way or another, but the closure of the last church in Chalcedon is a depressing addition to the long list of historically important churches in Asia Minor such as Nicaea, Ephesus, Laodicea, Caesarea, Edessa, Nisibis and Antioch without a permanent continually-operating Orthodox Church, although some of these places have non-denominational Protestant churches), claimed the Ecumenical Patriarchate was not primus inter pares but primus sine paribus, with the sole power to grant autocephaly and most controversially, the power to revoke autocephaly. Presumably this is why the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has never recognized the Orthodox Church of America, whose autocephaly was granted by the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in 1971 (in a deal that saw the Orthodox Church of Japan, which had been under the control of the OCA, becoming an autonomous church under the omophorion of the Moscow Patriarchate, although I would say they have done a good job, and the Metropolitan of Japan is a Japanese Orthodox Christian, unlike the Bishop of the autonomous American Carpatho Rusyn Orthodox Diocese, which is under the Omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and is not a Ruthenian, Rusyn or Lemko but rather Greek, the Bishop of the ceremonial diocese of Nyssa, and indeed he took the name Gregory when he was ordained Bishop of ACROD).
Now this all being said, it is also true that most Anglican churches have a parliamentary governing body which is in some cases tricameral, featuring a House of Bishops, a House of Presbyters and a House of Laity. However in recent years frequently it has been the bishops who have been the once who forced through a negative change. Among Lutherans, oddly enough, the word synod is used by the ELCA to refer to what are, in effect, dioceses, which in several cases were independent Lutheran churches which merged into the ALC or the LCA, such as the predominantly Swedish Augustana Synod, the Finnish Lutheran Synod, and several others, with only the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, and the closely related Lutheran Church of Canada, both of which use the word District to refer to the equivalent of Dioceses, and which apparently have bishops, despite having a Congregational Polity, although I am not sure what the exact function of an LCMS/LCC bishop is. There also exist non-geographic districts, the English District in the LCMS and the English District in the LCC, which were founded by English speaking Lutherans in the 19th century including converts from other Christian denominations, and which historically had a reputation for being theologically liberal, however, I am told this is no longer the case, and I believe it, because since the 1970s, the LCMS has made a concerted effort to be more theologically conservative, much like the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Orthodox Church of Georgia, and more recently the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, whose Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has cracked down on homosexuals in the diocese openly defying the Roman Catholic Church by refusing to remain celibate, has made a concerted effort to be more conservative and traditional.
I would also suggest that the Roman Catholic Church has the freedom to include in a synod those who it wishes, but synodality and conciliarity and the Church Slavonic term Sobornost have specific meanings in the Orthodox Church and it might perhaps be beneficial for future ecumenical dialogue if the RCC and the Orthodox continued to use standard definitions derived from the Early Church, and the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate delivered a simplified explanation of what that meaning is, although there are some slight exceptions as I have noted. Also, the Russian Orthodox Church was for a time governed by an uncanonical Holy Synod after Czar Peter “the Great” refused to allow the Holy Synod to elect a successor to Patriarch NIkhon, and instead dismissed most of them, uncanonically, leaving only three major Metropolitans (I would assume the Metropolitans of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev, but I can’t recall, I should look it up), and his own representative, the Imperial Procurator, who was in charge of the finances of the Russian Orthodox Church, which resulted in the Czars having an effective and uncanonical control over the Russian Orthodox Church and which resulted in a period of stagnation which was overcome through the piety of individual Russian Orthodox saints like Seraphim of Sarov, Ignatius Brianchaninov, John of Kronstadt, and others in the 19th century, and also those 18th century missionaries in Alaska, and the laity, who became very interested in Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer thanks to an anonymous book, which may have been fictional or autobiographical, The Way of a Pilgrim.
And this prompted Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov to write a book “On the Prayer of Jesus” and if I recall, thanks in part to Thomas Merton’s visit to Mount Athos in the 1950s, the Jesus Prayer has become popular in the Roman Catholic Church as a devotion alongside the Hail Mary, which the Orthodox also use as part of the Prayer Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov, which is similar to the Rosary, and several other forms of devotion such as Lectio Diivina, the Ignatian exercises, the Novena, the Angelus and Eucharistic Adoration, and recently there has been an interesting book published which seeks to provide a liturgical way of praying the Rosary. Also the Ruthenian Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Greek Catholic parishes I routinely watch on YouTube appear to celebrate the second Sunday in Lent as the Feast of St. Gregory of Palamas, who defended the Hesychast monks and the teaching on hesychasm of St. Symeon the New Theologian before a synod convened to determine whether or not the allegations of another monastic who if I recall was named Barlaam, that Hesychasm was an heretical practice, had any merit. However, the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia took a dim view of Hesychasm, and I can understand why Roman Catholics might well have been, and in some cases, still are, skeptical of it and the Jesus Prayer given that the Roman Catholic Church had to deal with the neo-Messalian heresy of Quietism in the 17th and 18th centuries, although if I read a statement of the CDF that addressed subjects of prayer and meditation correctly, that was issued by Pope Benedict XVI, memory eternal, Hesychasm was approved provided one had a spiritual director, which is also the rule among the Orthodox.
Speaking of Pope Benedict XVI I hope there is a movement afoot to beatify him and canonize him as a saint. Given the speed with which Pope St. John Paul II was canonized, or glorified as we say in the Orthodox church, a status I thoroughly approve of by the way, as I regarded Pope St. John Paul II as being the greatest Pope since St. Pius X, and one of my personal favorites (the others include but are not limited to Popes St. Gregory the Great, St. Celestine, St. Sixtus, St.. Clement I and of course St. Peter the Apostle), it seems to me given the extreme piety of Pope Benedict XVI and his important contributions to Roman Catholic Theology both during his Papacy and during his tenure as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, There should be a movement to get him beatified and canonized. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the standard for canonization requires, among other things, two confirmed miracles? In the Orthodox Church there are no defined criteria, other than martyrs are granted sainthood immediately (there being one exception, a disputed case involving a young Russian soldier captured by Islamic fundamentalists in Chechnya and executed by them, with the obvious controversy resulting from his status as a belligerent in a military conflict, although there is a popular movement to have him glorified, the Moscow Patriarchate seems unwilling to budge on the issue, since in Orthodoxy as in Catholicism the status of martyr is not usually granted to persons killed in a military confrontation with Muslims, which is a major point of divergence between our religion and theirs, as is well known that Islamic fundamentalists regard terrorists as martyrs.
At any rate the Roman Catholic Church remains in my prayers and I love all of you, my Roman Catholic friends, and it is my intention to attend the local Traditional Latin Mass this Sunday. I believe I have said this before, but I am convinced the RCC has efficacious sacraments and I wish that more Orthodox churches would reciprocate the policy of the Roman Catholics by which Assyrian and Orthodox Christians such as those out of convenient range of their own parish can receive the Eucharist; thus far I have only heard of the Syriac Orthodox parish in Istanbul offering the Eucharist to Roman Catholics, although the Assyrian Church of the East and I believe also the Ancient Church of the East will give the Eucharist to anyone who has been baptized and believes in the Nicene Creed and the Real Presence, and if I recall, this occurs fairly frequently in Iraq with Chaldeans receiving the Eucharist in Assyrian parishes and vice versa.
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