In Christianity, a bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. Bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses, although some function in the various Christian denominations and traditions as auxiliaries, apostolic administrators, and as titular bishops.
The role or office of the bishop is called episcopacy or the episcopate. Organisationally, several Christian denominations utilise ecclesiastical structures that call for the position of bishops, while other denominations have dispensed with this office, seeing it as a symbol of power. Bishops have also exercised political authority within their dioceses. Historically, Manichaeism also employed a similar office within their church, having a fixed number of 72 bishops.
Traditionally, bishops claim to be within apostolic succession and the historic episcopacy, a direct historical lineage dating back to the original Twelve Apostles, Saint Paul, or one of the Seventy. The bishops are by doctrine understood as those who possess the full priesthood given by Jesus Christ, and therefore may ordain other clergy, including other bishops. A person ordained as a deacon, priest (i.e. presbyter), and then bishop is understood to hold the fullness of the ministerial priesthood, given responsibility by Christ to govern, teach and sanctify the Body of Christ (the Christian Church). Priests, deacons and lay ministers co-operate and assist their bishops in pastoral ministry.
Some Pentecostal and other Protestant denominations have bishops who oversee congregations, though they do not necessarily claim apostolic succession, with exception to those Pentecostals and Charismatics affiliated to churches founded by J. Delano Ellis and Paul S. Morton.
Etymology and terminology The English word bishop derives, via Latin , Old English , and Middle English , from the Greek word , meaning "overseer" or "supervisor". Greek was the language of the early Christian church, but the term did not originate in Christianity: it had been used in Greek for several centuries before the advent of Christianity.
The English words priest and presbyter both derive, via Latin, from the Greek word , meaning "elder" or "senior", and not originally referring to priesthood.
In the early Christian era the two terms were not always clearly distinguished, but is used in the sense of the order or office of bishop, distinct from that of , in the writings attributed to Ignatius of Antioch in the second century.
Christian episcopal development According to most scholars, the earliest organization of the Christian church in Jerusalem was similar to that of Jewish synagogues, but it had a council or college of ordained presbyters (). In Acts 11:30 and Acts 15:22, a collegiate system of government in Jerusalem is chaired by James the Just, according to tradition the first bishop of the city. In Acts 14:23, the Apostle Paul ordains presbyters for churches in Anatolia. The word presbyter was not yet distinguished from overseer (, later used exclusively to mean bishop), as in Acts 20:17 and 20:28, Titus 1:5–7 and 1 Peter 5:1. The earliest writings of the Apostolic Fathers, the Didache and the First Epistle of Clement, for example, show the church used two terms for local church offices—presbyters (seen by many as an interchangeable term with or overseer) and deacon.
In the First Epistle to Timothy and Epistle to Titus in the New Testament a more clearly defined episcopate can be seen. Both letters state that Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete to oversee the local church. Paul commands Titus to ordain presbyters/bishops and to exercise general oversight. John Zizioulas argues that "The task of the Bishop was from the beginning principally liturgical, consisting in the offering of the Divine Eucharist." The authorship of both those letters is questioned by many scholars in the field and the question whether they reflect a first or second century structure of church hierarchy is among the arguments used in the debate as to their authenticity.
Early sources are unclear but various groups of Christian communities may have had the bishop surrounded by a group or college functioning as leaders of the local churches. Eventually the head or "monarchic" bishop came to rule more clearly, and all local churches would eventually follow the example of the other churches and structure themselves after the model of the others with the one bishop in clearer charge, though the role of the body of presbyters remained important.
Apostolic Fathers Around the end of the 1st century, the early church's organization became clearer in historical documents. In the works of the Apostolic Fathers, and Ignatius of Antioch in particular, the role of the episkopos, or bishop, became more important, or became more clearly defined. Other contemporary Christian writers do not describe monarchial bishops, either continuing to equate them with the presbyters or speaking of (bishops, plural) in a city.
Clement of Alexandria (end of the 2nd century) writes about the ordination of a certain Zachæus as bishop by the imposition of Simon Peter Bar-Jonah's hands. The words bishop and ordination are used in their technical meaning by the same Clement of Alexandria.Clement, "Hom.", III, lxxii; cfr. Stromata, VI, xiii, cvi; cf. "Const. Apost.", II, viii, 36 The bishops in the 2nd century are defined also as the only clergy to whom the ordination to priesthood (presbyterate) and diaconate is entrusted: "a priest (presbyter) lays on hands, but does not ordain." ()."Didascalia Syr.", IV; III, 10, 11, 20; Cornelius, "Ad Fabianum" in Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, VI, xliii.
At the beginning of the 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome describes another feature of the ministry of a bishop, which is that of the : the primate of sacrificial priesthood and the power to forgive sins.
Canonical age As the bishop's role further developed into the 4th century, the First Council of Nicaea decreed that bishops should be ordained by at least three others. Age requirements for episcopal ordination or consecration were neither universal nor fixed in early Christian churches. It was, however, universally required that a bishop be male; and lacking a definitive ecumenical age requirement for holy orders—between the early ecumenical councils of the Great and imperial Roman churches, and after schism into the Latin and Greek churches—young men had been ordained, appointed, and/or enthroned as bishops, archbishops, patriarchs and cardinals, some as young as 5.
Some notable younger Latin and Greek bishops (from ages 5 to 29) have included: Hugh Vermandois (5); Luis Antonio Jaime de Borbón y Farnesio (8);McWhirter, Ross, McFarlan, Donald, Boehm, David A., and McWhirter, Norris. 1990 Guinness Book of World Records. Sterling Pub. Co. p. 270. Guido Ascanio Sforza di Santa Fiora (9); Benedict IX (between 11 and 20); Karol Ferdynand Vasa (11); Alexander Stewart (11); Charles Joseph of Lorraine (12); Niccolò Caetani (13); Bruno von Bayern (14); Odo of Bayeux (14); Alessandro Farnese (14); Cesare Borgia (15); Clemens August (15); Ranuccio Farnese (16); Alfonso Carafa (16); James II of Cyprus (16) Theophylact (16); Ippolito de' Medici (17); Cyril V Zaim (18); Diomede Carafa (19); Stephen I (19); Luis de Milà y de Borja (21); Nicolas de Besse (21); Clemente Grosso della Rovere (21); Luis María de Borbón y Vallabriga (22); Niccolò Gaddi (22); Juan de Borja Lanzol de Romaní, el menor (24); Gabriele Condulmer (later Eugene IV, aged 24) of Rome; Dositheus II (then metropolitan of Caesarea, aged 25 and later Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, aged 28); Alfonso Carrillo de Acuña (25); Ludovico Ludovisi (25); Giovanni Michiel (25); Charles Borromeo (25); Pedro González de Mendoza (26); Pietro Riario (26); Mark Sittich von Hohenems Altemps (26); Jošt Rožmberk (26); Giuliano della Rovere (later Julius II, aged 27); Bonifazio Bevilacqua Aldobrandini (27); Francesco Condulmer (27); Philipp Ludwig von Sinzendorf (27); Pedro Luis de Borja Lanzol de Romaní (27); Alessandro Riario (28); Gerhard II Lippe (29); and Sebastião da Silveira Cintra (29).
Throughout the Church of the East, other notable younger bishops (from ages 12 to 22) have included: Shimun XXIII Eshai (12); Shimun XIX Benyamin (16); Yohannan VIII Hormizd (16); Sargis Yosip (17); Shimun XVII Abraham (20); and Yosip Khnaninsho (22). Among the Oriental Orthodox, Grigor III Pahlavuni (born 1093) became catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church between the ages of 19 and 20 (1113/4);MacEvitt, Christopher (2007). "The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa: Apocalypse, the First Crusade and the Armenian Diaspora". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 61: 157–181. Retrieved 26 February 2024. Mathews Athanasius (born 1818) became the Malankara Metropolitan around 23 years of age; and Geevarghese Mar Gregorios of Parumala (born 1848)—one of Joseph Rene Vilatte's co-consecrators—became a metropolitan bishop at age 28 (1876).During the Catholic Church's Council of Trent in the 16th century, the Holy See dogmatically mandated a minimum canonical age of 30 for the episcopacy. The Eastern Orthodox Church would also impose a minimum age of 30 for the priesthood. The Coptic Orthodox have adopted a minimum canonical age of at least 28 for the priesthood, including its specialized ministries leading to the chorepiscopacy. For the office of bishop, the Eastern Orthodox Church imposed a minimum canonical age of 35. Overall, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East and Protestantism have not established a universal, canonical age for elevation into the episcopacy. During the 20th century, the Independent Catholic Carlos Duarte Costa consecrated Luis Fernando Castillo Mendez at the age of 25.Jarvis, Edward. God, Land & Freedom, the true story of ICAB, Apocryphile Press, Berkeley CA, 2018, He also consecrated Orlando Arcye Moya at the age of 29; and another bishop descending from Costa's historical episcopate was consecrated at the age of 22. Within the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition during the same century, bishops within the Church of God in Christ elevated Clarence Leslie Morton Jr. (born 1942) into the episcopacy at the age of 20 in 1962. J. Delano Ellis (born 1944), co-founder of the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops, was also elevated as bishop at the age of 26 in 1970 by a bishop within the United Holy Church of America.
In 2026, Leon Scoggins was consecrated as a bishop prior to the age of 35 within Pilgrim Assemblies International—a Pentecostal denomination founded by Roy E. Brown, another co-founder of the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops; during this episcopal elevation, concelebrants justified this consecration citing contrasts between Roman Catholic canon law and the Bible.
Christian bishops and civil government
The efficient organization of the Roman Empire became the template for the organisation of the Great Church in the 4th century, particularly after Constantine's Edict of Milan. As the church moved from the shadows of privacy into the public forum it acquired land for churches, burials and clergy. In 391, Theodosius I decreed that any land that had been confiscated from the church by Roman authorities be returned.