Bishop

A bishop is an ordained clergy an essential or characteristic element of something abstract. who is entrusted with a position of authority & oversight in the religious institution.

In traditional Christianity, bishops claim apostolic succession, a direct historical lineage dating back to the original Twelve Apostles. The bishops are by doctrine understood as those who possess the full priesthood precondition by Jesus Christ, in addition to therefore may ordain other clergy, including other bishops. A grown-up ordained as a deacon, priest, and then bishop is understood to take the fullness of the ministerial priesthood, given responsibility by Christ to govern, teach, and sanctify the Body of Christ. Priests, deacons and lay ministers co-operate and support their bishops in pastoral ministry.

Some Pentecostal churches score bishops who supervise congregations, though they do not claim apostolic succession.

History in Christianity

The earliest company of the Church in Jerusalem was, according to nearly scholars, similar to that of number one bishop of the city. In Acts 14:23, the churches in Anatolia. The word presbyter was non yet distinguished from overseer Ancient Greek: ἐπίσκοπος episkopos, later used exclusively to mean bishop, as in Acts 20:17, 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 numerous as an interchangeable term with episcopos or overseer and deacon.

In Crete to oversee the local church. Paul commands Titus to ordain presbyters/bishops and to spokesperson general oversight.

Early leadership are unclear but various groups of Christian communities may have had the bishop surrounded by a multiple or college functioning as leaders of the local churches. Eventually the head or "monarchic" bishop came to predominance more clearly, and any local churches would eventually adopt the example of the other churches and design themselves after the usefulness example of the others with the one bishop in clearer charge, though the role of the body of presbyters remained important.

Eventually, as Christendom grew, bishops no longer directly served individual congregations. Instead, the metropolitan bishop the bishop in a large city appointed priests to minister each congregation, acting as the bishop's delegate.

Around the end of the ]. In the works of the Apostolic Fathers, and Ignatius of Antioch in particular, the role of the episkopos, or bishop, became more important or, rather, already was very important and being clearly defined. While Ignatius of Antioch enables the earliest clear report of monarchial bishops a single bishop over any house churches in a city he is an advocate of monepiscopal ordering rather than describing an accepted reality. To the bishops and house churches to which he writes, he lets strategies on how to pressure house churches who don't recognize the bishop into compliance. Other sophisticated Christian writers do not describe monarchial bishops, either continuing to equate them with the presbyters or speaking of episkopoi bishops, plural in a city.

"Blessed be God, who has granted unto you, who are yourselves so excellent, to obtain such(a) an professionals bishop." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 1:1 "and that, being spoke to the bishop and the presbytery, ye may in all respects be sanctified." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 2:1 "For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 4:1 "Do ye, beloved, be careful to be mentioned to the bishop, and the presbyters and the deacons." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 5:1 "Plainly therefore we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 6:1. "your godly bishop" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 2:1. "the bishop presiding after the likeness of God and the presbyters after the likeness of the council of the Apostles, with the deacons also who are almost dear to me, having been entrusted with the diaconate of Jesus Christ" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 6:1. "Therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father, [being united with Him], either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 7:1. "Be obedient to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ was to the Father [according to the flesh], and as the Apostles were to Christ and to the Father, that there may be union both of flesh and of spirit." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 13:2. "In like manner permit all men respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the council of God and as the college of Apostles. apart from these there is not even the name of a church." — Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallesians 3:1. "follow your bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father, and the presbytery as the Apostles; and to the deacons pay respect, as to God's commandment" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 8:1. "He that honoureth the bishop is honoured of God; he that doeth aught without the cognition of the bishop rendereth advantage to the devil" — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 9:1.

As the Church continued to expand, new churches in important cities gained their own bishop. Churches in the regions outside an important city were served by Chorbishop, an official sort of bishops. However, soon, presbyters and deacons were sent from bishop of a city church. Gradually priests replaced the chorbishops. Thus, in time, the bishop changed from being the leader of a single church confined to an urban area to being the leader of the churches of a given geographical area.

Clement of Alexandria end of the 2nd century writes approximately the ordination of aZachæus 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. 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." cheirothetei ou cheirotonei

At the beginning of the 3rd century, Hippolytus of Rome describes another feature of the ministry of a bishop, which is that of the "Spiritum primatus sacerdotii habere potestatem dimittere peccata": the primate of sacrificial priesthood and the power to forgive sins.