Bishop, Monasticism And Orthodox Governance

Eastern Orthodox canon law requires that a bishop be unmarried, drawn specifically from the monastic clergy rather than from the married parish priesthood that forms the great majority of ordinary Orthodox clergy, a requirement with no direct Roman Catholic equivalent and one that ties Orthodox episcopal governance closely to monastic life even where a bishop, once consecrated, exercises administrative authority far removed from a monastery's daily rhythm. A widowed priest may become a bishop only after formally entering monastic life, and the requirement has historically meant that an Orthodox diocese's bishop, whatever his prior parish experience, brings a monastic formation to the office in a way ordinary married parish clergy do not share.

Within his diocese, called an eparchy in Orthodox usage, a bishop governs with authority the Orthodox Church understands, similarly to Catholic teaching, as directly continuing the apostles' own commission, exercised in communion with his fellow bishops through the Holy Synod of his autocephalous church rather than under any single universal jurisdiction of the kind Roman Catholic teaching ascribes to the Pope; this synodal rather than centrally governed structure is one of the most consistently cited differences between Orthodox and Catholic church governance.