Origin 100 to 250 CE
A bishop is the only person who can make more clergy. That is the whole of the office in one sentence: ordination of priests and deacons is reserved to bishops, and in churches that hold apostolic succession the validity of every other order in the diocese runs back through him. Bishops also confirm, consecrate churches and altars, and in Catholic and Orthodox practice a bishop must be consecrated by more than one other bishop, which prevents any single man from founding a line by himself.
A bishop governs a diocese and teaches within it with an authority that is his own rather than delegated. In Catholic and Orthodox churches the bishop is chosen from the celibate clergy, and where a tradition ordains married priests it still requires an unmarried or widowed bishop. Methodist and Lutheran churches keep bishops with narrower powers, and some Lutheran churches call the office by another name while keeping the function. Presbyterian and congregational churches reject the office outright, and this is not a detail of administration but the original point of the Reformation quarrel about who holds authority in the church.
Women serve as bishops in most Anglican provinces, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in the United Methodist Church and elsewhere. They do not in the Catholic or Orthodox churches, which follow from those churches' restriction of priestly ordination.
Facts
Organisation
OrdinationRestricted to men 1Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy The episcopate is reserved to men OrdinationRestricted to men 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism Sourced to the subject's own accountThe episcopate is reserved to men OrdinationVaries between provinces or member bodies 1Tradition: Anglicanism Provinces differ over the consecration of women to the episcopate OrdinationCelibacy required of the ordained 1Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy Bishops are chosen from the celibate, in practice from the monastic clergy Reach of Its AuthorityA region: a diocese, a province or an eparchy 2 Sourced to the subject's own accountThe diocese, over which he has ordinary jurisdiction Attributions
TraditionChristianity, across Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist and Lutheran churches 1 Origins
Origin Period Status
Status TodayLiving tradition, practised today 1 Learn More
The Only Person Who Can Make More Clergy
The office of bishop can be reduced to one sentence, and the whole quarrel of the Reformation over church authority follows from it.
The power to ordain
Ordination of priests and deacons is reserved to bishops, and in churches that hold apostolic succession the validity of every other order in the diocese runs back through him. A bishop governs a diocese and teaches within it with an authority that is his own rather than delegated, and in Catholic and Orthodox practice a bishop must be consecrated by more than one other bishop, which prevents any single man from founding a line by himself. That safeguard is a structural admission of how much the office concentrates.
Where the office is rejected
Methodist and Lutheran churches keep bishops with narrower powers; Presbyterian and congregational churches reject the office outright, and this is not administrative detail but the original point of the Reformation quarrel about who holds authority in the church. Women serve as bishops in most Anglican provinces, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and in the United Methodist Church, and do not in the Catholic or Orthodox churches, which follows directly from the restriction of priestly ordination to men in those churches.
From Presbyter Among Equals to Monarchical Office
The New Testament uses the words for bishop and elder almost interchangeably, and the office as later understood, a single bishop presiding over the elders and deacons of a city, emerged gradually over the second century rather than appearing complete from the start. Ignatius of Antioch's letters, written early in that century, already argue hard for obedience to a single bishop, which suggests the monarchical model was still being established rather than settled.
Once established, the office spread as the organising unit of the whole ancient church, one bishop to a city, and the historic sees, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, carried a seniority that still shapes church structure. The Catholic Church today has several thousand serving bishops worldwide, with the fastest growth in dioceses in Africa and Asia; the Orthodox communion is organised into autocephalous and autonomous churches each with its own bishops; and the Anglican Communion has been openly divided since the 1990s and 2000s between provinces that ordain women and openly gay bishops and provinces, chiefly in the Global South, that reject both, a division formalised in rival international structures such as GAFCON.
Bishop
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Connections
Associated With
Bishop of Milan from 374 until his death in 397.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Bishop of Tours from 371 until his death in 397.
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Belongs to Tradition
Anglicanism retains the historic episcopate, bishops ordained in a claimed unbroken succession, as constitutive of holy orders, per the Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXXVI, Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers.
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Source Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici)Holy Seethe holders' own account
A bishop governs a diocese and, through unbroken episcopal succession, ordains clergy and consecrates the chrism used across it.
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Nordic and German Lutheran state churches, such as the Church of Sweden, retain the historic title bishop for regional oversight, a use the Augsburg Confession, Article XXVIII, allows without conceding papal jurisdiction.
Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
In the United Methodist Church and related episcopal Methodist bodies, bishop is the title for the general superintendency, an administrative and appointive office rather than a claim to the historic apostolic succession Roman Catholic, Orthodox or Anglican polity asserts for the office.
Source The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist ChurchUnited Methodist Churchthe holders' own account
Bishops, successors of the apostles by episcopal consecration, govern dioceses in communion with the Pope, per the Code of Canon Law, canons 375 to 380.
Source Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici)Holy Seethe holders' own account
Conducted
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Critiqued By
Presbyterian and Reformed polity rejects government by diocesan bishops, or prelacy, in favor of parity among ordained elders, argued at length in Calvin's Institutes, Book IV, Chapters IV to VII.
Source Institutes of the Christian ReligionJohn Calvin
Element Of
Source African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the Twentieth CenturyAllan H. Anderson
The Church of England kept the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons through the Reformation, and its ordinal states that these orders have existed from the apostles time.
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Held as a distinct order, under a catholicos patriarch, in a hierarchy that survived without an empire behind it.
Source The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian ChristianityChristoph Baumer
Retained at the Reformation, and the continuity of the episcopate is the ground on which the Church of England claims to be the ancient church of the land reformed rather than a new church.
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
The Church of Sweden kept its bishops and its line of succession unbroken through the Reformation, which distinguishes it from most of the Lutheran world.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
The bishop is the centre of the local church, and Orthodox order requires him to be celibate, which in practice means chosen from the monasteries.
Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
This church elects bishops to fixed terms, and since 1999 has ordained them within the historic succession under its agreement with the Episcopal Church.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
Held as a distinct order in the same sense the Chalcedonian churches hold it, and the succession of bishops is the thread the non-Chalcedonian churches trace back through their own patriarchates.
Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus
A distinct and highest order of the sacrament of orders, holding the fullness of the priesthood, and the only minister who can ordain.
Source Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici)Holy Seethe holders' own account
Held in the threefold Anglican ministry, with bishops elected by the diocese rather than appointed by the crown.
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Rejected Here
Baptist, Denominations Baptist churches are congregational, and no officer outside the local congregation holds authority over it.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
Reformed churches refused the office as a grade above the presbyter, holding it to have no warrant in scripture.
Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account
Presbyterian polity holds that the New Testament knows only two offices, presbyter and deacon, and that bishop is another word for presbyter. Government is by elders sitting in courts, and no bishop stands over them.
Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account
Friends have no ordained ministry of any kind, so there is no office for a bishop to occupy.
Source Quaker Faith and Practice: The Book of Christian Discipline of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in BritainBritain Yearly Meetingthe holders' own account
Held Differently
Churches of Christ use bishop, elder and overseer as three names for one congregational office, held by a plurality of men in each congregation, on the reading that the New Testament uses the words interchangeably.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
A Latter-day Saint bishop is the unpaid lay leader of a ward of a few hundred members, called for a term of some years. The word is the same and the office is not.
Source General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsthe holders' own account
Lutheranism, Denominations Lutheran churches keep bishops in many places, but the Augsburg Confession holds bishop and presbyter to be one office by divine right, differing in oversight rather than in order. The office is retained for good order, not because it is a third grade of ministry.
Source The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical NotesPhilip Schaff
Methodism, Denominations A Methodist bishop is an elder elected and consecrated to superintend, not a member of a third order. Wesley acted on the conviction that bishop and presbyter are the same order, which is why he could ordain at all.
Source The Sermons of John WesleyJohn Wesley
Bishops are elected from among the elders and hold the office of superintendency; the church does not teach that episcopacy is a separate order of ministry.
Source The Sermons of John WesleyJohn Wesley
Instances
How this title is used in the Roman Catholic Church.
How this title is used in the Anglican Communion.
How this title is used in the Eastern Orthodox churches.
Related To
Why this is disputed. The same word, and a different office. A Latter-day Saint ward bishop is an unpaid layman presiding over one congregation for about five years, holding the Aaronic presiding keys. He is not in apostolic succession, has no diocese and ordains no professional clergy.
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005on the episcopate and apostolic successionView the Source 2. Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici)
Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1983Book II: bishops, their consecration and their jurisdictionthe holders' own accountView the Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
The Augsburg Confession
The Orthodox Church
Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church, The United Methodist Publishing Housethe holders' own accountView the Source Essays About This Entity (1 essay)
Five Bodies Keep the Word Bishop and Change What It Means
The office itself, five bodies holding a distinct account of it
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