Metropolitan bishop

“ Therefore schismatics like the Dutch Jansenists also have bishops who are validly, though illegally, conse- crated. In the hierarchy of divine law, the office and the dignity of the bishop rank immediately after the primacy of the Pope; and in so far as certain rights are concerned, a bishop takes precedence over a cardinal who is not a bishop. The archbishop or metropolitan is the foremost among the bishops of a Church province, but he has no more power than they. ”

“ All bishops are appointed by the Patriarch, Holy Synod, or other head of their Church. They must be celibates, and so are practically always chosen from the monasteries. They must be thirty years old, and are consecrated by the Patriarch or chief Metropolitan of their Church (or by their deputy) assisted by two other bishops. [30] The idea that to consecrate a bishop involves jurisdiction over him still prevails in the East. Metropolitans (and other bishops) are addressed as "Your Beatitude," they are "most Blessed Lords," and are spoken of as the "Holy man" of such a place. ”

“ Neither the clergy nor metropolitan after the death of the bishop are allowed to carry off his goods, but all should be guarded by the clergy themselves, until another bishop is chosen. But if by chance no clergyman is left in that church, the metropolitan is to keep all the possessions undiminished and to return them to the future bishop. ”

“ The seekers for a future buzz round the splendid present. Every metropolitan has his staff: every bishop who is at all influential has his patrol of Seminarist Cherubim, who go the rounds, maintain order in the episcopal palace, and mount guard round Monseigneur's smile. Pleasing a bishop is a foot in the stirrup for a sub-deaconry; after all, a man must make his way, and apostles do not despise canonries.
In the same way as there are "gros bonnets," otherwhere, there are large mitres in the Church. ”

“ The bishop, or the visitors whom he appoints, are to watch over the maintenance of good discipline among them, and to take all proper means for the encouragement of piety and virtue. The seminary is to be maintained by a tax on all the benefices in the diocese. If in any province the dioceses are too poor each to maintain its own seminary, the Provincial synod may establish one attached to the metropolitan church for the general use of all churches of the diocese; or, again, if a diocese be very large and populous, the bishop may, if necessary, establish in it more than one seminary. ”

“ Except in Russia nearly all Orthodox bishops are metropolitans. A few have real provinces and suffragans (these suffragans are the only persons usually called bishops) , the great majority have no extra-diocesan jurisdiction, but all depend immediately on their Patriarch or Holy Synod, although they all bear the quite meaningless title metropolitan instead of that of bishop. [29] One does not often hear of an archbishop. The name occurs in the official title of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and in the case of one or two heads of autocephalous Churches. ”

“ No primate, no metropolitan, nor any of the other bishops, is at liberty to enter the seat of another, or to occupy a possession which does not pertain to him, and which forms part of the parish of another bishop, at the direction of any one, unless he is invited by him to whose jurisdiction it is acknowledged to belong ”

“ But since the middle of the nineteenth century, as the Anglican Church has become at once more threatened and more energetic, as more of the life of the nation has flowed into her and round her, the office of a bishop has risen in importance. People show more interest in the appointments to be made, and ministers have become proportionately careful in making them. Bishops work harder and are more in the public eye now than they were eighty, or even fifty, years ago. They have lost something of the antique dignity and social consideration which they enjoyed. ”

“ The young, talented, and aspiring presbyters must have been strongly tempted to encourage the growth of episcopal prerogative, for each might one day hope to occupy the place of dignity, and thus to reap the fruits of present encroachments. The bishops seem to have resisted more strenuously the establishment of metropolitan ascendency. ”

“ If authority is sought, the world is greater than the city. Wherever there may be a bishop, either at Rome, Constantinople or Alexandria, the bishop is of the same merit and of the same priesthood. The power of riches and the lowliness of poverty make [4] the bishop either higher or lower. Besides," he says, "all are successors of the apostles." So we see that the pope and his cardinals are not the only successors of Christ. ”

“ When, in the course of time, the Christian church continued to expand, it became necessary for the larger congregations to engage more than one pastor. An immediate consequence was that one of them attained to higher eminence and was called the bishop by preference. Great deference was especially paid to the bishops of Rome, of Jerusalem, of Alexandria, of Antioch, and of Constantinople. The smaller congregations frequently sought their advice and requested their decision in difficult matters. But the power and the authority of the Roman bishops soon outstripped that of the rest. ”

“ This last is the theory of the High-Church party in general. To their mind a bishop is a necessity; he is required for the conferring of orders and for giving confirmation; he is not the centre of sacrificial power in his diocese, nor the source of jurisdiction; he is not a teacher in any other sense beyond that in which they are themselves teachers; their obedience to him is not an obedience to one whom our Lord has set over his flock with a special charge to feed his sheep as well as his lambs ”

“ As wealth increased, and was intrusted to the clergy, they became indifferent to the wants of the people, no longer supported by them. They became lazy, arrogant, and independent. The people were shut out of the government of the church. The bishop became a grand personage, who controlled and appointed his clergy. ”

“ And wherever any one of them may be found, whether in village or city, ordained by Catholics, so shall he remain among the clergy, yet every one, in his own order. But, if any of them come to a place where there is a bishop or presbyter, of the Catholic Church, it is evident that the bishop of the Catholic Church shall have his own proper episcopal dignity. ”

“ In his poor diocese, he had everything to construct, and everybody to instruct, even some Indian tribes, who received him with great joy as a “chief of the black robes,” a priest of “the true prayer.” He had no sinecure dignity. “At home he was at once the bishop, the pastor of the congregation, the professor of theology for his seminary, and a teacher for one of his academies.” These give a small idea of his labors. When the king of terrors (to most men) came, he found the bishop at his post, on duty, like the faithful Roman sentinel at the gates of Pompeii. ”

“ It is his function to appoint and ordain the lower clergy. He is treasurer of the Church funds and custodian of her doctrine and discipline. It is the voice of the bishops that settles both the creed and the canons of discipline in the synods. Bishops have certain privileges and immunities. They are not to be sworn in courts of justice; they can act as intercessors; they preside at Church courts. Each bishop is strictly confined to his own parish. ”

“ It is easy to conceive how in process of time other religious communities might aspire to be self-sufficient and have bishops of their own. If the bishop, whose jurisdiction included a number of communities, had not been himself the head of a similar community, such a tendency would not have been likely to arise. ”

“ We now for the first time find bishops, after they had been nominated by the king, going to Rome for confirmation, and the Roman court claiming to have the right to reject a royal nomination. Various matters, too, were now referred to the Pope for decision, contrary to the custom of the English Church. Other foreign fashions were also introduced. In England, any place was chosen for a bishop’s see that was a convenient centre for diocesan work; on the Continent, bishops always had their sees in cities. ”

“ Therefore it is desired, that two or more bishops may be appointed for them, to reside where his majesty shall think most convenient [not in New England, but in one of the Episcopalian colonies] ; that they may have no concern in the least with any person who do not profess themselves to be of the Church of England, but may ordain ministers for such as do; ... and take such oversight of the Episcopal clergy, as the Bishop of London’s commissaries in those parts have been empowered to take, and have taken, without offence. ”

“ What makes a church, according to the apostolic constitution? All churches which have that constitution agree that the essentials of a church are a bishop with a clergy and laity in his communion. The bishop is its nucleus, and makes the church in the sense in which the head makes the body. A bishopless church is a headless body. We say this is what all Christians agree upon who believe in apostolical succession. So that even the recent contemptible sect calling themselves “Old Catholics” were bound to procure a bishop for their schism, albeit they set at defiance both authority and logic. ”

“ Men shall go to their parish church only. Suspected schoolmasters shall be put forth, and Catholic men put instead. And lastly, touching such persons as were heretofore promoted to any orders, after the new fashion (hark to this, Robin!) considering they were not ordained in very deed, the Bishop of the diocese, finding otherwise sufficiency and ability in these men, may supply that thing which wanted in them before, and thus according to his discretion permit them to minister. ”

“ Many districts are, unavoidably, entirely without the exhortations and offices of a minister. At King George's Sound, an important post, no clergyman is seen from one year to another. Human beings are born, married, and buried, without a minister to baptize, to teach, to bless, or to give consolation in their extremity. There is no bishop to consecrate, to watch over, or to reprove.*
[footnote] *By the munificence of Miss Burdett Coutts, a bishopric has been recently founded in South Australia; and the Western Colony is for the present to be included in the same diocese. ”

“ He threw himself without any regard to increasing trouble and labour on the great power of personal influence. In every corner of his diocese he made himself known and felt; in all that interested its clergy or its people he took his part more and more. He went forth to meet men; he made himself their guest and companion as well as their guide and chief; he was more often to be found moving about his diocese than he was to be found at his own home at Cuddesdon. The whole tone of communication between Bishop and people rose at once in freedom and in spiritual elevation and earnestness ”

“ There is no diocese but it has a bishop appointed and consecrated by the Pope, nor province that wants an archbishop, nor parish without a priest, all actually serving their time and the Pope's direction and plenteously maintained by the people, so that the few ministers that are, and bishops that profess to do any good, profit no more than Lot did in Sodom. ”

“ Those sects which acknowledge no bishops and deride the title certainly can form no conception of it, and even those who imagine that they have a bishop at their head, have so little idea of what are true episcopal functions, of the greatness of the position which a see occupies, of the importance of the place where it is established, that in their eyes the pretended dignitary can scarcely rank much higher, either in position or degree, than a wealthy parish minister, and the church wherein "his lordship" officiates is very much the same as an ordinary parish church. ”

“ In America no trace of this historic independence has ever existed. The power of appointing and removing bishops is held absolutely and exclusively by the pope and exercised through the Congregation of the Propaganda. The power of ordaining and assigning priests is held by the bishop, who also holds or controls the title to the church property in his diocese. ”

“ Now it is clear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has not so much as numbered the bodies of his flock. The first thing, therefore, that a bishop has to do is at least to put himself in a position in which, at any moment, he can obtain the history from childhood of every living soul in his diocese, and of its present state. ”

“ In the apostolic age a body of elders or bishops and a body of deacons in each church guided its affairs, while the members took an active part in the choice of their officers, and in the general direction of ecclesiastical proceedings. In the second century, when we get a distinct view of the churches after the obscure interval that follows the age of the apostles, we find that over the elders is a bishop, whose office grows in importance as the churches become larger, as the need of more compact organization is felt, and as the clergy become more and more distinct from the laity. ”

“ Our leading journal, writing of the increase of the episcopate, observes that the ‘danger will be that bishops should allow themselves to be absorbed in the mere business and bustle of their work, and should neglect the more solid and silent part of their duties. The bishop must find time for constant intercourse with his books, for thought, and for mature preaching. He must make himself everywhere felt ”