The Living Tradition An Orthodox Archive of the Church Fathers and Early Church

For Protestant readers

The Church and its ministry

Is the Church a visible body with bishops in succession, or the company of all true believers wherever they are found?

  • Received Orthodox teachingTaught consistently and received throughout the Orthodox Church, though not necessarily formulated in a conciliar definition. This is not a claim that no Father ever wrote differently.
  • Historical consensusBroadly agreed among historians working from the surviving evidence. Consensus can shift when the evidence or the method changes.
  • Disputed authorshipThe attribution of a work is contested, or is known to be a scholarly convention. A work's authorship and the Church's reception of it are two separate questions.

Primary evidence verified Content last reviewed 2026-09-04

What still needs checking (3)
  • Obtain the Augsburg Confession articles VII and XIV, and the Westminster Confession chapter XXV, so the Protestant doctrine of the Church and its ministry is stated confessionally.
  • Obtain an official Orthodox statement on the boundaries of the Church and on the status of non-Orthodox baptism, where Orthodox practice and theology genuinely vary by jurisdiction.
  • Obtain tier D scholarship on the development of the three-fold ministry and on the authenticity and dating of the Ignatian corpus, which this page treats only in outline.

Report an accuracy issue on this page

Much of what separates Orthodoxy from Protestantism follows from this one question rather than from the doctrines usually argued about. The second-century evidence for a three-fold ministry is early and unembarrassed, and what it proves is contested.

What is held in common

Both hold that the Church is the body of Christ, that it is one, that baptism incorporates a person into it, and that its ministry exists for the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments. Both confess 'one holy catholic and apostolic Church' in the Creed. The disagreement is about where that Church is to be located and what makes a ministry a ministry.

The Orthodox position

The Orthodox Church holds that the Church is a visible, identifiable communion, gathered around the bishop and the Eucharist, and that its ministry is received by ordination in a succession going back to the apostles. Where the bishop is, with the Eucharist, there the Church is concretely present — not as an idea but as an assembly.

The earliest evidence for this shape is early enough to be striking. Ignatius, writing on his way to martyrdom, does not argue for the three-fold ministry; he assumes it and expects his readers to.

The texts

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter VIII, shorter recension Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson — public domain Read this work in the archive

On this text. The archived edition prints the shorter and longer recensions in parallel, paragraph by paragraph. This is the shorter recension, the form generally regarded as closer to Ignatius; the longer expands the passage and alters this very sentence. Any citation of Ignatius that does not name its recension is unusable.

He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church.

Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Church, Chapter VI Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis — public domain Read this work in the archive

On this text. Chapter VI, deliberately, not chapter IV: that earlier chapter survives in two forms which differ over the chair of Peter, and is unsafe to cite without saying which form is used. Cyprian is writing against schism in a specific third-century crisis, and how far his principle extends is debated among Orthodox as well.

Where the difference actually lies

A Protestant reader can accept that the three-fold ministry appears very early and still deny that it is constitutive of the Church — holding that it is an ancient and useful order rather than a divine requirement, and that the Church is finally identified by the gospel rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered.

The Orthodox reply is that the Church which produced and canonised the New Testament is the same visible communion with this structure, and that a criterion of 'rightly preached' returns the question of who judges rightness. Where that lands is exactly what is at issue, and it is not settled by the Ignatian evidence alone.

Not yet stated here: the teaching of the Protestant confessions

Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and congregational doctrines of ministry differ from one another sharply — some retain bishops in succession — and a single 'Protestant view' does not exist here. This site will quote particular confessions.

To write this section, a maintainer must obtain and cite:

  • Augsburg Confession, articles VII and XIV, on the Church and on order in the Church
  • Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter XXV, Of the Church
  • The Thirty-Nine Articles, articles XIX and XXIII, since Anglican practice differs from the Reformed on this point

Why this is empty. A claim about what another Church teaches requires that Church's own authoritative text — tier E in the source policy. No such text has been obtained, so the claim is not made. This gap is the honest state of the evidence, not an oversight.

Sources for this page

  1. Tier C The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.); A. Cleveland Coxe (American ed.) Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter VIII translated edition of primary texts Source record
  2. Tier C Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.) Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, Chapter VI translated edition of primary texts Source record

Tiers are explained in the methodology. No page on this site has been reviewed or approved by any bishop, priest, synod or seminary.