9.

 Who is the visible center of Church life?

            The hierarchical rank is the highest rank in the Church. Thus, Orthodox bishops, like their predecessors, the Apostles, occupy the visible center of Church life. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky explains that Christ called the Apostles to the highest ministry in the Church, and that the Apostles in turn named bishops as their immediate successors and continuers. As another writer adds in this connection, after Judas turned traitor, Peter, applying Psalm 109:8, declared, “his bishopric let another take” (Acts 1:20; emphasis added).

            Although Apostolic Succession was severed in the West as of Rome's apostasy in 1054, it continued in the East. The Orthodox Church is the only Church in Christendom that has to this day an uninterrupted succession of bishops going back to the Apostles.