10.

 If each bishop and his diocese (eparchy) can be said to contain the fullness of Church life, why is it that only the entire body of the Orthodox faithful is referred to as the Church?

            The student does not imagine that he “knows better” than the professor of this course, nor does he presume to consider himself an expert on Orthodoxy. All he can do is rely on the various books that teach of it. These in turn show that, on the basis of Scripture, the above assertion that “only the entire body of Orthodox faithful is referred to the Church” is not tenable.

            One eminent authority, Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, points out that the members of one's family comprise a house Church. This term was used by the Apostle Paul when referring to the gathering of the members of a family and friends which took place during the early years of Christianity, when Christians did not have their own church buildings in which to pray (cf. Rom 16:5-6, et al.).

            The word Church is ekklesia in Greek, which means to gather, to gather together, to call, to call out, or to call together. Thus, Church means a gathering of people, a congregation. The same Fr. Michael adds that:

The name Church which belongs to every Christian community, even of a single house or family, indicates the unity of this part with the whole, with the body of the whole Church of Christ [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 224].

In no place does Fr. Michael indicate that it is incorrect to use the word in a narrow sense (that is, with regard to a family or individual community). In fact, both he and the Apostle Paul himself variously use the word in both the narrow and the broad sense.

            The word Church is always used in reference to the four ancient Patriarchates, to the eleven other autocephalous Churches (including Sinai), and also when referring to the several autonomous Churches (including China, Japan and Finland). In addition to these independent local Churches, however, the Church has a wider unity. The Church Father Cyprian, Bishop-Martyr of Carthage (+258), describes how all bishops share in the one episcopate, yet share it in such a manner that each possesses the whole rather than just a part. St. Cyprian writes:

The episcopate is a single whole, in which each bishop enjoys full possession. So the Church is a single whole, though it spreads far and wide into a multitude of Churches as its fertility increases.

There are many episcopi but only one episcopate. There are also many local Churches, yet Orthodoxy is something more than a group of local bodies that share a unity of faith and full agreement with the rest on all matters of doctrine: it is nothing less than the Church of Christ on earth. It is this wider unity of all Orthodox faithful into the Body of Christ that is also called the Church.