top of page
finger-pointing-left16.gif
right hand 2.png

147) Churches being autocephalous and non autocephalous

ARROW.png
ARROW.png

Defining an "Apostle",

Some Protestants believe in modern day Apostles (I do not) and say the definition of the ministry is "church establisher" or "church builder". They see it as a kind of triple ability in one man to be

1) Pastor

2) Teacher

3) Evangelist

but where all 3 aspects in the person are at some kind of advanced state, where his evangelism is across wide areas, even country to country. These Protestant would therefore see themselves as having "an apostle over them" and that belief would be the nearest thing I know of in Evangelical Protestantism to the concept of  "autocephalous and non autocephalous churches". However in the so called "high church" (that is churches like the Church of England that most resemble the false hierarchy of Romanism, there is a second more exact equivalent.

147) Churches being autocephalous and non autocephalous - (of an Eastern Christian Church) appointing its own head, not subject to the authority of an external patriarch or archbishop. The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) for instance is not recognized as an autocephalous church. In Evangelicalism there is ONE church, that is the body of Christ. A bishop is not an overseer anywhere in the new testament of one or several countries. The Apostles were church planters and had special authority from God and Orthodoxy does not claim they are apostles.

bottom of page