Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries

Eucharist, Bishop, Church aims to define the relationship connecting the unity of the Church with the Eucharist and the Bishop as it was understood in the consciousness of the early Church. Written as the author's doctoral dissertation in 1965 for the University of Athens, the issues raised in this work are as relevant today as when Zizioulas first presented them. Zizioulas presents an episcopocentric structure of the Church as normative, constituted in the essential role of the bishop as president of the Divine Liturgy and the eucharistic community. This assertion, still novel when Zizioulas first described it, is widely accepted and forms the core concept of "eucharistic ecclesiology." Nevertheless, Eucharist, Bishop, Church continues to challenge many contemporary notions about the relationship of bishop and presbyter, parish and diocese, and local and universal church.