Ecclesiastical Polity - Polity, Autonomy, and Ecumenism

Polity, Autonomy, and Ecumenism

Although a church's polity dictates how it is governed and how its ministers figure in that governance, it need not have any implications on relationships between church bodies. The unity of the church is a doctrine central to ecclesiology, but since the divisions between churches presuppose a lack of mutual authority, the internal polity does not directly provide answers on how these divisions have been handled.

For example, among churches with episcopal polity, different theories are expressed:

• In Catholicism the church is viewed as a single polity headed by the pope.
• In Eastern Orthodoxy the various churches retain formal autonomy but are held to be unified by shared doctrine and conciliarity (that is, the authority of councils, such as ecumenical councils, Holy Synods and the former standing council, the Endemusa Synod.)
• In Anglicanism the churches are autonomous, though more than half the membership are organizationally united in the Anglican Communion, which has no powers of governance.