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A bishop is a successor of the Apostles and the link between each Christian and the Church because the bishop is the chief priest of a local Church and the ultimate officiant of the Eucharist. Whilst the apostles\u2019 ministry wasn\u2019t confined to any geographical boundaries, a bishop\u2019s ministry is tied to a certain location, i.e., his diocese. Bishop\u2019s throne is an expression of the sacramental connection of the local Church and the bishop. It shouldn\u2019t be confused with the bishop\u2019s ambo (a low platform in the center of the nave used during a bishop\u2019s service). A throne is a special chair in the altar of the main cathedral of the diocese.<\/p>\n
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Why did the throne come to be associated with the pontifical ministry? This connection can be traced back to the ante-Nicene period in the life of the Church. The Muratorian Canon (2nd<\/sup> century) mentions the see (sedes<\/em>, lit. a place to sit on) of the Church of the City of Rome. Tertullian (early 3rd<\/sup> century) mentions \u201cThe Apostolic See\u201d of Rome as a counterbalance to heretics (Tertull. De praescript. haer. 36). Christians started to attach symbolic meaning to the bishop\u2019s throne under the influence of ancient Roman customs. The upper echelons of Roman officials were entitled to sitting on a special stool called curule seat. It was so prestigious that the officials who were allowed to sit on that stool were called curule magistrates. The magistrates were to sit on that stool while presiding over a court of law or while receiving visitors. The curule seat symbolized their imperium<\/em> and authority. A bishop\u2019s throne was also associated with a professor\u2019s or a sage\u2019s chair (that\u2019s where the cathedra in universities comes from), and this image was used by the Savior himself, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat <\/em>(\u039c\u03c9\u03c3\u1f73\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u1f73\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2<\/strong>) <\/em>(Matthew\u00a023:2).<\/p>\n Soon after the throne became a symbol of bishop\u2019s power and ministry, there appeared a special liturgical ritual for a newly-ordained bishop to ascend to his throne for the first time. There are mentions of this ritual in ancient manuscripts, e.g., in Canones Hippolyti (330s) and Apostolic Decrees (ca. 380). Enthronement in the Ancient Church wasn\u2019t limited to the Patriarch; other bishops assumed their office by enthronement, too. The central ritual during an enthronement is when the newly-ordained bishop accedes to his throne and sits on it during liturgical readings. Enthronement can be found in one form or another in the liturgical traditions of both the East and the West.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Later, bishops were no longer ordained in their own dioceses. Their ordinations were held in patriarchal cathedrals. According to the most ancient Byzantine manuscripts of the Euchologion, the newly-ordained bishop would sit on the throne of the Patriarch and lead the celebration of the Eucharist. In the meantime, this ritual was found to be insufficient because it didn\u2019t substitute the ascension of the bishop to his own throne. That was how a separate ritual of enthronement, held after the bishop\u2019s arrival, in his diocese appeared.<\/p>\n We know how this ritual was organized in the Byzantine Church thanks to St.\u00a0Symeon of Thessalonica (\u2020 1429). When the flock came to the cathedral, priests exclaimed the pre-Trisagion prayer followed by the Trisagion itself, essentially reproducing the initial part of the Liturgy to remind of the bishop\u2019s ordination, which is usually held after the Trisagion. Then priests seated the bishop on his throne three times and proclaimed Axios!<\/em> Immediately after that, the choir and the people sang Many Years<\/em>, followed by the dismissal. After a festive meal, a bishop would climb a horse and ride around the city, which he was now in charge of. (See PG. 155. Col. 429).<\/p>\n Therefore, enthronement is an important and a very ancient ritual that has survived until today. This ritual points at the power and the special ministry of a bishop in his Church. Without a bishop, there is no Church; where the Church is, there Jesus Christ is<\/em>, according to Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer. This truth is treasured by the Holy Orthodoxy. Let us thank God for our bishops who connect us with ties of love to the Apostles and the Lord God himself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A bishop is a successor of the Apostles and the link between each Christian and the Church because the bishop is the chief priest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56],"tags":[11,24],"class_list":["post-22340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-life-issues","tag-qa","tag-quick-facts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/1.-\u041a\u0430\u0444\u0435\u0434\u0440\u0430-\u041b\u0430\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0441\u043a\u043e\u0439-\u0431\u0430\u0437\u0438\u043b\u0438\u043a\u0438.jpg","views":{"total":420,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1767838726},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-5Ok","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22340"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22351,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22340\/revisions\/22351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/4.-\u0415\u043f\u0438\u0441\u043a\u043e\u043f-\u043d\u0430-\u043a\u0430\u0444\u0435\u0434\u0440\u0435-775x517.jpg\")
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