Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/349

 strict sense, the successors of the apostles, that the church is resting firmly on its bishops, as on supports; that a bishop is ‘a living image of God on earth, and, by force of the sacramental power of the Holy Ghost, a prolific source of all the sacraments of the church, by means of which he procures salvation; and so he is as necessary for the church as breathing is for man, as the sun is for the world’ (Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Section 10); that in the bishops is the centre of the believers who belong to his eparchy; that he is even the particular head of his spiritual realm; that, finally, as Cyprian says, ‘the bishop is in the church, and the church (which is subject to him) is in the bishop, and that he who is not in communion with the bishop is not in the church.’” (pp. 227-229.)

The pastors of various degrees, united among themselves, decide, and the people have to obey, and all that which is called the church not merely as an ornament of speech, but in reality, that is, that organ which expresses the faith which men must follow,—that church is the bishops.

175. This article shows that the church is the bishops, and that the higher power above them is an assembly of all the bishops, which is called a council, that is, of several bishops. In this article there is a very detailed account, such as is given in the Statute about the justices of the peace, about the relations of all these persons among themselves:

“From this may be seen, without any new proofs, that the right to sit in councils, both local and ecumenical, and the right to pass on ecclesiastical matters belong exclusively to the bishops as the heads of the separate churches; and the presbyters, who in everything depend on their local arch pastors, may be admitted to the councils only by their consent, and then only as counsellors, or assistants, or their plenipotentiaries, and may occupy only