Holy Synod
In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod. For instance, the Holy Synod is a ruling body of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
In Oriental Orthodoxy the Holy Synod is the highest authority in the church and it formulates the rules and regulations regarding matters of church organization, faith, and order of service.
Early synods[edit]
The principle of summoning a synod or council of ecclesiastical persons to discuss some grave question affecting the Church goes back to the very beginning of the Church's history. Since the day when the Apostles met at Jerusalem to settle whether Gentile converts were to keep the Old Law (Acts 15:6–29), it had been the custom to call together such gatherings as occasion required. Bishops summoned synods of their clergy, metropolitans and patriarchs summoned their suffragans, and then since 325 there was a succession of those greatest synods, representing the whole Catholic world, that are known as general councils.[1]
Catholic Church[edit]
Within the Catholic Church, each sui iuris patriarchal church and each major archiepiscopal church has its own synod of bishops, which is exclusively competent to make laws for the entire sui iuris church in question and is its tribunal.[7]
The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches makes mention 115 times of the synod of bishops in this sense. It does not add honorific adjectives such as "holy", "holy and sacred" "most holy", as used in some Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches.
The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches distinguishes between a patriarchal or major archiepiscopal church's standing synod and the synod of its bishops as a whole. It is the standing synod that corresponds to the term "holy synod" as used above. The standing synod consists of the patriarch or major archbishop and four bishops appointed for a five-year term. Of these four, three are elected by the church's synod of bishops and one is appointed by the patriarch or major archbishop, while another four are designated in the same way to replace any member who is impeded.[8] A meeting of the synod of all the church's bishops is called when a decision is required on a question that only it is authorized to decide, or when the patriarch or major archbishop, with the agreement of the standing synod, judges it to be necessary, or when at least one third of the bishops request that it be held to consider some specific matter. In addition, the individual canon law of some of these churches requires that their synod of bishops be convoked at predetermined intervals.[9]
In metropolitan sui iuris churches a role analogous to that of the synod of bishops is played by a council of hierarchs.[10]