SYNOD

SYNOD. The term means “gathering,” and is used to signify both the gatherings or councils of bishops called together to debate questions of pressing doctrinal or ethical concern, e.g., the Ecumenical Councils (q.v.), or else regularly summoned gatherings to deal with details of administration in a given locale, e.g., the frequent local councils. In later times during the Byzantine era (q.v.), the “standing synod” (endemousa synodos) constituted the regular administrative body of the Ecumenical Patriarch (q.v.), and in tsarist Russia from Peter I, the term, preceded by “holy,” signified the governing body of the Russian Church without the patriarchate. The term is finally important as signaling a basic point of ecclesiology in the Orthodox Church, i.e., that the latter, in contrast to the papacy in the West, sees particular authority (qq.v.) in the Church in the body of the episcopacy sitting in council.