The answer
We shall return to the idea of democracy in the Church in the relationship between clergy and laity of on another occasion, but are some points:
a. Origen says, “He who is called to the office of the bishop is not called to rulership
but to service to the whole church.”1663
b. St. Clement1664 and Origen1665 both spoke of the general (laity) priesthood.
c. R. Cadiou says, “We are told by these historians that, according to a number of
evidences, the most ancient of which is found in the works of St. Jerome, that the bishop of Alexandria, from the earliest times in that church, was one of the members of the local clergy; that he was chosen and delegated by the priests in some such way as the emperor was chosen by the army. This primitive custom, so we are told, ended only under the successors of Demetrius. Beginning with this post-Demetrius period, the ‘patriarch’ was elected and consecrated by the neighboring bishops according to the habitual procedure; and they would have been under no obligation to choose him from the ranks of the clergy of Alexandria.”1666
Origen gives some insight into the election of bishops in his day. Using Origen’s Homily on Numbers 13.4 as evidence, E. Ferguson demonstrates that in the third century there were at least four ways of electing bishops:1667
1. A popular election.
2. An appointment by a reigning bishop.
3. A testimonium either nominating a person or ratifying one elected by the people.
4. A presbyterial election, Origin’s personal preference.
Origen asserts that the presence of the people is required in the ordination of a priest, since they are the ones who elect him,1668 that all may know for certain that the man elected to the priesthood is of the people “the most eminent, the most learned, the holiest, the most outstanding in every virtue.”1669 He says, it should be an open decision lest anyone have doubts. Origen bases this on the fact that “Moses called together the whole assembly.”
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
1663 Origen, Homilies on Isaiah 6.1 (ACW 68:908; PG 13:239).
1664 St. Clement of Alexandria, Who is the Rich Man that Shall be Saved? (ANF 2).
1665 Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1–16 9.1 (FOTC 83:176–178).
1666 R. Cadiou, Origen (Herder Book Co., 1944): pp. 317–318.
1667 Everett Ferguson, “Origen and the Election of Bishops.” Church History 43, no. 1 (1974): 26–33: pp. 27– 30, 32.
1668 Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1–16 (FOTC 83).
1669 SC 286.279; see Thomas Halton, The Church (Message of the Fathers of the Church, vol. 4) (Wilmington, Del.: M. Glazier, 1985): p. 21.