On the organization of the primitive church

This article examines the question of the organization of the early Church, a problem long debated by theologians and ecclesiastical historians. Gerasimos Konidaris, Dean of the Faculty of Theology in Athens, adopts a historical and philological approach, drawing on critical analysis of ancient sources and linguistic usage. The study demonstrates the early and universal existence of three distinct ministerial orders — deacons, presbyters and bishops — in both East and West, thus contradicting the hypothesis of a purely collegial organization in the West as opposed to an Eastern monarchical model. The principal contribution lies in the terminological clarification of the term "presbyter," whose polysemy had given rise to numerous confusions, and in the establishment of a structural continuity of the episcopate from the origins of Christianity, attested by synodal and epigraphic sources.