We share Archbishop Elpidophoros’ 2020 Economos Orthodoxy in America Lecture, delivered September 21 at Fordham University, with Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers without editorial comment for the purpose of encouraging fraternal debate within the entire body of the Orthodox Church—hierarchy, clergy, monastics, and laity alike. Orthodox ecclesiology grants no bishop the authority to speak on behalf of the Church or to impose his personal understanding of the Faith on the Church. Rather—as the ill-fated Council of Florence ever reminds us in every succeeding generation—our bishops are answerable individually and synodally to the whole Church for the proper exercise of their episcopal charism to “rightly define the word of truth.”

We invite our readers to submit articles or letters to the editors in response to His Eminence’s remarks.

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