The teaching about the preeminent bishop in Russian Orthodox theology in the 20th century

The central place in Orthodox ecclesiology is occupied by the doctrine of the episcopate. The inextricable connection of the church and the bishop was realized in the church since ancient times. The monograph considers the development of the doctrine of the primitive bishop in the Russian Orthodox theology of the twentieth century from ecclesiological, canonical, historical and church-practical points of view, its analysis is carried out, the results of the analysis are systematized and generalized from the Orthodox position. Also in the work, the development of the doctrine of the primitive bishop in Russian Orthodox theology with ecclesiological reform in the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century is compared and the issue of possible mutual influence and intersection of two traditions is investigated.
The fundamental significance of the primitive bishop in the life and teaching of the Church in the entirety manifested itself in the tragic history of church divisions. The difference in views on the nature and functions of the universal championship, along with the rivalry of the throne of the Old and New Rome, led in the XI century to the great division of the Church into the Western-Roman-Catholic, and eastern-Orthodox. Later, in the 16th century, opposition to papal absolutism in the West led to the emergence of Protestant churches, in the 19th century - to the separation of the old -Catholic church.
The question of the powers of the primitive bishop became one of the most important in the Orthodox Church in the twentieth century