Post 8 (10/26)

In class, we talked about how churches started to become more organized as the leadership positions in the church began to become more defined. The bishops were the leaders in the church, forgiving sins, administering communion, etc. The deacons were the assistants to the bishops, while the presbyters and the elders were the leaders who governed the church. The schism between these church leaders and the rest of the church--the laity--became larger. Then in the third century, the bishops started to meet and from that came what Dr. Bolger called "super-bishops," to oversee larger areas than just the small communities that the individual bishops oversaw.