“Synodality in the Church or Synodality of the Church: An Ecclesiological Quest through the Fathers to Present”

Okpaleke, Ikenna Paschal
(2025) 5th International Patristic Conference: Synodality in the Early Church — Location: John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (7.October.2025)

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In recent times, much has been said about the ecclesiological concept of synodality with the climax marked by the three-year Synod on Synodality (2021-2024). Yet the occasion of the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea provides another opportunity to examine the concept of synodality upon which the Council could be better understood, both historically and theologically. But then, the Council shades light not only upon itself but on the Fathers, whose study provide better understanding of the development and praxis of synodality. Within this broader framework, I embark on an ecclesiological quest that is addressed to the present reality of being a synodal church. Being a synodal church in the shadows of the Council of Nicaea and of the Fathers raises the question of whether a historical, ecclessiological understanding of the concept of synodality would lead us to a ‘synodality in the church’ or a ‘synodality of the church’. I am compelled by this central question to a) investigate how the study of the Fathers could provide evidence for a differentiated participative structure of synodal praxis, and b) analyse the question of the synonymity of the church and synod which is taken from the Fathers into contemporary ecclesiolgical debates, particularly by Hans Küng. The objective of this search is to better understand how the patristic sources on the subject matter opens up to a contemporary insistence on understanding synodality as a ‘way of being’ church rather than a title for a series of periodic events in the church only aimed at making structural changes.
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Okpaleke, I. P. (2025). “Synodality in the Church or Synodality of the Church: An Ecclesiological Quest through the Fathers to Present”. 5th International Patristic Conference: Synodality in the Early Church, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.