Why Ecclesial Structures at the Regional Level Matter: Communion as Mutual Inclusion

Abstract

In the one communion of all local churches, regional structures of authority are essential if the church is to live out its mission in each sociopolitical context. The article explores how structures of regional and universal authority interact in Catholic and Orthodox contexts, looking at the ministry of unity exercised in the late 1970s by Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador and at Orthodoxy’s ongoing efforts to bring multiple ethnic jurisdictions into administrative unity in North America.