The governance of the Christian churches has assumed a variety of forms based on historical factors as well as on theological positions regarding the origin or root of ministerial functions. In a descending degree of local autonomy, these forms are broadly classified as congregational, presbyterial, or episcopal, but within each category significant modifications exist. After a historical survey of church governance from its beginnings through the Middle Ages, the orga-nization of the major denominations will be considered individually.

One cannot speak with precision or certitude about ministry in the early church because it is difficult to date and evaluate the documentary evidence, including the New Testament writings, and because of differences of organization in the primitive local communities. At the conclusion of an eighty-year evolutionary process there emerged, apparently first at Antioch around 110 CE, a threefold hierarchical leadership that gradually became normative throughout the Christian world...