Bischöfe zwischen Autarkie und Kollegialität

Volume 301 of the series Quaestiones disputatae presents current church historical research on the office of bishop and church synods from antiquity to the present. Rarely have both aspects been considered together: the collegial and the individual dimension of the topic, the interplay between the local and the supra-local ministry of the bishop, and thus the relationship between the individual bishop and the college of bishops. This volume specifically addresses the tension between the autonomy and responsibility of the local bishop in his work for his local church on one side, and the collegial, yet also hierarchical collaboration of bishops (especially, but not exclusively, at synods) on the other side. The combination of these two aspects is reflected in the diverse contributions, which range from portraits of individual bishops to studies on the intensive form of collegial action at synods, oscillating between the two poles of tension. Above all, the majority of the essays explicitly discuss historical shifts in competence and power struggles, modes of communication, and negotiation processes that arise from the polarity between the independence and collegiality of bishops, between their autonomy and their integration into supra-regional structures. Contributions by Johannes Hofmann, Christian Hornung, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Andreas Merkt, Georg Schöllgen, Johanna Schmid, Joachim Schmiedl, Hans Reinhard Seeliger, Andreas Weckwerth, and Dietmar W. Winkler.