In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod. For instance, the Holy Synod is a ruling body of the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church.
In Oriental Orthodoxy the Holy Synod is the highest authority in the church and it formulates the rules and regulations regarding matters of church organisation, faith, and order of service.
Read more about Holy Synod: Early Synods, The Russian Holy Synod, The Greek Holy Synod, Serbian Holy Synod, The Coptic Holy Synod, Eastern Catholic Churches
Famous quotes containing the word holy:
“In spite of all her faults her name was so holy to him that it had never once passed his lips since her death, except in low whispers to himself,—low whispers made in the perfect, double-guarded seclusion of his own chamber. “Cora, Cora,” he had murmured, so that the sense of the sound and not the sound itself had come to him from his own lips.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)