Presbytery

Definition and Meaning

The Korean term nohoe (老會) means "assembly of elders" and translates the English word presbytery. In the church polity of Presbyterianism, a presbytery is composed of the ministers of a given region together with ruling elder representatives (commissioners) sent by the session of each church. A body that governs and adjudicates church matters is called a church court (chirihoe), and Presbyterianism maintains three levels of church courts: the session of the local church, the regional presbytery, and the national general assembly. The presbytery is the intermediate court of the three.

Biblical and Historical Background

As grounds for the principle that the church should be governed not by a single individual but by councils of elders, Presbyterians cite the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 and 1 Timothy 4:14, which speaks of "the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." This council-centered form of church government took systematic shape during the sixteenth-century Reformation in the church of Geneva under John Calvin and in the Church of Scotland, and it was codified in the Presbyterian documents of church government drawn up in the seventeenth century alongside the Westminster Confession of Faith.

In Korea, the Independent Presbytery (Dongnohoe, 獨老會, meaning "the sole presbytery") was organized in Pyongyang in 1907, and at that time seven men, including Kil Sun-ju, were ordained as the first Korean Presbyterian ministers. In 1912 a general assembly was organized from several presbyteries.

Practice in the Korean Church

According to the church constitutions of the various Korean Presbyterian denominations, the presbytery is generally responsible for the following:

• Examining and ordaining ministers, and handling ministers' transfers and resignations
• Approving churches' calls to ministers and the installation of installed pastors
• In some denominations, licensing licentiates
• Deciding on the establishment, division, merger, and dissolution of churches
• Adjudicating discipline cases referred from sessions
• Electing commissioners to the general assembly

Stated meetings are usually held in the spring and fall. Under the presbytery are districts (sichal), each of which groups several churches together for oversight. Because denominational divisions have frequently followed presbytery lines, the presbytery has also been an important unit in the history of Korean Presbyterian schisms.

In non-Presbyterian denominations, similar functions are carried out by other bodies. In the Korean Methodist Church, the district conference, led by a district superintendent, and the annual conference above it are responsible for the appointment of clergy and for church administration. Holiness denominations also maintain district conferences. Baptists, who emphasize the autonomy of the local church, regard the district association as a cooperative body of churches and do not recognize the governing authority of a higher court such as a Presbyterian presbytery.