Thus, in significant fourth-century church orders texts (manuals of disciplinary and liturgical rules for the church) one still finds the requirement that bishops be elected by the entire congregation. For example, canon 2 of the Canons of Hippolytus stipulates: “Let the bishop be ordained after he has been chosen by all the people.”27 Similarly, the Apostolic Constitutions stipulates that “a bishop to be ordained is to be . . . chosen by the whole people.”28 It then describes the people being gathered by the leaders of the church to be asked for their consent on the basis of the nominated
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