It is commonly believed by Christians in the high-church traditions, like mine, that the threefold order of ministry (bishop, priest, deacon) mandates a hierarchical structure of decision-making, but I am not sure that’s true. Things did indeed develop along those lines, but that’s because — this is an old theme of mine — church leaders saw the administrative structure of the Roman state as something to imitate rather than something to defy. A diocese was originally a Roman administrative unit; nothing in the New Testament even hints that an episkopos is anything like the Roman prefect (praefectus praetorio) or a priest like his representative (vicarius). The office developed along Roman/political lines, but it needn’t have developed that way.

— Alan Jacobs, should Christians be anarchists?, 2025