In AD 116, on his way to face the lions at Rome, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch wrote a letter of encouragement to the Christian community at Ephesus. In it, he praised its members for being synodoi — literally, "on the same road". "You are all synodoi, God-bearing and temple-bearing," St Ignatius told them. "Christ-bearing, holy-bearing, in all things ordered becomingly by precepts of Jesus Christ."
During the last papacy, we were often told that the Church must embrace synodality. Since Ignatius is, I believe, the first writer on record to have praised Christians for being synodal, and since he carries great authority as one of the earliest Fathers of the Church, we may compare his conception of synodality with the one being practised today.
