What role did the apostles have in the hierarchy of the Church?

Question

What role?

Answer 1

In the first Christian generation, authority in the church lay either in the kinsmen of Jesus or in those whom he had commissioned as Apostles and missionaries. The Jerusalem church under James, the brother of Jesus, was the mother church. Paul admitted that if they had refused to grant recognition to his Gentile converts he would have laboured in vain. If there was an attempt to establish a hereditary family overlordship in the church, it did not succeed. Among the Gentile congregations, the Apostles sent by Jesus enjoyed supreme authority. As long as the Apostles lived, there existed a living authoritative voice to which appeal could be made. But once they all had died, there was an acute question regarding the locus of authority. The earliest documents of the 3rd and 4th Christian generations are mainly concerned with this issue: what is the authority of the ministerial hierarchy? The apostolic congregations had normally been served by elders (Greek presbyteroi, "priests") or overseers (episkopoi, "bishops"), assisted by attendants (diakonoi, "deacons"). The clergy were responsible for preaching, for administering baptism and Eucharist, and for distributing aid to the poor. In each city the president or senior member of the college (assembly) of presbyters naturally had some special authority; he corresponded with other churches and, when they were ordaining a new president, would go as the representative of his own community and as a symbol of the catholicity--the universality and unity--of the church of Christ.

Answer 2

Ah, that gets complicated. The slightly later bishops looked back to the apostles as the founding bishops that justified having the office as in "Jesus chose 12 followers to establish the church and they formed congregations and groups of congregations and provided leadership and we bishops continue that leadership." But in fact at the beginning there was no Church and the formation of the Church and its organized beliefs and hierarchy took at least a couple of centuries and perhaps longer depending on how you look at the Roman church and the Eastern church. A great many beliefs sprang up in the early years from enthusiastic converts including the creation of other Gospels and the movements and books were trimmed as the Church consolidated.

Answer 3

The first bishops, and cardinals. Peter was the first pope. They served the same role as modern Catholic bishops and cardinals, but did so in a covert fashion for fear of execution.

Answer 4

Not much, if any........