Agreement on the ministry is one of the most elusive facets of the search for the visible unity of the church. And among the differences which separate churches in this area, one of the hardest to resolve is how the ministry of oversight or episkope is exercised. Recognizing that new forms of exercising oversight were emerging and new questions about episkope arising, the fifth world conference on Faith and Order in 1993 urged renewed ecumenical study of this theme. The papers included in this volume come out of two consultations held in 1997.