Did Corinthians Have Bishops, Priests When St. Paul Wrote Them?

We know for certain they had priests because you need a priest to offer the Sacrifice of the Eucharist/Mass, and St. Paul teaches about the Eucharist, i.e., the sacrificial partaking of the body and blood of the Lord, in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, and also about avoiding related abuses in celebrating the Eucharist, which he tells us is also known as “the Lord’s Supper” in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. In short, Paul would not have had to worry about abuses unless the Eucharist were being celebrated. Priests were known as presbyters or elders (1 Pet. 5:1).

Regarding bishops, it’s possible but we don’t know for certain. As noted in 1 Corinthians 16:8, Paul wrote this letter while staying in Ephesus (modern Turkey). As Dr. Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch write on page 283 of the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament, this most likely means that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians during his third missionary journey (from A.D. 53 to 58). He notes he’s heading to Corinth after his time in Ephesus (1 Cor. 11:34). In addition, Paul had previously planted the Church in Corinth, which Acts 18:1-18 confirms. This was in about A.D. 51.

So if Paul already planted the Church in Corinth, it’s possible he may have consecrated a bishop, although he may have waited until his second journey to do so, or deputized someone else to do so in concert with St. Peter, the first Pope.

Paul speaks about the qualifications of bishops in 1 Timothy 3.