The Orthodox Church in the Contemporary Ecumenical Dialogue

Since its beginnings, the ecumenical movement has been influenced by the Orthodox Church, as seen, for example, in the 1920 Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Two convictions have underpinned the ecumenical commitment of the Orthodox Church: the need for better mutual understanding between churches and the desire of the Orthodox Church to witness to the truth in its ecumenical relations. There have been instances where the Orthodox Church has not been able to assert its views, and indeed its dialogue partners have come to decisions contrary to the principles of the Orthodox Church. However, this article will focus on the extent to which the Orthodox Church has been able to present its message and effectively influence developments, something that can be observed mainly in two areas: (i) the early church creedal tradition, specifically the Nicene Creed, and (ii) the liturgical heritage, particularly the relationship between baptism and chrismation.     

The Church in the Closet

Abstract

This article employs the metaphor of ‘the closet’ to explore the ambivalent status of the contemporary Church. The requirements of prophetic ministry and mission require that the Church leaves the security of the closet and claims its vocation as a counter cultural movement. However, remaining within the closet the Church enjoys the security and protection of the dominant powers. It is hard to relinquish these comforts particularly in contexts where ‘coming out’ may result in persecution or even martyrdom.     

The Church of Greece in critical times: reflections through philanthropy

In this article we reflect on the position and role of the Orthodox Church of Greece in contemporary Greek society as the latter is ravaged by a multi-layered crisis. This we do through the study of the discursive prerequisites and underlying logic governing the philanthropic response of the Church to the crisis, as promulgated by the Church’s major institutional settings, the Synodical Committee on Social Welfare and Beneficence and the Archdiocesan Anti-Poverty Fund. Viewing the Church and the state as uneasy partners in the process of the modernisation of Greece, we first consider the Church’s understanding of the crisis before focusing on the way this informs the practice of the above-mentioned institutional settings. We conclude with some thoughts on the Church’s attempt to transcend the secular–religious divide through imbuing its philanthropic praxis with its transcendental Christian hope.     

The Church in St Ambrose of Milan

Abstract

A brief account is given of the life of St Ambrose and of modern scholarly views on his work. The Church was favoured by the Emperor Constantine and Christianity established as the state religion by the Emperor Theodosius. Ambrose might have been expected to have been interested in promoting the interests of the Church as an institutional and juridical organisation but he was in fact overwhelmingly interested in its spiritual aspect, as von Campenhausen asserts, opposed by Morino. The Church is seen in Ambrose's writings as the City of God and as the Kingdom of God into which believers are received. His understanding of the Church is markedly christocentric and biblical and is closely linked with his thinking on the Holy Spirit. This article also examines his attitude to the see of Rome, of which he did not recognise a general supremacy. The relevance for Christians today of Ambrose's experience of the Church as a unique spiritual fellowship is touched on.     

The Church in the State We're In

The state (more specifically, the British state) is in a crisis it seemingly cannot recognize. But the issue is not one of "Church and State" or even modern "religion". The issue is the Church's fidelity to its vocation to narrate, announce, and dramatize the identity of humankind as communion in God. Newman's refraction of Christ's threefold office provides a framework for the Church's identity and vocation. The Church is a school of priestly forgiveness, offering resistance to nationalism, and prophetic thought against the anti-intellectualism of the merely devout as well as the patronizing ignorance of the irreligious.     

The Church in the commentaries of St Cyril of Alexandria

Abstract

The Church of Alexandria was a highly centralized institution, reflecting Alexandria's civil status rather than an ecclesiology comparable to that of Rome. Cyril's thinking on the Church was not ideologically driven but the product of his biblical exegesis. Of the many symbolic images of the Church he finds in the Scriptures, the most important are the tabernacle, the temple, the city of Sion, and the body of Christ. In discussing these images, he presents the Church as a community of faith in which humanity is recreated in Christ through the Holy Spirit, a community in which believers reproduce on the moral level the essential unity of the Trinity itself. With a strong sense of the Church as a society in the world, Cyril is anxious to protect this community from competitors who would thwart its purpose through wrong belief.     

The Ecumenical Significance of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church

From 20 to 26 June 2016, following a century of preparatory work, the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church met on the island of Crete. Among the various documents agreed by the council, the most controversial before, during, and after the council was the one on “The Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World.” This article sets out the importance of this statement, and considers and responds to the various criticisms of it that have emerged among certain Orthodox groups and individuals. The article concludes that despite such objections, the statement has a crucial ecumenical significance, and that, for the first time in its history, the Orthodox Church has taken a conciliar decision with regard to participation in the ecumenical movement and engagement in theological dialogue with other Christian churches and confessions.     

The Emerging Church and its discontents

The so‐called ‘Emerging Church’ constitutes a growing, if ill‐defined, Christian movement that has surfaced in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other nations of the Western world. The movement constitutes a theological and organisational critique of the conventional Christian Church, while offering a new mode of evangelism. This paper commences by briefly exploring the major attributes of the Emerging Church. It argues that although the movement can be understood as a means by which a distinct Christianity constituency has attempted to forge a juxtaposition with contemporary culture, the arrival of the movement has spurred widespread debate and produced a complex discourse indicative of the arrival of post‐modernity. The paper considers the controversy, and even acrimony, evident in the broad world of evangelicalism, in particular conservative evangelicalism, that the Emerging Church has generated.     

The Church as Mission in Its Very Life

Is there a relation between Church and mission? And if there is, how are mission and Church related? Does the Church have a mission or even several missions? Or is the Church essentially mission? Is it mission in its very life? These are the core questions of the following study text 1 that constitutes the contribution of the Working Group on Mission and Ecclesiology of CWME, from which the new Mission Statement's chapter on the Church drew. To address these questions means to embark on a twofold agenda: It means to approach mission from the angle of the life of and the reflection on the Church, and it also means to tackle ecumenical ecclesiology from a mission perspective. The present text grew out of further reflections on the study paper on theme 8 of the Edinburgh 2010 study process “Towards Common Witness to Christ Today: Mission and Visible Unity of the Church” (published in IRM 99.1 [2010] 86–106). The insights gathered in the following paper are part of an ongoing process that seeks to take into account the constantly changing contexts of mission and Church. Already on the face of it, the macro‐context shows two opposing trends: on the one hand, an increasing secularization of society, and at the same time, on the other, the emerging of new and rapidly growing religious movements. The present text limits itself to stating and briefly analyzing some factors of the continuously changing ecclesial landscape that is created by these trends of the macro‐context. This approach presumes that the Church is not merely a free‐floating, ultra‐mundane entity. It is of an “incarnational” nature. It exists in the midst of differing particular contexts in this world. The methodological option of starting from the contemporary contexts and challenges to world Christianity today and of evaluating the impacts they have on contemporary mission offers a fresh view on long‐debated issues in missiology and ecclesiology. In its search for solutions to these contemporary challenges, the text argues that theologically it is impossible to separate Church and mission. The missio Dei concept, which affirms the priority of the triune God's sending activity, continues to provide the fundamental basis for both, an ecumenical missiology and an ecclesiology from a mission point of view. “The missionary intention of God is the raison d'être of the Church,” the text states in no. 32. This Church (with a capital C) is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church we confess in the creed. The Church can also be called “apostolic” in the sense that Christians are “sent”, since they are invited by God to become “part‐takers” in God's mission (nos. 24 and 26). The second chapter is therefore called “Common Witness: That the World May Believe”. It addresses the insight that a lack of unity is detrimental to the witness and mission of the Church. This insight, which is already highlighted in John 17:21, was prophetically spelled out for the modern ecumenical movement by the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. From an ecclesiological point of view, the core question is how our confessional churches embody this one Church or how they are otherwise related to it. From a mission point of view, the witness of the one Church of Jesus Christ in the world needs to be a common witness despite the divisions and fractions that split the Church and hinder mission. This common witness stipulates criteria of discernment. And a mission‐centred ecclesiology has to ask: What structures and features in our churches further our common witness to God's mission? What features and structures hinder it? When answering these questions, the role of the Holy Spirit in mediating between unity and diversity needs to be taken into account. At the same time, the goal of full visible unity is reaffirmed by asking, How does unity become visible? Is this only and exclusively possible by common structures, or can it also, and perhaps more genuinely, be achieved by common service and witness to the mission of God? The third and last chapter addresses “Visions and Hopes” in the light of God's mission of healing, reconciliation and hope. Hope pervades the new missionary spirituality. Hope also motivates conversion as turning together to God. This new concentration on the aspect of hope accounts for the fact that, in view of the constantly changing ecclesial landscape and the flowing contexts of mission, it is impossible to name just one overall solution that would last at least for some of the coming decades. But “hope” stands for the confidence that, with the help of God for the Church, there will never be a lack of ingenious solutions in the time to come and that God's vineyard will never be without workers who will happily join in the common witness to God's mission. Annemarie C. MAYER     

Democracy and the Church of Sweden

The Church of Sweden was democratized in the 1930s when party politics was introduced into church elections. Since then, party politics have more and more been part of the governing style of the Church of Sweden. In 2000 the church was disestablished and a new election system was introduced with direct elections to the General Synod. The system of political parties remained. This article questions the democracy of the church using criteria for democratic structures. It also focuses on the role of the ordained ministry in the governance of the church, as the bishops have not been full members of the Synod since 1982. The conclusions are that the Church of Sweden is not fully democratic since participation in elections is at about 10% and the electorate has few chances to understand what the elections are about. The bishops’ weak formal position in the Synod is not in accordance with the teachings of the church on episcopacy. The conflict between democratic principles, inherited from the Swedish constitution, and church teaching on the ordained ministry and its role has not been fully resolved so far.     

The Church and the Trinity II: The Church of the Son

The second part of the trilogy which we are publishing to mark the tenth anniversary of Geoffrey Preston's death.     

The Motherhood of the Church in Henri de Lubac and John Calvin

Both Henri de Lubac and John Calvin described the Church as ‘mother’. From the patristic tradition, the motherhood of the Church had two dimensions: (i) the Mother Church as an institution delimited by the episcopacy of which inclusion was a necessity for salvation; and (ii) the Church as the mother of believers through whose ‘motherly’ care of bringing to life, nourishing and teaching through the sacraments God makes provision for his children. Both de Lubac and Calvin stress the maternal functions of the Church, but differ over how the Church’s motherhood relates to its visible identity and why inclusion in the Church is necessary for salvation. This article argues that this connection represents a rich theme for ecumenical ecclesiology. Despite divergent ecclesiological grammars and themes, Catholic and Reformed traditions are drawing from a shared patristic inheritance which gives good ground for dialogue for respective ecclesial self-understandings.     

Biblical mothers as images of the Church

Among the many images and symbols of the Church which the church Fathers used, biblical mothers had an important role. Some of these images, such as Mary as an image of the Church, became widespread and have influenced later Christian theology and iconography. In this article, both the development and different applications of these images will be explored. How and to what purpose these images were used in the Early Church will also be studied. Among the topics dealt with by using these images were the origin, age, character and purpose of the Church, as well as its relation to several ‘others’ (the Jews, the schismatics and the heretics). In modern ecclesiological discussions, especially of Eve and Mary as images of the Church, the role of the Church in salvation, as well as the communal interpretation of biblical mothers, are relevant.     

A Tale of Two Churches: The Ecclesiologies of The Episcopal Church and the Church of England Compared

This article compares key aspects of the ecclesiologies of The Episcopal Church and the Church of England. First, it examines and contrasts the underlying logic of their structures and the relationships between their constituent parts (General Synod/General Convention, diocese, parish/congregation). Against this background, it then looks at the place of bishops in the ecclesiologies of the two churches (in relation to clergy and parishes, in relation to diocesan synods/conventions and standing committees, and nationally). The American Presiding Bishop's role is contrasted with the traditional roles of primate and metropolitan. Throughout, attention is given to origins and historical development. Reference is also made to the relevant constitutional, canonical and liturgical provisions. Rapprochement between the two ecclesiologies is noted, especially with respect to the role of the laity, but the article argues that this is far from complete. Each church's ecclesiology continues to be determined by its origins; important modifications have been made within that framework, rather than overturning it. It is hoped that the analysis will illuminate the current disputes within The Episcopal Church and the crisis within the Anglican Communion that they have prompted.     

The Church as Sacrament in the Writings of Yngve Brilioth: Texts and Contexts

The Church as sacrament has been a recurring theme for some time in modern ecumenical conversations and in debates among theologians. When this idea re-emerged in the Western churches during the twentieth century it did not initially arise primarily from the results of patristic scholarship or under the influence of the Eastern churches. It seemed rather to emerge from two different problems: Roman Catholic institutionalism and the Protestant individualism born during the nineteenth century. It was also a reaction against what was perceived – in the context of an emerging ecclesial and socio-cultural diversification – to be too narrow a conceptualisation of sacrament. This article briefly introduces the idea of the Church as sacrament in the writings of Yngve Brilioth (1889–1959); it examines the background which allowed a Swedish theologian to describe the Church as sacrament. It notes that, during the 1940s, the sacramentality of the Church became a relatively common view among other leading Swedish theologians and suggests how this historical occurrence might provide some perspectives on current ecclesial deliberations.     

The Orthodoxy of the Anglo-Saxons: conversion and loyalty in the pre-conquest English Church

Though Eastern Christians generally regard the Western part of the Church to have split from Orthodoxy permanently in 1054, there have been calls by some to modify the date of this as regards the Anglo-Saxon Church. These Orthodox lay scholars and bishops argue that the Anglo-Saxon Church was more closely aligned with the Orthodox East rather than the Roman Catholic West, as evidenced by the canonisation of St Edward the Confessor and advocacy for the canonisation of King Harold II. This article questions these assertions by looking at the evidence provided by Anglo-Saxon connection to the Western Church, as well as the migration of Anglo-Saxons to Byzantium following the Battle of Hastings, as described in the Játvarðar Saga. It concludes by discussing what implications these findings have for the Orthodox Church in its canonisation of a technically non-Orthodox saint.     

Aids and All Saints

A sermon given by a London senior social worker on All Saints' Day 1986, during the Spode House conference 'The Catholic Church and Aids'.     

The impact of the charismatic movement on the Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic charismatic movement (renewal) may not have fulfilled all the hopes of its adherents, but it has had more impact on the Catholic Church than many realise. The signs are that this influence will increase as the effects sink deeper into church life.     

The renewal of the diaconate and the holistic mission of the Church

Research on the diaconate in recent years has provided a stimulus for discussion on possible reform and renewal of the ordained ministry. Whilst some critics see this as arising merely from an attempt at a uniformity which might further the search for unity in the Church, this article argues that there are in fact certain natural reasons for reforming the diaconate. The author focuses on the relationship of mission and diakonia and the renewal of the diaconate with each other. Though the term ‘mission’ is not often used, the article follows the central points of ecumenical missiological discussion, addressing the crucial question, ‘What is the place of diakonia and the diaconate in the holistic mission of the Church?’ There is thence a certain logic in the argument, leading to the conclusions the author finally draws.