CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN THE CHURCH Christian Journey Across Human Cultures

Abstract

Theologians down the ages struggle with the questions of how far may Christianity accommodate to the conditions of the culture and of how far changes of the Church may go. Both issues are converged when asking about the relation of ecclesiological continuity and changes. What does it mean, that Church still needs transformation, and, what does it mean, that Church must be aware of its continuity? Is it possible to assess the moment when continuity is torn apart and when a change becomes a breaking-down. It is unquestionably a deep ecumenical question. In the recently released document of the Faith and Order Commission the issue has been displayed in the very knowledgeable and sensitive way: “Some (churches) hold that faithfulness to the Gospel may at times require a break in institutional continuity, while others insist that such faithfulness can be maintained by resolving difficulties without breaks which lead to separation”1. Many times the same moment of the Church history seemed to be differently grasped by theologians. A number of examples confirms this finding. Yet, Philipp Melanchthon for instance, when he had written the Augsburg Confession, still one of the most important documents of the Protestant Reformation, thought about reform only. He would not recognize the process of which he was a member as a rupture of the Catholic Church. Various confessional interpretations of continuity and changes and its impact on the ecumenical relations reflect multidimensional feature of the problem. This stems from the two main points: firstly, confessions variously assess the level of their possible enculturation and secondly, they consider in the different manner the question of how inherent and comprehensive is the deposit of faith. Both