Die Suche nach der kirchlichen Ordnung. Gedanken zu grundlegenden Funktionsweisen der spätantiken Reichskirche

Abstract

Since the beginning of the fourth century, the church of the Roman Empire was confronted with Christian emperors. By this, Christian actors faced a strong challenge, while late antiquity saw dramatically changed structures for ecclesiastic actions. Suddenly, a certain factor had appeared, which was external to ecclesiastic developments so far, but nevertheless had to be integrated into the structure of the church. As it should prove to be impossible to find a commonly accepted place for the emperor inside these structures, the emergence of a „Reichskirche“ prevented the church of late antiquity to develop its aspired unity. Though the emperors enabled single ecclesiastic actors in case of conflict to enforce their positions against other actors, a general ecclesiastical segmentarity was never to be overcome entirely: Imperial commitments regarding matters of church intensified the significance of ecclesiastical conflicts in dogma and hierarchy. At the same time, these imperial commitments themselves became the casus belli for further controversies among ecclesiastical actors. Indeed, by means of covering minor differences by the practical ways of establishing ecclesiastical order, orders could emerge and appear to be stable; but in fact, such orders were permanently threatened by their susceptibility for conflicts – and thus could fail at any time. The „Reichskirche“ was characterized not by the a much wished-for unity but by different disfuncionalities. Nevertheless, the factual existence of this „Reichskirche“ should not at all be denied by its lacking historical realization: It already existed in the mere convergence of church and empire.