Liturgia szczytem i źródłem modlitwy uczniów Chrystusa w Kościele starożytnym

Abstract

The main theme of the article is the relationship that should exist between the liturgy and the private devotion of Christians. The Second Vatican Council defined the liturgy as the summit to which everything that the Church lives every day should lead and as the source that constantly nourishes her life and activity. Through a skilful return to the sources, the Council deduced this teaching from the rich Tradition of the Church – set on the rock that is Jesus and then, starting from Christian antiquity, laboriously consolidated and grounded by generations of believers in Christ. Although this process of consolidation and grounding of the Church’s Tradition has persisted without interruption until our present day, the article focuses our attention solely on the earliest stage, that is on Christian antiquity or, in other words, the history of the Apostolic Church (i.e. the period roughly coinciding with the first century), when the content of this Tradition was still being constituted, and on the earliest stage of the history of the post-Apostolic Church (i.e. the period from the second century to the beginning of the fifth century), when the content of the Apostolic Tradition began to be preserved by the Church (as it still is today).