The Theology of St. Cyprian of Carthage: The Unity of the Church and the Role of the Bishop

Abstract

This is the essence of the Christian faith based on the Gospel's revelation, identical with what Paul said in Ephesians 4: 5-6: “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all of us,” developed and taught faithfully in the whole Christian tradition until today. This specific kind of faith is the solid spiritual framework of the Christian Church and it gives to the Church one of its main characteristics, unity and unicity. It is appropriate to say here that the problem of the unity of the Church was a main preoccupation for its theologians especially in times when the Church passed through difficult crises threatening its very existence with annihilation, distortion, or corruption. This was the case in the time of Cyprian when the Church had to face heresies, schisms, and persecutions that threatened both the being and the visible unity of the Christian community. That is why, according to the specific circumstances in which he wrote, Cyprian had his own approach to the problem of the unity of the Church, which proves the validity of one important principle in the life of this institution, enduring throughout the whole of Church history and through all generations: unitas in diversitas, its character of unity in diversity.