Ecclesial Life Research Articles

Worship as Public Theology

Dieser Artikel behandelt die Frage, ob und ggf. in welchem Sinne der christliche Gottesdienst als ein Vollzug öffentlicher Theologie verstanden werden kann. In einem ersten Schritt analysiert der Verf. den Gottesdienst als eine theologische Handlung. Um zu zeigen, dass nicht nur einzelne Elemente im Gottesdienst, sondern dass der Gottesdienst insgesamt als ein Akt öffentlicher Theologie aufgefasst werden kann, reflektiert der Verf. sodann auf zwei im Blick auf diesen Sachverhalt entscheidende theologische Begründungsfiguren. Die eine – christologische – wird unter Hinweis auf die im Abendmahl realisierte Tischgemeinschaft mit Jesus expliziert. Die andere – ekklesiologische – sieht der Verf. in der Schlüsselbedeutung verankert, die dem Gottesdienst unter den gegenwartskulturellen Bedingungen hinsichtlich des Missionsauftrages der Kirche zukommt. In einem Schlussabschnitt erörtert der Verf. Funktion und Bedeutung lokaler Gottesdienstgemeinschaften als Subjekte einer im Modus der Liturgie öffentlich agierenden Theologie sowie die spezifischen Herausforderungen, die sich aus einem solchen Verständnis des Gottesdienstes ergeben.

EDUCATION AND THE LITURGICAL LIFE OF THE CHURCH

In every faith community, worship and education should be conceived and practiced as interdependent, interpenetrating dimensions of ecclesial life. Too often, however, worship and education are separated and compartmentalized to the detriment of both. This article explores a way to understand the inherent unity of worship and education and proposes a structure of ecclesial life in which each is necessary to the other. Putting education and worship in conversation yields new clarity regarding the liturgical nature of ministry and the micro- and macroscopic perspectives of education. Significant implications are drawn, especially with respect to the important insights that an educational perspective can bring to pastoral leadership in the community.

Re-Rooting Mission in the Family

AbstractThe family, José M. de Mesa argues in this article, is the basic unit of the church, and should therefore be the basic unit of the church's mission. It is in the family where the Kingdom of God is most immediately experienced and witnessed to, and where the inclusiveness of God's saving presence can be exercised through the practice of dialogue and hospitality. Following the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, Dr. de Mesa calls for an understanding of marriage as a distinct ordo or ministry within the church, and for a renewed recognition of the family as the "domestic church," missionary by its very nature. "Parishes and dioceses," he says, "ought to rethink their pastoral vision, approaches and programs in renewing ecclesial life by first looking at the church already alive in families. The question should then be, 'How can these families be more church?' rather than 'How can we involve people (who belong to families) in the parish or the diocese?"'

Implications of an Eschatological View of the Church

The church is the “people of God” in a particular way, namely as an eschatological community, living in the present in the light of God's promised future, already made real proleptically in the ministry of Jesus and in his resurrection from the dead. This eschatological character shapes every aspect of ecclesial life and work. In particular, it makes the church an anticipatory sign of the unity of humankind. Among the implications that follow from such a view of the church are ecumenical ones, with challenges at both local and wider levels. The article concludes with some critical reflections on the three great problems of faith and order: baptism, eucharist and (especially) ministry.

Church as Structure and Communitas: Victor Turner and Ecclesiology

Anthropologist Victor Turner focused on the dynamic relationship between the liminal condition affecting subjects of rites of passages and the relatively permanent state of the overall structure of ordinary life. He extrapolated his theory into a wider application to social and cultural dynamics. The A. here argues that Turner's methodology is fruitful for analysing ecclesial life, bearing especially upon permanence and change. He then attends to the types of three contemporary liminal groups and the Church's possible response to them

Старообрядчество в Латвии : вчера и сегодня

Old Believers in Latvia, Past and Present Based on documents and materials in the contemporary periodicals, the article reconstructs the story of the appearance of the Russians in the Baltic States, and especially the migration in the 17th century related to the schism of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Latvian Old Believers are the descendants of two tendencies: on the one hand, the Pomorcy, on the other the Fedoseevcy who at the present time make up the Old Orthodox Church of Pomor´e. The author describes the unionist tendencies of the Latvian Old Believers, and analyses the documents of the 19th- and 20th-century conciles and conventions. The difficulties in the ecclesial life of the Old Believers in independent Latvia of the 1920s-1930s and at the present time are examined with special attention.

CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND THE UNITY OF THE CHURCHES

... the ecumenical symbol is a potentially exciting, basic faith symbol. Far from imprisoning us a bygone age, it has the power to release us to live together the present and into the future continuity with the past.(1) Much has been made among the Roman Catholic faithful the Cape recently of the Roman Catholic Archbishop Henry serving communion to Dr Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress (ANC) and to Dr Allan Boesak, the Western Cape chairman of that political organization. Both were attending mass at the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary of the Angels Athlone. Nelson Mandela was visiting Cape Town at the time. As is his custom, he worships different churches as he tours around the country. Nelson Mandela and Allan Boesak are practising members of the Methodist Church and N.G. Sendingkerk respectively. The objection raised by the Roman Catholic faithful, widely published the readers' columns of local newspapers, is whether non-Catholics are entitled to receive communion the Roman Catholic Church. In response Archbishop Lawrence Henry concedes that the Vatican rules that in general is permitted to (Roman Catholic) eucharist and to the sacraments 'only to those who share its oneness faith, worship and ecclesial life.' However, the exercise of hospitality and special circumstances access may be permitted or even commended for Christians of other churches and ecclesial communities.(2) At the time of the funeral of Chris Hani, the assassinated leader of the South African Communist Party, where Roman Catholic rites were administered, Roman Catholics were enraged. They could not accept that their church could give its allowed last respects to one who was a communist. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Johannesburg responded like the Cape Town Archbishop, by letter to the Weekly Mail. He argued that from his investigations, the late Chris Hani was a committed Roman Catholic. What these cases raise is the extent to which ordinary Christians South Africa are so isolated from ecclesial and sacramental fellowship with their neighbours that they cannot accept what may be termed the invasion of their sacred space. An exclusive Roman Catholic mass is what gives them security and by which they carve out their identity. Second, ordinary Christians cannot understand it when their leaders appear to behave a manner inconsistent with what they teach. More significantly, however, the controversy is hardly just about the Roman Catholic Church but about the sorry state of ecumenical relations South Africa during the period beyond February 1990. The strength and weakness of ecumenical praxis South Africa Many observers of the situation South Africa will recall that at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, churches and other religious communities were united the common struggle against apartheid. It is not only Christian leaders who were victimized under apartheid. Indeed many were banned, endured trial (like the Dean of Johannesburg) and, even more, had their residence permits revoked. The churches realized that apartheid was too powerful for a divided church, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu was fond of saying. Christian solidarity was the mark of ecumenical witness during the worst times of the apartheid repression. Likewise, the pastoral care of black communities, where the effects of apartheid were felt most severely, the churches recognized the obligation for ecumenical unity. In many pastoral situations like burying the dead, meeting the needs of victims, resisting encroachments by marauding bands of police and later of the hit-squads, the churches persistently stood by the people who were suffering. When disunity brought into being warring factions black communities, it was the churches who stood the middle, making peace and preaching reconciliation. Apartheid was, ironically and without doubt, a critical instrument of ecumenical practice. …

Un seul «Pasteur», un seul Hermas

The Shepherd of Hermas, which circulated extensively, served as a guide for the ecclesial life of the early christians and possessed almost a canonical authority until the fourth century. Afterwards it disappeared and was forgotten. Now that it has been rediscovered, it intrigues readers but it also leaves them bewildered. Is it just a jumble of several different documents thrown together without internal unity as some say ? This article suggests reading the Shepherd as it was read in the early Church ; namely, as a guide which accompanied the Christian from his initial formation in the faith to his spiritual maturity.

Justification and the Constitution of Consciousness: a new look at Romans and Galatians

One of the difficulties in understanding St Paul’s treatment of Justification is that the theme appears in two ‘second order’ documents: the epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans. These are obviously not secondary in terms of their importance, but they are second-order reflections, interpreting something that the recipients already knew. It is clear that, from time to time in his letters, St Paul makes explicit references to the initial Kerygma, the first annunciation of the salvation brought by Christ, but treats it as something already known. The frequency with which the formula ‘Do you not know?’ occurs points to this. When Paul berates the Galatians (Gal 1:9; 3:1—5) it is in terms of their infidelity towards that which they had received, or their bad interpretation of it. Famously, Paul on occasion (as in 1 Cor 11:23—26) repeats part of the original Kerygma—in that case what he himself had given in Corinth.The exegetical problem remains: what we have is an interpretation of the original kerygmatic package, an interpretation of what was evidently a very powerful, exciting message, frequently accompanied (so it would seem) by signs and wonders of one sort or another. Yet our faithful interpretation of this interpretation demands that we supply a good deal inductively. There was clearly a message of salvation centred in Christ crucified (1 Cor 2:2); it was from this that the ecclesial life was to flow; and it was from this that the signs and wonders abounded. It was clearly from this also that interpretations or misinterpretations arose which led Paul to formulate his doctrine of Justification.

Hierarchy and Holiness: Aquinas on the Holiness of the Episcopal State

HIERARCHY AND HOLINESS: AQUINAS ON THE HOLINESS OF THE EPISCOPAL STATE ( ( PERHAPS IN SOME more adequate Church we could ask for more, but at the present time in England they (the bishops) provide merely an administrative context within which the really vital and immediately relevant institutions can exist. . . . It would be quite unrealistic to expect them to be sources of enthusiasm and original thought." 1 If the negative experience of episcopate that finds expression in the above lines were ever to become the experience of Christian people as such, it would be difficult to imagine a more radical departure from what the episcopate should mean in the life of the Church. That what is most vital in the Church should have to find its normal expression outside the context of an ecclesial life centered on the bishop would mean an ecclesial situation that would run directly counter to a tradition that stretches right back to earliest Christian times. For Ignatius of Antioch, in whose writings we find the first clear references to the monarchical episcopate, " the bishop is, in a certain sense, the incarnation of the Church over which he presides, in such a way that to receive him is to receive his Church, to contemplate him is to contemplate his Church," 2 and in the middle of the third century St. Cyprian of Carthage could write " the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop." 3 If the relationship between Church and bishop is so intimate, then the distinctive marks of the Church should manifest themselves in a special way in the bishop. That the apostolicity of 1 H. McCabe, "Comment," in New Blackfriars 48 (1967), p. !l88. "G. Bardy, La Thiologie de l'Eglise de saint ClCment de Rome d saint [renee 8 Ep. 66, par. 8 (ed. Hartel, CSEL, t. 3.!l, p. 733). 198 HIERARCHY AND HOLINESS 199 the Church is verified in a special way through the line of episcopal succession is a constant of Christian tradition.4 While individual bishops are the principle and foundation of unity in their local churches, they manifest as a college the unity and catholicity of the universal Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 22, 23) . So too with regard to the holiness of the Church. A most ancient and constant liturgical and patristic tradtion expects the bishop's primacy to be a real primacy in the Spirit, constituting him in his Church the incarnation of that holiness to which his flock is called. There is no question in this article of justifying this last assertion in detail. Our task is to show how this tradition was taken over and developed by St. Thomas. It finds its systematic expression in his doctrine, so juridical and odd-sounding at first sight, on the episcopate as a state of perfection. Its ecclesiological significance lies in the fact that it is the classical medieval expression of the doctrine that the often neglected mark of the Church, her sanctity, should shine forth in her bishops above all others. It has also, perhaps, a more immediate relevance today. At a time when people are experiencing a renewed thirst for the things of the spirit, when they look for gurus in the paths of prayer and Christian experience rathei than administrators, it confronts us with an episcopal ideal that has ben largely lost sight of, with a contemplative and charismatic episcopate whose primacy is a real primacy in Christ. It also indicates in the process the broad lines of a priestly spirituality rooted in the Church's tradition. I. The Bishop and His Sanctity in St. Thomas. A. The Bishop in the Church. As a preface to a consideration of episcopal perfection it will be useful to situate our subject by saying a few words on what we might call St. Thomas's mystique of the bishop. It will en- • Cf. A. M. Javierre, "Le theme de la succession des ap(\tres dans la litterature chretienne primitive," in L'Episcopat et L'Eglise Universelle (Paris, 196~), p. ~10. 200 NOEL MOLLOY able us to see the significance of the episcopacy in the eyes of St. Thomas and bring home to us the fact that...