The article aims to present the main identitary problems of the contemporary ecumenical movement. It also shows some proposals to solve them issued by the World Council of Churches. Firstly, the article depicts the main ecumenical difficulties related to confessional identities. Secondly, it presents some confessionally conditioned ways of thinking and ecumenical solutions. Thirdly, the article focuses on the identitary proposals of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in its recent document Who Do We Say That We Are? Christian Identity in a Multi-Religious World.
Article depicts basic elements of ecumenical movement as well as empirical data connected with the attitude of high school graduates towards mentioned movement. On the basis of collected materials it has to be said that ecumenical movement is loosely determined in the consciousness of high school graduates. Wherefore it is difficult to expect the growth of interest of that religious & social dimension. The lack of inspiration coming from church institutions as well as family or background people is outright.
The article takes stock of the past fifty years Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. They appoint them two events ecumenical especially important to him, it is the meeting of Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I (1964) and Francis Pope and the Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem (2014). The outline shows a gradual process of division between the Churches of East and West. More specifically discusses the course of contemporary dialogue, focusing on the key issues agreed, as reflected in jointly agreed by the partners of dialogue documents. There also omits the most contentious issues that still prevent full communion between the two Churches. In the end, it shows how important the dialogue was to meet Pope Francis and the Patriarch Bartholomew I in Jerusalem in 2014, even though his rank was much lower than the meeting of heads of Churches in 1964.
The article deals with the theme of the ecumenical dimension of theological method. Since the union of Christians should be based on looking for the fullness of Christian truth, each good theologian undertakes his work recognizing its ecumenical character. He is open to the Holy Spirit, the Bible, the voice of the Hierarchical Magisterium and the sense of the faithful. He wants to understand in a systematic and methodical way the common faith of all Christians. In consequence, to be a Christian theologian means to be ecumenical.
PL
Artykuł podejmuje tematykę ekumenicznego wymiaru metody teologicznej. Ponieważ zjednoczenie chrześcijan powinno opierać się na poszukiwaniu pełni prawdy chrześcijańskiej, każdy dobry teolog podejmuje swoją pracę, uznając jej ekumeniczny charakter. Jest on otwarty na Ducha Świętego, na Biblię, na głos Magisterium hierarchicznego i na zmysł wiernych. Chce zrozumieć w sposób systematyczny i metodyczny wspólną wiarę wszystkich chrześcijan. W konsekwencji, być chrześcijańskim teologiem oznacza być ekumenicznym.
Ecumenical activity is a very important aspect of life in the Catholic Church. The author of the article looked at this ecumenical activity in the perspective of Joseph Ratzinger’s – Benedict XVI’s teaching. According to pope emeritus nowadays relativism is the most dangerous for ecumenism in the Catholic Church after Vaticanum II. A special document promulgated by pope Benedict XVI entitled Anglicanorum coetibus was a magnificent example of ecumenical activity in the Catholic and conciliar spirit. The article shows ecumenism also in the perspective of conciliar Decree on ecumenism and liturgical vision of unity of the Church.
During his many journeys and speeches in his teaching, John Paul II proved that spiritual ecumenism is a sine qua non for all ecumenical activity. He is the „soul” of all ecumenism. Spiritual ecumenism, thanks to conversion of the heart, holiness of life, individual and community prayer for unity, becomes a clear criterion for the existence of a genuinely Christian ecumenical attitude.
The purpose of this article is to show different responses to the question about the causes and the way out of the ecological crisis. In many environments, today there is a belief that the man is the greatest danger to the environment because if the world and humanity are to survive, the number of people in the world should be reduced to the minimum. The Holy See sees a different way out of the ecological crisis. Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Centesimus annus in 1991 said “human ecology”, according to which in the fi rst place you should put the man who is the master of creation, but not in an absolute way, because his authority was from God, before whom he must give an account of his deeds.
Społeczeństwo jest ze swej natury zawsze zbiorem wzajemnie powiązanych procesów dokonujących się w czasie, ciągłym przechodzeniem od przeszłości, poprzez teraźniejszość do przyszłości. Pamięć o byłych doświadczeniach jest zaś kluczowym czynnikiem kształtującym tożsamość tak jednostek jak i społeczeństw, przekazując wzory kulturowe, normy i wartości. Pamięć jest przy tym zawsze pewną interpretacją tego, co było, skoro przeszłość jest dostępna człowiekowi zawsze czy to przez mechanizmy zapamiętywania czy też poprzez zapośredniczony przekaz, realizowany tak drogą ustną, jak i systematycznej historiografii. Interpretowana pamięć może prowadzić do jej instrumentalizacji. Przykładem takiej instrumentalizacji jest „kultura pamięci”, którą można zdefiniować jako całość przedsięwzięć, zarówno zinstytucjonalizowanych jak i nie, które przyczyniają się do umocnienia kolektywnej jak i indywidualnej pamięci o byłych doświadczeniach, tak aby wykorzystać te doświadczenia w kształtowaniu przyszłości. Artykuł zmierza do odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy kultura pamięci może stać się narzędziem ekumenicznym. Wobec diagnozowanego przez wielu socjologów i teologów kryzysu chrześcijaństwa, Kościoły chrześcijańskie stają przed koniecznością wypracowywania nowych metod działania, które skuteczniej pozwolą stawić czoła wyzwaniom współczesności. W konsekwencji, przed taką koniecznością stoi również ekumenizm. Kultura pamięci, również ta odnosząca się do dawnych kontrowersji, może stać się takim ekumenicznym narzędziem, o ile jest projektowana w poszanowaniu podstawowych zasad dialogu ekumenicznego i oparta na ewangelicznym nakazie miłości.
The presented text aims to distinguish the understanding of the concept of salvation by two significant Christian scholars: John Paul II and Paul Tillich. They come from two separate Christian traditions: Catholicism and Lutheranism. The concept of salvation is so crucial that it is the essence of understanding Christianity and, if recognized as the goal of every human life, the effort of understanding it becomes even more important. An insight into the notion of salvation, based on the indication of similarities and differences in its understanding, makes it more comprehensible and accessible to every Christian.
The booklet entitled Christianity. Fundamental Teachings, published by the Joint Commission of Churches in Turkey in 2018, expresses the shared beliefs of the Christian Churches in Turkey. It can be seen as a landmark in inter-church efforts to draw closer together. Trying to explain Christianity to non- Christians, the booklet presents the key elements of the Christian faith in a clear and easily comprehensible way. This article provides a synthetic presentation of the content of this booklet and shows issues that are important in the Turkish context. Since the call for “an ecumenical catechism” resonates from time to time in the international and inter-church areas, this joint publication of the Churches in Turkey can be a good example of such a catechism for other Churches worldwide. Moreover, this booklet can serve as a good teaching tool for Christians or non-Christians. Thus it is worth studying, translating, commenting on and implementing after being appropriately adjusted to other social, cultural and religious contexts.
Abstract After 30 years of the event of Lima, there are still many important points of orientation and exciting chances for realisation of proposals from the past for ecumenism. The presentation examines what are chances and possibilities of the ecumenical circles regarding Lima Process after 30 years. Author states that the best thing for Churches is to sit together in ecumenical circles at many levels of Church life re-reading the actual Lima texts on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry and asking each other in the light of the developments already accomplished in the last thirty years, which points of orientation might be especially relevant and which chances for realisation are realistic for us now in our given situation of today.
After some passing considerations on the reception of Lewis in Romania, the present paper discusses the role played by Anglicanism in the late personal commitment of C.S. Lewis to the Christian faith, after years of atheism, scepticism, and agnosticism. It argues that in fact Anglicanism contributed very little to Lewis’s (re)conversion to Christianity. Furthermore, the paper agrees with the generally accepted idea that the particular calling that Lewis felt he had, that of being a Christian apologist, made him wary of being associated with the defence of any specific Christian tradition. In virtue of this special calling, Lewis also reacted quite strongly against certain aspects of Anglicanism, like, for instance, the ordination of women to priesthood, which he perceived as an obstacle to ecumenism and, implicitly, to an effective defence of the Christian faith in the public arena. In spite of all this, there is little doubt that Lewis has fully and unreservedly adopted Anglicanism as his preferred version of Christianity. From this particular stance, the life and ministry of C.S. Lewis made a huge public impact in the twentieth century and beyond. In light of the undeniable influence he had on the intellectual and religious scene in the last hundred years, one may ask not so much how Anglican was Lewis, but, rather, ‘why isn’t Anglicanism more like Lewis’.
A turning point for the approach of the Catholic Church to the question of the unity of Christians was brought by the Second Vatican Council which began in 1962. Observers from Churches and separate communities were invited to participate in the Council. The events which illustrate John Paul II’s engagement toward the reconciliation of Christians i.e. the Encyclical Slavorum Apostoli (2.06.1985), The apostolic Letter Orientale lumen (2.05.1995), The Encyclical Ut unum sint (25.05.1995), The Declaration Dominus Jesus (6.08.2000). The inauguration of the Anniversary Year of 2000 in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls and the “Ecumenical Remembrance of the Witnesses of Faith of the 20th Century” as crucial events in the field of the reconciliation of Christians. The ecumenical contacts with the Orthodox Church. The first of such contacts was John Paul II’s visit to Istanbul in 1979 and the meeting with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Dimitrios. Further meetings with the representatives of the Orthodox Church took place: in 1987 in the Vatican; in 1991 during the Synod of the Bishops of Europe; in 1994 the solemnities of the Station of the Cross on Good Friday were attended by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I; in 1999 John Paul II visited Romania. The contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church, which sometimes was not satisfied with John Paul II’s contacts with e.g. Georgia in 1999, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan in 2001. The pope never made a visit to Russia due to the lack of consent on the part of the Orthodox Church. The history of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of of Pius X. With the establishment of the Society Lefebvre started to openly oppose the decisions of the Second Vatican Council. When he began to illegally confer Holy Orders in 1976, Pope Paul VI divested him from the authority of executing episcopal duties. John Paul II is presented as an indefatigable champion of ecumenism. He was a remarkable guide in this journey, he never lost sight of his goals and he set out directions of action. His appreciation of the current situation was also accurate.
The ecumenical movement stressed the need for social commitment from the very beginning. In the last decade, this has been reflected in the harsh criticism of the capitalist social order. The article discusses selected critical ecumenical interpretations of capitalism: the Accra Confession by the World Communion of Reformed Churches (2004), the economy of life programme by the World Council of Churches, and the ecumenical project of radicalizing Reformation (2014). It aims to demonstrate convergences in the theological and philosophical assumptions of the approaches discussed. It also asks the question about the similarities between the presented ecumenical reflections and the teaching of Pope Francis.
The dedication of a Church is not the only rite that is used for the initiation of a new place of Christian worship. At the beginning of the construction of a building, liturgical sources provide for the Rite of Foundation of a Church in which blessings are asked on both the workers and also on the future edifice. This paper gives a comparative analysis of prayers used in the rites of the Byzantine-Greek and Latin traditions. Although both traditions have different theological emphasis they also have similarities too. This study bears fruit in allowing us to create a common ecumenical definition of the church-building arising from these analysed texts – it is the future place of Christian worship which (ἐκκλησία, ecclesia) is a house (οἶκος) constructed (opus) for God, to celebrate His glory (cf. Es 40,34-35; Ez 9,3) in and through the divine mysteries (templum). This place is made by the community of the faithful and it from this same community it takes its name (ἐκκλησία, ecclesia).
In his study about the liturgical music after the Second Vatican Council Ireneusz Pawlak calls songs from Taizé „poor artistic music” (2001: 42). My article proves that songs of this French ecumenical community are based upon the rich music tradition and mostly of them are based on basso ostinato which was very popular in baroque (passamezzo, folia, chaconne). Texts of these songs use only a few, several times repeated words taken from the Bible and the Fathers of the Church. The melodic and harmonic repetitions have common roots with the practice of the incessant Jesus prayer in the East Church, described amongst others by John Cassian. This prayer generates the prayer of the heart which consequently gives hesychia: spiritual calmness and union with the God leading all believers to true ecumenism.
The article presents the forms of synodality in the different strands of Christianity: in the Eastern (Orthodox and Oriental), Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist and Evangelical Churches. The main mechanisms operating in the different denominations and their theological justification are indicated. This experience can inspire the Catholic search for living out synodality and the co-responsibility of all the baptized for the life and mission of the community. The text contains exemplary models of synodality in specific groups of Churches and Christian communities, and at the same time attempts to formulate postulates for discussion in the Catholic Church. Thus, on the one hand, the work has a reporting and systematizing character, and on the other hand, it can provoke conversation about the synod and synodality as the normal functioning of the community of the baptized.
The history and the beginnings of Vatican diplomacy, its high prestige in the field of international relations. The text discusses the features, modes of action, the hierarchy and the number of the Vatican diplomats. The beginnings of the difficult collaboration of the Holy See with the East, inaugurated by John XXII and Paul VI, continued by John Paul II. After a Pole was chosen as the bishop of Rome there was an intensification of the Vatican’s eastern policy. John Paul II openly fought for and frequently spoke about respecting human rights and the increase of the freedom of the Church, not only in Poland, but also in the entire eastern bloc. We should mention the fact that during the events of December 1980 and the period of tension in Poland, John Paul II submitted a letter to Leonid Brezhnev expressing his concern about the fate of Europe and Poland. The bishop of Rome also established a collaboration with the Hungarian episcopate at that time. Despite initial difficulties, he also did so with Czechoslovakia. By making pilgrimages to his fatherland and by meeting general Jaruzelski, the Pope made vigorous attempts to normalize all diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Poland. This normalization eventually happened on 17 July 1989. In the second half of the 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev played a considerable role in the warming of the relations between the Vatican and Moscow due to his policy of reconstruction (perestroika). The extension of the dialogue between the Vatican and Moscow was facilitated by the visit made by the Soviet leader to the Pope in December 1989, and especially by the declaration made during that visit that there was a will to bring about a turning point in the religious policy and a will to confer an official status to the relations between the Soviet Union and the Vatican. The Polish Pope’s political sense, and especially his belief about the necessity of making a break with the post‑Yalta order in Europe and in the World, an order that was viewed as a moral catastrophe, entailed the idea that the Vatican’s eastern policy did not reach its end with the Spring of the Nations of 1989 and the demise of the Soviet Union, but that it entered a new stage of its development. The diplomacy of the Vatican in the face of democratizational processes in Eastern Europe and the emergence of a new political map drawn up on the ruins of the USSR had very little time to spare to adapt its activities to the dynamically changing reality. In the new political reality in the eastern part of the continent there came to the fore the question of restoring or establishing by the Holy See of diplomatic relations both with the countries with a Catholic majority, such as Poland, Hungary and Lithuania, or with countries which were widely represented by Catholics, countries such as Belarus or the Ukraine, or with countries in which the Catholics were a religious minority, as in the case of the Russian Federation. The thus‑defined long‑scale strategic goals of the Vatican toward the countries of the former Soviet Union and its satellite countries in Central and Eastern Europe were fulfilled, maybe with the exception of the Russian Federation alone, and, for other reasons, the Republic of Belarus. The diplomacy of the Vatican made a lasting contribution to the engineering of a new political order on the Old Continent based on the respect of rights and civic freedoms which are derived also from the Christian tradition.
W artykule podejmuje się próbę przybliżenia ekumenicznego wymiaru małżeństw między katolikami i prawosławnymi. Na przestrzeni historii w podejściu do małżeństw mieszanych, tak w jednej, jak i w drugiej tradycji wyznaniowej, dokonała się znaczna ewolucja: od absolutnego zakazu zawierania tego rodzaju związków do ich ograniczonej akceptacji i dostrzeżenia ich ekumenicznej funkcji. W rezultacie w nowszych dokumentach Kościołów oraz w tekstach katolicko-prawosławnego dialogu ekumenicznego można stwierdzić współistnienie tych dwóch elementów, co wskazuje na specyficzną tożsamość małżeństw mieszanych. Proces ewolucji stanowiska wobec małżeństw między katolikami i prawosławnymi, jak również różnice w rozłożeniu akcentów na jeden lub drugi aspekt tej złożonej rzeczywistości pozostają ściśle związane z obecnymi w obydwu Kościołach poglądami na temat charakteru eklezjalnego innych wyznań chrześcijańskich i ważności sprawowanych w nich sakramentów.
EN
In the article, I am focusing on the ecumenical dimension of marriage between Catholics and Orthodox Christians. In the course of history, the attitude toward mixed marriages both in the first and in the latter Church tradition has evolved to a considerable degree – from absolutely forbidding this kind of relationships to their limited acceptance and perceiving their ecumenical function. As a result, both these elements can be found side by side in the latest Church documents and in the texts of the Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical dialogue. This points to a specific identity of mixed marriages. The process of evolution of the respective stands on a Catholic-Orthodox marriage and the differences in emphasizing either aspect of the complex reality has been closely related to the Churches’ stands on the ecclesial character of other Christian denominations and on the validity of their sacraments.
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