Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 88 No. 1, 2018.
Review article
Roman‑catholics and Christians of the Reformation: Complementarity of Theologies and Spirituality in the Past and Today
Lidija Matošević
orcid.org/0000-0001-9199-7931
; University of Zagreb – Center for protestant theology Matija Vlačić Ilirik, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article reflects on the issue of complementarity of the Roman‑Catholic and the Protestant theology and spirituality. At the beginning, the article situates the Reformation within the context of Late Medieval movements of renewal and then proceeds with a description of its specificity. The attention is given to the Reformation´s efforts and expectations to solve contested and, in that time, still fairly open issues through dialogue, as well as to the Reformation´s appeals for convening a free ecumenical council, which links reformers to the conciliar tradition. The article is trying to show that the renewal of Western Christianity did eventually occur in the form of a number of individual and separated renewals and despite the fact that during the time of Reformation the appeals for solving issues through dialogue proved unsuccessful. These renewals occurred both in that part of Christianity that followed impulses of the Reformation, as well as in the part that remained loyal to the Church under the leadership of the pope in Rome. Furthermore, the article discusses the fact that the history of the Western Christianity after the Reformation shows the mutual directedness and connectedness of the Roman‑Catholic and Protestant confessional identity, although their developments demonstrates different impulses, emphases, directions, and scope and although these developments were followed often by theological expressions that underlined the distinction from the »other side«. This is most evident when one considers important topics that were discussed for centuries by both »sides« and that initiated the contemporary ecumenical dialogue. The author of the article also discusses the issue of supplementation or complementarity of Roman‑Catholicism and Protestantism that sprung from the Reformation. This complementarity is determined by both scopes and boundaries of the contemporary ecumenical dialogue.
Keywords
Reformation; Council of Trent, Martin Luther, ecumenical dialogue, Holy Scripture, tradition, justification, offices in the Church, Eucharist
Hrčak ID:
200750
URI
Publication date:
29.5.2018.
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