Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 72 No. 4, 2002.
Review article
Ecclesiastical Communio: a Sign, the Task, and Ecumenical Challenges
Dušan Moro
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Abstract
Post-conciliar ecclesiology firmly emphasizes and defines the Church as community of people of God, in which communion (communio, communitas) is fundamental, biblical category and starting point. What is the source of that conception and a standpoint?
Keeping it in mind, one can not avoid the terms such as: the Holy Trinity, internal, communitarian, community life as well as activity of the Holy Trinity, the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and establishment of the Church and its mission in the world. The entire ecumenical movement strives towards a permanent opening of all the Christian Churches and Church communities to make an effort in order to realize communio, a community of Christ's disciples, a community which will be the Church, Christ's Church, i.e., »One, holy, catholic and apostolic«, as it is stated in the Creed.
That aim- realization of a full, eucharistic communion is the sign, a task and the biggest challenge to contemporary Christianity as well as for the entire contemporary theological research and ecumenical dialogue.
Dialogue and communion, which exist and are realized within the Holy Trinity, the Church has been receiving as a gift and its mission. The Church has to witnesss it and to put it into practice. It has to make it alive and present within the entire community of human race. By doing so, the Church will eventually fulfill the expectations of the Vatican II, stated in its document Lumen gentium: »...the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race...« (LG I.).
Keywords
communion; community; Holy Trinity; Church; mission; dialogue; Eucharist; ecumenism; Vatican council II; culture of dialogue; ecumenical challenge; ecumenical aims; unity of the Church
Hrčak ID:
28849
URI
Publication date:
8.4.2003.
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