ECUMENISM BEYOND UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO

Abstract

The author starts with a historical preamble where he refers to the origins of Christianity in Palestine and how it rapidly spread to the whole of Asia Minor, North Africa and the West. The early Church functioned as a ‘Communion of Churches’, until it became centralized under Rome. The centralization of the Church had to pay the price of subsequent divisions in the Church. In the first part of the article the author briefly spells out the implications of the ecclesiology of Vatican II for promoting unity among the divided Churches. In Part II the author explains the Council’s view on the ecclesial status of the other Churches. In short, the Council does not grant full ecclesial status to the other Churches, but grants them only many elements or some elements of the Church. In Part III, the author calls for a rethinking of the Council’s view. In our ecumenical and pluralistic context of today, the claim that only the Catholic Church has the ‘fullness’ of ecclesial reality can no more be held. ‘Many Churches’ or the diverse types of Churches are better understood as the diverse forms of the historical, cultural and social realizations of the ‘One Church’.