I have been asked to give a lecture on the topic of interaction between Christians today. Does ecumenism have a future? This question has become ever more relevant and demands an all-round analysis.
When Jesus Christ founded his Church on earth, it was a single
community of disciples bound together by faith in him as God and
Saviour. At the Last Supper Jesus prayed to his Father that his
disciples may preserve unity in the fashion of the unity that exists
between the Father and the Son: 'That they all may be one; as thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:
that the world may believe that thou hast sent me' (Jn. 17: 21). He
then gave to his disciples his body and blood in the form of bread
and wine and commanded them: 'Do this in remembrance of me" (Lk.
22: 1). After his death and resurrection it was the Eucharist -- the
re-enactment of the Last Supper with the prayer that the bread and
wine become the body and blood of Christ -- that became the most
important unifying element of the Christian community.From the time the first generation of Christians had appeared the community had begun to grow rapidly. The apostles' preaching to the Jews was no less successful than that of Christ's. Yet it was among the pagans that Christianity began to gain great popularity very quickly. St. Paul played an essential role in the expansion of the Church's mission. It was he who, with characteristic passion and conviction, defended the idea of the universal nature of the Christian mission. It was he who also insisted that in the Church there is 'neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all' (Col. 3: 11). It is to St. Paul that we first find the comparison of the Church to a body: 'So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another' (Rom. 12: 5). The head of this universal body is Christ himself (Eph. 5: 23).
In being aware of herself as a single organism, the Church, from the very first days of her existence, knew the risks linked with the preservation of unity under earthly conditions. The Church was created as a projection of the eternal on the temporal, as 'the kingdom of God coming with power' (Mk. 9: 1). So the Church was perceived not simply as an association of people, as an earthly community like other communities and corporations. The Church was understood by Christians as that spiritual expanse in which they encounter God, in which they are united with God through the indissoluble bonds of love, at the same time being united with each other by the same bonds. The unity of Christians has a supernatural aspect, and therefore also requires special, supernatural endeavours for its preservation. (more)
