Perspectief 2015-29

2015-29 The Making of an Ecumenical Text 11 Reag eer struggles to overcome division within the human community; and it was completing a contemporary ecumenical commentary of the Creed of Nicea-Constantinople of 381. These different ecumenical theological projects raised a key transversal issue: the meaning of the word of “Church” that played an important role in all of them. What do we have in mind when we speak of “Church”? That was the time when different ecumenical bilateral dialogues, following the renewal of Trinitarian theology in the West, were re-discovering the ecumenical potential of the notion of koinonia , catalysed by the impact on ecclesiology of the renewal of Trinitarian studies in the West. This is the institutional context in which Faith and Order took the decision of embarking in a long term study project on the common understanding of the church and its mission. In what follows, I will describe the three different phases of the study and their main results. II Phase One: Towards The Nature and Purpose of the Church (1998) 1. The Idea of a Study on Ecclesiology and the First Plan It took Faith and Order no less than ten years to produce the first version of the Ecclesiology study, published in 1998 under the title The Nature and Purpose of the Church . The first proposal in this direction was made in a Faith and Order Standing Commission meeting held in Madrid in 1987. A consultation on ecclesiology should attempt “to clarify basic ecumenical perspectives concerning the church which could help to inter-relate in a consistent way the different ecclesiological emphasis and perspectives contained in the Faith and Order programmes”. 10 The proposal, re-affirmed by the Faith and Order Standing Commission in 1988 11 , was tested in a consultation held in Pyatigorsk in 1988 which was dedicated to the ecclesiology of the then ongoing Faith and Order Study “The Unity of the Church and the Renewal of the Human Community” 12 . 10 Commission on Faith and Order, Minutes of the Meeting of the Standing Commission 1987 Madrid, Spain , Geneva, WCC, 1987, F&O Paper 141, 96. 11 Commission on Faith and Order, Minutes of the Meeting of the Standing Commission 1988 Boston, USA, Geneva, WCC, 1988, F&O Paper 145, 115. 12 Church and World – The Unity of the Church and the Renewal of Human Community , Geneva, WCC, 1990, F&O Paper 151.