Perspectief 2015-29

Perspectief 8 Odair Pedroso Mateus or, in other terms, they remain competing truth claims about the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It follows that the language which each church uses to describe itself as the Church is, at least in principle, not only polemic but also apologetic. This polemic and apologetic dimension of the different ecclesiologies is not seen as a challenge until the churches move from isolation to ecumenical dialogue with a view to full visible koinonia . Then they begin to realise that they are in a paradoxical and often painful situation in which they have to use the lexicon marked by their past divisions in the dialogue that may lead them to communion. 3. Some models of church Which are some of these concurrent and sometimes conflicting ecclesiologies? 3 1. One of them, indebted to Cyprian of Carthage, identifies itself exclusively with the One Church: our Church is alone the Church. 2. Another ecclesiology, close to the first though influenced by Augustine, identifies itself with the One Church while recognising, outside its institutional borders, elements of itself, which allows for the recognition of a certain communion with those who are “outside”: our Church is the Church and other churches have ecclesial elements received from our church. 3. A third type draws a more clear distinction between the One Church and the church in history, while relating the local church or local churches to the One Church through the event of word and sacraments served by an ordered ministry: our church is the One Church when it listens to the Gospel while the same may happen in other churches by God’s sovereignty and grace. Thus the other churches have at least traces of the true Church. 4. A fourth type identifies itself with the One Church without unchurching other branches of the Church on the basis of past schisms because such schisms, it argues, would not have affected the given oneness of the Church. 5. Another model identifies the One Church with the community of true believers (i.e., those who have personally accepted Christ in their hearts), which cuts across the institutional forms ultimately inherited from past divisions. Thus the One Church is 3 For what follows see G. Wainwright, “Church”, in N. Lossky and others (eds), Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement , Geneva, WCC, 2002, 176-186.