TOWARDS FULL COMMUNION:
HOPES, ACHIEVEMENTS, OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES [1]
Kurt Cardinal Koch
1. The new initiative for ecumenism at the Second Vatican Council
How is the ecumenical movement going today? This at first glance innocuous question conceals the usually unspoken suspicion that ecumenism today is in fact standing still and going nowhere. There is often talk of a standstill or even a winter frost in ecumenism. I do not share this diagnosis, but am on the contrary convinced that the ecumenical movement does indeed move because it is alive. This is true above all when one looks to ecumenism worldwide. That is of course a pleonasm, for according to its original meaning, ‘oecumene’ means encompassing the entire globe.
Ecumenism certainly does in fact take place in the first instance in the concrete location where Christians live, and is conducted as conversation with individual partners. Concrete local ecumenism can however only gain from also directing its attention to the more comprehensive ecumenical processes, for ecumenism has from its inception been a worldwide movement.
This is true at least of the Catholic Church, where at the Second Vatican Council, at the end of the third session – more precisely on 21 November 1964 – the Decree on Ecumenism, “Unitatis redintegratio” was adopted by the Council Fathers with an overwhelming majority of 2137 ‘Yes’ votes against only 11 ‘No’ votes and promulgated by Blessed Pope Paul VI. With this event a half century ago the Catholic Church made the fundamental cause of the ecumenical movement its own, joining it officially and definitively. The aptness of this assessment is indicated by the fact that the promulgated text no longer speaks of “Catholic ecumenism” as in the draft “De Oecumenismo” of 1963, but of “Catholic principles on ecumenism”. This new terminology gives expression to the fact that the Council did not intend to establish an ecumenism of its own, a Catholic special path alongside or even against the ecumenical movement that had arisen within non–Catholic Christianity, but in the conviction that there can only be one ecumenism intended to integrate itself into the process of the ecumenical movement which the Council expressly attributed to the “inspiring grace of the Holy Spirit”. [2]
When one looks back to the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism after more than 50 years, one cannot but express gratitude for what the Second Vatican Council initiated and for the fruits gained from it over the past half century.
Among the most important fruits of the ecumenical endeavour one can surely together with Pope John Paul II count the “rediscovered brotherhood” among Christians and Christian communities.[3] The numerous encounters, various conversations and reciprocal visits have fostered the growth of a network of friendly relations between the various churches which forms the constructive foundation for ecumenical dialogues. Since then the Catholic Church has conducted and continues to conduct such dialogues with almost all Christian churches and ecclesial communities: beginning with the Assyrian Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox Churches such as the Armenians, Syrians and Copts, through the Orthodox Churches of the Byzantine and Slavic tradition, on to the churches and communities that emerged from the Reformation such as the Lutherans and the Reformed, and the Anglican Communion, to the Old Catholics and the various Free Churches, and finally the Evangelical and Pentecostal communities that have grown so enormously in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Many positive fruits have been harvested from these dialogues, as Cardinal Walter Kasper has presented in his book “Harvesting the Fruits”.[4]
But with all these positive results it must be said that the real goal of the ecumenical movement, namely the restoration of the unity of the Church or full ecclesial communion, has not yet been achieved. That is however what the Decree on Ecumenism sees as the goal of all ecumenical endeavour, and this is the goal the great Council Popes have worked towards.
This is true above all of the canonized Pope John XXIII and the vision he had for the Second Vatican Council, which notably became apparent to him during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The two chief concerns that moved him to call the Council were for him intimately interconnected, namely the renewal of the Catholic Church and the restoration of Christian unity. The Pope was convinced that that the Catholic Church could only be renewed if the ecumenical cause was given a position of priority. He had set this in train primarily by founding the Secretariat for Christian Unity already two years before the opening of the Council, entrusting the task of its leadership to the Jesuit Father Augustin Bea, who was later justly honoured with the title “Cardinal of unity” and “Cardinal of ecumenism and dialogue”.[5]
The great Council Pope Paul VI was also convinced of the indissoluble nexus between these two great causes. The ecumenical cause was an important leitmotif for him also and above all with regard to the Conciliar renewal of the Catholic Church and its self–understanding, to such a degree that one has to speak of an actual reciprocal interaction between the ecumenical opening of the Catholic Church and the renewal of its ecclesiology.[6] In this sense Paul VI emphasised already in his fundamental opening address, which the Council Advisor at that time Joseph Ratzinger has attested as having a truly ecumenical character,[7] that the ecumenical rapprochement between separated Christians and churches was one of the central goals, as it were the spiritual drama for which the Second Vatican Council had been called.[8] And at the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism Paul VI maintained that this decree explained and completed the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church “ea doctrina explicationibus completa”.[9] This formulation expresses unmistakeably that Paul VI in no way esteemed the Decree pm Ecumenism as theologically inferior but rather ranked it alongside the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in its theological significance. In view of the recently re–awakened tendency to question or at least minimise the theological binding force of the Decree on Ecumenism, it is especially relevant to recall this important decision of Pope Paul VI.
The popes since the Council, too, have continued this open trajectory, fostering and deepening the ecumenical concern. They have constantly oriented the goal of the ecumenical movement towards the description in the Acts of the Apostles of the original congregation in Jerusalem, where it is said of the first Christians that “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers” (Acts 2:42). There are three elements above all that appear constitutive for the unity of the church, namely unity in the faith, in celebrating worship, and in fraternal community. Upon this biblical foundation the unity of the church is understood as unity in faith, in the sacraments and in the life of the community with their called witnesses, which also comprises ecclesial ministries. This concept of ecclesial unity from which the Catholic Church takes its orientation has also been received in the ecumenical movement. The World Council of Churches describes as its primary purpose in Article 3 of its constitution “to call one another to visible unity in one faith and in one Eucharistic fellowship, expressed in worship and common life in Christ, through witness and service to the world, and to advance towards that unity in order that the world may believe.”[10]
2. New and abiding challenges in the ecumenical movement
The ecumenical movement depends on its partners having a common goal in view and taking joint steps towards this goal. Already in 1980 the International Lutheran–Roman Catholic Commission on Unity expressed this conviction in its consensus text “Ways to Community” with these clear–sighted words: “We need a ‘common vision’ because we shall grow further apart if we do not aim towards a common goal. If we have conflicting views of this goal, we shall, if we are consistent, move in opposite directions.”[11] If there is no consensus within the ecumenical movement on its goal, if the various partners in ecumenism understand very differently what constitutes the unity of the church, there is an imminent danger that the ecumenical partners stride ahead in different directions, only to discover later that they have possibly distanced themselves from one another even more than they were before. This danger has by no means diminished over recent decades, but instead forms part of the profound developments and challenges that have appeared within the ecumenical movement over the past half–century, to which we must now turn our attention.
a) Lack of consensus on the goal of ecumenism
In the course of time the goal of ecumenism has become increasingly unclear, since no really workable agreement has been achieved as yet between the various churches and ecclesial communities, and previous partial consensus in this regard has in part been called into question. The elementary challenge in the ecumenical situation today must be diagnosed as the twofold circumstance that on the one hand in the previous phases of ecumenical dialogue wide–ranging and welcome convergences and consensus have been achieved on many contentious individual questions on the understanding of the faith and the theological structure of the church; while on the other hand, however, most remaining points of difference have consolidated around the unchanging diversely determined understandings of the ecumenical unity of the church per se. This circumstance represents the real paradox of the current ecumenical situation, which one can define more precisely in the diagnosis of Bishop Paul–Werner Scheele: “We are united on the ‘that’ of unity but not on the ‘what’.”[12]
This difficulty is further intensified by the fact that the ecumenical search for church unity is today exposed to a strong headwind in the predominantly pluralist and relativist spirit of our times that has become such a matter of course today. In contrast to the Christian tradition in which according to the theological axiom “ens et unum convertuntur” unity was considered the meaning and foundation of reality per se, pluralism has to a great extent become the crucial fundamental concept in the perception of the so–called post–modern experience of reality today. According to the well–known essay “La condition postmoderne” by Jean-Francois Lyotard, post–modern means the acceptance of the plural and the suspicion of any singular. The basic assumption of post–modern mentality states that we neither can nor may turn our minds back to before the plurality of reality, if we do not want to expose ourselves to the suspicion of a totalitarian mindset; indeed, plurality is seen as the only way in which the whole can be apprehended, if at all.[13] This fundamental abandonment of the idea of unity is characteristic of post–modernism, which is “not only the acceptance and tolerance of plurality, but rather an option for pluralism on principle.”[14]. To this post-modern mentality the ecumenical search for unity appears unmodern and antiquated.
Furthermore, this post–modern mentality has even found acceptance within the ecumenical thinking of the present and has taken effect in a widespread ecclesiological pluralism, according to which the multiplicity and diversity of churches is considered a positive reality and any search for unity of the church seems suspicious. It seems that people have not only come to terms with the historically developed and continuing pluralism of churches and ecclesial communities but in principle even welcome it, so that the ecumenical quest for visible unity of the church seems to be unrealistic and is not valued as desirable.
It is not unusual to attempt to justify this renunciation of the search for unity on scriptural grounds, by referring for example to the often repeated thesis of the Protestant New Testament scholar Ernst Käsemann, whereby he attempts to legitimate the great church schisms with the claim that the New Testament canon does not establish the unity of the church but the multiplicity of confessions.[15] It seems an anachronistic enterprise to transmit back into the New Testament the current historically developed situation of separated and co–existing denominationally defined churches and ecclesial communities, and for that reason Walter Cardinal Kasper has rightly claimed in view of Käsemann’s thesis: “For Saint Paul such a co–existence and a pluralism of various and differing confessional churches would have been a totally unbearable concept”.[16] Nevertheless this thesis by Käsemann is still taken up today when for example the Council of the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) refers to it in its foundation text on the Reformation commemoration of 2017 in order to interpret the churches of the Reformation as a “part of the legitimate, because in conformity with Scripture, pluralisation of Christian churches” and to laud it as a welcome after–effect of the 16th century Reformation.[17]
Even more far–reaching and radical is the thesis postulated by the liberal wing of Protestant theology that the Reformation had at last initiated the pluralisation of Latin Christendom which has since taken shape in the permanent competition between independent confessional churches: in the form of Protestantism this has made Christianity compatible with modernity and must not be called into question by a new search for unity. The Protestant church historian Christoph Markschies has therefore rightly pointed out that that these liberal streams within Protestantism have difficulty with the ecumenical movement “since for them Reformation Christendom is often considered a categorically different type of religion of its own, divorced from the rest of Christendom and in conformity with the modern era and not – as often in ‘revelation theology’ – part of the one holy and universal church which has indeed passed through the Reformation but remains bound through multiple commonalities and theological lines of tradition with this una sancta catholica”.[18]
These examples document the fact that the ecumenical search for unity of the church takes place today in a radically altered context in theological thinking, in the sense that the multiplicity of churches is no longer considered from the perspective of historical schisms and the unity that is to be restored, but rather as a historically developed enhancement of the nature of the church.[19] On that basis, fundamental reservations are expressed against an understanding of unity in which the multiformity of the church, even though it is the result of division, is not seen primarily as an enrichment.
Together with this option for the plurality of churches, a paradigm shift in the theology of ecumenism is also postulated and practised, in which the previously applied method which is decisively consensus oriented and constantly seeks to arrive at a “differentiated consensus”,[20] is today called into question. This method means that the convergence reached in dialogue on the basic substance of a doctrine previously contested between the churches is formulated, and what can be jointly stated is jointly articulated. At the same time, on the other hand, the remaining differences are named just as clearly, and in the process it is demonstrated that they do not call into question the basic consensus, and that they no longer need to be perceived as church–dividing differences, but can be handed on for further theological study. This ecumenical method which is intended to serve the restoration of the unity of the church and has brought forth good fruits is today variously criticised, to the extent that the end of so–called “Consensus Ecumenism” has been proclaimed in order to be replaced by a so-called “Difference Ecumenism”.[21] It can be readily understood that within this conceptual context the question of the unity of the church and full communion is re–formulated.
b) Lack of clarity ln the understanding of the church and unity
Within this context we see the crucial cause for the failure to achieve a practicable agreement on the goal of ecumenism. This has its basis essentially in the fact that the quite diverse denominationally determined conceptions of the church and its unity continue to co–exist unreconciled beside one another, as they did at the outset. Since each church or ecclesial community has and realises its own specific concept of the nature of the church and its unity, it also strives to transfer this confessional concept to the level of the goal of ecumenism, so that there are ultimately as many ecumenical goals as there are denominational ecclesiologies.[22] This means that the lack of a consensus on the goal of the ecumenical movement is not inessentially grounded in the lack of an ecumenical consensus on the nature of the Church and its unity.
The Catholic Church together with the Orthodox Church holds fast to the original shared gaol of visible unity in the faith, in the sacraments and the ecclesial ministries. By contrast, not a few of the churches and communities that emerged from the Reformation have to a great degree given up this originally shared concept of unity in favour of a postulated reciprocal recognition of the various ecclesial realities as churches and therefore as belonging to the one Church of Jesus Christ. This postulate does not as such insist on an in principle invisibility of the unity of the Church; but then the visible unity of the Church simply consists in the addition of all present church bodies.
This redefinition of the ecumenical goal undertaken within Protestantism found its supreme expression in the Leuenberg Agreement concluded in 1973, which deliberately understands itself as a community of confessionally diverse churches. On the basis of a common understanding of the Gospel, seen in the doctrine of justification, these churches grant one another fellowship in word and sacrament including reciprocal recognition of ordination, so that ecclesial communion becomes essentially altar and pulpit fellowship. The Leuenberg Agreement is furthermore not only deemed the characteristically Protestant model of ecclesial unity[23] but also the model for ecumenical relations with other Christian churches.[24] It is to be hoped that the ecumenical consultation between the Catholic Church and the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (Gemeinschaft evangelischer Kirchen in Europa, GEKE), which has been commissioned to examine to what extent the Leuenberg Agreement can serve as a model for church unity, will lead to a positive result. For it is as yet not clear how this goal could accord with the biblical image of the one body of Christ. It is instead obvious that this view of an additive ecclesiological pluralism favoured by contemporary Protestantism cannot be harmonised with the Catholic principles of ecumenism,[25] as Pope Benedict XVI has stated with pleasing clarity: “The search for the re–establishment of unity among the divided Christians cannot therefore be reduced to recognition of the reciprocal differences and the achievement of a peaceful coexistence: what we yearn for is that unity for which Christ himself prayed and which, by its nature is expressed in the communion of faith, of the sacraments, of the ministry.”[26]
The Catholic Church together with the Orthodox Churches therefore holds fast to the vital conviction of the ancient church of the indissolubility of ecclesial communion and confessional communion and Eucharistic communion and is not able to see the goal of the ecumenical endeavour in so–called ‘intercommunion’ but only in the restoration of the “communion within which communion in the Lord’s Supper also has its place.”[27]
Considering that the diverse conceptions of the ecumenical goal grounded in the different denominational ecclesiologies leads inevitably to the consequence that an ecumenical clarification of the understanding of the church and its unity must be the central theme of current and future ecumenical dialogues.[28] A constructive path in this direction is provided by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches in its study “The Church. Towards a Common Vision”. It strives for a “global, multilateral and ecumenical vision of the nature, purpose and mission of the church”, and can be evaluated as a valuable ecclesiological in–via declaration with an ecumenical perspective.[29] Nevertheless, even this deserving study cannot lead the theological agreement on most of the previously controversial ecclesiological issues beyond any further than the formulation of still open questions; but it does demonstrate in which direction further work is required in the ecumenical dialogues.
c) Pluralisation of the ecumenical goal on the basis of new partners
The multiplicity of ecumenical goal concepts is correlated with the further phenomenon that the churches and ecclesial communities originating in the Reformation have in the meantime developed into a virtually incalculable ‘pluriverse’ in which we find at the global level increasing fragmentation and multiple splintering processes, and only marginal striving towards greater unity with one another.
This phenomenon finds further confirmation in the more recent past in the appearance of new dialogue partners in the ecumenical movement. Ecumenical encounters and dialogues today take place not only between the historical mainstream churches of the West but increasingly with many new Christian movements predominantly in the Protestant sphere, above all in the so–called Free Churches who have pre–empted the future that also increasingly clearly awaits the historical churches, namely freedom and independence from the state or the end of “inherited” Constantinian Christianity, and who therefore represent yet another conception of ecumenical unity.
Of particular significance is the rapid and numerically strong growth of evangelical and charismatic groupings and of Pentecostal movements in the southern hemisphere but in the meantime also on other continents.[30] With approximately 400 million members, Pentecostalism forms numerically the second largest Christian community after the Roman Catholic Church. This represents such an expanding phenomenon that one has to speak of a current “pentecostalisation of Christendom”,[31] or may be inclined to apprehend it as a fourth mode of being Christian, namely beside the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Catholic Church and the churches and ecclesial communities resulting from the Reformation.[32]
The rapid growth of the so–called Pentecostal churches represents one of the fundamental challenges of the ecumenical situation today, which Pope Benedict XVI referred to not by chance in his meeting with representatives of the Council of the EKD in the Augustinian Cloister in Erfurt in September 2011 in these sensitive words: “Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss. This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability. This worldwide phenomenon – that bishops from all over the world are constantly telling me about – poses a question to us all: what is this new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse? In any event, it raises afresh the question about what has enduring validity and what can or must be changed – the question of our fundamental faith choice.”[33] With these insights and questions Pope Benedict XVI put a concrete name to the challenge to ecumenism represented by the global phenomenon of Pentecostalism. The most elementary challenge consists in the fact that with Pentecostalism a new type of being church has entered the field in which the charismatic dimension of faith and life in the community play a significant role. Albert–Peter Rethmann has characterised this new type as the origin of a church type “based on individual decision and understanding itself more as a movement than as an organisation or hierarchy, that is – speaking in Christian terms – as a decidedly brotherly and sisterly community”. Regarding the ecclesial structure of the historically developed mainstream churches Rethmann even speaks of “two contrasting church models”[34] which should reciprocally interrogate one another and must also without doubt form a subject of ecumenical dialogue in which in any case the clarification of the understanding of the church constitutes one of the primary agenda items in the current situation.
Not least, the phenomenon of Pentecostalism brings to light the fact that in recent decades the worldwide geography of Christianity has changed radically and the ecumenical situation has become more unfathomable and not in the least simpler. It is easy to grasp that in ecumenical dialogue with these new movements different agenda items than in the dialogues with mainstream churches occupy the foreground, and that once more a new band–width of ecumenical goal concepts presents itself. Since this fact has a not inessential cause in the addition of new ecumenical partners, the increasing pluralisation of ecumenical goals need not be formulated simply as a problem, but can even be seen positively in the estimation of the Berlin Protestant church historian Christoph Markschies: The fact that the goal of the ecumenical movement has become less clear than it was originally can also be understood as the – of course unintentional – consequence of the success of the ecumenical movement: “In the meantime so many people are engaged in the ecumenical movement that the already initially diverse goals have simply become further pluralised on the basis of the number of Christian people who have an interest in ecumenism”.[35]
d) New ethical controversies
Another profound shift in the ecumenical situation cannot go unremarked. It has its essential basis in the fact that within the World Council of Churches the motto that had its first home in the ecumenical movement for practical Christianity “Life and Work”, affirming that faith divides Christians while their actions and their ethical practice unite them, has become increasingly the guideline of the ecumenical movement on the whole. The consequent engagement of the World Council of Churches above all in so–called secular ecumenism was of course even at the time subject to harsh criticism, for example in the evaluation of the Munich Protestant theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg: “Nothing divides Christians todays as bitterly as the dispute over a praxis which the one proclaims to be a faith praxis while to the others it appears to be the expression of uncritical adaptation to an unchristian ideology.”[36]
The slogan that “faith divides while action unites” has in the meantime virtually turned upside down in the ecumenical situation. It must appear quite paradoxical that while it has in previous ecumenical dialogues been possible in part to overcome old confessional contradictions in the faith or at least to approach rapprochement, today the great differences emerge in ethical questions. For in recent years and decades great divergences and massive tensions have appeared within the ecumenical landscape in the ethical sphere. Divergent frames of reference can be observed in the various Christian churches and ecclesial communities, for example on bioethical and socio–ethical challenges and on the problems involving marriage and family and sexuality within the horizon of the gender mainstream today, and are considered quite polarising.
These developments imply a great challenge for Christian ecumenism. If Christian churches and ecclesial communities cannot speak with one voice on the great ethical questions of today’s world, the Christian voice is increasingly weakened in today’s secularised society, damaging the credibility of Christian ecumenism as a whole in the current public sphere. Christian ecumenism must therefore also grapple with the ethical questions of human life and social co–existence, and seek new consensus. And since the ethical issues in most cases involve fundamental questions regarding the image of mankind, one great task confronting ecumenism today may well consist in developing a joint ecumenical Christian anthropology.[37]
3. The ecumenism of the martyrs as the existential crux of unity
When one reviews the developments within ecumenism discussed here that are signs of a strong preference for the pluralisation of Christianity, the question of unity raises its head once more with new emphasis. For without the search for unity not only ecumenism but Christianity itself would be surrendered, as the Epistle of Saomt Paul to the Ephesians expresses with the desirable clarity: “one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:4–6). Since unity is and remains a fundamental category of the Christian faith, we Christians must have the courage and the humility to look the scandal of still divided Christendom in the eye and with amiable stubbornness keep alive the question of Christian unity.
We Christians are called to greater unity in another deeply existential way in the world of today, where Christians are persecuted to an extent that has little historical parallel. Today there is greater persecution of Christians than in the first centuries: eighty percent of all those who are persecuted for their faith are Christians. The Christian faith is the most persecuted of all religions today. This harrowing statistic represents a great challenge to demonstrate sympathetic solidarity with persecuted Christians and to closer unity among all Christians. Today all churches and ecclesial communities have their martyrs. Today Christians are not persecuted because they are Orthodox or Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican, but because they are Christians. Today martyrdom is ecumenical, so one can indeed speak of an ecumenism of the martyrs.[38]
Pope John Paul II devoted special attention to this, notably in his encyclical on the commitment to ecumenism, “Uy unum sint”, seeing in it a positive message despite all the tragedy of the persecution of Christians. He perceived in it already a fundamental Christian unity, in the conviction that the martyrs would assist us to find full communion once more. For while we Christians and churches here on earth still stand in an imperfect communion towards and with one another, the martyrs in their heavenly glory already live a full and perfect communion. The courageous martyrs of the past and present centuries are for Pope John Paul II “the most powerful proof that every factor of division can be transcended and overcome in the total gift of self for the sake of the Gospel”.[39]
The blood the martyrs shed for Christ today does not divide us Christians but instead unites us in an existential manner in the faith. In the ecumenism of the martyrs we encounter a beautiful promise: the Early Church was convinced that the blood of martyrs is the seed of new Christians. Today too we as Christians may live in the hope that the blood of the ecumenical martyrs of our day will one day prove to be the seed of the full unity of the one body of Christ wounded by so many church schisms. We can be convinced that we Christians have already become one in the blood of the martyrs and that the suffering of so any Christians establishes unity that will prove to be stronger than the differences that still divide Christian churches.
In the ecumenism of the martyrs we can perceive the most convincing sign of ecumenism today which however confronts us with the disquieting question posed by Pope Francis: “If the enemy unites us in death, who are we to be divided in life?”[40] Is it not indeed shameful that those who persecute Christians sometimes have a better ecumenical vision than we Christians ourselves? For they know that we Christians belong together inseparably. In the ecumenism of the martyrs the existential urgency of the ecumenical search for the unity of the church confronts us and in it one can see focussed as under a magnifying glass all the challenges facing ecumenism today and in the future.
4. Prayer conversion and mission in the ecumenical movement
In responding to these challenges we not only cast back to the beginnings of our understanding but also refer back to the beginnings of the ecumenical movement. It therefore seems appropriate to reflect on the beginning of the ecumenical movement and the three elementary dimensions in which it has been realised and continues to be realised, in order to chart our way into the future.
a) The ecumenical movement is in the first instance a prayer movement. This characteristic was expressed by Pope Benedict in the vivid metaphor: “The ship of ecumenism would never have put out to sea had she not been lifted by this broad current of prayer and wafted by the breath of the Holy Spirit”.[41] Indeed the Week of Prayer for the Unity of Christians stood at the beginning of the ecumenical movement and is an ecumenical initiative. We need to constantly bear in mind that it was the Prayer for Unity that opened the way for the ecumenical movement and was taken up by Pope Benedict XVI and extended to the whole Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council identified spiritual ecumenism as the heart of all ecumenical endeavour and the “soul of the ecumenical movement”.[42] With that it gave expression to the fact that the ecumenical task is above all a spiritual exercise and that there can therefore be no unity without prayer, as Pope Francis stresses again and again: “The ecumenical commitment responds, firstly, to the prayer of the Lord Jesus himself, and is based primarily in prayer.”[43]
With this prayer for unity we Christians give expression to our faith conviction that unity cannot be effected primarily through our efforts and absolutely not through our efforts alone. We cannot create unity of ourselves nor determine its form or its timeframe. We Christians can produce division, as both history and the present time demonstrate. But unity we can only allow to be bestowed on us. The prayer for unity reminds us that we Christians must leave room for the working of the Holy Spirit, which is not at our disposal, and place our trust in the Holy Spirit at least as much as in our own efforts. The best preparation for receiving unity as the gift of the Holy Spirit is the prayer for unity. The ecumenical prayer movement of a century ago does not simply represent a beginning that we can leave behind, it is rather a beginning that must accompany all ecumenical efforts still today. Credible ecumenism stands or falls with the depth of its spiritual power and the voices of Christians joining in the high–priestly prayer of Jesus “that all may be one”.
b) The ecumenical movement is secondly a conversion movement,[44] taking its starting point from the sensitive perception of the sin of schism in the church. Looking back to the history of the ecumenical movement reveals that new impulses have always been made possible when Christians in the various churches have summoned up the courage and the humility to look the present scandal of a divided Christendom in the eye and heed the call to conversion. For we Christians will only find the unity that is already granted to us in Christ when we together turn to Jesus Christ. Conversion is the elixir of life of true ecumenism, as the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism formulated it programmatically: “There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without a change of heart. For it is from renewal of the inner life of our minds, from self-denial and an unstinted love that desires of unity take their rise and develop in a mature way.”[45] In his encyclical on the commitment to ecumenism Saint John Paul II stressed that the entire Decree on Ecumenism was permeated by the “spirit of conversion”.[46]
In the first instance that of course involves not the conversion of others but our own conversion, which presumes the willingness to self-critically perceive one’s own weaknesses and deficits, to humbly confess them and to serve the restoration of Christian unity. Conversion must therefore be primarily conversion to the passionate search for the unity of all Christians. This is the true meaning of “Unitatis redintegratio”.
c) The ecumenical movement is thirdly a mission movement.[47] This dimension is evident already at its beginning, namely the first World Mission Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910. The participants at this conference were faced with the scandal that the various Christian churches and ecclesial communities were competing in their mission work, to the detriment of credible proclamation of the gospel, above all in distant cultures because they imported into other cultures the European church division together with the gospel. They had therefore become aware of the painful fact that the division within Christendom formed the most difficult obstacle for world mission, In the same spirit the Second Vatican Council too had the courage to call the continuing division of Christianity a scandal that gave offence to the world and harmed the proclamation of the Christian message.
If the dissension among Christians is the counter–testimony to the proclamation of the Gospel, then in reverse ecumenical reconciliation is the fundamental prerequisite for the credible mission of the church. An honest and therefore ecumenically united witness to Jesus Christ is only possible in today’s world if the Christian churches overcome their divisions and live in a unity of reconciled diversity. Ecumenism and mission therefore belong indissolubly together and reciprocally require and foster one another. A missionary church is spontaneously an ecumenical church and an ecumenically engaged church forms the fundamental pre–condition for a missionary church. “Commitment to a unity which helps them to accept Jesus Christ” is therefore in the eyes of Pope Francis “no longer a matter of mere diplomacy … but rather an indispensable path to evangelization”.[48]
The ecumenical movement was from the very start a prayer movement, a conversion movement and a mission movement. These movements have made an essential contribution to the progress of the ecumenical movement over the past fifty years. These three movements must also remain vital in the future if the ecumenical movement wishes
[1]. Lecture at the Major Catholic Speaker series at Aquinas Center of Theology and Candler School of Theology at the Emory University in Atlanta, 18 September 2018.
[2]. Unitatis redintegratio, 1, also 4.
[3]. John Paul II, Ut unum sint, nn.41–42.
[4]. Cardinal W. Kasper, Harvesting the Fruits. Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue (London – New York 2009).
[5]. S. Schmidt, Agostino Bea. Il Cardinale dell’unità (Roma 1987); Idem, Agostino Bea, Cardinale dell’ecumenismo e del dialogo (Roma 1996).
[6]. Cf. H. J. Pottmeyer, Die Öffnung der römisch-katholischen Kirche und die ekklesiologische Reform des 2. Vatikanums. Ein wechselseitiger Einfluss, in: Paolo VI e l’Ecumenismo. Colloquio Internationale di Studio Brescia 1998 (Brescia – Roma 2001) 98-117.
[7]. J. Ratzinger, Das Konzil auf dem Weg. Rückblick auf die zweite Sitzungsperiode des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils (Köln 1964) 21.
[8]. Ench. Vat. Vol 1 Documenti del Concilio Vaticano II, 104. f.
[9]. Ibid.
[10]. Verfassung und Satzungen des Ökumenischen Rates der Kirchen, in: H. Krüger und W. Müller-Römheld (Hrsg.), Bericht aus Nairobi 1975. Ergebnisse – Erlebnisse – Ereignisse. Offizieller Bericht der Fünften Vollversammlung des Ökumenischen Rates der Kirchen (Frankfurt a. M. 1976) 327–377, zit. 327.
[11]. Gemeinsame Römisch-katholische / Evangelisch-lutherische Kommission, Wege zur Gemeinschaft, in: H. Meyer / H. J. Urban / L. Vischer (Hrsg.), Dokumente wachsender Übereinstimmung. Sämtliche Berichte und Konsenstexte interkonfessioneller Gespräche auf Weltebene 1931-1982 (Paderborn – Frankfurt a. M. 1983) 296-322, zit. 297.
[12]. P.-W. Scheele, Ökumene- wohin? Unterschiedliche Konzepte kirchlicher Einheit im Vergleich, in: St. Ley – I. Proft – M. Schulze (Hrsg.), Welt vor Gott. Für George Augustin (Freiburg i. Br. 2016) 165-179, zit. 165.
[13]. Cf. W. Welsch, Unsere postmoderne Moderne (Weinheim 1987).
[14]. Cf.. W. Kasper, Die Kirche angesichts der Herausforderungen der Postmoderne, in: Kasper., Theologie und Kirche. Band 2 (Mainz 1999) 249-264, esp. 252-255: Absage an das Einheitspostulat: Der pluralistische Grundzug der Postmoderne, cit. 253.
[15]. E. Käsemann, Begründet der neutestamentliche Kanon die Einheit der Kirche? in: Ders., Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen. Erster und zweiter Band (Göttingen 1970) 214-223.
[16]. W. Cardinal Kasper, Katholische Kirche. Wesen – Wirklichkeit – Sendung (Freiburg i. Br. 2011) 226.
[17]. Rechtfertigung und Freiheit. 500 Jahre Reformation 2017. Ein Grundlagentext des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) (Gütersloh 2014) 99.
[18]. Ch. Markschies, Aufbruch oder Katerstimmung? Zur Lage nach dem Reformationsjubiläum (Hamburg 2017) 67.
[19]. Cf. D. Sattler, Einheit und Spaltung der Kirche(n). Thesen zur Ökumene aus (einer) römisch-katholischen Sicht, in: U. Swarat und Th. Söding (Hrsg.), Heillos gespalten? Segensreich erneuert? 500 Jahre Reformation in der Vielfalt ökumenischer Perspektiven (Freiburg i. Br. 2016) 77-92.
[20]. Cf. H. J. Urban, Art. Methodologie, ökumenische, in: W. Thönissen (Hrsg.), Lexikon der Ökumene und Konfessionskunde (Freiburg i. Br. 2007) 871-873. V.
[21]. Cf. U. H. J. Körtner, Wohin steuert die Ökumene? Vom Konsens- zum Differenzmodell (Göttingen 2005).
[22]. Cf. G. Hintzen / W. Thönissen, Kirchengemeinschaft möglich. Einheitsverständnis und Einheitskonzepte in der Diskussion (Paderborn 2001); F. W. Graf / D. Korsch (Hrsg.), Jenseits der Einheit. Protestantische Ansichten der Ökumene (Hannover 2001).
[23]. W. Hüffmeier, Kirchliche Einheit als Kirchengemeinschaft – Das Leuenberger Modell, in: F. W. Graf – D. Korsch (Hrsg.), Jenseits der Einheit. Protestantische Ansichten der Ökumene (Hannover 2001) 35-54, zit. 54.
[24]. Cf. U. H. J. Körtner, Die Leuenberger Konkordie als ökumenisches Modell, in: M. Bünker / B. Jaeger (Hrsg.), 40 Jahre Leuenberger Konkordie. Dokumentationsband zum Jubiläumsjahr 2013 der Gemeinschaft Evangelischer Kirchen in Europa (Wien 2014) 203-226.
[25]. For a critical analysis see. K. Koch, Kirchengemeinschaft oder Einheit der Kirche? Zum Ringen um eine angemessene Zielvorstellung der Ökumene, in: P. Walter u. a. (Hrsg.), Kirche in ökumenischer Perspektive. Festschrift für Kardinal Walter Kasper (Freiburg i. Br. 2003) 135-162.
[26]. Benedict XVI, Homily at the Vespers service at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 25 January 2011.
[27]. P. Neuner / B. Kleinschwärzer-Meister, Ein neues Miteinander der christlichen Kirchen. Auf dem Weg zum ökumenischen Kirchentag in Berlin 2003, in: Stimmen der Zeit 128 (2003) 363-375, zit. 373.
[28]. Cf. K. Koch, Auf dem Weg zur Kirchengemeinschaft. Welche Chance hat eine gemeinsame Erklärung zu Kirche, Eucharistie und Amt? in: Catholica 69 (2015) 77–94.
[29]. Die Kirche auf dem Weg zu einer gemeinsamen Vision. Eine Studie der Kommission für Glauben und Kirchenverfassung des Ökumenischen Rates der Kirchen (ÖRK) (Gütersloh – Paderborn 2015).
[30]. Cf. J. Müller – K. Gabriel (Eds.), Evangelicals, Pentecostal Churches, Charismatics. New religious movements as a challenge for the Catholic Church (Quezon 2015).
[31]. B. Farrell, Der Päpstliche Rat zur Förderung der Einheit der Christen im Jahre 2003, in: Catholica 58 (2004) 81-104, zit. 97.
[32]. M. Eckholt, Pentekostalismus. Eine neue „Grundform“ des Christseins. Eine theologische Orientierung zum Verhältnis von Spiritualität und Gesellschaft, in: T. Kessler / A.-P. Rethmann (Hrsg.), Pentekostalismus. Die Pfingstbewegung als Anfrage an Theologie und Kirche = Weltkirche und Mission. Band 1 (Regensburg 2012) 202-225, zit. 202.
[33]. Benedict XVI, Address at the encounter with representatives of the Council of ther Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) in the Augustinerkloster Erfurt 23 September 2011.
[34]. H.-P. Rethmann, Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Pfingstbewegung und ihre Praxis. Anfragen an Theologie und Kirche, in: T. Kessler / H.-P. Rethmann (Hrsg.), Pentekostalismus. Die Pfingstbewegung als Anfrage an Theologie und Kirche (Regensburg 2012) 15-33, zit. 30.
[35]. Ch. Markschies, Neue Chance für die Ökumene? in: Nach der Glaubensspaltung. Zur Zukunft des Christentums = Herder Korrespondenz Spezial (Freiburg i. Br. 2016) 17-21, zit. 20.
[36]. W. Pannenberg, Eine geistliche Erneuerung der Ökumene tut Not, in: K. Froehlich (Hrsg.), Ökumene. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen heute (Tübingen 1982) 112-123, zit. 122.
[37]. Cf. K. Cardinal Koch, Der Mensch als ökumenische Frage: Gibt es (noch) eine gemeinchristliche Anthropologie? in: B. Stubenrauch / M. Seewald (Hrsg.), Das Menschenbild der Konfessionen. Achillesverse der Ökumene? (Freiburg i. Br. 2015) 18-32.
[38]. Cf. K. Cardinal Koch, Christenverfolgung und Ökumene der Märtyrer. Eine biblische Besinnung (Norderstedt 2016).
[38]. John Paul II, Ut unum sint, 1.
[39]. John Paul II, Ut unum sint, 1.
[40]. Francis, Address to the Movement of Charismatic Renewal, 3 July 2015.
[41]. Benedict XVI, Homily at the Vespers service at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 25 January 2008.
[42]. Unitatis redintegratio, 8. Cf. K. Koch, Rediscovering the soul of the whole ecumenical movement (UR 8). Necessity and perspectives of an ecumenical spirituality, in: The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (Ed.), Information Service115 (2004) 31-39.
[43]. Francis, Address to the participants of the Ecumenical Colloquium organised by the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, 24 January 2015.
[44]. Cf. K. Kardinal Koch, Innere Reform und Umkehr als Voraussetzung für Ökumene, in: E. Dieckmann – K. Kardinal Lehmann (Hrsg.), Blick zurück nach vorn. Das Zweite Vatikanum aus der Perspektive der multilateralen Ökumene (Würzburg 2016) 161-186.
[45]. Unitatis redintegratio, 7.
[46]. John Paul II, Ut unum sint, 35.
[47]. Cf. K. Koch, Neuevangelisierung mit ökumenischem Notenschlüssel, in: Z. Glaeser (Red.), Czlowiek Dialogu = Opolska Biblioteka Teologiczna 125 (Opole 2012) 291-310.
[48]. Francis, Evangelii gaudium, 246.