CENTRO PRO UNIONE N. 44 - Fall 1993 ISSN: 1122-0384 semi-annual Bulletin In this issue: Letter from the Director...................................................p. 2 The Faith of the Church through the Ages: Ecumenism and Hermeneutics by Anton W. J. Houtepen.............................................p. 3 L'Œcuménisme et les bibliothèques: Un engagement en faveur d'une recherche œcuménique vivante par Pierre Beffa...................................................p. 16 La forza della Parola nel cammino ecumenico da Alberto Ablondi.................................................p. 21 The Revised Ecumenical Directory of the Catholic Church: A Valuable Instrument for Continued Ecumenical Commitment and Cooperation by Edward Idris Cassidy..............................................p. 26 Centro Pro Unione - Via S. Maria dell'Anima, 30 - 00186 Rome, Italy A Center conducted by the Franciscan Friars of the AtonementDirector's Desk From its inception, the Society of the Atonement has been involved with Christian Unity and Ecumenism. In 1908, before entrance into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, Fr. Paul Wattson initiated and observed the first Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, then known as the Church Unity Octave. This was later changed to the Chair of Unity Octave, and after the II Vatican Council, it became known as the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Over 40 years ago, the Friars of the Atonement were invited to become part of the International Association Unitas founded by Fr. Charles Boyer, SJ and located at Piazza Farnese in the Brigittine Convent until 1961 when the Friars moved with the Unitas Association to Via Santa Maria dell'Anima. This move was made possible due to the generosity of Commander Frank and Princess Orietta Doria- Pamphilj to use their Palazzo at Piazza Navona for ecumenical work. After the cessation of the Friars' participation in the work of the Unitas Association in the mid 60's, the late Fr. Thaddeus Horgan presented the leadership of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement a proposal to continue their ecumenical presence in Rome by establishing an Ecumenical Center, the Centro Pro Unione at Via Santa Maria dell'Anima. The Centro was opened 25 years ago in 1968. It is with pride that we offer our readers the texts of the conferences given during our 25th anniversary celebrations. Unfortunately one of our speakers, Dr. Günther Gaßmann was unable to join us due to his health. Dr. Thomas Best graciously filled in for him at the last minute. Due to this fact we do not have a manuscript for Dr. Best's talk. We wish to thank all of you who sent best wishes for this event. The anniversary celebration was also a joyous occasion for marking the progress made in the library. Sr. Mary Peter Froelicher with the aid of Dr. Barbara Bergami and Mrs. Olga Beal completed the computerization of the books and pamphlets (12,174 specialized titles and 171 active periodicals). These are divided by languages: 7,597 in English, 1,551 in German, 1,433 in Italian, 1,419 in French, 105 in Dutch plus holdings in other languages. In addition to this accomplishment, we are continuing with the computerization of the Bibliography of Interchurch and Interconfessional Theological Dialogues. Our staff grew this year with Sr. Mary Kelly, SA joining Giovanna Berardelli and Paula Turella in our Pro Unione Ecumenical Gatherings which welcomes visitors to Rome from other religious traditions. They are most happy to offer a walking tour or slide presentation of interesting ecumenical sites in Rome. From June 27 th to July 14 th , 1994, we will offer a course entitled “Introduction to the Ecumenical & Interreligious Movements from a Roman Catholic Perspective”. You will find an informational flyer and registration form enclosed in this issue of the Bulletin. We hope that some of you may be able to join us. James F. Puglisi, SA DirectorN. 44 / Fall 1993Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 3 CC Centro Conferences The Faith of the Church through the Ages: Ecumenism and Hermeneutics by Anton W.J. Houtepen Director of Interuniversity Institute for Ecumenical Research, Utrecht (Conference given at the Centro Pro Unione, Thursday 29 April 1993) Introduction Twenty five years have passed since the Roman Catholic Church actively involved itself in the network of bilateral and multilateral dialogues. The Centro pro Unione, during this same quarter of a century, has been a most faithful registrar of this work. Through the research of its successive staff members, its bibliographical and educational work it has helped the theologians and church leaders to become acquainted with the ups and downs of the ecumenical journey. Nowadays the climate for ecumenical progress seems less favorable: some speak of an ecumenical wintertime or even of the end of ecumenism. The confessional positions seem hardened, the willingness to come to a consensus or to reunion of churches diminishing. But the most important factor in this crisis seems to be the lack of consensus on the hermeneutical key for ecumenical dialogue. What is required and what is sufficient for communion of churches? How much diversity is possible and what kind of consensus is necessary in a future Una Sancta? All would agree that unity in faith and love, in prayer and sacramental practice (cf. UR 3) are the essential marks of unity. But the concrete criteria for unity in faith find much less agreement1. One could easily speak of at least seven Christian cultures with regard to key criteria for orthodoxy and ortho- praxis (in chronological order: Christian-Jewish halacha and apostolic didachè, regula fidei and catechetical tradition, 1 For this field of research, German theology coined the expression “Bekenntnishermeneutik”. It deals with questions such as the relation of the Ancient Creeds to the Old and New Testament's homologies, the functions and inner structure of the Creeds, their relation to later confessions and theological articulations, the relation between ‘fides qua creditur' (=confessing) and ‘fides quae creditur' (=confession), between orthodoxy and orthopraxis, teaching authority and the ‘hierarchia auctoritatum'/‘hierarchia veritatum', development of dogma and the problem of continuity and change in the expression of the true ‘paradosis of the Gospel'. Cf. Una Sancta 40 (1), 1985 (=Report of a Societas Oecumenica Meeting in Rome 1984). But the actual problems are much more concrete and less formal than the usual framework of this ‘hermeneutics of confessing' suggests. So H. LEGRAND in a recent article on the issue of the ‘ordination of women' (H. LEGRAND, “Traditio perpetuo servata? The Non-ordination of Women: Tradition or Simply Historical Fact?”, One in Christ 29 (1), 1993, pp. 1-23) argues, that the non- ordination of women, although being an age-long canonical custom, cannot claim to be based on Tradition (with a capital T), because it is neither based in Scripture itself nor derived from ecclesiastical practice in the time of the apostles, rather on the contrary. Though I would personally agree with Legrand's conclusions - that the ordination of women should be a matter of open theological debate in the ecumenical movement -, his definition of Tradition - derived from some classical Roman Catholic manuals - seems rather hazardous and not in line with the ecumenical developments since Montreal and Vatican II, as I will try to show in this article. He seems to limit the ‘constitutive period' of the church until the death of the last apostle (p. 1). But that would mean, that quite a part of the Christian dogma and institutions could no longer be called to be part of the Christian Tradition, e.g. the Celebration of Easter, the Canon of the Scriptures (!), the threefold ministry, a good deal of sacramental practice etc. It seems wiser, even in this case, to argue, that the church, as a community of faith led by the Holy Spirit, had good reasons, first to accept women for the most important ministries (according to the witness of the New Testament), then to limit this admission to the diaconate and later to close the ministry for women as such. But the church never denied, that women could be ordained. This possibility, for good reasons and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, therefore can and should be reopened according to the circumstances of the local churches. A second example of concrete and far-stretching implications of such hermeneutical pre-decisions we may find in the issue of the authority of the Bible for feminist theology: cf. E.K. WONDRA, “By Whose Authority? The Status of Scripture in Contemporary Feminist Theologies”, The Anglican Theological Review 75 (1), 1993, pp. 83-101.4 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN.44 / Fall 1993 conciliar homology and universal reception of creeds and canonical rules of behavior, primatial determinatio fidei, sola scriptura, personal experience, historical criticism). All of them meet synchronically at the round table of ecumenical dialogue between churches, but as movements and spiritualities within churches as well. At the same time all of them are questioned by newer forms of contextual ‘re-reading' of the various traditions in view of the problems of the acculturation of the Christian faith, of secularization-processes or in the framework of interreligious dialogue 2 . In the midst of the wild waves of such worldwide pluralism and of an increasing polycentricity of the Christian symbolic universe, the ecumenical ship must manoeuvre between the Scylla of fundamentalism at the right - which appeals to an unchanging ‘deposit of faith' and to ‘magisterial authority' as the only criterion of interpretation of the faith - and the Charybdis of post-modernism at the left, which seems to deny both authoritative teaching and authentic tradition, claiming ‘the end of all grand stories' (Lyotard). This delicate position of the Christian ecumenical vessel, in my opinion, cannot be solved by a return to an appeal to divine revelation mediated by one and unbroken historical tradition, identical to the deposit of faith safeguarded by the ecclesiastical magisterium of the Roman catholic Church alone, as the newborn Catechism of the Catholic Church might perhaps suggest. Such reaction would be inadequate for two reasons: it would deny all the positive results of ecumenical relations within Christianity thus far, based on the acceptance of broken traditions and of a plurality of traditions within the one Christian family seeking koinonia; and it would not recognize the post-modernist context of the Christian faith, which unlike modernity according to the Enlightenment-project, does not attack the truth of revelation, but the revelation of truth as such. I will try to explain in this lecture, that the only correct manoeuvre is to keep steadfast to what the preface to the Lima- text called ‘the faith of the Church through the ages', or in a slightly different terminology ‘the faith once delivered to the saints', as it was quoted from Jude's letter, verse 3 in the preface to the Apostolic Faith Study, both originating from Faith and Order circles. This guideline, however is full of hermeneutical implications: what do we mean by ‘the faith of the church through the ages'? And where do we find it? From the responses to the BEM-document it may be clear, that the churches had considerable difficulty in validating this expression as a kind of hermeneutical criterion. They were not asked to compare the text with their own specific catechisms, theological handbooks or magisterial teaching, nor with their various ‘Denzinger's', but with something seemingly much less solid like ‘the faith of the Church through the ages'. What they actually did, apparently, was to strengthen their confessional identities, or, in my terminology, to draw upon their inherited hermeneutical cultures. A process of convergence in faith, sacraments, ministerial service and christian life in view of a more credible ‘koinonia' of Christians — the theme of the forthcoming Vth World Conference on Faith and Order in Santiago de Compostella (3-14 August 1993) — seems seriously hindered by a lack of hermeneutical reflection in the ecumenical movement, precisely at a moment of history where it is most badly needed against both pre-modern fundamentalism and post-modern skepticism. I will first describe the hermeneutical convergence on the understanding of Tradition in Montreal, Vatican II and the Lima- text on Ministry and then sketch the different hermeneutical positions within the Christian family, as they showed up in the responses to the Lima-text; secondly I will refer to the significance of the modern and post-modern debate within hermeneutical philosophy, illustrated by the different positions of Ebeling, Betti, Gadamer, Derrida and Ricœur. Finally I will try to elaborate some guidelines for an ecumenical criteriology and a vision for the future of ecumenical dialogue. 1.The ‘faith of the church through the ages': from a static ‘deposit of faith' towards a ‘dynamic transmission of the gospel': Montreal, Vatican II and beyond The 1963 Montreal Statement on Scripture, Tradition and traditions was, indeed a remarkable point of convergence: “Our starting-point is that we are all living in a tradition which goes back to our Lord and has its roots in the Old Testament, and are all indebted to that tradition inasmuch as we have received the revealed truth, the Gospel, through its being transmitted from one generation to another. Thus we can say that we exist as Christians by the Tradition of the Gospel..., testified in Scripture, transmitted in and by the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. Tradition taken in this sense is actualized in the preaching of the Word, in the administration of the Sacraments and worship, in Christian teaching and theology, and in mission and witness to Christ by the lives of the members of the Church” 3 . Likewise, and not independent from the Montreal 2Cf. J. REUMANN, “After Historical Criticism, What? Trends in Biblical Interpretation and Ecumenical, Interfaith Dialogues”, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 29 (1), 1992, pp. 55-86. Reumann analyzes at least six different hermeneutical methods under the one umbrella of literary/narrative methods, which try to compete with the historical critical method: structuralist, social-world, rhetorical, canonical, literary/narrative and reader-oriented (among them semiotic) criticism. 3 Section II, §45, “Scripture, Tradition and Traditions”, in: P.C. RODGER & L. VISCHER, eds., The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order. Montreal 1963, NY: Association Press (coll. “Faith and Order Paper”, 42), 1964, pp. 52f. Emphasis my own.N. 44 / Fall 1993Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 5 theological preparations, where Catholic theologians had already participated, the Second Vatican Council in its Constitution on Divine revelation had stated: “In His goodness and wisdom, God, chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (cf. Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man has access to the Father in the Holy Spirit and comes to share in the divine nature (cf. Eph. 2:18; 2 Pet. 1:4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (cf. Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (cf. Ex. 33:11; Jn. 15:14-15) and lives among them (cf. Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them” 4 . “God graciously arranged that the things he had once revealed for the salvation of all peoples should remain in their entirety, throughout the ages, and be transmitted to all generations. Therefore, Christ the Lord, in whom the entire Revelation of the most high God is summed up (cf. 2 Cor. 1:20; 3:16—4:6) commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, and which he fulfilled in his own person and promulgated with his own lips. In preaching the Gospel they were to communicate the gifts of God to all men. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline. This was faithfully done: it was done by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received—whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit; it was done by those apostles and other men associated with the apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing. “In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them ‘their own position of teaching authority' (Irenaeaus). This sacred Tradition, then, and the sacred Scripture of both Testaments, are like a mirror, in which the Church, during its pilgrim journey here on earth, contemplates God, from whom she receives everything, until such time as she is brought to see him face to face as he really is (cf. Jn. 3:2)”5. These formulations tried to give expression to a common ecumenical conviction about the inner relation between the preceding prophetic and apostolic Tradition, from which the Scriptures emerged and the successive ecclesiastical traditions, which are bound to explain and to proclaim the Tradition of the Gospel, testified in Scripture as the primary instrument of the transmission of the Gospel. So they tried to solve the Reformation and Counter-Reformation dispute on the ‘Sola Scriptura' versus the so-called ‘Two Sources Theory' of ‘Scripture and Tradition' as being an addition or sum of two separate tenets of revelation. But at the same time the idea of revelation was corrected from being a mainly rationalistic, cognitive source of supranatural knowledge about things not accessible to human experience (the anti-modernist understanding of revelation e.g. in the encyclical ‘Pascendi'). Revelation means an event and a salvation process, reaching from the history of Israel, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ into the very ecclesial life of Word and Sacrament, Mission and Service of the faithful, being that history the work of the Holy Spirit of God. To quote Montreal once more: “What is transmitted in the process of tradition is the Christian faith, not only as a sum of tenets, but as a living reality transmitted through the operation of the Holy Spirit. We can speak of the Christian Tradition (with a capital T), whose content is God's revelation and self-giving in Christ, present in the life of the Church. “But this Tradition which is the work of the Holy Spirit is embodied in traditions (in the two senses of the word, both as referring to diversity in forms of expression, and in the sense of separate communions). The traditions in Christian history are distinct from, and yet connected with, the Tradition. They are the expressions and manifestations in diverse historical forms of the one truth and reality which is Christ” 6 . This high view of the transmission process of the Gospel within the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit, did not solve, however the hermeneutical problem of the relation between Scripture and authoritative ecclesiastical traditions or between those traditions and Tradition (with a capital T, meaning the transmission of the Gospel as a whole, including Scripture). The tension between the diverse and separated ecclesiastical traditions with regard to preaching and teaching, sacraments and ministerial structures, mission and Christian 4 Second Vatican Council, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum”, §2 (W.M. ABBOTT, ed., NY: Herder and Herder/Association Press, 1966, p. 112). Emphasis my own. 5 Dei Verbum, §7, cited from A. FLANNERY, ed., Vatican Council II. The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, NY: Costello Publ. Co., pp. 753f. Emphasis my own. 6 Section II, §§46, 47, “Scripture,...”, op. cit., p. 52.6 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN.44 / Fall 1993 life, all of them appealing to Scripture and Tradition in the sense of Montreal, could not be solved by Montreal. Montreal could go no further than mere juxtaposition of three factors in the transmission process: the preceding events and testimonies leading to Scripture, the Scriptures themselves and the ecclesiastical preaching and teaching. Likewise the Second Vatican Council, though abandoning the Two Sources Theory, did not answer the question of the ‘hierarchia auctoritatum' between the Scriptures — read in the liturgy, reflected upon in theology, spelled out in Christian life, informing prayer and spirituality — and the Scriptures as interpreted in dogmatic articulations of the faith by the ecclesiastical magisterium. The continuing debate after Vatican II on theological epistemology, on the value of the consensus fidelium (LG 12), on the task of the theologians and on the teaching authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium are proof of this lack of clarity and hermeneutical deficit of Vatican II. Several bilateral dialogues took up the question (ARCIC I, Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue, Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue in the USA), as well as Faith and Order in its multilateral approach. In various studies on the hermeneutical problem (Bristol 1967-Louvain 1971) important insights from church-history were laid bare: the flexibility and frequency of the conciliar praxis of the Early Church and its later developments in East and West, the importance of ‘reception' of conciliar decisions by the local churches, the problem of continuity and change, diversity and unity, consensio antiquitatis et universalitatis (H. Sieben). In 1976 (Geneva) and 1977 (Odessa) hermeneutical questions came up in the study of the teaching authority of the Church. From Accra 1974 and Nairobi 1975 onwards there developed keen interest in the manifold ways Christians in different contexts lived their faith and found new credal forms of witness (Giving Account of the Hope within us; Confessing Our Faith Around the World). The ongoing debate within Faith and Order resulted in a common conviction, formulated at Bangalore (1978): “Before the Church performs acts of teaching, she exists and lives. Her existence and her life are the work of the triune God who calls her into being and sustains her as his people, the Body of Christ, the fellowship of the faithful in the Spirit. The authority of the Church has its ground in this datum of her being. The whole church teaches by what she is, when she is living according to the Gospel. “The Gospel we proclaim is the Gospel of God's free grace. He calls us into his grace which sets us free. Therefore, the authoritative teaching of the Church assumes the form of a joyful witness to God's liberating truth. This truth is its own criterion as it leads us into the glorious liberty of the children of God. We obey the truth because we have been persuaded by it. “The ultimate authority is that of the Holy Spirit who makes Christ present and who shall guide us into all truth. He is at work in all other manifestations of authority in the life of the Church and prevents them from being opposed to each other. The Spirit-given authority of the Church, the Scriptures, the teaching ministry of the Church and the confessional statements are authoritative on the basis of the truth of the Gospel as received by the whole Church. Al- though conflicts happen, there should be no false alterna- tives between the Scriptures and the Tradition, the ordained ministry and the laity, the truth of the past and the truth of the present, and the faith of the corporate body of the Church and of the individual person as these dimensions are constitutive elements of the revealed truth of the whole Church” 7 . Following that same line of thought, the Preface to BEM in 1982 could state: “On the way towards their goal of visible unity, however, the churches will have to pass through various stages. They have been blessed anew through listening to each other and jointly returning to the primary sources, namely ‘the Tradition of the Gospel testified in Scripture, transmitted in and by the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit' (Faith and Order World Conference, 1963). “In leaving behind the hostilities of the past, the churches have begun to discover many promising convergences in their shared convictions and perspectives. These convergences give assurance that despite much diversity in theological expression the churches have much in common in their understanding of the faith. The resultant text aims to become part of a faithful and sufficient reflection of the common Christian Tradition on essential elements of Christian communion. In the process of growing together in mutual trust, the churches must develop these doctrinal convergences step by step, until they are finally able to declare together that they are living in communion with one another in continuity with the apostles and the teachings of the universal Church” 8 . It was with this theological understanding of a given, common, apostolic Tradition and of a received, partially shared and growing universal Communion, that the first question, put before the churches, was phrased like this: “—the extent to which your church can recognize in this text the faith of the church through the ages” 9 . 7 Bangalore 1978, Sharing in One Hope, Geneva: WCC (coll. “Faith & Order Paper”, 92), 1978, p. 258. 8 Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Geneva: WCC (coll. “Faith & Order Paper” 111), 1982, p. ix. Emphasis my own. 9Ibid., p. x.N. 44 / Fall 1993Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 7 Its aim was to broaden the scope of the particular teaching of any given tradition towards the wider idea of a common, future-oriented Christian Tradition, from which the divided Churches would draw, through the ecumenical movement, the opportunities for renewal and enrichment in their understanding of Sacraments and Ministry. The same understanding had lead to the description of the main idea of “apostolic Tradition” in §34 and commentary of the Ministry text: “In the Creed, the Church confesses itself to be apostolic. The Church lives in continuity with the apostles and their proclamation. The same Lord who sent the apostles continues to be present in the Church. The Spirit keeps the Church in the apostolic tradition until the fulfillment of history in the Kingdom of God. Apostolic tradition in the Church means continuity in the permanent characteristics of the Church of the apostles: witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and the eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and the needy, unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord has given to each” 10 . In a similar way a consultation of Faith and Order in Rome 1983 underlined the continuity of the apostolic faith in the life of the church: “The term ‘apostolic faith' (...) does not refer only to a single fixed formula or a specific moment in Christian history. It points to the dynamic, historical (geschichtlich) reality of the central affirmations of the Christian faith which are grounded in the witness of the people of the Old Testament and the normative testimony of those who preached Jesus in the earliest days (“apostles”) and of their community, as attested in the New Testament. These central affirmations were further developed in the church of the first centuries. This apostolic faith is expressed in various ways, i.e. in individual and common confession of Christians, in preaching and sacraments, in formalized and received credal statements, in decisions of councils and in confessional texts. Ongoing theological explication aims at clarifying this faith as a service to the confessing community. Having its center in the confession of Jesus as Christ and of the triune God, this apostolic faith is to be ever confessed anew and interpreted in the context of changing times and places in continuity with the original witness of the apostolic community and with the faithful explication of that witness throughout the centuries”11. The key words in this understanding of Tradition and apostolic faith, going far beyond the scope of the Montreal hermeneutical debate in its section II on Scripture, Tradition and traditions, refer to the ecclesial implications of Tradition: -apostolic continuity (in proclamation, mission, interpreta- tion of the Gospel, celebration of the sacraments, transmission of ministerial responsibilities); -communion (sharing in the gifts of God, in prayer, service, unity) and -fulfillment of history in the Kingdom of God. Both the diachronic aspect (continuity in the apostolic faith) and the synchronic meaning (solidarity, reconciliation, unity of the local churches in a universal community) are expressed in the idea of “Tradition” (paradosis) and of “Communion” (koinonia). In the commentary to §34 of the Lima text on Ministry, the content of this ecclesial Tradition is once more described as a “transmission process”, which relates the actual Church and its ministries to the Gospel and to “the saving words and acts of Jesus Christ which constitute the life of the Church”. In the opening paragraphs of the text on Baptism and Eucharist and at many other places in BEM (e.g. in M.1-6, 8-14, 15-16, 19-23) this same basic idea of Tradition as transmission of the salvific gifts of Christ in and by the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit has been expressed. The hermeneutics of BEM imply such a broad and deep understanding of “Tradition”. Both the vocabulary of “continuity” (in manifold expressions like “rooted in”, “delive- red”, “received”, “gift”, “continual”, “continue”, “inherit”, “inheritance”), of “community (or “unity”, “solidarity”, “sharing”, “reconciliation”, “fellowship”) and of “fulfillment in the Kingdom of God” run like a red thread through the texts 12 . 10Ibid., p. 28. 11 H.-G. LINK, ed., The Roots of Our Common Faith. Faith in the Scriptures and in the Early Church, Geneva: WCC (coll. “Faith & Order Paper”, 119), 1984, p. 20. 12 — “continuity”, e.g. in the Preface ix-x, B. 1-6, 8-10, 19; E. 1-9, 11 (in communion with all the saints and martyrs), 13-14, 19-21, 25 (the Church's participation in God's mission to the world), 29; M. 1-6, 8-12, 15 (the authority of the ordained minister is rooted in Jesus Christ), 19-23, 29 (bishops as ministers of continuity), 34-38 (on apostolic tradition and succession), 39 (ordination: ...to continue the mission of the apostles), 52 (“Churches in ecumenical conversations can recognize their respective ordained ministries if they are mutually assured of their intention to transmit the ministry of Word and sacrament in continuity with apostolic times”), 53 b (“in faithful continuity with the apostolic faith and mission”; “...continuity with the Church of the apostles”); — “community”, e.g. in B. 6, 7, 10, 15; E. 10, 17 (community of the new covenant), 19-21, 26, 29 (connection of the local community with other local communities in the universal church); M. 1-6, 8 (focus of unity), 11 (to assemble and guide the dispersed people of God, 12 (to build up the community in Christ), 13 (to build up the Body of Christ), 21 (episkopè : focus for unity), 23 (to safeguard8 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN.44 / Fall 1993 By pointing to the Tradition as “paradosis”, as a gift to be received and transmitted, the Scriptures being themselves a di- vine gift of grace to that transmission and reception-process, which is a continuing, future-oriented and even eschatological dynamic and living event, an ecumenical convergence on the hermeneutical problem seemed possible. At the same time such convergence seemed apt to integrate many insights from modern hermeneutical theologies, which emphasize the complex structures of any transmission-process of texts, signs, symbols in context. The results of so-called “critical exegesis” (Form- und Redaktionsgeschichte) had already opened up the hermeneutical debate about Scripture and Tradition before Montreal. After Montreal the research about the social, cultural and political contexts of the ministry of Jesus Christ and the life of the Early Church of the New Testament and of the early patristic era, could add new insights about diversity and unity of traditions, creeds, and liturgies of the Early Church. Furthermore, modern semiotic approaches called to our attention the specific functions of the narrative shape of the Jewish and Christian literature. The ecumenical dialogue itself, is seen as the point, where the hermeneutical process takes place “under the commonly acknowledged authority of God's Word”, as a continuous “re- reading” of the narrative of God's salvation, a continuous re-reception and re-appropriation of the message through the text in its context. It is thus, not only the exterior texts of Tradition, like the Scriptures or the Creeds or the sacramental forms of the Early Church, but the interior Word of God (Christ incarnated and the Holy life-giving Spirit who work through the Church), which is behind all forms of Tradition. The post-apostolic Tradition, however, in its diverse forms of magisterial teaching with regard to faith and practices of life and worship, is always bound to be a faithful reflection of the apostolic truth and of the continuous intention of faith (cf. M. 52). It is “interpretative” and “receptive”, based on apostolic faith as its source, as Bangalore and Vatican II (DV 10) had affirmed. The responses to BEM The responses from the churches seem to demonstrate, that such a further theological reading of Montreal, developed within Faith and Order after Salamanca 1973 and Bangalore 1978, could not be taken for granted. Much more intensive reflection on the nature of Tradition, as testified in Scripture, transmitted in and by the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit would have been needed, in order to make all traditions sensitive to the ‘faith of the Church through the ages'. The official responses to BEM in answering the first question put before them or in making direct remarks on the hermeneutical positions with regard to Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, as they were supposed to lay behind the BEM-texts, reflect roughly seven possible positions after Montreal: a. — “the faith of the church through the ages” is interpreted as synonymous with the dynamic idea of “Tradition” according to the description of Montreal, including the faith of Israel as witnessed in the Old Testament; it is the initiative of Gods grace in the history of salvation, the Gospel as the foundation of faith in every age 13 . As the New Testament is a ‘re-reading' the unity of the body), 26-27 (communal dimension of ministry), 29 (relate the Christian community in their area to the wider Church, and the universal Church to their community), 34 (unity among the local churches), 38 (unity of the whole Church), 54-55 (overcoming differences, recognition of ministries); — “fulfillment in the Kingdom of God”, e.g. in B. 3-5, 7, 9-10, 19, 21; E. 1-4, 6-7, 13-14, 17-18, 20, 22-26; M. 1-6, 8, 11, 34 (The Spirit keeps the Church in the apostolic tradition until the fulfillment of history in the Kingdom of God). 13 M. THURIAN, ed., Churches Respond to BEM. Official Responses to “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” Text, Geneva: WCC, 1986-1988, vols. I-VI. I, 90—Church of Scotland; I, 123—Inter-orthodox symposium; II, 10—Russian Orthodox Church: “The faith of the church through the ages contained the fullness of the apostolic tradition preserved and witnessed by the church in its teaching, conciliar experience, liturgical-sacramental devotion, gracious holiness of the life and teaching of its holy martyrs, confessors, fathers and doctors”; II, 25—Finnish Orthodox Church; II, 58—Episcopal Church USA; II, 180—United Methodist Church USA; III, 32.55—Church of England (affirming M. §34: “to be apostolic is necessarily to share in the great mission to which the Church is called and also to abide in the fellowship of the unity of God's universal Church. Such a succession in a historic community preserving down the ages its distinctive life of faith and love points, we believe, to the faith of the church through the ages”; IV, 58—Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland: “...it signifies the continuity of the Christian faith which manifests itself in more than one way in the lives of the different churches. In the first question we were asked whether we find in the text an interpretation of the witness of the New Testament and the common Christian tradition, both of which are the basis under the tradition we have preserved”; IV, 184-190—Burma Baptist Convention; V, 5—Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church: “The church is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, with the apostles and prophets, martyrs and saints built into the structure. The church as the body of Christ who is its head includes Christ himself. If Christ is regarded as somehow standing apart from the church, commissioning it, the meaning of the ministry would be misunderstood. The mystery of the church in which God in Christ incorporates us sinners into the very person of Christ cannot be grasped merely as a commission or as a function. The church is also a presence, the very presence of God in Christ. The ministry becomes recognizable only where the church is experienced as a divine-human presence and comprising of Christ and previous generations of Christians”; V, 8—Old Catholic Church of Switzerland: “‘historical continuity of the faith' over against ‘ahistorical immediacy to the New Testament'”; V, 18—Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands: “We do not regard points of theological discussion and differences of opinion as aN. 44 / Fall 1993Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 9 (relecture) of the Old, so ongoing teaching and preaching is a continuous ‘re-reading' of God's saving action in history. b. — “the faith of the church through the ages” is seen as “apostolic faith”, i.e. the faith of the eye-witnesses and their direct successors in the constitutive period of the Church (which might end on a rather varying date from 150—787 C.E.) 14 . In this view, every tradition must be measured by the content of the original ‘regula fidei' (Irenaeus, Tertullian), by the Ancient Creeds, by a so-called ‘consensus quinquesaecularis' or by the formal criterion of the canonical authority of the Ecumenical Councils of the ‘undivided church'. c. — “the faith of the church through the ages” is the apostolic faith, as attested in the Scriptures, especially in the New Testament 15 . Against all later aberrations and inventions, some (mitigated) form of a ‘sola scriptura' principle must be maintained, making renewal, purification and reformation (ecclesia semper purificanda) possible. d. — “the faith of the church through the ages” is “faith accor- ding to the Scriptures”, as it was explicated by later confessions of faith or catechisms, in their time considered to be faithful to the Scriptures and being in that sense ‘foundational' for the faith 16 . e. — “the faith of the church through the ages” is the apostolic faith as received in one particular tradition, and as being mediated through the actual authoritative teaching of that breach of unity in Christ, as this unity does not depend on our beliefs nut on him who alone is the guarantee of our unity. This is emphasized by the authority — repeatedly stressed below — of the self-imparting word of God, which is always subject in relation to other ‘instruments' which it uses for the ministerium verbi”; ibid., p. 19: “simultaneity of the ages under the single word of God...we have been brought into the history of Abraham”. 14Ibid., II, 6—Russian Orthodox Church; II, 13.14.15.21—Bulgarian Orthodox Church; III, 9.13—Rumanian Orthodox Church; IV, 6—Ecumenical Patriarchate. 15 Ibid., III, 132—Lutheran Church Missouri Synod; III, 143—Standing Council of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of France; III, 147—Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine; III, 163—Reformed Church of France; III, 168—United Protestant Church of Belgium; II, 185—Presbyterian Church of Rwanda: “The Bible can unite us, whereas tradition disunites”; III, 214—Presbyterian Church in Ireland: “Concerns about historical-liturgical-devotional continuity prevail over the demands of Biblical authenticity. The ecclesiastical situation prevails over exegesis”; ibid., III, 215: “The position of our Church is that the sole authority for faith and life is Holy Scripture and that all subsequent traditions within the Church are subject to this norm and criterion...Indeed it seems as if tradition has the primary place”; III, 247—Baptist Union of Denmark: “We recognize in the document ‘the faith of the Church throughout the ages' though we find this expression more a description of the creative power of the ecclesiastical tradition than the norm of confession which alone can be found in the canonical scriptures”; III, 280—Union of Welsh Independents: “As we understand it, the ‘apostolic tradition' is precisely the contents of the New Testament”; IV, 17—Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (Austria): “the priority of the Bible is limited”; IV, 47—Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hannover: “We cannot but refer to the witness of the scriptures”; IV, 128—Evangelical Church in Hessen and Nassau: “the word of God, as testified in the holy scriptures, is the cognitive basis of theology and of the church”; IV, 167—Evangelical Methodist Church:Central Conference in the GDR; IV, 174—Evangelical Methodist Church, Central Conference in FRG; IV, 191—Union of Evangelical Free Churches in the GDR (Baptists); V, 34—Evangelical Church in Baden; V, 163—Reformed Church in Hungary: “We can in no way dispense with the clear expression of the fact that the living word of God, viva vox Dei, made flesh in Jesus Christ, written down in the scriptures and explained by the Holy Spirit (John 14:26), is above all church traditions and is their criterion at all times. We attach great importance to the assertion of the biblical teaching that the church was called to existence by the word of God, therefore the church can only be a blessed instrument of God as a creatura verbi”; VI, 67—Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, “but recognizing apostolic tradition as a standard by which we have to test e.g. the structures of ministry”; VI, 69—Church of Lippe and p. 74: “that to the Lima texts at hand a further declaration of convergence entitled De evangelio be added or rather be placed in front of it. It should discuss gospel-scripture-Tradition, Spirit and word, mission and evangelization and ministerium verbi divini...”; VI, 124—United German Mennonite Congregations. 16 Ibid., II, 108—The Church of Norway; IV, 24.26—Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria; IV, 45—Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church; IV, 74—Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg; IV, 82—Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Romania; IV, 138.148-149—Evangelical Church of Westphalia: “the basis for our response is the question of the extent to which the biblical witness and the fundamental concern of the Reformation confessions as well as the latter's historical impact find expression”; IV, 230.250.253—The Salvation Army: “We cannot give to apostolic or any tradition the same value as to the scriptures or make the scriptures depend on tradition” (253), but also: “Gradually but positively there emerged that conviction which salvationists cherish to this day, that the Holy Spirit was confirming this new expression of Christian faith and practice...which included the non-observance of the traditional sacraments on theological as well as practical grounds” (230); V, 23—Evangelical Lutheran Church in Württemberg (but affirming M. §34 p. 29); V, 95—Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck; V, 121—Federation of the Evangelical Churches in the GDR, but, p. 121.123: “...today it is in shared ecumenical discussion with other churches and their traditions that we can discern the renewing word of God in holy scripture” and p. 147: “the convergence statements have given our Reformation tradition new frames of reference”; V, 157—Mecklenburg; V, 159—Thuringia.Next >