The Church is whole when all parts of the church are in communion with all others. For this reason each church must insist on the centrality of ecumenism and be disciplined by it. Notionally, all the leaders of the church meet together in councils in which the whole church is present. This council or assembly is a function of the mercy of God to his Church and by which the Church is renewed and sustained.
Ecumenism is not an extra, but an evangelical imperative. ‘The divided Churches are called to receive from one another or indeed to receive one another.’ This does not mean simply agreement on doctrine, but mutual ecclesial recognition, ‘the reception of one Church by another Church’ – in the eucharist. ‘The Church, although one, exists as churches (in the plural), and these churches exist as One Church in and through constantly receiving one another as sister Churches.’ (Zizioulas ‘The Theological Problem of Reception’)
Conciliarity is the practice of communion, that is, of sending apostles to, and receiving apostles from, all other parts of the church. Receiving Christ from these apostles and being obedient to Christ in them, is simply what Christian love is. The Church is love. The whole church’s sending, receiving, meeting, learning and teaching, disciplining and obeying, is the event of love. It is the life Christ lives to the Father. Indeed all society is an event of love, and a participation in the society of God, and no amount of corruption changes the truth of the origin of human sociality. Any particular society becomes, and remains, a society as it is formed in and disciplined by Christ, who is in one society with the Father.
But there is no worldwide council of the church. There is the weekly, or daily, celebration the eucharist, which both looks forward to the assembly of Christ with his whole people, and already is this assembly in miniature. And there are the many interim ecumenical meetings and forums of the church. All of them are partial, but if they are gatherings of the church, they give their witness by pointing forwards to the perfect eucharist of the whole church. In the eucharist we receive the whole Church, Christ and his whole people. We shall return to this theme in the next post.
