Posts
 |
| Source: uncutmountainsupply.com |
At the Liturgy yesterday, the homily focused on the Nicene Creed (1700th anniversary this year, 325-2025) and our belief in "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." So I am now sharing two very different types of approaches to the Church, one by a distinguished contemporary biblical scholar and the second by a very prominent Orthodox theologian who died in a Soviet prison camp. The first is more-or-less a short definition by the Australian biblical scholar, Brendan Byrne. I hope that it doesn't sound a bit too "textbook" in style, but it gives us an overall - though very concise - explanation of the very term used for the Church, primarily as encountered in the Apostle Paul:
"Church - In secular Greek usage the term ekklesia refers to an assembly of citizens "called out" from their homes (ek-kalein) by the civic herald to gather in the assembly to hear a solemn proclamation from the ruler or to make decisions. The early believers saw themselves as called out from the darkness of unbelief to hear in community the Good New of their risen Lord. In each separate locality they constitute "the assembly [ekklesia] of God." Paul usually employs the term with reference to the local communities but this does not mean that he lacks a sense of a total ekklesia, a renewed people of God, made up, on the analogy of Israel, from the spread (diaspora) of communities in each place (cf. I Cor. 1:1-2)"
Then, there is this from the early 20th theologian Fr. Pavel Florensky, whose words reflect more the mystery of the Church as a reality that is experienced more than it is described:
"There is no concept of ecclesiality, but ecclesiality itself is, and for every living member of the Church, the life of the Church is the most definite and tangible thing that he knows. But the life of the Church is assimilated and known only through life - not in the abstract, not in a rational way. If one must nevertheless apply concepts to the life of the Church, the most appropriate concepts would be not juridical and archaeological, but ones that are biological and aesthetic ones."
