The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East agreed on a new document entitled The Images of the Church in the Syriac and Latin Patristic Traditions.

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As the study groups of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission convened this week, the paper “Towards a Global Vision of the Church Volume I: Explorations on Global Christianity and Ecclesiology” was released.
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The study groups of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission are convening from 14-16 November at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute. Participants are sharing their reflections on what has been achieved theologically, ecumenically, and methodologically, as well as their views about relevant ecumenical theological work to be done.
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We’re all familiar with Gospel accounts of the apostles’ very human seeking for positions of power and greatness and also of Jesus’ clear response: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you” (Matthew 20: 25-26). In fact, Jesus so reverses concepts of power and greatness that “whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10: 44-45; cf. Luke 22: 26-27). A similar view of this reversal of secular models of power is found in Paul’s image of the Christian community as the body of Christ, where those that seem to be the weaker are recognized as indispensable and the inferior member is given greater honour (1 Corinthians 12: 12-27). Over time, this new way of being together in the church would find expression in an understanding of authority exercised through structures of synodality.
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Faith and Order published two new volumes that collect responses received to The Church: Towards a Common Vision between 2013 and 2020.

The responses address the church’s mission, unity, and its being in the trinitarian life of God in order to encourage and advance the churches’ growth in communion with each other in apostolic faith, sacramental life, mission, and ministry for the sake of God’s world.
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Working for Christian unity and engaging in formal theological dialogues to promote it obviously raises questions about what the nature and mission of the church is. In a project that took two decades of work by Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Catholic and Pentecostal theologians, the World Council of Churches in 2013 published a document summarizing the points of greatest consensus. In late October, the Vatican gave the WCC its formal response to the document, which was called “The Church: Towards a Common Vision.”

The response, coordinated by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and posted on its website, included input from Catholic theologians from around the world, bishops’ conferences and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. What is meant by “church” is a key ecumenical question as Christians work and pray for the unity Jesus wanted his followers to have, the Catholic response said. Or, as the WCC document said, “agreement on ecclesiology has long been identified as the most elemental theological objective in the quest for Christian unity.”
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Anglicans and Roman Catholics should see in each other “a community in which the Holy Spirit is alive and active,” the latest communiqué from the official ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church says.

Members of the third-phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) met in the central German city of Erfurt early this month for their seventh meeting. They chose to meet in the city to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation – it is here that Martin Luther was ordained and lived as a monk.

During their meeting, the members of ARCIC agreed the text of a new statement looking at Anglican and Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be Church – Local, Regional, Universal, to be known as The Erfurt Document, will be published next year.
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After nearly 50 years of discourse between the Catholic and Anglican communions, the official dialogue body wants to fine-tune how it studies the differences and similarities between two churches which both call themselves Catholic.

“ARCIC III hasn’t proved itself yet,” Sir David Moxon, Anglican co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, told The Catholic Register following an ecumenical evensong on Pentecost Sunday.

This third stage of the dialogue has been meeting since 2011, but has yet to publish a major document. It is currently studying how the Church arrives at moral teaching.

The official dialogue sponsored by the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury is meeting in Toronto until May 18, when a concluding communique is expected from the meeting of 22 bishops, theologians and support staff. It is the first time the body has met in Canada and, to the knowledge of the participants, the first time in 50 years that ARCIC has met during Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first revealed the global unity of the Christian message expressed in the diversity of languages from around the world.
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The Faith and Order Commission’s convergence text “The Church: Towards a Common Vision” continues to be discussed by churches on a journey toward revealing the unity of the church and how it is inextricably bound on a pilgrimage of justice and peace.

As part of this worldwide ongoing dialogue, ecumenical delegates from three departments of France — Ain, Savoie and Haute Savoie — met on 17 March with Dr Ani Ghazaryan Drissi, a member of the Secretariat of the Faith and Order Commission, in La Roche-sur-Foron. Together, they had a presentation and debate on the document.

The French delegates will prepare a response to the document by December 2016.

“It is essential to have official answers to ‘The Church: Towards a Common Vision’ not only from churches, but also from ecumenical groups such as this,” said Ghazaryan Drissi. “The first objective of the text is the renewal of ecclesial life.”
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An important document, which is a theological reflection on the experience and life of the Global Christian Forum, has been approved by the GCF committee.

Titled, Our Unfolding Journey with Jesus Christ: Reflections on the Global Christian Forum Experience, the document is the work of a group of theologians drawn from across the church traditions and families that make up the GCF.

Rev Dr Wonsuk Ma, executive director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, headed a panel of nine theologians, known as the Theological Working Group (TWG), who produced the document. [Full membership of TWG is listed below.]

The work, initiated by the GCF committee when in met in Rome in 2012, was received and approved by the committee at its recent meeting in Geneva in September.

The decision to undertake the task came after the second GCF global gathering at Manado, Indonesia, where it was felt that it was important to put down some theological markers so the wider Christian community could understand the story, practice and on-going life of the GCF.
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Aptly released for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Anglican Communion Office has produced a study guide to the World Council of Churches (WCC) document The Church: Towards a Common Vision, the result of 20 years of study and dialogue among the council’s member churches, who represent most of the world’s churches.

The WCC published Towards a Common Vision in March 2013 and asked its members to study it and comment on it. According to the WCC’s introduction, the document asks and offers answers to the questions “What can we say together about the Church of the Triune God in order to grow in communion, to struggle together for justice and peace in the world, and to overcome together our past and present divisions?” It begins by addressing “the Church’s mission, unity, and its being in the Trinitarian life of God” and then looks at ecumenical “growth in communion – in apostolic faith, sacramental life, and ministry – as churches called to live in and for the world.”
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Catholic and Anglican ecumenical experts meeting in Rio de Janeiro have made progress towards their goal of a common statement on relations between the local and universal Church. This third meeting of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) has also been exploring the ways in which both communities make decisions regarding moral and ethical issues. During the week-long meeting which concluded on Monday, participants met with local Anglican and Catholic leaders to find out about local ecumenical initiatives. They spent a day in the ‘Cidade de Deus’ or City of God, one of the many slum areas around Rio de Janeiro, where the churches are working closely with police and other civic authorities to provide services and support community development.Members of the Commission described the meeting as a hope filled encounter and plan to hold the next ARCIC III session from May 12th to 20th, 2014.
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In a World Council of Churches (WCC) governance meeting, The Church: Towards a Common Vision, a convergence text of the Commission on Faith and Order, was officially presented by the WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit. Tveit launched The Church at the WCC Executive Committee meeting on 6 March, which took place at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute in Switzerland. “The Commission on Faith and Order presents to us a gift, a statement about the Church,” stated Tveit in his foreword to The Church. “Work on ecclesiology relates to everything the Church is and what its mission implies in and for the world. It reflects the constitutional aims and self-identity of the WCC as a fellowship of churches who call each other to the goal of visible unity,” he added. The Church identifies what Christians can say together about the Church in order to grow in communion, to struggle together for justice and peace, and to overcome together their past and present divisions. After twenty years in the making, The Church was approved by the Standing Commission on Faith and Order at its 2012 meeting in Penang, Malaysia. It was later received by the WCC Central Committee and commended to the churches for study and formal response. It is the second convergence text to be approved in the long life of the commission, the first being the Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry which was celebrated at the WCC 6th Assembly in Vancouver (1982).
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Understanding the church as communion changes ecumenism, said the inaugural speaker of the new De Margerie Series on Christian Unity and Reconciliation. A paradigm of church as a communion or “Koinonia” shifts the understanding of church from a focus on our adherence to particular doctrines, to God’s action at work in us, said Bishop Gregory Cameron. “Communion clearly implies that the church is not merely an institution or organization, it is a fellowship of those who are called together by the Holy Spirit and who in baptism, confess Christ as Lord and Saviour. They are thus fully committed to him and to one another,” asserted Cameron. The understanding of church as communion — which is clearly expressed in the New Testament — has been rediscovered and deepened in recent decades, he described. “The shift has come about via a new emphasis of understanding the church less as a body of confessing believers, and more as a supernatural reality brought into being by God’s grace,” he said, after emphasizing the influence of paradigms in determining our ongoing understanding of any theological concept.
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At a historic meeting in Malaysia, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Faith and Order approved a new theological agreement and proposed a major restructuring of its work in the future.

The commission approved the text on “The Church: Towards a Common Vision” the second convergence document in the history of Faith and Order. The WCC director of Faith and Order, Canon John Gibaut, explains that “this ‘convergence’ text show how closely the members of the commission are able to come together to agree on what it means to be the one Church of Jesus Christ. The agreement reached by the commission then will be tested among the churches.”

— Read the complete story on our website
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The third Anglican – Lutheran International Commission (ALIC) held its sixth and final meeting in Jerusalem, 18-25 June.

The commission focused on the writing of its final report, “To Love and Serve the Lord,” which looks at the essential connection between koinonia (church unity) and diakonia (church service and witness). Including stories of diakonia from around the world, the report is written with the hope of reaching not only the international church bodies and church leaders but also institutions of theological education and even congregations seeking to deepen their commitment to discipleship.
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U.S. Anglican-Roman Catholic Theological Commission plans statement on Approaches to Moral Issues

The Anglican-Roman Catholic Theological Consultation in the United States held its sixty-eighth meeting in Alexandria, Louisiana, on September 9 and 10. This session was largely devoted to the examination of a draft outline of a potential agreed statement on the topic of the current round of dialogue, “Ecclesiology and Moral Discernment: Common Ground and Divergences.” This topic explores the fact that while the two churches share the same convictions on a wide range of ethical questions, there are serious differences regarding certain issues in personal morality, especially those pertaining to human sexuality. In earlier meetings of the Commission, members discussed Catholic and Anglican positions on contraception, debt relief, immigration, same-sex unions and health care.
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WCC dialogue questions relevant for Mennonites says Neufeld

How and where does the global church discuss issues such as the nature and mission of the church, sources of authority and moral discernment in the churches? One long-standing forum for important discussions such as these is the Faith and Order Plenary Commission of the World Council of Churches. This body, while not officially decision-making, gathered in Kolympari, Crete, 7-13 October 2009.

… continued
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CATHOLIC WOMEN IN MINISTRY: Changing the Way Things Are, by Marie-Louise Ternier-Gommers. Novalis (Montreal, QC ). © 2007, 216pp., $21.95. Reviewed by Gertrude Rompré.
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CHICAGO (ELCA) — In response to a document released by the Vatican July 10, the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), said the statement does not appear to change the Vatican’s previously stated positions, and it will not alter the ELCA’s commitment to ecumenism, including ongoing discussions
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[LWI] The participants of the 13th Plenary of the international Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission have affirmed recognition of the “broad areas of agreement” in their respective traditions with a view to the understanding of the Eucharist in the life of the church. They adopted a Common Statement titled, “The Mystery of the Church: The Holy Eucharist in the Life of the Church.” In a communiqué from the 2-9 November meeting of the Joint Commission in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, members of the international dialogue group stated that the “Orthodox and Lutherans both confess that Christ’s body and blood are united with bread and wine, to be consumed by communicants, uniting them with Christ and with each other.”
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1. We, the delegates to the Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, give thanks to the Triune God, Father; Son and Holy Spirit, who has brought our churches into living contact and dialogue. By God’s grace we have been enabled to remain together, even when this has not been easy. Considerable efforts have been made to overcome divisions. We are “a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfil their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”.3 We reaffirm that “the primary purpose of the fellowship of churches in the World Council of Churches is to call one another to visible unity in one faith and in one eucharistic fellowship expressed in worship and in common life in Christ, through witness and service to the world, and to advance towards that unity in order that the world may believe”.4 Our continuing divisions are real wounds to the body of Christ, and God’s mission in the world suffers.

2. Churches in the fellowship of the WCC remain committed to one another on the way towards full visible unity. This commitment is a gift from our gracious Lord. Unity is both a divine gift and calling. Our churches have affirmed that the unity for which we pray, hope, and work is “a koinonia given and expressed in the common confession of the apostolic faith; a common sacramental life entered by the one baptism and celebrated together in one eucharistic fellowship; a common life in which members and ministries are mutually recognised and reconciled; and a common mission witnessing to the gospel of God’s grace to all people and serving the whole of creation”.5 Such koinonia is to be expressed in each place, and through a conciliar relationship of churches in different places. We have much work ahead of us as together we seek to understand the meaning of unity and catholicity, and the significance of baptism.
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WCC assemblies have adopted texts offering a vision, or identifying the qualities, of “the unity we seek”. This assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil, is invited to consider and adopt the present invitation to the churches.
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The recent elevation of 44 new cardinals may have seemed to show that for the Catholic Church, it was business as usual. In reality the ceremony marked a radical break. For this first consistory of the new millennium was at the same time a farewell ceremony for a whole era — the era of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The eminent prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), that capable and controversial guardian of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, had enjoyed a monopoly of spiritual power under papal primacy. Now that was challenged. The consistory was both an individual personal drama and an institutional setback to Roman centralism.
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