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Document Details :

Title: De kerk van het credo en de kerken vandaag
Subtitle: Een gereformeerde bijdrage aan de orthodox-gereformeerde dialoog
Author(s): BLEI, K.
Journal: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies
Volume: 51    Issue: 3-4   Date: 1999   
Pages: 189-211
DOI: 10.2143/JECS.51.3.2003027

Abstract :
The Church of the Creed and the Churches Today: A Reformed Contribution to the Orthodox-Reformed Dialogue
This article – originally a paper, presented to the 1996 session of the Orthodox-Reformed dialogue – deals with the relation between the Churches today and the ‘Church of the Creed’. More than the Roman Catholic tradition, the Orthodox tradition emphasizes the spiritual, mystical character of the Church. Its desire is not so much the “return” of other Christians to “the Orthodox Church” (as an institution) as their return to the undivided Tradition of the first centuries (as lived within the Orthodox Church). Reformed may feel at home with this position, insofar as they too plead in favour of return to the origin of Christianity. Only, to them (like to the Lutherans) this origin is to be found in the testimony of Scripture, to be distinguished from the Early Church Tradition. While Orthodox (and Roman Catholic) ecclesiology is ‘from above’, Reformed ecclesiology is ‘from below’: here, the Church is basically defined as “the congregation of the believers”. In its later development, the Reformed tradition shows a strong tendency of spiritualism (ecclesial docetism), drawing a sharp dividing-line between the “visible church” and the “invisible Church” (the “congregation of the elect”) and identifying the Church of the Creed with the latter, not with the former. The original Reformation, however, was different, aiming at renewal of the Church in its visibility. In the Reformed view, Church unity could be reached by mutual recognition of the Churches as all “having part together in the one Church of Christ”. Reformed, however, should learn to see their own Church as itself really a manifestionof Christ’s Church, whereas Orthodox (and Roman Catholics) should learn what their own view of their Church as Christ’s Church really implicates.