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Document Details : Title: Apostolic Continuity of the Curch and Apostolic Succession in the First Five Centuries Author(s): ZIZIOULAS, John Journal: Louvain Studies Volume: 21 Issue: 2 Date: summer 1996 Pages: 153-168 DOI: 10.2143/LS.21.2.583430 Abstract : The subject on which I have been asked to speak is a vast one and its proper treatment would require much more space than the length of this paper can provide. Since the nature of this conference is not strictly or properly speaking historical, my paper will aim at submitting to your consideration some general observations concerning the development of the notion of apostolic continuity and succession in the early Church with the intention of drawing from the historical material some useful conclusions for the present-day ecumenical discussion of the subject of apostolic continuity and succession. For it seems to me at least that a closer look at the history of this idea in the formative period of the first four or five centuries of Church history would reveal to us a diversity of approaches to what has become a thorny and divisive issue in the Christian Church, thus opening up the possibility of overcoming the impasse that we have reached in ecumenical dialogue on this subject ever since the Reformation. |
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