Ecumenical Review seeks “a common vision of the church”

Publication of the text The Church: Towards a Common Vision has been called an ecumenical highlight of 2013. Now under study by churches throughout the world, it is a document in search of convergence. The most recent issue of the quarterly journal The Ecumenical Review features commentary on this product of the World Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order.

Professor John Gibaut, director of Faith and Order for the WCC and guest editor of the October 2013 issue of The Ecumenical Review, explains that the current text comes after more than 20 years of dialogue and the circulation of two earlier documents on the church in 1998 and 2005.

In an editorial introduction, Gibaut writes that “the dialogue continues.” The text, he says, “is not a blueprint or a scientific description of what the church is, but a vision of what the church is called to be.” Responses from churches are awaited.

Among the authors of articles providing historical context and the hope of greater unity are Mary Tanner, Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar, Hans-Georg Link, Natalia Vasilevich and William Henn.

List of the authors and articles

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More information on the WCC Commission on Faith and Order