Contact:  Juan Michel, +41 22 791 6153, +41 79 507 6363, media@wcc-coe.org

 

GENEVA, Oct. 12 /Standard Newswire/ -- Analysis of the churches' sources of authority is a subject of immediate concern in the quest for Christian unity. "Authority" in the church is a concept that has divided Christians. Some traditions see Scripture alone as the unparalleled authority for faith and life, others appeal to particular authors, creeds and confessions, while still others look to a council, church hierarchy or a single office as the authoritative interpreter of dogma.

 

 

On Saturday 10 October, the Faith and Order Plenary Commission meeting at the Orthodox Academy of Crete took up one aspect of this discussion, the role of "teachers and witnesses in the early church" who have come to be known as "the Church Fathers" and whose legacy is the focus of Patristic studies, or "patristics".

 

More than 150 participants engaged in plenary and small-group discussion on approaches to these early Christian witnesses. Formal and informal conversations will continue to play a part in the commission's work through its adjournment on Tuesday 13 October. As part of the process, small groups have been assigned to concentrate their attention on the life and works of either Gregory of Nazianzus (c.325-389), Ambrose of Milan (c.339-397) or Isaac the Syrian (died c.700).

 

As an introduction to this topic, presentations were made concerning a September 2008 consultation at Cambridge University on "Tradition and traditions: The teachers and witnesses of the early church". The consultation report provides a basis for this phase of work in the Faith and Order Plenary Commission. Both the report and Saturday's two introductions to it may be accessed on the WCC website.

 

The Rev. Dr Susan Durber of the United Reformed Church in the U.K., a co-moderator of the Cambridge consultation, testified to her discovery of a "true authority" in these early witnesses that "does not force itself, but is revealed from within". She said that, at the close of deliberations with Orthodox, Catholics and other Protestants, "I came away from the consultation deeply persuaded that the teachers and witnesses of the early church are and should be honoured as our common parents".

 

Durber admitted that she can appreciate modern reluctance to turn to "Church Fathers" for counsel: "The past is often seen as a 'foreign country', a strange, alien place which we need not visit, or perhaps alternatively as heritage of a rather sentimental kind for our entertainment. I am also among those who take very seriously the insights of feminism, for whom a group referred to as 'the Fathers' does not readily commend itself. I have colleagues and friends who cannot see why it would be relevant or helpful to read 'the fathers' and think that their witness should be muted as we shape a church for mission in today's world."

 

In a press briefing following her presentation, Durber added that there is "no reason not to apply feminist methods" to patristic sources. "I critique anyone who speaks to and for the church, in any age", she said. The lives of these authors proves that they were familiar with oppression and suffering, frequently speaking of these conditions: "There is a real sense of grappling, wrestling, struggling in their writing." She expressed a hope that historical research may help "recover lost voices" from the past, the voices of church mothers as well as fathers.

 

The second presenter, Archimandrite Dr Cyril Hovorun of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, encouraged an increased use of patristic study as part of the standard methodology in Faith and Order. He noted the Cambridge consultation's conclusion that visible unity among divided Christian churches "will only be enhanced when we are in living consensus with our common parents in the faith from the earliest centuries". He proposed two specific measures for consideration by Faith and Order: a study on "the intrinsic connection in letter and spirit" between these early witnesses and the Bible, and the preparation of commentaries based on patristic literature as supplements to "any signficant ecumenical document" that is formulated in the future.

 

Speaking to the press following his presentation, Hovorun noted that within Orthodoxy "ordinary people in traditional churches are often suspicious of the ecumenical movement". He suggested that the routine commissioning of patristic studies in support of ecumenical documents and positions "could overcome prejudices and stereotypes".

 

(*) Theodore Gill is senior editor of WCC Publications in Geneva and a minister ordained by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

 

 

 

 

Opinions expressed in WCC Features do not necessarily reflect WCC policy. This material may be reprinted freely, providing credit is given to the author.

 

 

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