CHAPTER 1: ECUMENICAL PROGRESS AND STAGNATION 13 unity is essential for mission and evangelization emerged. Catholic ecclesiology, too, includes this goal of Christianity, as Bruce T. Morrill points out: “[t]he theme of unity – of Christians and, then, all humanity – reflects the ultimate meaning and purpose of Holy Communion in Western Christian tradition, namely, the res tantum of the sacrament being the unity of the church as the mystical body of Christ.”16 The two elements of Christ’s prayer combined form the main theological inspiration of the modern ecumenical movement. In addition, other developments urged the churches to cooperate more closely. In the early twentieth century, however, churches were increasingly inclined to cooperate as they faced the challenges of modern society: for example, the growing interdependence due to the process of globalization while secularization threatened the dominance of Christianity in Europe and the world, and a concomitant theological renewal of Christian identity. Thus, both external, sociological changes and internal, theological developments have inspired and continue to inspire the modern ecumenical movement.17 Since its institution in 1948, the World Council of Churches (WCC) has played a decisive role in the ecumenical movement. With the pre-existing movements of Faith and Order (dedicated to comparative theology) and of Life and Work (promoting the application of Christian principles in all realms of society) at its core, the WCC has been the main institutionalization of the ecumenical movement. The WCC has provided a platform for interchurch encounter. Confessing that the unity of the church is already given by God, WCC acknowledges that ecclesiastical unity is not to be made but, rather, to be searched for. Important clarifications on its self-understanding were presented in the 1950 Toronto Statement.18 The WCC explicated that it does not imagine itself to be a super-church, superseding the existing churches, nor does membership demand adjustment of one’s own ecclesiological selfunderstanding or view on other churches or communities. 16 Bruce T. Morrill, “Good Table Manners? The Presence and Participation of Fellow Christians at Roman Catholic Mass,” Liturgy 31, no. 3 (July 2, 2016): 42–43, https://doi.org/10.1080/0458063X.2016.1155912. 17 See Willem Adolph Visser ’t Hooft, “The General Ecumenical Development since 1948,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement. Volume 2, 1948-1968, The Ecumenical Advance, ed. Harold E. Fey (London: SPCK, 1970), 3–6. 18 World Council of Churches, “The Church, the Churches and the World Council of Churches: The Ecclesiological Significance of the World Council of Churches,” Toronto Statement, 1950, https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/toronto-statement.
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