Abstract

In Orthodox theology, reflection on the nature of the Church has always been and still remains one of the most frequently discussed topics. The 20th century was particularly fruitful in this regard, because it produced several notable Orthodox theologians, who contributed to the dynamic development of ecclesiological thought. Their labor was dedicated to explaining the nature of the Church on the basis of theological and historical analysis of the first centuries of Christianity, the Traditions of the Apostles and of the Holy Fathers. This tendency was dictated by a kind of need and stagnation in Orthodox theology which resulted from a strong influence of scholastic theology. Thanks to the labour and great academic work of theologians of the Theological Institute of St. Sergius in Paris, chiefly Fr. N. Afanasjev, it is possible to speak of a renaissance in Orthodox ecclesiology. Fr. N. Afansajev is the creator of “Eucharistic ecclesiology”. He indicated the close relation between the Church and the Eucharist, between the Church (the Body of Christ) and the Eucharistic Body. At the same time, he emphasized the exceptional significance of the Eucharist in the life of the Church, which constantly continues as the eternally lasting Eucharistic koinonia. The word “Church” (Greek: ekklēsia) means the Eucharistic gathering of the people. The words of St. Paul “when you come together as Church…” (1 Cor 11,20), both for him and the early church, did not refer to the church building, but to the nature and purpose of the gathering. Its purpose is to actualize the Church. From the very beginning, the triune Gathering, Eucharist and Church were undisputed and obvious, and also confirmed by the tradition of the Church of the first centuries on the basis of St. Paul’s writings. The Eucharist appears here not only as one of the seven Sacraments, as Dogmatic and catechetical textbooks treat it, but as the “Sacrament of Gathering” (Greek: areiopagos) in the thought of St. Dionysius the Areopagite’s terminology. The Eucharistic gathering was and should be treated as the foundation of the Church’s being.