The Church of the Holy Spirit
Publication Year: 2007
Published by: University of Notre Dame Press
Cover
Title Page, Copyright, Frontispiece
Contents
Foreword
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pp. vii-viii
What is the Church of God? We can craft any number of ingenious answers to this question and all of them will be useless unless we give proper weight to what it means to be the Church of God — to be the community assembled by divine initiative and divine love before all else....
Introduction: The Church of the Holy Spirit— Nicholas Afanasiev’s Vision of the Eucharist and the Church
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pp. ix-xx
Memories and memoirs can be most revealing as well as obscuring. The recently published selections from Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s journals attest to this.2 The quotation above, however, comes from one of the typically succinct obituaries Fr. Schmemann...
Author’s Foreword
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pp. 1-8
The expression Ecclesia Spiritus Sancti is found in Tertullian. Trying to reclaim from bishops, possibly from Callistus of Rome in particular, the power “to bind and to loose,” Tertullian argued that this power belonged to the “Church of the Spirit,” rather than to the “church of the psychics.” It seemed to him that the...
1. The Royal Priesthood
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pp. 9-21
In the New Testament, those who became this race and nation (genos eklekton, ethnos hagion) which the Lord has chosen and formed for himself were Christians who before were not at all a nation but who in the Church became God’s people (laos Theou). The Church is God’s...
2. The Ordination of Laics
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pp. 23-31
In the Old Testament, physical birth determined whether someone belonged to the chosen people. Only the children of Abraham were heirs to God’s promise. Despite the fact that proselytism was especially strong by the time of Christ’s coming — “You traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte...
3. The Ministry of Laics
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pp. 33-79
The Eucharist is the leitourgia celebrated by God’s people gathered in the temple of Christ’s body. Therefore only one who is ordained for the “high calling” of being a member of God’s people can participate in the Eucharist. The eucharistic assembly began with the reading of the Scriptures and the homily by the presider, followed...
4. The Work of Ministry
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pp. 81-132
Life in the Church, to which every one of the faithful is called, is unceasing ministry through the Church to God and to the Church. “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served (diakonêsthênai) but to serve (diakonêsai), and to give his life...
5. “Those Who Preside in the Lord”
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pp. 133-168
Theologians have firmly adhered to the view that primitive Christianity, at least outside Palestine, existed in a state of charismatic anarchy. The end of charismatic anarchy signified the end of a charismatic period and the beginning of firm and definitive organization of church life. This external organization emerges on the basis of episcopal authority that did not exist during the...
6. “The One Who Offers Thanksgiving”
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pp. 169-215
This vision of St. John the Theologian [in the Book of Revelation] brings to us the image of a eucharistic assembly.1 From the very beginning at the eucharistic assembly a certain order was established in which the participants were placed in accordance with their status in the church. The witness to this is the letter...
7. The Bishop
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pp. 217-253
Nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum est.1 This saying of Pope Stephen contains the basic rule of church life. Nothing new should be introduced; everything should rest on the tradition of the church. If in the beginning of the second century in the letters of Ignatius we find bishops in the local churches,...
8. The Power of Love
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pp. 256-275
The Church’s thousand-year history since its first millennium has significantly modified its life, creating forms radically different from those of the primitive era, establishing ecclesial ideas which no longer contain its ancient teaching. In reality it is now quite difficult for us to understand the first pages of the...
Notes
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pp. 277-313
Index
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pp. 315-327
About the Author
E-ISBN-13: 9780268074678
E-ISBN-10: 0268074674
Print-ISBN-13: 9780268020309
Print-ISBN-10: 0268020302
Page Count: 352
Illustrations: Image removed; no digital rights.
Publication Year: 2007
