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Introduction The Conciliar Tradition and Ecumenical Dialogue } geralD ChrisTianson Arecent and intriguing proposal for the advance of ecumenical relations in the twenty-first century suggests that worldwide communions should embark on a comparative study of their ways of decision making. In church history, the term reception is usually applied to acceptance by the faithful of dogmatic or disciplinary decisions of church councils.The stress in the new proposal,however,is not so much on the reception of the modern dialogues among the various partners, Catholic , Orthodox, and Protestant, but on the procedures and structures by which they govern themselves. The hope is that a comprehensive study will lead to greater mutual recognition.1 To help guarantee success in this venture, and to begin where some have already tilled the soil, the essays in this volume—taken in sum— suggest a preliminary, but fundamental, task: begin with our shared, but too little known, history of ecclesiastical decision making in the fifteenth-century conciliar movement. Such conversation would reveal several facets of a common origin:the influence of theology and histori1 1. Lukas Vischer, “World Communions, the World Council of Churches and the Ecumenical Movement,” in Synod and Synodality: Theology, History, Canon Law, and Ecumenism in New Contact (International Colloquium Bruges 2003), ed. Alberto Melloni and Silvia Scatena (Münster: Lit Verlag , 2005), 489–517. Hans Margull, introduction to The Councils of the Church: History and Analysis, ed. Margull, trans. Walter Bense (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 81, observes that the process of reception is a circle: reception by the church catholic—confession of faith—definition of what is catholic (or:decision—confession—decision [reception]).The question,he notes,is always open; reception is a continuing process. cal circumstance on the development of conciliar theory;the influence of conciliar theory on secular constitutional thought (and vice versa), reform, and ecclesial structures of collegiality; and above all, a renewed appreciation for a collegiality that can show itself not only in highly publicized gatherings of bishops,but more frequently and more commonly in the practice of “synodality.” Deriving its basic meaning from “gathering” or “assembling,” as in synagogue or synaxis, synodality refers to a system of church assemblies that represents a body of the faithful, from parish councils to regional meetings and national assemblies. While the terms synod or synodality may be unfamiliar, they relate to an evangelical principle deeply imbedded in New Testament ecclesiology. The assembly at Jerusalem in Acts 15 with its critical decision about the circumcision of Gentiles may or may not be a demonstrable historical event, but later generations took it as a model. They gave this council and the less formal gatherings in the Pauline Epistles concrete expression in the great assemblies of the early church, especially the first four ecumenical councils (Nicea I, 325; Constantinople I, 381; Ephesus, 431; and Chalcedon, 451), to which Catholics, Orthodox, and mainline Protestants still adhere.2 The desire to investigate the roots of synodal ecclesiology, and especially its manifestation in the medieval and early modern conciliar theory, is one contribution of those scholars, young and old, who have been drawn into the spell of Vatican II (1962–65),3 and have remained inquisitive about its connections with conciliarism and conciliarism’s connection to modern constitutionalism.4 Many of these scholars would not object if they were called “the Tierney generation.” Although the study of the conciliar movement and conciliar theory was far from new in 1955, one might say that it has come to maturity in the past half century, and that this coming-to-maturity began just over fifty years ago when a young scholar named Brian Tierney published his first book, entitled Foundations of the ConciliarTheory.5 Tierney has observed that the work “had an odd fate.”6 One is reminded of 2.A general and readable introduction to the councils is Christopher M.Bellitto,General Councils:A History of theTwenty-oneChurchCouncilsfromNicaeatoVaticanII (New York:Paulist,2002). 3. Giuseppe Alberigo, A Brief History of Vatican II, trans. Matthew Sherry (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2006); History of Vatican II, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo; English version ed. Joseph Komonchak, 5 vols. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis,1995–2006). 4. A now-standard essay in the field, especially helpful on the issues of conciliarism, ecclesiology, and reform , is Scott Hendrix, “In Quest of the Vera ecclesia: The Crises of Late Medieval Ecclesiology,” Viator:Medieval andRenaissanceStudies 7 (1976):347–78. 5.Brian Tierney,Foundationsof theConciliarTheory:TheContributionof theMedievalCanonistsfromGratiantothe Great Schism (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1955;repr.,1968;rev.ed.,Leiden...

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