Scripture translations
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
The translation of the Holy Scriptures has constituted a basic part of mission. During the
Middle Ages few could read the Latin Bible, and vernacular versions of the Bible, in part or
whole, appeared at times throughout the period. The most important of these was the so-called
Wyclif Bible, an English translation compiled in 1382. Within 80 years of the invention of
printing in the West, however, Reformation leaders such as Luther and Calvin focused on the
Word of God. Their cardinal principle remained that each should be able to read the Bible in his
own tongue. The printing press greatly aided Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism used it
effectively as well.
Translations of the Bible became more numerous and widespread beginning in the 16th
century. One of the earliest and most important was Luther’s German translation. The first
official Roman Catholic translation of the Bible, the Douai-Rheims Bible, appeared in two
stages: in 1582 the New Testament was published, and in 1609–10 the Old Testament appeared.
In 1611 the most influential English Bible, the King James Version, was published at the
commission of James I. Modern English translations were produced in the 20th century by
Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars. Translations into other European languages were first
made in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the 19th century Holy Scripture was translated into
various African and Asian languages.
In the 20th century printed Christian Scriptures became available in the mother tongues of
almost 99 percent of the world’s people. That unprecedented accomplishment marks one of the
greatest achievements in the history of written communications. Bibles were available in nearly
325 languages, complete New Testaments in nearly 700 languages, and some portion of the
Scriptures in 1,800 other languages. The translation effort, most of which occurred during the
past 200 years, in many cases reduced a language to writing for the first time. The effort
involved the production of grammars and dictionaries of these languages as well as scriptural
translations, and an additional benefit has been the written preservation of the cultural heritage
by native speakers of the language.
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the
translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators
(1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of
speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their
efforts and cooperated in translation and production wherever possible.
Ecumenism
The word ecumenism comes from a family of Classical Greek words: oikos, meaning a
“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”; and
oikoumenikos, “open to or participating in the whole world.” Like many biblical words, these
were invested with Christian meaning. The word oikoumenē describes the place of God’s
reconciling mission (Matthew 24:14), the unity of the Roman Empire (Luke 2:1) and of the
kingdoms of the earth (Luke 4:5), and the world destined to be redeemed by Christ (Hebrews
2:5). The vision of one church serving God in the world came to reflect a central teaching of the
early Christian faith.
In later centuries the word ecumenical was used to denote church councils (e.g., Nicaea,
Chalcedon) whose decisions represented the universal church, in contrast to other councils that
enjoyed only regional or limited reception. The honorary title of ecumenical patriarch was given
to the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century because his see was located
in the capital of the oikoumenē and his leadership was accepted as primus inter pares (first
among equals) in the faith and mission of the whole church. The Apostles’, Nicene, and
Athanasian creeds are called ecumenical because they witness to the faith of all Christians. Since
the 19th century the term ecumenism has denoted the movement of the renewal, unity, and
mission of Christians and churches of different traditions “so that the world may believe.”
Ecumenism is a vision, a movement, a theology, and a mode of action. It represents the
universality of the people of God and affects the way Christians think about their faith, the
church, and the world. Ecumenism is a long process that draws Christians together, uniting their
life and mission and bringing the Body of Christ and the human community closer to the
fulfillment of God’s purposes. Those involved in ecumenism participate in ideas, activities, and
institutions that express a spiritual reality of shared love in the church and the human
community. Ecumenism is characterized by the work of officially organized ecumenical bodies,
the confessing and witnessing of Christians in local places, and the spirituality and actions of
those who live together in love and prophetic proclamation. Far more than a program or an
organization, ecumenism is, according to the British ecumenist Oliver S. Tomkins, “something
that happens to the soul of Christians.”
Any unity worthy of this vision cannot be identified with political or spiritual coercion,
strategies of dominance or superiority, calls for “a return to the mother church,” or expectations
of monolithic uniformity or a super-church. The weapons of faith are not those of force or
intolerance, and neither can divisions be overcome nor authentic unity manifested by syncretism,
a least-common-denominator theology, or a casual friendliness. Ecumenism accepts the diversity
of God’s people, given in creation and redemption, and strives to bring these confessional,
cultural, national, and racial differences into one fully committed fellowship.
Ultimately, the purpose of ecumenism is to glorify the triune God and to help the one
missionary church to witness effectively and faithfully among all peoples and nations. In the
second half of the 20th century, Christians began confessing new dimensions of this vocation,
especially in relation to what divides the churches. Progress was made on historical theological
issues that have divided Christians through the centuries—baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry.
But equally divisive among Christians are the divisions of the human family: racism, poverty,
sexism, war, injustice, and differing ideologies. These issues are part of the agenda of
ecumenism and bring a particular context, dynamic spirit, and urgency to the pursuit of Christian
unity as well as of justice and peace. The church’s unity becomes essential for the renewal and
unity of the human family. Through its unity the church becomes a sign, the first fruits of the
promised unity and peace among God’s peoples and the nations.
The biblical perspective
The unity of the church and of all creation is a dominant motif in the Bible. This witness
begins in the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), not the New Testament. As attested in the
Bible, God established a covenant with the Hebrew people and gathered the disparate tribes into
one religious nation, Israel, taking steps to overcome the alienation between God and humans
and to reconcile God’s people. The tradition of ancient Judaism, therefore, was based on the
reality of the one people of God. Their unity was an expression of their monotheistic faith, the
oneness of God. According to Genesis, God created the world as one cosmos, an ordered unity
determined by one single will in which all creatures are responsive to the purposes of the
Creator. God chose Israel from all the nations of the world and entered into a covenant with its
people. Whenever men and women sinned and alienated themselves from God and from one
another, God acted to bring about their reconciliation. Israel’s mission was to preserve the
faithfulness and unity of all God’s people and to prepare them for the realization of the kingdom
of God.
The vision of unity is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his
Apostles. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are brought together in a new
community: the church. The New Testament writers assumed that to be “in Christ” is to belong
to one fellowship (Greek: koinōnia). Jesus clearly gave the mandate when at the Last Supper he
offered his high-priestly intercession, praying that the disciples and all those who believe in him
“may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that the world may believe that
you have sent me” (John 17:21). This unity was demonstrated in the miracle of Pentecost (Acts
2) and other actions that established the primitive church—e.g., the epoch-making Council of
Jerusalem (Acts 15), which negotiated conflicts between Jewish and Gentile Christians.
The early church nevertheless had many tensions and conflicts that called for ecumenical
proclamations and pleas from the Evangelists and Apostles. Tensions arose between Jewish
Christian churches and Gentile Christian churches, between St. Paul and the enthusiasts. St. Peter
and St. Paul disagreed strongly over whether Gentiles had to fulfill Jewish requirements in order
to be welcome at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). As revealed in the New Testament, the young
church clearly faced the challenge of theological aberrations: Colossians refutes gnosticism; the
Johannine Epistles warn against docetism; and 2 Peter and Revelation attack false prophets.
Diversity, however, did not create schism nor allow a break in fellowship. There were no
denominations or divided communities, as were to develop later in the church’s history. Division
among Christians is a denial of Christ, an unthinkable distortion of the reality of the church.
Amid their diversity and conflicts, the early Christians remained of “one accord,” visibly sharing
the one Eucharist, accepting the ministries of the whole church, reaching out beyond their local
situation in faith and witness with a sense of the universal community that held all Christians
together. As St. Paul taught the Ephesians, God’s ultimate will and plan is “to gather up all
things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).
The history of ecumenism
While unity is given in Christ, two diametric forces appear in the history of the church: one
is the tendency toward sectarianism and division; the other is the conviction toward catholicity
and unity. Ecumenism represents the struggle between them. Some of the schisms were
theological conflicts foreshadowed in the apostolic church; others were internal quarrels related
to liturgical differences, power politics between different patriarchates or church centres,
problems of discipline and piety, or social and cultural conflicts. Nevertheless, the entire span of
the Christian church’s first two millennia may be viewed as a drive to realize the unity of the
earliest church.
Early controversies
A long and continuing trail of broken relations among Christians began in the 2nd century
when the gnostics presented a serious doctrinal error and broke fellowship. Quartodecimanism, a
dispute over the date of Easter, pitted Christians from Asia Minor against those from Rome.
Montanism—which taught a radical enthusiasm, the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and a
severe perfection, including abstinence from marriage—split the church. The Novatians broke
fellowship with Christians who had offered sacrifices to pagan gods during the persecutions by
the Roman emperor Decius in 250 ce. In the early 4th century the Donatists, Christians in North
Africa who prided themselves as the church of the martyrs, refused to share communion with
those who had lapsed—i.e., those who had denied the faith under threat of death during the great
persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius. The Donatists remained a powerful force in Africa into
the 5th century and survived into the 7th despite opposition from church and state. This schism—
like many since—reflected regional, national, cultural, and economic differences between the
poor rural North African Christians and the sophisticated urban Romans.
In each century, leaders and churches sought to reconcile these divisions and to manifest
the visible unity of Christ’s church. But in the 5th century a severe break in the unity of the
church took place. The public issues were doctrinal consensus and heresy, yet, in the midst of
doctrinal controversy, alienation was prompted by political, cultural, philosophical, and linguistic
differences. Tensions increased as the church began to define the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son and later the relation between the divine and human elements in the
nature and person of Jesus Christ. The first four ecumenical councils—at Nicaea (325 ce),
Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451)—defined the consensus to be taught
and believed, articulating this faith in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition, which
stated that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, true man, and true God, one person in “two
natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”
Some groups deviated doctrinally from the consensus developed in the councils.
Nestorianism, which came to be regarded as a heresy at Ephesus, taught that there are two
distinct persons in the incarnate Christ and two natures conjoined as one. Monophysitism,
regarded as a heresy at Chalcedon, taught that there is one single, divine nature. Several churches
refused to accept the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of Ephesus and Chalcedon and formed
their own communities largely outside what was considered the mainstream of Christianity in
Europe and in parts of the Middle East. The Nestorian movement became the Assyrian Church of
the East. Several churches that rejected the outcome of Chalcedon were (incorrectly) branded as
monophysites. Despite some attempts at reconciliation, both the Nestorian and the alleged
monophysite churches were cut off from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (later)
Protestant churches until the ecumenical movement of the 20th century. Yet, like their European
counterparts, they became great missionary churches and spread throughout Africa and Asia.
