Familial Terminology and the Progressive Nature of Church Membership in Cyril of Jerusalem (original) (raw)
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The Church in modern Orthodox thought: towards a baptismal ecclesiology
International journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 2011
After surveying the development of Orthodox ecclesiology in the modern period, this article offers a critique of two especially noteworthy presentations of 'eucharistic ecclesiology', by Nicholas Afanasiev and John Zizioulas. Among other things, it calls attention to ways in which the notion of 'place' and therefore the meaning of 'local' have changed since the second and third centuries-the period that exponenents of eucharistic ecclesiology have so often taken as perennially normative. In conclusion the article argues for rediscovery of baptism as a corrective to eucharistic ecclesiology, contending that deeper appreciation of the ecclesiological significance of baptism could have important pastoral and ecumenical implications for the Orthodox Church.
2017
The following study seeks to explore the subjects of Christianisation and Christian identity during the transitional period of the fourth century from an ecclesiological perspective, and argues that the very question of Christian identity is, indeed, an ecclesiological one. It approaches the subject through the writings of Cyril of Jerusalem, specifically his Catechetical Lectures, the earliest complete catechetical programme that has come down to us, making it an invaluable resource for anyone hoping to understand the Catholic Church’s efforts to preserve and construct its identity in the wake of Constantine’s formal conversion to its faith. Moreover, Cyril, who became bishop of the Holy City around 350, affords us a unique perspective on the question at hand, teaching as he did from the “very centre of the earth”, following the creation of a Christian holy land and pilgrimage centre in the midst of what remained a largely pagan province, and in a city still central to Judaism. The...
Beyond Victor Turner: Theorizing the Process in Pauline Baptism
In Wayne Meeks’s groundbreaking study The First Urban Christians, Pauline baptism was treated as analogous to rites of passage. With the aid of Victor Turner’s theoretical reflections, Meeks proposed that in Pauline baptism “reaggregation” retains many of the liminal characteristics of communitas, which properly belong to the “transition” phase of the ritual. Almost twenty-five years later, and almost forty years after Turner’s theory was first published, it is worthwhile to reconsider the theoretical basis for examining Pauline baptism as a ritual process. This paper contends that newer theoretical models better help us to grapple with the eschatological dimension of the Pauline process as well as its intimate relationship to communal meals in Pauline circles. This paper also argues that there is some instructive slippage between any ritual theory and what is occurring in Pauline baptism, which can function as an interpretive key to this somewhat idiosyncratic ritual.
The Mystery of Baptism and the Unity of the Church
An address prepared for the Academic Conference "Ecumenism: Origins, Expectations and Disenchantment," sponsored by the Pastoral Department of Theology, School of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, September 20-24, 2004.
Abstract: The God of the Bible is an incarnate God: A God who speaks in and through the embodied human experience. Thus, for all of the theological significance of baptism, it is also incumbent for Christians to recognize the vital sociological role baptism plays as a rite of passage, as well as the ways in which baptism serves as an embodied pedagogy, that is, as a learning experience that has lasting effects in the life of the believer. This has implications for baptismal practice, specifically having to do with the timing in which baptism is undertaken. I argue in this essay for a recognition that baptism serves both sociological and pedagogical functions in the life of Christians and the church, and that perhaps a third category—a “liminal” category—should be envisioned for those on their way toward baptism.
The notion of symbolic and social boundaries in biblical and early Christian studies, so prominent in the late 1970s, opened up for analysis the conceptual importance of relationality for the formation, maintenance, and development of Christian identity. Relationality understands ‘identity’ as the product of fundamental intersubjective processes and the meanings constructed by social interaction among populations. And yet, though the variegated nature of these processes engendered analyses of several substantive areas in biblical studies, such as exploring conceptions of power, beliefs, gender, ethnicity, ethics, and ...