Contemporary Orthodox Ecclesiology: Ministry and Structure of the Church

St. Philaret’s Institute continues to organise conferences in the Orthodox Ecclesiology series. The 2017 Conference agenda featured issues such as the perception by the church of Archpriest Nicholas Afanasiev’s Eucharistic ecclesiology and contemporary perception of the Eucharist as the centre of a church congregation’s life. The resulting discussion highlighted a range of issues around the current understanding of the church and its boundaries. These issues were on the agenda of the Conference held in May 2018, which identified new questions about the connection between the structure of the church and its ministry.

The correlation between the vocation of the church and its structure remains underconceptualized. The historically recurrent failure of the church to meet the Gospel norm is a particularly sensitive issue. One of the most poignant subjects to ponder is the reasons behind the reduction of the charismatic element in favour of the currently prevalent institutional one. The underdevelopment of these ecclesiological theory aspects often hinders Christians from practicing responsibility for the entire world in contemporary realities, given the national and international dominance of secular social life principles.

The following issues are on the agenda:

• the scope of and correlation between the church’s vocation, ministry and structure;
• notions of church structure and authority across various types of ecclesiology;
• functional and non-functional approaches to church ministry; and
• canons as an expression of the church ministry and structure notion. 
  

The Conference organisers hope that a compelling, reflective and open dialogue between Conference participants on the above mentioned and associated issues will bear its good fruit.