On the Cultural Ecumenism of the Early Church

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West)

The above diagram is what I believe the Ancient Church looked like. It was not just one of these early traditions, contrasted up and against the others, but was and is now in all of them, held in dynamic tension with their receiving cultures and demanding absolute obedience to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The One Church in its many, local, manifestations is known through fidelity to the Apostolic mission, the liturgical core of Christian worship, the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, and the tripartite order of Bishops, Priests and Deacons established and maintained by the unbroken continuity of the laying-on of hands and the invocation of the Holy Spirit. These attributes have always remained constant, and show where the Church, as a historical and theological polity, is and is not present today.

Over time, many political and philosophical rifts have occured, especially as languages made fine points of doctrine incomprehensible and empires made cooperation difficult. Brutality and fear have done much to alienate us from one another. We must never forget that we are called to be one, not by rejecting finer doctrinal points, but by maintaining brotherly love and our obedience to the lordship of Jesus Christ, which is the collegial process of our Communion through the Holy Spirit.

We can never know all truth, because God is infinite and His Person is always beyond our comprehension... but we are called to love, to humility, and to honesty, so that God can continuously reveal Himself in the Church, Christ's Body, and make His will known to us for our salvation through the Sacraments and the Scriptures. This is how our Communion with Him becomes fellowship in the Body, and the means through which God imparts to us the Uncreated Life of the Holy Trinity.