Ecumenical Issues
ABOUT USContemporary Ecumenical Issues
 |
That All May Be One: Hierarchy and Participation in the Church.
Terence L. Nichols
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997.
Must hierarchy mean dominance, patriarchy, and oppression? Should it be eliminated? Or is there an alternative view of hierarchy? These questions split the Church during the Reformation and are polarizing it today.
This book presents a perspective on hierarchy drawn from church history, the natural sciences, and contemporary social models. It argues that the role of hierarchy in the Church is to preserve apostolic teaching and to foster integration, but that domination deforms hierarchy, which should be participatory, integrative, ecumenical, and universal. It concludes that a balanced understanding of hierarchy is critical for ecumenical progress, for the integrity of Roman Catholicism, and for the catholicity of the whole Christian Church.
Terence Nichols is professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas. He is the author most recently of The Sacred Cosmos: Christian Faith and the Challenge of Naturalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2003).
 |
|
Living Icons: Persons of Faith in the Eastern Church.
Michael Plekon
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.
Living Icons presents an intimate portrait of holiness as exemplified in the lives and thoughts of ten people of faith in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In this inspiring volume, Michael Plekon introduces readers to a diverse and unusual group of men and women who strove to put the Gospel of Christ into action in their lives.
The "living icons" Plekon describes were, among other things, priests, theologians, writers, and caregivers to the homeless and poor. One was an artist who became the greatest icon painter in this century; another was assassinated for his teachings in post-Soviet Russia. These remarkable people of faith lived through times of great suffering: forced emigration, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Many of them were criticized, if not condemned, by ecclesiastical opponents and authorities. Yet each demonstrates a unique pattern for holiness, illustrating that the path to sainthood is open to all.
Plekon calls to our attention people like Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1759-1832), a monk, mystic, counselor, healer, and visionary; Father Alexander Men (1935-1990), a Russian whose writings after Glasnost ultimately led to his tragic assassination; Mother Maria Skobtsova (1891-1945), a painter, poet, and political activist who was killed in a concentration camp for hiding her Jewish neighbors; and Father Lev Gillet (1893-1980), one of the twentieth century's greatest spiritual teachers.
Michael Plekon is a professor in the department of sociology/anthropology and the program in religion and culture at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is also a priest in the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).
