Jak głęboko sięga podział Kościoła? Kilka refleksji teologicznych ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem relacji rzymskokatolicko-prawosławnych

Abstract

The Christian East and West began to fall apart from each other in a long process of alienation which lasted whole centuries. It was first of all a process involving the désintégration of a common tradition and also the absolutization of individual local traditions. In the Eastern and Western Slavonic territories, Christianity took root almost on the eve of the great schism, the symbolic date of which is the year 1054. The division came there from the outside. The author shows first some features of interdenominational relations on Ruthenian and Polish territories after 1054. The division permeated slowly the awareness of the Christians on both sides. Numerous bonds of friendship and communion existed long after the events of 1054. Almost as late as the end of the 12th century, the schism was believed to be only local one, confined to Constantinople and Rome. The dynastic mixed marriages were the most striking expression of it. All this was a result of the living awareness of belonging to one and the same Church of Christ. The practice of rebaptizing was a clear indication of the division becoming more and more radical in the 15th and 16th centuries. The second part of the paper tries to describe the mystery of unity amidst divisions. Divisions obscure, impair and distort the visible reality of the Church; they are unable, however, to destroy the already existing ontological unity of its mysterious sacramental nature. The division is, above all, a heresy of life which has to be overcome in each one of us. In the last part of the article the author indicates some ways of overcoming the schism between the Roman-Catholic and the Orthodox Churches. Our divisions do not reach to heaven.