Students began this week with the online lecture on the Ravenna document

During the lecture, professor Cleenewerck presented the statement and analyzed it from the theological and ecumenical prospectives. The main points of the Ravenna documents were: unity and multiplicity, the relationship between the one Church and the many local Churches, that constitutive relationship of the Church. The issue of the relationship between the authority inherent in every ecclesial institution and the counciliarism (sobornost) which flows from the mystery of the Church as communion was enlightened in the lecture. The members of the Commission left open the question of the role of the Bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches for the further studies.

Students asked their questions concerning the present state of the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. Father Roman Fihas indicated that Fr. Iwan Dacko, the president of IES, is the member of the Joint Commission and he took part in the elaboration of the Ravenna document. There was expressed a wish to have a further development of the topic.

Reference:

Father Laurent Cleenewerckis is a professor of Theology and International Administration for EUCLID (PôleUniversitaireEuclide), one of world’s 5 regional / international institutions of higher learning. He is also serving as an extension faculty member at Humboldt State University (Arcata, California) and as an academic advisor at the St Gregory Nazianzen Orthodox Institute (Guatemala and Puerto Rico). He is interested in multidisciplinary studies (Theology, Physics, Economics, and International Affairs) as well as the inter-religious dialogue.

He obtained his education at the University of Montpellier, Saint Sergius Institute of Paris, St Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary of Pennsylvania, Ukrainian Catholic University and Universidad Rural de Guatemala. Among his publications are: His Broken Body (EUC Press, 2007), The Eastern / Greek Orthodox Bible – New Testament (2011), and articles published in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies and Journal of Health and Religion. He was ordained in 2004 by the late Archbishop Vsevolod of Scopelos (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople) and currently serves as Acting Rector of St Innocent’s Orthodox Church of Eureka in the Orthodox Church in America.