LA CAPACIDAD DE ENCONTRAR EL EQUILIBRIO ENTRE EL DEBER JURÍDICO Y EL DEBER MORAL

John Zizioulas, who intervened in the 2005 Roman Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, said: “[t]he ecclesiology of communion promoted by Vatican II and deepened further by eminent Roman Catholic theologians can make sense only if it derives from the Eucharistic life of the Church. The Eucharist belongs not simply to the beneesse (well-being) but to the esse (being) of the Church. The whole life, word and structure of the Church is Eucharistic in its very

essence.”136 _{Zizioulas substantiates his argument of the Eucharistic life of the Church from the} experience of the history. Examining the model of “One Eucharist – One Bishop in each Church”137 _{of Ignatius who exhorts various Churches to remain united in one Eucharist only,} under one bishop and at one altar. Zizioulas argues that throughout the first three centuries the principle of the unity of each Church in one Eucharistic assembly under one bishop was

faithfully observed.138 _{In this way, Zizioulas testifies that the existence of a number of household} Churches in the early centuries “did not fragment the Church, but expressed in a quite real way

134 _Ibid. 135 _Ibid.

136 _{"Index Bulletin Synodus Episcoporum: Xi Ordinary General Assembly - 2005," http://www.vatican.va}

/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_21_xi-ordinaria-2005/02_inglese/b18_02.html. See also Ouellet, I.A.3.

137 _{See Antioch, "Letter to the Philadelphians," 4. Ignatius says: “Take care, then, to partake of one Eucharist; for,} one is the Flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and one the cup to unite us with His Blood, and one altar, just as there is one bishop assisted by the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow servants. Thus, you will conform in all your actions to the will of God.”

the unity of each Church in one Eucharist.”139 _{When Christianity spread outside the city, the} faithful formed their own communities or Churches under their own bishop (or chorepiscopus), and the Eucharist had the central role in it,140 _{because it was in the celebration of the Eucharist} the communion of the Church in her historical life experienced in its maximum.141

In the early Church, Zizioulas says, parallel to the local Eucharistic community, there was universal Church, the Church outside a particular community or the local church. The idea of “catholic” denoted both local and universal realms at the same time, and it was rooted in the nature and structure of the Eucharistic community. The Church is catholic not because of herself but because of Christ in the fact that she is the Body of Christ.142 _{“The nature of the Eucharistic} community was determined by its being ‘Eucharistic,’ i.e., by the fact that it consisted in the communion of the Body of Christ in its totality and in its inclusiveness of all.”143 _{In the} Eucharistic context, the mutual exclusion of the local and the universal is not possible, instead one is involved in the other.144 _{The whole Christ was present in the each individual church or} Eucharistic community, and thus, each of them was “in full unity with the rest by virtue not of an external superimposed structure but of the whole Christ represented in each of them.”145

139 _{Ibid. See Kondothra M. George, "Local and Universal: Uniatism as an Ecclesiological Issue," in Orthodox}

Visions of Ecumenism: Statements, Messages and Reports on the Ecumenical Movement, ed. Gennadios Limouris

(Geneva: WCC Publications, 1994), 229. Kondothra says that the local church manifests the fullness of the universal Church, which is the Body of Christ, in the celebration of the Eucharist.

140 _{Zizioulas, 97-8. See also Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 4, 154. Zizioulas says that the Eucharistic community} in the early Church was a local community. Parallel to the local Eucharistic community there was universal Church, the Church outside a particular community or the local church. The idea “catholic” denoted both local and universal realms at the same time and it was rooted in the nature and structure of the Eucharistic community.

141 _{Cf. Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, 131; Being as Communion, 4, 82.} 142 _{Being as Communion, 4, 158.}

143 _{Ibid., 154.}

144 _{Ibid., 155. This involvement is given expression in the structure of the Eucharistic community when the head of a} particular community participated in the ordination of the heads of other Eucharistic communities.

For Zizioulas, Christ could be understood in two ways: Christ as an individual who could be seen objectively and historically; and Christ as a person who is known in his relationship with his Body, the Church, which is the work of the Holy Spirit.146 _{These two modes of existence} happen at the same time. The incarnate Christ takes the form of a community that is the Church, and the members of the Church, the “many” are joined together in the “one” to become a single whole that is the Body of Christ.147 _{Thus, the Church is a mystery, “essentially none other than} that of the ‘One’ who is simultaneously ‘many’ – not ‘One’ who exists first of all as ‘One’ and then as ‘many.’ But ‘One’ and ‘Many’ at the same time.”148 _{The one and the many are mutually} constitutive, and it is the work of the Spirit. The Spirit forms Christ and Christ gives the Spirit.149 This duality is mysteriously realized in the sacrament of Eucharist. Like that of Christ, Zizioulas explains the two modes of existence of a person, i.e., biological and ecclesiological, from the standpoint of patristic theology. The hypostasis of biological existence is constituted by a person’s conception and birth, whereas the hypostasis of ecclesial existence is constituted by baptism, the new birth of a person,150 _{and this identity is historically realized in the Eucharist,} “which has as its object man’s transcendence of his biological hypostasis…”151

Grounded in the Orthodox tradition, Zizioulas views the unity of the Church as eschatological. The Church becomes the reflection of the eschatological community in the

146 _{Ibid., 110-1. Cf. Mt 1:18-20; Lk 1:35; Lk 4:14: Jesus is historically present as a person in the spirit. Another form} of his presence is found in 1Cor 12: The Body of Christ is formed by the charisma of the Spirit.

147 _{Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, 126-7.}

148 _{Being as Communion, 4, 112. The idea of one and many is connected with the Eucharistic consciousness of the} Church. Cf. 1Cor 10:14-22: Many become one in Christ; Cf. also Is 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12: The imagery of the servant of God in which one takes the pains of many or one takes the sins of many.

149 _{A similar idea is seen in de Lubac. Cf. Lubac, The Splendor of the Church, 130; 58.} 150 _{Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 4, 49-54.}

151 _{Ibid., 61. See also p. 49. Zizioulas says that God’s eternal life “is realized as an expression of free communion, as} love,” and a person loses its uniqueness outside the communion of love, and becomes “a ‘thing’ without absolute ‘identity’ and ‘name,’ without a face.”

Eucharist, for the Spirit renders the life of God a reality here and now in the event of

communion.152 _{In other words, each Eucharistic assembly is the bearer of the eschatological} assembly until the last day. Until then, the one eschatological assembly has its existence only in these many Eucharistic assemblies, of which the eschatological gathering is the fullness. In this sense, for Zizioulas, other sacraments become meaningful united to the Eucharist or, celebrated with the Eucharist. For, he says, “[t]he sacraments when not united with the Eucharist are blessing and confirmation which is given to nature as biological hypostasis. United, however, with the Eucharist, they become not a blessing and confirmation of the biological hypostasis, but a rendering of it transcendent and eschatological.”153 _{Eucharist is not only the historical}

realization and manifestation of the eschatological existence of human being, but also a

movement towards the realization of it. Thus, the eschatological character of Eucharist shows the relationship between the ecclesial and the biological hypostasis.154 _{The assembly and the}

movement, which are the two characteristics of the Eucharist, constitute the core of the patristic Eucharistic theology, and this movement or the eschatological orientation of the Eucharist shows that the ecclesial hypostasis is not of this world but it belongs to the eschatological transcendence of history and not simply to history.155 _{Thus, we experience the dialectic of “already not yet,”} and it pervades the Eucharist and helps a person towards his true home.156

152 _{McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri De Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue, 193. Zizioulas} believes that in the Orthodox tradition, the church is primarily understood in its participation in the worship of God, mainly the divine Eucharist, which gives its distinctive view of the Church. See Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian

Dogmatics, 121-2.

153 _{Being as Communion, 4, 61.} 154 _Ibid.

155 _{Ibid., 61-2.} 156 _{Ibid., 62.}