The Theology of Sister Churches

The SCDF’s secret letter to all catholic bishops (June, 2000) denies that the orthodox church could be a sister church to the catholic church, an affirmation which had permitted the international Commission for theological dialogue between the two churches to object to uniatism at Balamand in 1993. The Letter draws upon the warnings of Communionis notio, Apostolos suos and Dominus Iesus. These documents intend to preclude construals of expressions such as subsistit in (LG 8) and in quibus et ex quibus existit una et unica ecclesia catholica (LG 23) favoring an understanding of the church as a communion of churches. What is more, rather than the vocabulary of catholicity, they prefer that of the universal and the particular, affirming, significantly, “the chronological and ontological anteriority of the universal church over the particular churches” and her maternity with respect to them, emphasizing, finally, that the church of Christ “subsists” in the catholic church. the different analyses presented in the article illustrate Balamand’s doctrinal authority, precise the letter’s authority, and show that ecumenical engagement and the reception of Vatican II are henceforth joined at the hip. the ecclesiology of communion and the theology of sister churches appear to be doctrinally interdependent.