Menighetsfakturltet ordienteren om en doktordisputas som går av stabelen fredag 8. oktober 2010 kl. 1015. Da vil doktorand Helene Lund offentlig forsvare sin avhandling ”Conflicting Ecclesiologies. Exploring the Ecclesiological Discourse in the Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the World Council of Churches from 1998 to 2002”.
The thesis is about the power struggle and crisis in the WCC in the year of 1998 and the following years until 2002 between Orthodox member churches and the other member churches. The Orthodox criticized the WCC for being organised by a Protestant way of thinking and for defining ecclesiology and ecumenism on Protestant terms. Based on this critique the Orthodox demanded radical changes in the way the WCC should be organised, threatening to discontinue their participation if not. The WCC responded to this claim by establishing the “Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the World Council of Churches” with a mandate to propose the necessary changes in order make further Orthodox participation possible.
The struggle is about competing understandings of the Church and of the nature of fellowship of member churches in the WCC, and thus also of what ecumenism is really about. Some member churches understand themselves as parts of the one Church, while the Orthodox member churches understand themselves as being the one Church and the other member churches as pseudo-churches. … …
Helene skal også ha to forelesninger på MF dagen før – og de håper jeg å høre.