Nikos A. Nissiotis

IT would be a great error if we were to support the idea that
the intense work for restoring church unity is a main
characteristic of our century only. Church history teaches
us that there were always noble men who worked to bring
separated churches together in all times and even immediately
after the first schisms. But what is--perhaps!--new in our
century--and this is, thanks to the men of the Ecumenical
Movement, seen in the World Council of Churches and
described as early as 1920 by the Encyclical of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople--is the way in which the
restoration of church unity is continuously in the path of
realization. It is a life process of the churches-being together
and staying together within a koinonia of life, a fellowship of a
'practical' nature, which conceals a deep understanding of the
reality of the growing responsibility for sharing in the inter-
church diakonia. It is only in this situation that the question of
the nature of the unity we seek is posed afresh today and in a
new way, that is in the koinonia of fellowship of the World
Council of Churches, comprising faith and witness, confession
and life, dogma and engagement of the churches together in
this world. Therefore, we should no longer examine the dog-
matic differences alone and seek to impose on the others any
kind of consensus in matters of confession in order to reach a

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