The Key Features of the Distinction between the two Models of the Church: Trinary and Binary

In the 1920s, church thought faced with the utmost acuteness a set of questions: “What is the Church?”, “What is its internal structure?” and “What are its relations with the outside world?” As a result, two dogmatic concepts of the structure of the Church have been actively formed over the past century. The Eucharistic- eschatological, or binary, concept was associated with the traditions of the Constantinople theological school, its most prominent representatives were: Protopresbyter Nikolai Afanasyev, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann and Metropolitan John (Zizioulas). The formation of a Hierarchic- historical, or trinary, concept in the 20th century was associated with the names of such outstanding theologians as saints: Justin (Popovich), Dumitru Staniloe and Sophrony (Sakharov). The general trends in the development of ecclesiological thought over the past century have been: the systematic development of each of the concepts, accompanied by a deep study of the Trinity, Christological and cosmological aspects of ecclesiology, as well as the general increase in tension and antagonism between these two concepts. Today, the result of this process has become a visible confrontation between the Russian and Constantinople Orthodox Churches. Within the framework of the Society for Modern Ecclesiological Research, operating in the Russian Church, dogmatic developments in the field of modern ecclesiology are carried out at the highest scientifictheological level. Today, the key features of distinguishing between the two models of the Church structure have been formulated.