The way of the church: ascetics, the mysteries, and catholic fullness

The identification of the ecclesiological existence with the mysteries, which has been proposed by a number of theologians in the 20th century, cannot provide satisfactory answers to contemporary questions of ecclesiology. In the context of the contemporary ecclesiological discussions, the authors of this article propose the development the ecclesiological model of “man, community, and the Catholic Church”, which atempts to describe the historical processes that form the life of the Church. Te internal structure of the Church can be viewed as different ecclesiological organisms that coexist with each other in hierarchy: the hypostatic, the synactical-hypostatic, and the catholic, each of which possesses its own unique qualities, which allow it to act as one of the “powers” of the Church in history. Ascetics and the Mysteries (including the greatest and most perfect of them, the Eucharist) do not contain yet the fullness of the catholicity of the Church, and, in this way, cannot be identified with the life of the Church and with existence in the Church as such. Te reasons for this may be seen by examining the meaning, structure, and coexistence of each of the “levels” of ecclesiological being (man, community, and the Catholic Church), in the context of the synergy between the Church, considered both in its internal structure and its historical development, and the Persons of the Holy Trinity.