Published: 2015-12-31

Lumen Gentium – History, Ideas, Plan of the Revival of the Church

Przemysław Sawa

Abstract

The Second Vatican Council became an important light for the Church in its inner revival and in focusing on the multidimensional world. It is expressed in 4 constitutions, 9 decrees and 3 declarations. The Constitution Lumen gentium presents the Church using the following categories: the mystery, the sacrament of salvation, The People of God, the divine-human reality, hierarchical and charismatic structure, various states on the way to the eschatological fulfillment, where Mary is the icon of believers. The Council also showed the important role of the laity in the identity of the Church. This new vision was not only a cosmetic change
of the form of expression of the content of faith, but a new understanding of the Church, rooted in the Bible and the patristic teaching. At the same time some questions demand a further deepening and defining: the relationship between the Petrine Office and the college of bishops, the collegiality of bishops, the relationship between the office and the charism in practice, the form of responsibility of lay persons in the Church. It was courageous of the Second Vatican Council
to show that the principle Ecclesia semper reformanda is real. The Church lead by the Holy Spirit transforms into new community, improves, converts, rejects what is not the essence of faith, but only a human form, good in a particular time and place. So there is no agreement on the revolution, but on the cleansing and progress.

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Sawa, P. (2015). Lumen Gentium – History, Ideas, Plan of the Revival of the Church. Silesian Historical and Theological Studies, 48(2), 283–303. https://doi.org/10.31261/SSHT.2015.48.2.02

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Vol. 48 No. 2 (2015)
Published: 2015-12-31


ISSN: 0137-3447
eISSN: 2956-6185

Publisher
Instytut Gość Media/Księgarnia św. Jacka

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