Canon Law in the Service of Ecumenism
Canon Law in the Service of Ecumenism

Summary/Abstract: An event from 25 years ago is written in thick letters in the history of ecumenism. On 7—9 May 1999, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, made an apostolic journey to Romania, a first visit by any pontiff to a country of Orthodoxy. A specific climax of the event was the papal words delivered at the departure ceremony: “Here, on Romanian soil it is especially clear that the Church breathes with both lungs.” That is how the idea of the two lungs of the Church (already present in the Pope’s teaching before) became permanently inscribed as a keystone and the first element of the magisterial “triad,” delineating the hermeneutic horizon of the contemporary interpretation of the words: Ut unum sint. The two remaining, equally essential elements — identified in the great encyclical bearing the same title, are: the idea/postulate of Eucharistic ecclesiology and the idea/postulate of a new form of exercising the primacy (synodality). This article constitutes an attempt to show the inseparable role of ius ecclesiasticum (both in the area of legislation and execution of law) within the context of the need of a multi-level activity — consistent but also pressing, the proof of which is Pope Francis’ synodal engagement — of implementing the paradigms of John Paul II’s ecumenical thought.

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