The Church formation process and its collegiality in the light of the Marian principle Cover Image

Proces tworzenia się Kościoła i jego kolegialność w świetle zasady Maryjnej
The Church formation process and its collegiality in the light of the Marian principle

Author(s): Andrzej Napiórkowski
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Theology and Religion
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku
Keywords: formation of the Church; ecclesiology; collegiality; Mariology; evangelization

Summary/Abstract: The article shows a five-step process of the formation of the Church: 1. the extra-temporal idea of God the Father, 2. her development in the Old Covenant, 3. establishing by Jesus, 4. fulfilling herself from the Pentecost, and 5. aiming at an eschatological fullness – which is a prospect to prove the thesis that the departure from the Marian principle or even its partial weakening leads to the impoverishment of her entire divine-human reality. Consequently, there is a disturbance of the Church’s hierarchical structure and thus improper functioning of collegiality and the weakening of the Church’s credibility and missionary nature. Without this tension between the Marian principle and Peter’s principle, the Christian community is not fully functioning in its missionary activity either. This was pointed out not only by Paul VI in his exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi as early as 1975, but also recently by Francis in the 2013 exhortation Evangelii gaudium. The Marian principle in the Church becomes an inalienable guarantee of proper evangelization in the modern world. Correctly constructed ecclesiology is not disconnected, not only from Trinitology, Christology, pneumatology but also from Mariology.

  • Issue Year: 2019
  • Issue No: 5
  • Page Range: 84-102
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Polish