The document The Church — Towards a Common Vision (TCTCV) of the Commission for Faith and Order within the World Council of Churches was published in Serbian, as a book, co-published by the Christian Cultural Center “Dr. Radovan Bigović,” Institute for Systematic Theology of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Belgrade and Biblical Cultural Center, 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Both the TCTCV book and the pandemic represent a spiritual and existential challenge. They provoke reception, reflection. Therefore, it is necessary to capture the contemporary context and meaning of publishing and researching literature dedicated to the topic of ecumenism in our Church. It is also expedient to look at history and significance of ecumenism as a general mission of the Church. The notable ecclesiocentricity of the book TCTCV can arouse our greater interest in orthodox and ecumenical ecclesiology, their comparative research, as well as in re-examining our own role and invocation in the ecumenical movement. Through statistical, epistemological, and contextual analysis of the concepts of the text of the book, we noticed some specifics and possibilities of encouragement for inclusive lay, consultative-democratic, and political-theological approaches in ecumenism. The grace of reading the book TCTCV is manifested, among other things, through arousing contemplation over the mystery of the Church, unity, communion. This secret could be explored mentally and spiritually, through a personal relationship, together, based on the experience of participating in a concreate community of the Church. The axiom about the Church as a community is at the heart of the content of this book, as well as the universal call to the Christ-loving hearts of many to use the book as an instrument for mutual acquaintance, rapprochement, and striving for a common, Eucharistic understanding of the Church and universal Christian unity. In general, this was the vision of Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich while participating in the ecumenical movement and infusing in it his own orthodox experience of the Church. It was also very impactful on prof. Dr. Radovan Bigović, who further elaborated modern ecumenical attitudes, clear and solid guidelines for our contemporary orthodox ecumenical orientation. Both of them, bishop Nicholai and Dr. Bigović are ecumenical and inclusive (unifying) persons and as such our encouraging paragons for ecumenical mission and above all ecumenical love. Relied on them and other ecumenical theologians we are gifted with an opportunity to get involved and to continue building our ecumenical tradition in which publishing plays a significant role.

The text of this paper is divided into 8 sections.

The first section discusses the meaning of scientific and theological research, as something that can improve, to give intellectual and spiritual incentives for personal work on oneself. To be such, research should be inclusive, open to reception, reflection. A special type of research is one that transcends individual aspirations, one in which the common preoccupation of many prevails, affected by something special — a common direction, a common vision. We can call such a thing communal research. Research with a common vision, with love builds. In the Church, the common vision is that everything and everyone become one in God. This is the New Testament commandment of love that Jesus bequeathed to the Church. This is indicated by the content of the newly published document The Church — Towards a Common Vision by the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, which, translated into Serbian, was published as a book by the Christian Cultural Center Dr. Radovan Bigovicć, co-published by the Institute for Systematic Theology and the Biblical Cultural Center. Even a cursory reading of the book TCTCV stimulates these thoughts and the premonition that such a book can serve as a stimulus to dedicate ourselves to one important research — “further study and insight into our own ecclesiology and Church Tradition” (R. Kisić, foreword to the Serbian edition of TCTCV, p. 9). It can even induce questioning how agile or non-agile we are in our church missions. If we have neglected them a little, it is certain that this book can provoke us to move on.

The second section explores the potential of the TCTCV book to encourage a lay people ecumenical approach. The book TCTCV is primarily intended for theologians who professionally deal with ecumenism (more precisely, the commissions that participate in the work of the WCC). However, the text of the document is quite easy to read due to the inductive approach when explaining what it is aimed at, so it can be very accessible to interested laymen as well. This can serve as a more inclusive ecumenical approach, as a means to make ecumenical dialogue acceptable to the so-called laity of the Church, and for the sake of the elementary reception of ecumenism in ecclesial communities. Since Orthodox theologians make the same statement as the commission Faith and Order, we are called to participate in the ecumenical dialogue if we understand the dialogic and missionary nature of the Church. This understanding and vocation do not have to be exclusively reserved in the Church only for narrowly specialized theological experts in ecumenical theology. A certain degree of interest and involvement in ecumenical dialogue should be characteristic and accessible to Christians, lay people who are eyewitnesses of the existence, functioning, and building of the community and the conciliar teaching of the Church. From that experience, lay people themselves can become further church builders, teachers, hosts, “Liturgists” and “economics” of the community. In addition, it is desirable to be an ecumenically inclusive (unifying) person, following the examples of Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich, Bishop Atanasije Jevtić, Protopresbyter Radovan Bigović, in whose writings and speeches a credo of the ecumenical inclusive approach could be found. Finally, TCTCV offers elementary references to the trends of ecumenical relations. It is a summary of the progress made in the ecumenical dialogue, how much it has advanced compared to the previous phases and what the fruits of that dialogue are. In short, it can be seen that this book summarizes the most mature aspirations of ecumenical dialogue towards church unity.

The third section discusses the historical significance of the TCTCV document as well as the history of the creation of the document itself, the process of its drafting. Originally, the text of the TCTCV document was published in English in 2013. (Faith and Order 2013), and is available in electronic form on the WCC website. Since then, the WCC has published a total of 84 more documents in the form of books, 16 of which have been prepared by the Faith and Order Commission. 3 more WCC conferences were organized. In the meantime, 78 responses to the TCTCV have appeared (Faith and Order 2020, 6), which were published in 2021 by the WCC in two volumes. Among these, eight responses were made by Orthodox representatives. It is also important to mention that the official response of the Roman Catholic Church to the TCTCV was published only recently, on October 18, 2019 (Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity 2019). So, the TCTCV document is still very relevant, and the translation into Serbian, in fact, appeared with good timing.

In the fourth section, the contextual significance of publishing the TCTCV document is represented. First of all, it is significant that the book was published by the Christian Cultural Center of Father Radovan Bigović. This edition renewed a good theological trend that began with Fr. Radovan, the trend of research in the field of ecumenical theology. As is well known, Fr. Radovan taught the course of ecumenical theology at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology and actively participated in ecumenical meetings as an Orthodox representative of our local Church. From this dedicated research and collaborations with other theologians, a couple of monographs in the field of ecumenism have emerged. So, TCTCV is the third book on ecumenism published by Christian Cultural Center. It coincided and summed up a lot of what Fr. Radovan was devoted to. Even more succinctly, the common denominator of this book and what Father Radovan devoted himself to is the conception of the Church as a community. The Church, as a living, real and concrete community, was the source of inspiration for Fr Radovan to engage in ecumenical dialogue. It is interesting that after historical discussions of many theological, mostly dogmatic topics, through this document (book) communal ecclesiology shows itself as an attractor of ecumenical inter-church rapprochement towards the original purpose of Christian unity. The core of that attractor, according to the book, is faith in Christ as the Messiah and Savior of the world. And the example of the mentioned faith is testified originally in the Gospel, by the Apostles, in the early Church, transmitted through history, through church writings and Church Tradition, as an offspring to which we are grafted and to which it is always necessary to return. Document TCTCV often refers to these original formulations of the Church’s faith, and even bases its further ecclesiological explanations. This shows a significant advancement in the ecumenical ecclesiology of the WCC (so-called Geneva ecumenism), which was previously based mainly on Protestant theology and the understanding that divided churches are “branches,” and whose “tree” should be the WCC, which was completely unacceptable for the members of the Orthodox Church. The ecclesiological point of view of the WCC has significantly improved in the TCTCV, thanks, among other things, to the influence of the suggestions of Orthodox representatives on not insisting and striving not only for unity in space, but also for unity in time (Bigović 2010a). The latter implies the theological harmonization of the positions of the WCC with the faith and dogmas that originated in the early Church and the Ecumenical Councils (church teachings formulated before the schism of 1054, that is, more precisely before the Filioque).

The fifth section defines the consultative-democratic approach in research development, which is recognized to have been used in drafting the TCTCV document. Considering the history of the creation of TCTCV, a great commitment to its development is obvious through many iterations of subsequent refinement and adjustments. The openness in the text for further re-examinations, adjustments and improvements, the openness for further perfecting is also astonishing. Although it mentions that the text is a joint statement, the Faith and Order Commission continues to invite Churches to express their views on every possible aspect represented in the text. This is because they realized that “the reception process that followed the publication of the unifying text can be as important as the one that led to its drafting” (p. 20). This is a very valuable insight, and even an attitude. In the text and at the end of each chapter of the TCTCV, we come across questions and invitations to the churches to express their opinions on the ecclesiological insights of the document. This means that the document is not imposed on ecumenical associates as a “decree,” but as an open dialogue instrument. If we are honest, we must pay special tribute to such an approach, which is highly consultative and democratic. In fact, this approach could be characterized as a movement (trend), the so-called Christian consultative democracy. It presupposes the formation of the tendency in religious people to gather in a council (conference, symposium), to consult (advice) about something concerning their life and beliefs, to work on harmonization, joint action, with patience, conscientiously, prayerfully, with love and sublimated manners of (cultural) behaving during the dialogue, respecting the opinion of the other, constantly taking into account the mutual response, reactions — reception. Mainly, for the sake of the ideal of ecumenical rapprochement, the Faith and Order Commission demonstrated in the document TCTCV a consultative-democratic approach that is based on counseling with feedback through the reception. It is a fruitful research approach. In addition to expert reviews, the reception/ reflection on the document had an important role in finalizing the text of the TCTCV. So, in the text itself, they emphasized the importance of feedback through the reception as a fundamental factor in the process of reaching the final, for all satisfactory, version of the document.

The sixth section presents an analysis of the TCTCV approach through an overview of the most common theological terms. Through the statistical view on the frequency of theological terms, the assessment of the narrative space of the document was performed — that is, what are the main preoccupations of the document, which are the main carrying concepts of the document. Antcons software was used to count and determine the most important terms appearing in the TCTCV. After joining the terms by the similarity of meanings, we obtained 12 characteristic clusters of terms for TCTCV. These are: 1. church (s) [5.65%]; 2. theistic terms (God, Christ, Trinity) [2.89%]; 3. consultative terms (rapprochement, agreement, dialogue, dialogues, reflection, answers, process, recognition, consensus, participation, renewal, reception, reconciliation, refinement, consultation) [2.47%]; 4. communal terms (community, communal, communities, koinonia) [1.69%], 5. service (priesthood and service) [1.21%]; 6. unity [0.99%]; 7. ecclesiological terms (ecclesiology, council, ecclesiological, catholicity, missionary, catholicity, catholic, synodality) [0.98%]; 8. pneumatological terms (holy, grace) [0.89%]; 9. relational terms (diversity, gift, relationship, love) [0.85%]; 10. authoritarian terms (power, power) [0.6%]; 11. soteriological concept (salvation); 12. SSC. For better clarity, instead of tables, clusters of terms were shown graphically. These results confirm largely the observations made in previous sections on conceptual aspirations and focuses in TCTCV. In addition, it is noticeable that TCTCV came out from a modern multidisciplinary theological approach in which Christ-centric, ecclesiological, pneumatic, consultative, communal, relational, and soteriological theological orientations are integrated. In this integrative framework, one can recognize the “trace” of Anglican and Protestant theologians and their inclination towards the elaboration of theological systems, which should not be seen in our eyes of orthodox people as a treat. On the contrary, their theological systematicity showed up to be a model of a fruitful modern theological research. Of course, it is necessary to pass through the research of individual clusters of concepts and the concepts themselves within the cluster, from where more detailed clarifications about the conceptual approach can be reached. What slightly overlooks the conceptual analysis is the political ecclesial orientation of the TCTCV text. It also originates from the Anglican theological milieu. Diplomatic rhetorical manners and initiatives of negotiations, mediation, and even mild pressure through frequent appeals and calls to the churches for mutual recognition, reconciliation, and compromise might be felt to appear in many places in the TCTCV. Despite this, it is necessary to recognize the great progress in ecumenical dialogue by considering and respecting many Orthodox attitudes. The main thing in which the Orthodox can recognize the importance of their participation in the ecumenical movement is the continued insistence on working on unity in time. The same is advocated recently by other ecumenical theologians: “the continuity of the Church through the centuries is a necessary dimension of the unity of the Church” (Tweit 2019). Something like that makes Anglican with an Orthodox ecumenical position very close. The reason is that Anglicans, like the Orthodox, consider their Church (in England) “a Church that is continuous with the Church of the Apostles” (Chapman 2013). From all this follows a simple ecumenical concept: it is not at all necessary to seek the renunciation of one’s ecclesiological identity and diversity for the sake of unity, but it is advisable for denominations to connect with their own original church identity. This can be achieved by researching one’s church tradition back to the time of the undivided Church. By theological (dogmatic) and liturgical leveling with that church tradition, conditions will be created for the renewal of the unity of the Church. Then there will be no thought of proselytism that someone should convert to Orthodoxy or Catholicism or Anglicanism or Protestantism in order to restore the unity of the Church as it existed before 1054. Then it will be possible for the churches to recognize “the One, the Holy, the Conciliar and the Apostolic Church” in each other.

The seventh chapter recapitulates the discussion and conclusions. In short, the experience of reception is available to us in the Church. The common faith (“one heart”) in the church community could be gained through the reception of the Word of God, within Liturgy and spiritual conversations. The reception has an educational (formative) function. Therefore, for the sake of the church’s renewal, it is necessary to become aware of the constructive and formative experience of the reception of the Word of God for the community. With this in mind, the reception of the mentioned concept of ecumenical reception should be carried out in the ecumenical dialogue and in the community. Following the example of a consultative democratic approach to drafting through feedback from the reception demonstrated in the creation of the TCTCV document, “public hearings,” advisory conferences (forums, panel discussions) could be organized in church communities through which experts and ordinary lay people could comment on working versions of [ecumenical] documents (He and Stig 2010). This can be applied to formulating a response to the TCTCV document, as well as to compiling informal advisory church statements on some current and sensitive topics such as evolution, ecumenism, vaccination. The approach of dealing with these topics through petitions, correspondence and statements that are disseminated through the media and social networks has turned out to be susceptible to pseudo-scientific interpretations and criticism, which leads to increasingly pronounced social and intra-church divisions. In contrast, the aforementioned “public hearings/consultations” turn out to be “more scientific, more democratic and closer to the masses” (He and Stig 2010). They have also proved effective in promoting greater sociability in people, greater mutual trust (Bogliacino, Jiménez Lozano, and Grimalda 2018), which is in line with the knowledge of social psychology that “letting people communicate with each other before doing some common activities, increases cooperation” (Bogliacino, Jiménez Lozano, and Grimalda 2018) as well as a sense of belonging to the group (Bogliacino, Jiménez Lozano, and Grimalda 2018). Finally, this consultative “communication reduces social distance, which is known to hamper trust formation” (Bogliacino, Jiménez Lozano, and Grimalda 2018). These are very notable insights that have long been discussed in scientific papers (between 1980 and 2010). After more than a decade, they emerge as particularly relevant findings for these pandemic conditions in which asociality is forcibly increased “by the acquisition of specific circumstances.” Public consultative gatherings (online and live “face to face,” “heart to heart”) may be essential to return to normal social flows and patterns of behavior. Not to deviate from the topic, the latter is also relevant for ecumenical activity in pandemic and post-pandemic conditions. First of all, it is necessary to listen to the ecumenical appeal of bishop Tweit towards prayer so that “churches may be true and credible signs of God’s love in these [pandemic] conditions” (Tweit 2021). Church lay people (for example nature scientists) can be called to witness the Orthodox experience of the Church. And they can always have a model of the ecumenical witness of Orthodoxy in a person like Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich and Fr. Radovan Bigović. They are our representatives of a special type of universal missionaries who throughout history, since the first Christian communities, have stood out the most in their hard-working building of the Church. In it, as the mentioned type of universal missionaries, the gifts (charisma) of priestly service and academic research (offering Liturgy, preaching, spiritual fatherhood, connecting and networking people, teaching, scientific study and writing, etc.) were inter-crossed, which was very important for the Church, constructive and fruitful. Such ecumenical transcendence, based on academic- priestly service to the Church (Henson and Lakey 2017, 4), for Bishop Nicholai and Father Radovan was not “a scientific fashion trend, but an inner need and an attempt to establish an existential relationship with another [divine] world suppressed by rationalist conceptualism. image of the world and life” (Bigović 1998, 86). Therein lies the secret of the purpose of achieving universal unity. It is revealed in the Church, the secret of that appointment is in the Church. The Church itself is that unity. The Church is destined to transform the world, to make the world become the Church, one in God. The divisions that occur in the Church can be experienced as a second fall into sin (analogous to the ancestral fall). They are ontologically painful because in the reality of the life they show themselves as “brokenness” and interpersonal divisions (barriers) — simply, something that separates from each other — the icons of God — living people. The church part of humanity is called to overcome these divisions, to get into agreement with the Divine model of unity — the Holy Trinity, through a creative and honest council (agreement) — dialogue in “love and truth.” In that way, we can realize ourselves as a conciliar society. In our tradition, it has been bequeathed to us as a model since St. Sava and St. Simeon. It is worth mentioning that the current Serbian Patriarch Porphyry reaffirms such a Saint Sava’s conciliar approach. Furthermore, we must note that the Anglicans have a similar approach. To the question of how to achieve and maintain the unity of the Church, Anglicans respond: through consulting (Craston 1994). It is the approach of the early, undivided Church, the Church of the Ecumenical Councils. Quite simply, before the temptation to divide, in order to preserve and establish the unity of the Church, councils were convened (Pickard 2012). The modern conciliar call “for unity — unity in the love of Christ — is urgently needed, as never before” because “the forces of polarization, division, nationalism, abuse and exclusivity are strongly acting around the world” (Tweit 2019). It is in our time that we see how gloomy the clouds of death that have hovered over humanity are, and that “the challenges, the darkness we face, are too strong for a divided humanity” (Tweit 2021). Therefore, we need “dedicated and competent efforts of multi-lateral work to address the problems as one humanity and one creation of God” (Tweit 2021). If we do not respond to this call “to love the way God loves the world” and “do not step out of our self-defined ways of living, it will lead us to extinction, not to life and light” (Tweit 2021). If these calls and warnings are true, Fr. Radovan was right when he claimed that the future destiny of the world will depend on interreligious and ecumenical dialogue.

In order for the inter-religious and ecumenical dialogue to have unifying and reconciling power, it is necessary for the upcoming conciliar consultations to reconstruct their foundation in the good old (original) tradition — Liturgy, prayer, and loving understanding. Because, “the Holy Sacrament of Communion (that is, the Holy Liturgy) synthesizes, defines, represents Christ’s method and means for the unification of all people: through it, man is organically united with Christ and all the faithful” (Popović 1991, 6). It is appropriate to add to this the prayer of Archimandrite Sophrony of Essex for unity:

“Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us for the feat of such love, which you commanded us, saying: love one another as I have loved you. By Your Holy Spirit, give us the strength to humble ourselves before one another in suffering ... Who, by Your benevolence, has gathered us from all parts of the earth, make us truly become one family, living with one heart, one will, one love, as one man, according to Your eternal advice about the first-born Adam ... that we may all find peace in You, our meek and humble King, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.” (Sakharov 2008, 279–80)

All in all, for ecumenism it is necessary to have a Sophronian ecumenical heart, ecumenical love. Because without heart and love, it is certain that a person cannot achieve not just the very unity of the Church, the world, but also the unity of own human being. Without achieving unity in oneself and one’s church family, engaging in ecumenical affairs will probably turn out to be pretentious. So, let’s rephrase the old spiritual saying: one should first deal with divisions within oneself, and then focus on divisions outside.

Section eight contains references.

Acknowledgments contain words of thank to the translator of the book TCTCV, MA Theologian Zlatko Vujanović, for the encouragement, the suggestion of references and discussion while writing the review of the book TCTCV. Thanks to all that, the review text has been significantly improved.