Academy of Integrated Christian Studies
Paper Presentation on: Ecumenical Movement
Topic: Faith and Order Movement
Presenter: DAVID LALNUNTHARA DARLONG, B.D-IV, Roll no. 5
Concern Faculty: Rev. Dr Letkholun Haokip Respondent: Zohmingsangi
Introduction:
When the dreams and hopes of ecumenical pioneers in the late 19 th century received more
structure and continuing expression at the beginning of the 20th century the emerging Faith
and Order Movement was part of the new reality. The World Missionary Conference at
Edinburg in 1910 inspired three major streams of ecumenical reflection and action emerged,
Faith and Order was one of them. The Faith and Order movement, which focused on issues of
doctrine that have divided the churches, and the Life and Work movement, which promoted
collaboration by the churches in social action. Their decision to join together in a body whose
membership would be made up of churches responded to an appeal for the formation of a
‘league of churches’ sent in 1920 by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople ‘to all
churches everywhere.’1
What is faith and order movement?
When we talk about Faith and Order Movement, it can be clarified as a broad movement in
and among churches at every level of their lives, a movement that motivate in origin by a
passion for unity and dedicated to explored and overcoming those areas of deep difference in
matter of faith and order that keep churches apart. It is a dynamic and creative movement
which has produced for the churches.2
Goal of Faith and Order:
Faith and Order is a movement with origins in the early 20 th century. The goal of the Faith
and Order movement was articulated in the first purpose of the World Council of Churches:
“To call the churches to the goal of visible unity in one faith and in one Eucharistic
fellowship expressed in worship and common life in Christ, and to advance toward that unity
that the world may believe.” Since 1911, it was the intention of those in leadership to involve
Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and Anglican churches in the discussion process with this
goal of visible unity. The Roman Catholic churches was not to formally join the Faith and
Order Commission of the World Council of Churches until 1968.3
1
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/about-us/self-understanding-vision/cuv/the-wcc-within-the-
ecumenical-movement. (accessed on 15.01.2024 @8:00 p.m.)
2
https://www.oikoumene.ogr/resources/document/what-is-faith-and -order-mary-tanner (accessed on
15.01.2024 @ 8:26 p.m.)
3
Lorelei F. Fuchs, comps., National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA: Faith and Order
Commission Handbook (USA: NCCC, 2005), 2.
1
The following points highlight are some of the important role play by Faith and Order.
Faith and Order represents a significant element of the ecumenical awakening:
The logical structure continuation of the Edinburgh World Conference was the International
Missionary Council seeking to promote cooperation and common witness in announcing the
Gospel to all people. The movement on Life and Work was the result and the instrument of
the new awareness that the churches are called to respond in common to the social and
political challenges of a new era in world history. At the origin of the movement on Faith and
order was the realization that the goal of common Christian witness and of practical
cooperation implies the overcoming of the barriers which prevent the implementation of these
common tasks. In 1910, the protestant Episcopal Church in the USA decided to appoint a
commission for the preparation of a World Conference for ‘the consideration of questions
touching Faith and Order.’ The theological struggle to overcome past history and prepare the
way towards unity in faith, life and witness became a significant and permanent element of
the ecumenical movement.4
Faith and Order has always been broader, more comprehensive than its organization
forms of expression:
Faith and Order was and is a movement of and in the churches. All theological efforts on all
levels within churches and between churches towards closer and finally, full communion, in a
way, Faith and Order efforts. The necessary, but modest organization arrangements between
1910 and 1948 were to provide continuity and working facilities for the movement. The Faith
and Order commission in the World Council of Churches since 1948 constitutes the
framework for the necessary continuity of theological work and long-term projects. It is a
working instrument for the Faith and Order programmed, it serves relationship within the
WCC, with other ecumenical bodies and with the churches. It is to a certain degree, a point of
reference, inspiration and orientation for all efforts towards closer and full Christian
communion. In a similar way the Faith and Order movement extends far beyond the structure
and work of the Commission. Conservations and negotiations between churches or
ecumenical dialogue on local, regional or national levels to mention only two examples, are
part of the wider movement.5
4
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/document/wcc-commission/faith-and-order-commission/xu
essay/what-is-faith-and-order-ga14nther?set_language+en (accessed on 15.01.2024 @ 9:15 p.m.)
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essay/what-is-faith-and-order-ga14nther?set_language+en (accessed on 16.01.2024 @ 8:26 p.m.)
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The communion Faith and Order helps to bring about is for the glory and the service of
God:
Faith and Order is an integral part of the one ecumenical movement with its multiplicity of
efforts, levels and organizational expressions. It is not so obvious, however, that Faith and
Order has an ‘immanent’ as well as ‘instrumental’ mandate. From early statements in the
Faith and Order Movement on it was for the fellowship of all Christians in common mission
and service and to be celebrated together in one Holy Communion. But this legitimate and
important instrumental concept of the work of Faith and Order has increasingly been
balanced or complemented by the more immanent or internal emphasis on achieving of the
common praise and glorification of the Triune God.6
Faith and Order has concentrated its theological work on those issues which have played
an important role in the division between the churches:
In accordance with its original mandate to identify the major church-dividing issues and to
seek to overcome them, Faith and Order has concentrated its theological work during the 80
years of its history so far on the issues of baptism, eucharist, ministry and the Church. The
agreements and convergences reached in view of the first three issues have been formulated
in the 1982 “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” document, the most widely distributed,
discussed and responded to text in the history of the ecumenical movement. This text has
become a widely used ecumenical text of reference in many contexts. A similar text should
summarize the bilateral and multilateral agreement and convergences concerning the nature,
mission and unit of the Church, which is now on the Faith and Order agenda. The remarkable
results of the work on these issues constitute a historic reversal of centuries of controversy
and mutual isolation and exclusion.7
Faith and Order has given increase attention to common concern and to themes which
further and express the already existing communion between the church:
In recent decades Faith and Order has included on its agenda also such themes and issues
which have not been directly a cause of division but are of importance for ecumenical
advance. One of these issues is the relationship between the ecumenical theological efforts
directed towards the visible unity of the Church and the ecumenical concern for common
witness and service in a broken world. These two fundamental ecumenical concerns, the first
one represented by Faith and Order, have often existed in isolation from or in tension with
each other. The study on “The unity of the Church and the Renewal of Human Community”
was Faith and Order’s response to this ecumenical “schism”, exhibiting the inner connection
between the nature, unity and mission of the Church within an ecclesiology and practical re-
consideration of the community of women and men in the Church, a follow-up of the
pioneering “community study” between 1977 and 1981.
6
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/document/wcc-commission/faith-and-order-commission/xu-
essay/what-is-faith-and-order-ga14nther?set_language+en (accessed on 16.01.2024 @9:10 p.m.)
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Faith and Order’s involvement with united and uniting churches and church union
negotiations by organizing from time-to-time consultations of these churches- so far six- and
by putting out every two years since 1954 the Survey on Church Union Negotiations, is a
further area of supporting already existing forms of communion.8
Bilateral and multilateral dialogue are complementary to each other: 9
With its entry into the ecumenical movement as part of the advance of the Second Vatican
Council the Roman Catholic Church chose the international bilateral dialogues with Christian
World Communions as the most appropriate ecumenical method in line with its own self-
understanding as a world-wide communion. As a result, a growing number of bilateral
dialogues, also among non-Roman Catholic communions emerged since the late sixties.
These international bilateral dialogues have become a significant ecumenical activity which
involves by far more people, groups and themes than the multilateral dialogue conducted by
Faith and Order. In order to avoid competition or even isolation between these two forms of
ecumenical dialogue, efforts were undertaken during the 70’s to facilitate a proper
interrelation between them. These efforts were based on the recognition of the legitimacy and
importance of both bilateral and multilateral dialogue and their specific purposes and
advantages.
Thus, bilateral dialogue is able to focus in a more specific way on the particular issues that
have divided two communions, and this dialogue may propose concrete steps towards closer
communion between the churches involved. Multilateral dialogues involve the broader
spectrum of Christian tradition and they aim at a more comprehensive advance towards
ecumenical convergence and agreement. The results of multilateral dialogues are thus able to
provide a general ecumenical frame of reference to which bilateral dialogues, but also direct
conversations and negotiations between churches may relate. Finally, both forms of dialogue
have supported and enriched each other by the mutual reception and integration of some of
their results.
These considerations and realities led to the conclusion that multilateral and bilateral
dialogues stand in a complementary relationship. The task of Faith and Order in this context
is to carry out organizational responsibility for the meeting of the “Forum on Bilateral
Conversation”, to send, where this is possible, observers to dialogue commissions and to
follow as carefully as possible the developments and achievements of the bilateral dialogues.
8
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/document/wcc-commission/faith-and-order-commission/xu-
essay/what-is-faith-and-order-ga14nther?set_language+en (accessed on 16. 01.2024 @ 10:00 p.m.)
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https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/document/wcc-commission/faith-and-order-commission/xu-
essay/what-is-faith-and-order-ga14nther?set_language+en (accessed on 17.01.2024 @ 11:30 a.m.)
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Conclusion:
From the above statement, it is quite clear that there had indeed been some achievements with
Faith and Order movement, it allows interconfessional meetings with others, but never before
over such a wide range of divisions, never before on such a world-wide scale, never before
with such utter frankness in speech commingle with unfailing charity. It is for this reason that
Lausanne 1927 presented itself to the conscience of the churchmen as something new in the
history of the churches. Participation in World Conference has been for almost all the
participants a profound spiritual experience. With this has come a steadily deepening sense of
the wrongness of division. Contact in faith and Order has meant a real discovery or
rediscovery of one another by the churches. It helps in bringing hidden things in revelation
and paves a way for bringing a new age. Faith and Order has revealed the fluidity of the
situation in which the separated Churches find themselves.10
10
Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neil, eds, The History of Ecumenical Movement 1517-1948
(Geneva: World Council of Churches), 437-441.
5
Bibliography
F. Fuchs Lorelei, comps., National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA: Faith and
Order Commission Handbook. NCCCUSA, 2005.
Rouse Ruth, and Stephen Charles Neil, eds, The History of Ecumenical Movement 1517-
1948. Geneva: World Council of Churches_.
Webliography
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commission/xu-essay/what-is-faith-and-order-ga14nther?set_language+en
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ecumenical-movement
https://www.oikoumene.ogr/resources/document/what-is-faith-and -order-mary-tanner
