Aristotle Papanikolaou,
RELIGION AND CHURCH IN RUSSIA AND WORLDWIDE
Papanikolaou, Aristotle (2016) “Eucharist, Councils and Primacy”, Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 34(1): 358-378.
My task in this essay is simple: to critically examine the relation
between councils and episcopal primacy in light of eucharistic
ecclesiology. The critical lens will be on both eucharistic ecclesiology
(is it theologically correct to say that the church is most church in
the celebration of the Eucharist?), and on conclusions about the
relation between councils and episcopal primacy (even if the church is
realized in the eucharistic celebration, does the logic of eucharistic
ecclesiology lead toward the affirmation of a universal episcopal
primate who presides over a pan-Orthodox council?). The hope is that
this question will not be driven by the psycho-dynamics of
self-identification vis-àvis the proximate other, and that theology
could serve a critical tool that challenges the Church to be the Church.