Coptic Church & Ecumenical Movement - Saint Mina Coptic ...

THE PRINCIPALS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY
Unity is full communion. The search for full communion means the common search for full
agreement in faith. Sacramental communion can take place only after identification in the faith
has been ascertained.
Unity is not to be understood in the outdated ecclesiology of return to the Catholic Church, since
each local church manifests all the fullness of the Church of God. They are all Sister Churches
identically, and their agreement is necessary for the unity of the Church. Therefore, there is no
need for the insistence on communion with one particular See or bishop as absolutely essential
and uniquely indispensable.
Unity is not to be understood as a submission of one Church to the other. It is a communion of
love in conciliarity on equal terms.
Unity is neither absorption nor fusion but a meeting in truth and love.
Therefore, the missionary activity that has been called “uniatism” cannot be accepted either as a
method to be followed or as a model for the unity that is being sought.
UNITY IN FAITH
The Church as a community of believers and faithful should have unity in faith: “One Lord, one
faith” (Ephesians 4:5). They have to abide by the genuine deposit of the Apostolic faith handed
down in the Church and profess it without alteration or addition.
The Common Quest for Unity in Faith
The search for re-establishing unity is a common quest by the Churches for a full accord on the
content of the faith and its implications. As Ratzinger puts it: “Now Church unity is of course no
political problem which can be solved through compromise, by judging what might find
acceptance and what can be solved through compromise, by judging what might find acceptance
and what is just tolerable. Here unity in faith is at stake, that is to say the question of truth,
which must not become the object of political bargaining. So long and in so far as there is the
obligation to regard any maximum solution in terms of a claim to truth itself, so long and in so
far as there is no other way, but to simply strive for conversion of the respective partner.
Conversely it must be said: The claim to truth must not be raised where it has no imperative and
unshakeable authority. It must not be imposed as truth what in reality is a historical grown form,
more or less closely connected with truth.”
NO COMMUNION WITH THE HERETICS
Church and heresy are excluding entities (1 Corinthians 11:18-19, Galatians 5:20). St. Peter
speaks of “false prophets” who “secretly bring in destructive heresies” (2 Peter 2:1).
The Church, therefore, cannot tolerate heresies. Any doctrine lacking biblical foundation and
support must stand outside the teaching that the Church gives authoritatively as the
representative of God.
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