Koinonia in bilateral and multilateral dialogues: Historical and theological perspectives

The present study gives an outline on how bilateral and multilateral dialogues have used the notion of koinonia in relation to ecclesiology with a view to full visible Eucharistic fellowship. It is not so much an inquiry on the relation between modern communion ecclesiology, on the one hand, and scriptural and patristic visions of ecclesial unity, on the other. However, this comparison remains an important factor in the development of the present dissertation. The main purpose of this thesis is to see which were the starting points and the conclusions of the bilateral and multilateral dialogues in relation to koinonia and how close have churches come in the process of building consensus around the notion. In order to facilitate the reading, the paper is divided into three chapters. The first two give historical and theological perspectives on the bilateral, and the multilateral dialogues; while the last chapter attempts to analyse two of the communion’s ecumenical transversal dimensions