The significance of the Eastern tradition for the Christian world

This article is the French translation of a paper presented by Edmund Schlink, a Lutheran theologian from the University of Heidelberg, at a session of the World Council of Churches in Rhodes. The author adopts a comparative and ecumenical approach to examine the specific contributions of the Eastern tradition to Western Christianity. His central thesis is that the Eastern and Western traditions, far from being opposed, are structurally complementary: the liturgical doxology, the conception of dogma as a confession of faith, and the communal structure of ministry characteristic of Orthodoxy constitute necessary correctives to the legalistic and centralizing tendencies of the West. The theological contribution of the article lies in its demonstration that the diversity of traditions expresses the catholicity of the Church, and that ecclesial unity must be sought not in uniformity but in the communion of complementary traditions.