What challenges for the Church at the dawn of the third millennium?

This article by Michel Stavrou, the full version of a plenary paper presented at the XIIth Orthodox Congress of Western Europe (Blankenberge, 2005), examines the challenges that the contemporary world poses to the Orthodox Church at the dawn of the third millennium. Adopting a dual theological and contextual approach, the author first analyses the transformations of globalisation and postmodernity, then recalls the ecclesiological foundations of mission drawing on eucharistic theology. He then identifies the main current challenges: Christian unity, interreligious dialogue, bioethics, the defence of human rights, and the ecological crisis. The article argues that the Church's responses presuppose an internal renewal: pan-Orthodox conciliarity, theological deepening, liturgical reform, and a prophetic presence in society. The principal contribution lies in the articulation between eucharistic ecclesiology and the theology of mission, applied to contemporary issues from the perspective of an Orthodox Church in the Western diaspora.