Baptismal ecclesiology

This article by Paul Meyendorff, professor at Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in New York, addresses the ecclesiological foundations of baptism in the Orthodox tradition. Taking a theological and pastoral approach, it questions the limits of an ecclesiology centered exclusively on the Eucharist and advocates for a rediscovery of baptism as a constitutive act of the Church. The author argues that the current practice of baptism, often reduced to a semi-private family setting, would benefit from recovering its full communal and parochial dimension. On the theological level, the article proposes that recognizing the ecclesiological value of Trinitarian baptism opens up significant ecumenical perspectives: non-Orthodox Christian communities practicing this baptism can be considered as sharing, to varying degrees, a common ecclesial reality with the Orthodox Church, independently of full eucharistic communion.