Liberation of the Ecclesia The Unfinished Project of Liturgical Theology

Description

2011 Michael Hjälm

Doctoral dissertation presented at the Department of Theology, Uppsala University, 2011 This dissertation is a critical study of the paradigm of Liturgical Theology. Focus in this systematic inquiry has been on the Russian school with the focal point in the works of Alexander Schmemann, who was active in the late 20th century. The main question of the thesis concerns the relation between theory and practice in Liturgical Theology. It is claimed that the relation between theory and practice corresponds to the relation between ritual action and communicative action. The former concerns the identity founded on the unavoidable alterity immanent in life, but also transcending life through a holistic encounter with life, which enables us to express a holistic attitude to life and the entire world. The latter concerns the equally unavoidable rationalization of life which gives rise to a continuous atomization of life through science and the process of acquiring facts and data. The missionary imperative in the Ecclesia is dependent on the coexistence of both ritual action and communicative action.