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Ecumenism, Christian Origins and the Practice of Communion
By Nicholas Sagovsky
New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. 221 pp. $59.95.
In the past two or three decades, the bilingual binome koinonia/communio has become a key term in the ecumenical search for those forms of "differentiated unity" that sharing in the life of the triune God both enables and requires. In the term's flexibility resides at once its charm and its dangers: where is focus to be found in its shimmering use? The present book offers a learned and wideranging contribution from an English Anglican, who is himself a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission.
After an opening chapter in which he surveys the current literature in both multilateral and bilateral dialogues, Sagovsky undertakes in seven more chapters an informative, provocative exploration of koinonia and such semantic cognates as "communication," "participation," "society," and "fellowship." Sagovsky considers the term's philosophical, sociopolitical, and theological usage across...