The Urban and Rural Parish in the Orthodox Church of Greece
Keywords:
parish, ontological existence, parochial life, Eucharist, Greek Orthodox ChurchAbstract
The present article starts from the fact that the parish constitutes the eucharistic family, the small eucharistic centre, where the redeeming action of the broader Church takes place, calling everyone to the synaxis. The parish becomes a place of incarnation of the Church, homeland for the Christian. Without a parish, everything is oppressive sacred idealism, an un-incarnated romantic utopia, a community that fails to reflect the person of Christ. Despite this, the author emphasises the fact that in the modern era, with the rapid expansion of urban centres, the parish seems to be gradually losing its character, and the bonds of its members appear to be weakening. The parish is being transformed into an impersonal gathering of unknown “Christians”. The author emphasizes the need to reflect on the role of the parish in the city nowadays, or in the countryside, within a Local Orthodox Church. In the latter case, the author proposes that the pastorship of a rural parish must be centred on two axes, the family and the community.
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