Diakonia and Diaconate As an Ecumenical Challenge

At present, both the social and the ecumenical situation call for a renewed attention to the relationship between faith and life, between evangelisation and diakonia, which arise from and culminate in liturgy, from which they also draw their strength. The essays published in this collection call attention to the diaconal structure of every Christian action and to the theology underlying diakonia. The present book sums up the results and reflections of the first ecumenical theological symposium on the diaconate, which took place in Stuttgart in November 2003. The participants represented the Church of England, the Church of Sweden, the Episcopalian Church in the US and the Roman Catholic Church. All of the symposium's material is summed up in this first book of the series and gives an impetus for interesting on-going discussion.