• An Ecumenical Journey^*
• Thomas F. O’Meara O.P.

The winter semester of German universities lasted November to late February. Sixty years ago, in March, 1964, my first semester at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich was ending, and I decided to take a trip. I was studying for a doctorate in theology at a German university because it was a center for new movements in theology, including ecumenism, which meant Christian churches learning from each other. An ecumenical council in Rome was composing the first Roman Catholic document accepting ecumenism. I decided to take a theological journey around Europe to learn about Christians involved in this dialogue. It took me to theological centers in Switzerland, France, England, Belgium, and Denmark.

On a rainy, cold morning in March, I took an early train from the Hauptbahnhof to Switzerland, arriving that afternoon in Zurich, amidst fog and light snow. The two friars in the Dominican house explained that they had no guest rooms and had arranged for me to stay for two nights in a room for visitors at the large hospital where one of them served as chaplain. In the streets, the thrill of seeing ancient stones drew me from one building to another. A sign at the cathedral stated that Charlemagne had stayed nearby. Its interior was austere, its gothic windows empty of color—an unadorned space for the austere theology and worship of Zwingli. The University’s theology faculty, however, was now open to approaches from Luther, Calvin, and even Roman Catholicism, and the library had books by Yves Congar and Hans Kűng.

My next stop was Bossey, a small town near Geneva, the site of the research center of the World Council of Churches. A romantic villa with recent modern additions, it had a multilingual library that could provide resources for my dissertation on Paul Tillich. A year or so later, I returned for an ecumenical conference when the participants would spend the long [End Page 131] June evenings in theological discussions while eating strawberries and drinking local white wine in a restaurant’s rose garden. I wrote again in a journal begun earlier in Rome, which noted that I met Lutheran missionaries at work in Brazil who found Catholicism there quite pagan, and that I had listened to a Dutch Catholic bishop arguing for the presence of grace in the Protestant liturgies of the Lord’s Supper.

I took a train to France, where creative ideas and practical applications had in recent years led the church in new directions. In Lyons, the Centre Saint Irénée was directed by a pioneer of ecumenical contacts, Réné Beaupère, O.P., who organized groups of Protestants and Catholics to discuss the Bible or their ideas of church and faith. Ecumenism among the laity was a new idea for Americans. The friars welcomed me in their detached Gallic way, curious but satisfied that finally an American had arrived to learn from them about theology and the renewal of the church. I slept on a cot in the library surrounded by religious books and journals, some of which I had heard of and all of which I wanted to read. Lyons was rainy and cold during my days there. Placards in the churches described the history of the musty Romanesque naves into which blue light flowed down. In a church consecrated by Pope Pascal in 1107, carvings on old columns held bearded or young faces, a touching show of the individuality of people who had lived almost a millennium before.

I climbed the hill to the Roman ruins where there were two theaters where you could sit on the stones of the second century; nearby were some indications of a past stadium for horse racing. Irenaeus, bishop of this Gallic church and an early Christian systematic theologian, wrote that he had learned about Christianity from a disciple of John the Evangelist. He had confronted Pope Victor in Rome in 190 c.e.—apparently some popes rather early on became a little self-willed over different practices in the East and the West. I could see from the Roman ruins another hill nearby, Fourvière, named from...

• 普世之旅^*
• 托马斯·F·奥米拉 OP

德国大学的冬季学期从十一月持续到二月底。六十年前，1964 年 3 月，我在慕尼黑路德维希马克西米利安大学的第一个学期即将结束，我决定去旅行。我在一所德国大学攻读神学博士学位，因为它是神学新运动的中心，其中包括普世主义，这意味着基督教会互相学习。罗马的一个普世大公会议正在起草第一份接受普世主义的罗马天主教文件。我决定在欧洲进行一次神学之旅，以了解参与这场对话的基督徒。它带我去了瑞士、法国、英国、比利时和丹麦的神学中心。

三月一个阴雨绵绵、寒冷的早晨，我从火车总站搭乘早班火车前往瑞士，下午在雾气和小雪中抵达苏黎世。多米尼加之家的两位修道士解释说，他们没有客房，安排我在一家大医院的访客房间住两晚，其中一位修士担任牧师。在街上，看到古老石头的兴奋感将我从一栋建筑带到另一栋建筑。大教堂的一块牌子上写着查理曼大帝曾住在附近。它的内部很简朴，哥特式的窗户没有色彩——这是一个朴素的空间，用于朴素的神学和慈运理的崇拜。然而，大学的神学教师现在对路德、加尔文甚至罗马天主教的方法持开放态度，图书馆里有伊夫·康加尔和汉斯·孔的书籍。

我的下一站是博西，日内瓦附近的一个小镇，世界基督教协进会研究中心所在地。这是一座浪漫的别墅，最近又增添了一些现代设施，它有一个多语言图书馆，可以为我关于保罗·蒂利希的论文提供资源。大约一年后，我回来参加一次普世大会，与会者将在六月的漫长夜晚中一边吃着草莓，一边在餐厅的玫瑰园里喝着当地的白葡萄酒，一边进行神学讨论，一边度过[完第131页] 。我在罗马早些时候开始的一本日记中再次写道，其中指出我在巴西工作时遇到了路德教传教士，他们发现那里的天主教完全是异教，而且我听过一位荷兰天主教主教主张在新教礼拜仪式中存在恩典。主的晚餐。

我乘火车去了法国，近年来，创造性的想法和实际应用引领教会走向了新的方向。在里昂，圣伊雷内中心由普世主义联络先驱雷内·博佩尔 (Réné Beaupère) 领导，他组织新教徒和天主教徒小组讨论圣经或他们对教会和信仰的看法。对于美国人来说，平信徒的普世主义是一个新观念。修士们以他们超然的高卢方式欢迎我，他们既好奇又满意，因为终于有一个美国人来到这里向他们学习神学和教会的更新。我睡在图书馆的一张小床上，周围都是宗教书籍和期刊，其中一些是我听说过的，也是我想读的。我在那里的日子里昂多雨而且寒冷。教堂里的标语牌描述了发霉的罗马式中殿的历史，蓝光流入其中。在一座由教皇帕斯卡于 1107 年祝圣的教堂里，古老的柱子上雕刻着胡须或年轻的面孔，感人地展示了生活在近千年前的人们的个性。

我爬上山，来到了罗马遗址，那里有两个剧院，你可以坐在二世纪的石头上。附近有一些迹象表明过去曾有一个赛马场。爱任纽是这个高卢教会的主教，也是一位早期基督教系统神学家，他写道，他是从福音传道者约翰的门徒那里学到基督教的。 190年，他在罗马与教皇维克多对峙——显然，一些教皇很早就因为东西方的不同做法而变得有点任性。我可以从罗马废墟中看到附近的另一座山，富维耶山，以......命名。