Introduction The Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity worked from 2009-2018, completing two tasks: the document From Conflict to Communion (2013) for the common commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 and the present document, Baptism and Growth in Communion. The topic of the study was mandated and the members of the Commission were appointed by their churches through The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU). The members of this Commission represented Lutherans and Catholics in many diverse areas of the world, coming from Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Norway, Switzerland, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During its years of dialogue, the Commission met in Italy (Bose), United Kingdom (Welwyn Garden City), Finland (Helsinki), Germany (Breklum, Paderborn, Regensburg), Hungary (Budapest), Italy (Bose), Japan (Kyoto), Poland (Opole), and France (Klingenthal). The Commission mourns the deaths of two of its members who passed away before the dialogue completed its work, Prof. Dr Turid Karlsen Seim and Prof. Dr Ronald F. Thiemann.
1. The Context of this Study The context for the document Baptism and Growth in Communion was the approaching fifth centenary in 2017 of the beginning of the Reformation. After fifty years of intense Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, the commemoration of the 500th anniversary raised the question of how far Lutherans and Catholics had come in their journey towards communion and what further steps could be taken towards visible unity. The document From Conflict to Communion described jointly the history of the Reformation and discussed its theological challenges in light of fifty years of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue. In this way it prepared for the joint commemoration of the quincentennial in Lund, Sweden in 2016. The world-level official dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics began immediately after Vatican Council II and completed its fourth phase in 2006. The Commission that has now completed its work thus represents the fifth phase of this dialogue. It extends the work of the previous phases, relating especially to the Lutheran-Catholic world-level dialogue reports, The Gospel and the Church (Malta Report, 1972), The Eucharist (1978), Ways to Community (1980), The Ministry in the Church (1981), Towards a Common Understanding of the Church (1990), Church and Justification (1993), and The Apostolicity of the Church (2006). The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ, 1999), the most important basis of this current document, asked for further work on the ecclesial significance of its agreement on justification.1 Christians experience the saving grace of justification in the event of their baptism. Baptism has immediate ecclesiological significance, for one enters the church through baptism. The current study on baptism and the growth in communion it initiates aims to clarify this significance. The Apostolicity of the Church (2006) serves as the immediate context upon which the present document builds since both the mutual recognition of Lutheran and Catholic communities as churches and growth toward mutual recognition of one another’s ordained ministries requires that both the communities and their ministries visibly mediate the faith of the apostolic church. This study of apostolicity resulted in the
1
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2000), §43. Hereafter JDDJ.
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