ECUMENISMO E DIÁLOGO INTER-RELIGIOSO

Abstract

The following dissertation discusses Ecumenism as the search of unity among Christians, that was, at a given time in history, broken. We cannot, however, attribute the fracturation among Christ believers to the historical circumstances, for Christianity had internal problems since the very beginning. We choose to approach the issue since the end of the first century, when all kinds of conflicts began to spread, that would eventually cause the scissions that fractured the unity of the Christian faith, and the consequences of that, to this day. We tried to observe the tread of the ecumenical walk, trough the light of the baptism sacrament, and therefore we investigate the meander that involves the baptismal sacrament starting on its theological-biblical principles; the distinction between baptism in other cultures and the religious meaning of water in paganism and Judaism; the sacrament of baptism and different baptismal events that happened throughout the Christian history. When analysing baptism s theological-biblical principles that per passed its historical walk, the progress that happened with the Second Vatican Council; the intense and arduous activity developed by protestant Churches that culminated in innumerous terms, agreements and other formalized instruments aiming a continuous approximation among the different religious confessions, paving the way for our current situation. Discussing the ecumenical dialogue that involves Christian churches and the inter-religious dialogue that happens between various religious traditions of varied faith, it s evident the need of effective actions to the building of global peace. The presence of attempts around a religious dialogue expresses the search of a relationship between Christians and believers of others religions, or religious confessions. However, such gestures were and are marked with negative actions, fraught with intolerance, which only aggravated the spirits, and leading, most of the time, to fratricidal conflicts.