Astra Salvensis (Jul 2020)
Christians as “Tertium Genus” in the Context of Church Jurisdiction
Abstract
This paper aims to analyse the question of whether Christians perceived themselves as a distinct ethnicity in the first centuries and to discuss the relationship between Christian identity and ethnic/national identity, especially in the context of church organization. In the first part of this paper, we are going to present the arguments of the two ecclesiological conceptions as well as the historical circumstances that induced the formulation and systematization of their argumentation. The jurisdictional disputes of the 20th century were the factors that intensified the controversy over national identity as a factor in church jurisdiction. In the second part of the paper, we are going to discuss the concept of Christians as the "third race" in early Christian and pagan sources, in order to answer the question whether, according to early Christian theology, church identity was excluding ethnical identity. It is concluded that Christians were a "third race" exclusively in religious terms, in relation to Greeks and Jews, and that they were not summoned to reject their own ethnicity and to form a new nation on religious grounds. Organizing dioceses on a national basis, being in a collision with the canonical territorial principle, was thought to serve the Church's main purpose - the salvation of people, in the sense that believers had the opportunity to have bishops who could understand their mentality, language, and customs
