Dialogical Nature of the Synodal Church. Toward a Trinitarian Consideration of the Theological Roots of Dialogical Synodality

Abstract

This contribution attempts to point out the Trinitarian basis of the Church’s synodality. The modern magisterium links it primarily to the third person of the divine Trinity. However, it seems that the roots of the synodal nature of the Church should be sought in the Trinitarian mystery. Following this line, the article starts with an analysis of the cross in the perspective of the Trinitarian dialogue. The choice of such a path is not accidental: the Paschal events, according to the spirit of the great Tradition, especially the cross of the Lord is the meaningful, real center of the revelation of the truth about the inner life of God. At the same time, synodality is about the constantly undertaken divine-human dialogue, the paradoxical expression of which is precisely the Lord’s cross. Thus, the Paschal event of the cross combines both Trinitarian and dialogical moments. The cross reveals the inner life of God as a dialogue, and precisely for this reason it determines any understanding of conversation and dialogue in the Church. The Church is a dialogical community only under the sign of the cross. It is this that marks the epistemological contours of synodality and its underlying ethos, which is the search for the truth of God and man and their divine-human communion.