Synodal Process in Catholicism: The Spirit of the New Time or the Well-Forgotten Old?

Abstract

The article discusses the features of the synodal process in Catholicism, as well as the accompanying problems and contradictions that arise in the way of such transformations. Analyzing and revealing the main principles on the way to the catholicity of the Russian Church in the early twentieth century and the events within the framework of the Second Vatican Council, the author asks whether the modern synodal process of the Church is really conditioned by the spirit of the new time, and whether the Synod of 2023 can become the beginning of the formation of a new model of church administration of the Catholic Church.The purpose of the study was to identify the main similarities and differences in the understanding of the concept of «catholicity» in the Russian Orthodox and Catholic Churches. As part of the historical approach to studying the formation and development of synodality, using such methods as comparative and structural-functional analysis, the article shows that, as in any other transitional era, in modern conditions, new problems overlap with old ones. Despite the existing differences, in terms of agenda development, both the Orthodox Local Council of 1917–1918 and the Catholic Synod of Bishops of 2023 are, on the whole, similar in their sequence. As a result of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the understanding and application of the seemingly synonymous terms «sobor» and «synod», as well as the concepts of «catholicity» and «collegiality» differ between Orthodox and Catholics. It is noted that thanks to the clearly articulated status of the First Hierarch of the Church in relation to the episcopate, as well as the principles of election and division of spheres of responsibility between different bodies of the higher administration of the Church, the access of the lower clergy and laity to church administration made it possible in the last century to build a system of catholicity, which the Russian Orthodox Church adheres to today. In the Catholic Church, the ideas of synodality all the time «bumped» against the wall of one of the unshakable religious and political institutions of Catholicism — the papacy.