Ecumenism and Rome

Few people in our time have been more deeply concerned with thinking into each other again the inner substance of the evangelical and catholic emphases in the Church of Jesus Christ, than Oscar Cullmann. This has been especially evident in the way in which he has consistently sought to penetrate into the essential harmony of the Gospel that not only underlies the whole history of the Church but underpins the divisions between the Evangelical Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, bringing his unusually fresh understanding of the NT and the Early Church to bear constructively upon the areas of discord and friction, not least in respect of the concept of the Papacy. His many writings reveal unparalleled sensitivity and appreciation for the centrality of the biblical message, the sanctity of tradition and the continuity of worship in the redeemed life of the people of God, which have allowed him to bring together, without compromise, the concentration upon the core of the Gospel which has characterised the Evangelical Churches and the universal task and unifying order which have characterised the Catholic Churches.