Gottes Werk im Menschenwerk. Überlegungen zur Struktur des Sakramentalen

The article explores the notion of sacraments and sacramentality in the documents of ecumenical dialogues led by the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht. In these dialogues, the Old Catholic Churches retained the seven sacraments, receiving and at times critically discussing certain aspects of the neo-scholastic notion of sacraments, thus affirming their own catholicity. However, the dialogues often underline the aspect of communion that is relevant for every sacrament, but underrated in the neo-scholastic notion, which considers sacraments primarily as a means of grace for the individual. Following Ganoczy’s theological approach which is based on communication theory, the article describes sacraments as interaction between God and human believers, expressed by interaction between humans. It identifies three important basic features of sacramentality: sacraments are dialogical, ecclesiastical and performative. These basic features of sacramentality are, the article argues, not only to be found in the seven sacraments themselves; one must rather say that every ecclesial act is, in a fundamental way, sacramental.