TELO CIRKVI. ŠTÚDIA K EKLEZIOLOGICKÝM REFLEXIÁM ALBERTA VEĽKÉHO A TOMÁŠA AKVINSKÉHO

Saint Albert the Great and Saint Thomas Aquinas, two excellent scholars of the Dominican Order in the 13th century, reflected on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ using the analogy between human body and the body of the Church. They believed in the necessity of being a member of the body of the Church in order to achieve eternal salvation. Although they reaffirmed visible and institutional aspects, their idea of the Church extended beyond the limits of a visible body which could be precisely noted and defined within the time-space boundary. They emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit as the life source of the body of the Church, and communion with Christ in faith and charity as the condition of being a member of the body in full sense. Both recognized the possibility of belonging to the visible Church and at the same time of being excluded from the Mystical Body of the Church. Using the categories of the actual and potential membership in the Summa Theologiae III, q. 8, Aquinas gave the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ elasticity in a particular way.