Świeccy w Kościele. Wybrane uwarunkowania historyczne sytuacji współczesnej

Abstract

The current situation of lay people in the Church is strongly conditioned by how the relationship between laity and clergy (and laity–religious) evolved both in theology and in the practice of Church life in the previous centuries. The article is an attempt at providing a brief account of the history of these relations, beginning from the time when the functional distinction between clerics and lay people originated, through the period in which, in the context of a class society, the concept of states within the Church was introduced, and they were diversified within different perfection hierarchies, to the times when theology completed the circle, once again acknowledging the universal call to holiness in the Church, one that precedes all distinctions.