Zizioulous nuggets 2) The "Catholic" nature of the Church (meaning both the overall "Universal" Church and simultaneous a local body of believers)


"Already in the book of the Didache in the later first or early second century the idea was clearly expressed that in the celebration of the eucharist the Church experiences that which is promised for the Parousia, namely the eschatalogical unity of all in Christ: "Just as this loaf was scattered all over the mountains and having been made one, so let the Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth in your Kingdom." This conviction was not irrelevant in the application of the term "catholic Church" to the local community. It was a clear indication that, although the catholicity of the Church is ultimately an eschatological reality, it's nature is revealed and realistically apprehended here and now in the eucharist. The eucharist understood primarily not as a thing and an objectified means of grace but as an act and a synaxis of the local Church, a "catholic" act of a "catholic" Church, can, therefore, be of importance in any attempt to understand the catholicity of the Church.