Worship and celebrating the liturgy can be understood as a public transformational act with political and ecological connotations, a reconstruction of community and restoration of creation. Essential to such an understanding is a broadened view of symbolic representation, including body, remembrance and action. Starting from Alexander Schmemann’s view of the world as sacrament, the workshop will look at the manifold relations between the liturgy and the world in which it is celebrated, as well as search for forms of liturgy that enhance such a transformational understanding of liturgy.
Juerg Braeker is general secretary of the Swiss Mennonite Conference and member of the Bern Mennonite congregation, and has a doctorate in theology. His research in systematic theology concentrated on the ecclesiology of the American-orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, looking at missiological, sociological and ecological aspects. His dissertation has been published as “Kirche, Welt, Mission. Alexander Schmemann – eine ökumenisch relevante Ekklesiologie” (2013).