Specters of a New Ecumenism: In Search of a Church “Out of Joint”

Abstract

“A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism.” Thus reads the opening line of the Communist Manifesto that was published in 1848. “All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter” Marx and Engels continued. Pope and Tzar, conservatives and radicals—all have taken up the fight against communism, proving that the movement, which was still without the organizing structures of a party, had power. It was time for communists to organize a party and publish their views precisely in order to advance the power of the communist movement effectively, they argued, hence the publication of their Manifesto in 1848 and the eventual organization of the First International in 1864 in London.