Koininia

Bruno Forte was seen as the possible successor to become Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected to become Pope Benedict XVI.

Here is his brilliant definition of the Church as a communion in the Spirit of Christ:

The communion (koinonia) which is the Church at once holy and sinful, bears within itself the signs of this unheard-of encounter of the world of the Spirit and the world of mankind, and thus while wholly immersed in history and in the contradictions of human affairs, is yet called to bear within history and within human events the proclamation and the gifts of the new world of God, revealed in Jesus Christ. The task of the Church is thus to make present in every time and in front of every situation, the encounter of Spirit and flesh, of God and mankind, which has been actualized in the Incarnate Word.

Just as the Church receives the Spirit through Christ from the Father, so the ecclesial communion is called to give the Spirit. Her mission is summed up in the mandate of bringing the entire universe to the Father, through Christ, in the One Spirit. The church-communion is the sign and the instrument, it is the sacrament, through which the Spirit realizes the unity of all mankind with God among men. 1

1. Forte, Bruno – The Church, Icon of the Trinity: An introduction to ecclesiology p.78-79