Contemporary Trends in the Theological Understanding of Christian Pilgrimage

This paper analyses the historical changes that have taken place in the Christian theology of pilgrimage from Patristics to the present time. Against that background, it identifies the core parameters of the theological debate on pilgrimage, including its foundation in the truths of the faith and its key dimensions. In view of attempts to reduce the essence of pilgrimage to phenomenological descriptions in contemporary analyses, the author proposes to take advantage of the explicatory potential of hylomorphism as a theory that differentiates between matter and form. When applied to pilgrimage, hylomorphism makes it possible to integrate theological perspectives with the sciences that describe the anthropological experience. The paper concludes with an attempt to create a map of the contemporary theology of pilgrimage, including a proposed thematic taxonomy.