This article indicates well known and much publicized debate between Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and Cardinal Walter Kasper regarding the relationship between the local Church and the universal Church. The debate arose from some points made in the Letter on the idea of the Church as communion that was issued in 1992 by the Vatican Congregation for the Dtrine of the Faith and which was sharply criticized by cardinal Kasper in 1999. The author, among other things, indicates how the Metropolitan John Zizioulas’ theological thought could illuminate this perplexing and complex debate and see it from a new angle and in a fresh light.