Foundations for John Zizioulas' Approach To

FOUNDATIONS FOR JOHN ZIZIOULAS’ APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION

John Zizioulas’ work is appealing; he is a sourcier of fresh views on the Church as a communion1. The evaluation of his contributions is prob- lematic. Zizioulas has not presented a synthesis of his contributions2. The topics treated were usually prepared for conferences or theological com- missions. This prompted their publication rather than a clear personal initiative by Zizioulas’ to engage the reader in the development of his ecclesiology and clarify for the reader the consistent theological foundations which guide the way he addresses questions. There is a risk of en- gaging the work of Zizioulas without attention to the foundations which shape a particular contribution. This article proposes three foundations which direct the construction of the ecclesiology of John Zizioulas: an ontological, eschatological and epistemological foundation. The ontological foundation is rooted in the difference between creator and creation resulting in the ontological importance of salvation. The foundation relative to the eschatological truth in history determines the way salvation is realized in historical and ecclesial events without implicating by this historicity a historical causal- ity. The epistemological foundation establishes the role of ecclesial life for the theological discourse, recognizes the limits of the theological dis-

1. A. DE HALLEUX, Personnalisme ou essentialisme trinitaire chez les pères cappado- ciens?, in RTL 17 (1986) 129-155 and 265-292; reprinted in A. DE HALLEUX, Patrologie et œcuménisme (BETL, 93), Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1990, pp. 215-268; G. BAILLARGEON, Perspectives orthodoxes sur l’Église communion. L’œuvre de Jean Zizioulas, Montréal, Éditions Paulines & Médiaspaul, 1989, 414 p.; J. AREEPLACKAL, Spirit and Ministries. Perspectives of East and West, Bangalore, Dharmaram Publications, 1990, 350 p.; P. MCPARTLAN, The Eucharist Makes the Church. Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue, Edinburgh, Clark, 1993, 342 p.; Y. SPITERIS, La teologia ortodossa neo-greca, Bologna, Dehoniane, 1992, 486 p.; J. ERICKSON, The Local Churches and Catholicity: an Orthodox Perspective, in Jurist 52 (1992) 490-508; C. AGORAS, Vision ecclésiale et ecclésiologie. À propos d’une lecture de l’œuvre de Jean Zizioulas, in Con- tacts 43 (1991) 106-123; C. AGORAS, L’anthropologie théologique de Jean Zizioulas. Un bref aperçu, in Contacts 41 (1989) 6-23; C. AGORAS, Hellénisme et christianisme: la question de l’histoire, de la personne et de sa liberté selon Jean Zizioulas, in Contacts 44 (1992) 244-269; J. FONTBONA I MISSÉ, Comunión y Sinodalidad. La eclesiología euca- rística despues de N. Afanasiev en I. Zizioulas y J. M. R. Tillard (Sant Paciá, 52), Barce- lona, Edicions de la Facultat de Teologia de Catalunya – Herder, 1994, 534 p.; M. VOLF, After Our Likeness. The Church as the Image of the Trinity, Grand Rapids, MI – Cam- bridge, Eerdmans, 1998, 314 p. 2. J. ZIZIOULAS, L’être ecclésial (Perspective orthodoxe, 3), Genève, Labor et Fides, 1981, p. 19. Zizioulas reminds the reader that this is a collection of essays and not a synthesis. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 439 course and yet the obligation to articulate the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

I. ONTOLOGY OF CREATOR AND CREATION

Zizioulas begins the introduction to his collection of articles, Being as Communion, with this thesis which underlies his work: “The Church is not simply an institution. She is a “mode of existence”, a way of being. The mystery of the Church, even in its institutional dimension, is deeply bound to the being of man, to the being of the world and to the very being of God”3. His ontological perspective is principally soteriological not philosophical. What is Zizioulas’ notion of salvation? “The eternal survival of the person as a unique, unrepeatable and free “hypostasis”, as loving and being loved, constitutes the quintessence of salvation, the bringing of the Gospel to man”4. Salvation is not first of all a response to personal sin but rather a response to death5. Even when it is embraced as a noble self- sacrifice or accepted according to the laws of nature, it is not acceptable to humanity6. The central task of fundamental theology is to show how dogmas are tied to existence in a decisive manner7. This ontological perspective for his understanding of salvation requires establishing the freedom of being from non-being. Zizioulas undertakes this challenge in regard to divine being and in regard to created being. Death is the essential issue for fundamental theology8 and requires addressing non-being, the experience of death in human life, by establishing divine being’s capacity to offer salvation to created being. Zizioulas bases his approach to ontology on three premises: a) true being’s freedom from necessity; b) being as a communion of persons; and c) the person as cause of being. These premises are fundamental to his understanding of being, whether divine or created. Christianity expressed its faith in a world with established cosmol- ogies. Whether Platonic or Aristotelian, Greek cosmology was fundamentally a monistic ontology. “Not even God can escape from this ontological unity and stand freely before the world, “face to face” in dialogue with it. He too is bound by ontological necessity to the world and the

3. J. ZIZIOULAS, Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and in the Church (Con- temporary Greek Theologians, 4), Crestwood, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985, p. 15. This is the same introduction which is found in ZIZIOULAS, L’être ecclésial. 4. J. ZIZIOULAS, Personhood and Being, in Being as Communion, pp. 49-50. 5. Because created being cannot assure its own existence, it is mortal. Sin does not cause mortality but rather the experience of death. 6. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Explora- tion of Personhood, in Scottish Journal of Theology 28 (1975), p. 422. 7. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Christologie et existence. La dialectique créé-incréé et le dogme de Chalcédoine, (tr. M. STAVROS), in Contacts 36 (1984), p. 154. 8. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Truth and Communion, in Being as Communion, p. 103. 440 R.D. TURNER world to him…”9. A monistic approach eliminates true freedom for God because there is no separation in an absolute sense between divine being and the cosmos. Creation is meant to express this distinction by establishing a beginning, in an absolute sense, for being which is not divine. With- out a beginning, there is no real possibility for the non existence of created being and therefore, the being of God is confronted with a necessary relation to non-divine reality. The Old Testament understanding of creation separated divine being from the being of creation. The notion of creation ex nihilo expressed otherness by separating the being of God from the being of the world. The being of creation is only the result of God’s will. God is not obliged to create the world in order to be God nor is the act of creation simply the act of ordering already existing being. God’s freedom in relation to the world is unconditional. The act of creation by God in a monistic view of being is an aesthetic act that has no ontological significance. The purpose is to attain beauty by the ordering of preexistent matter. In the Christian view of creation God creates because “…il veut qu’existe quelque chose d’autre en dehors de Lui, ‘quelque chose’ avec quoi s’entretenir et s’unir”10. Creation has ontological significance, not simply aesthetic significance, because the divine act of creation brings the world into existence. For God to be free requires not only freedom from the world but freedom within divine being. Freedom within divine being is based on two things: the ontological significance of divine persons and the Father as the cause of divine personhood. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo alone fails to achieve the goal of maintaining the freedom of God. The Old Tes- tament tradition of creation and the New Testament experience of the divine persons are two keys to surpassing necessity in divine being. Ac- cording to Zizioulas, the view of person “…was born historically from the endeavor of the Church to give ontological expression to its faith in the Triune God”11. The revelation of the divine persons is fundamental to our understanding of the freedom of God because the personhood of God, by being constitutive of divine being, establishes freedom within divine being. The personhood of God could be understood as a secondary character- istic of God, the divine essence or substance being primary. Zizioulas rejects this approach: “…unless we admit on a philosophical level that personhood is not secondary to being, that the mode of existence of being is not secondary to its ‘substance’ but itself primary and constitutive of it, it is impossible to make sense of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo”12. The question is “…whether otherness can make sense in ontology, whether ontology can do anything more than rest on the idea of

9. Personhood and Being, pp. 29-30. 10. Christologie et existence, p. 157. 11. Personhood and Being, p. 36. 12. Human Capacity, p. 416. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 441 totality”13. In order to protect the freedom of God, Zizioulas develops an understanding of the person with ontological content which conditions the discourse on the unity of divine being. By giving priority to divine person, Zizioulas establishes the freedom of divine being. The particularity or otherness of the person is not added to being; rather it causes the being to exist and is therefore, the point at which being can truly be treated. It is the starting point for the discourse on divine being14. Zizioulas’ ontology of persons in communion seeks to make a unique contribution to ontology found in the realization of salvation in Christ. Zizioulas recognizes that more needs to be said about personhood to assure that personhood itself does not end up becoming another totality either by each person in their difference comprising a separate ontological reality or because the unity of substance makes the difference between persons so secondary that it does not assure true difference within divine being. Ontological difference within divine being is expressed by the notion of person, yet this difference is not a division. The unity of divine persons is expressed by one divine substance, but this one substance is not the starting point for the discourse on divine being. Person and substance together preserve difference within oneness. If the Father had a separate substance or if the persons of the Trinity did not have ontological identity then the being of God would be a totality15. Personhood not only describes ontological difference but is also the starting point for ontological unity. Instead of depending on two principles, one for difference and one for unity, Zizioulas shows how personhood serves as the basis for both. Personhood means otherness, difference, but not in isolation, not alone, because the full meaning of personhood is found in the communion of persons. Although recognizing the unity which the term substance identifies, Zizioulas goes beyond an understanding of ontology as a totality and assures ontological freedom by elaborating how personhood serves as a principle of otherness and unity for being. He does this by the character of personhood in which the person is constituted by the movement outside of self, he calls this movement ekstasis. Personhood is a movement out of self in love. It is an ekstasis which takes the person beyond the particularity of his ontological identity. Personhood “…affirms the integrity and catholicity of being (cf. hypostasis) and must of necessity overcome the distance of individualization (cf. ekstasis)”16. True freedom in an ontological manner is not simply the possibility to make a choice between limited options. True freedom is love, a movement out of self to communion with otherness. God expresses his freedom in love by constituting his particular personal existence by loving. The ecstatic character of the freedom of the person is

13. Truth and Communion, p. 86. 14. Cf. Personhood and Being, p. 39. 15. Cf. Truth and Communion, p. 89. 16. Human Capacity, p. 417; also see ibid., p. 408. 442 R.D. TURNER found fully only in the ecstatic love of divine personhood17. Communion with otherness is a movement out of self not by necessity, but by the freedom which constitutes love. The personhood of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit establishes difference and unity by the ecstatic character of personhood. The reason the divine persons are persons is not therefore their work within the economy of salvation but the freedom of God expressed in ecstatic love that causes divine being to be personally. The divine persons are not modes of action in regard to creation, but rather modes of being which constitute divine being. In constituting divine being, personhood assures freedom within divine being and establishes the unity of divine beings as had the concepts of substance and essence. The final step is to show that the person is not only the principle of difference and unity but also the cause of being; person not substance causes being to exist18. The personhood of God is not required by nature or by divine substance19. The personhood of God is caused by the person of the Father20. The ontological principle of God “…does not consist in the one substance of God but in the hypostasis that is, the person of the Fa- ther”21. The importance of this starting point is to free the being of God from ontological necessity: “…the substance never exists in a ‘naked’ state, that is without hypostasis, without ‘a mode of existence’ …divine substance is consequently the being of God only because it has these three modes of existence, which it owes not to the substance but to the one person, the Father”22. The Father as the ontological principle of God doesn’t create a subordinationism because the divine persons share the same substance and because alone, the Father is not a personal mode of existence, not a personal hypostasis. Father and divine substance would be synonymous because Father would no longer express a particular personal mode of existence. Zizioulas rejects an approach to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit based only on the economy of salvation or the divine nature. The concept of person is explored with the tools of philosophy to understand how the requirements of salvation are able to be met. His interest is the real possibility of God’s freedom from necessity. Neither building an understanding of the Trinity limited to the economy nor using the concepts of substance and person alone would assure the freedom of God in the discourse on divine being. Being as a communion of persons through ecstatic love, as well as the person as cause of divine being establishes the freedom of divine being. Because of this freedom, divine being can be the source of

17. Cf. Personhood and Being, p. 46. 18. Ibid., pp. 41-42, note 36. 19. Ibid., p. 44. 20. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology of Personhood, in C. SCHWÖBEL and C. GUNTON (eds), Persons, Divine and Human, Edinburgh, Clark, 1991, pp. 37-38. 21. Personhood and Being, p. 40. 22. Ibid., p. 41. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 443 created being’s freedom from of non-being. The communion of divine persons is essential for the christian hope for salvation. Zizioulas does not approach salvation beginning with sin23. Zizioulas emphasizes the ontological state of created being24 by contrasting the freedom of divine being and the necessity of created being. The concept of the Fall of mankind does not change the fundamental ontological reality of created being. Zizioulas rejects any attempt to establish a natural capacity for the survival of the cosmos or the human person. The beginning of the world establishes its separateness from divine being and therefore, its mortality not simply the mortality of particular beings but for all of created being25. Speaking of a naturally eternal soul places in question the true distinction between divine being and creation. There is no natural means for the true survival of created being. The mortality of created being is overcome only through communion in the personal life of God26. The creation of the human person in the image and likeness of God, as a person capable of freedom, was God’s means to provide for his crea- tion27. Humanity is unique within creation because it was created in the image and likeness of God and therefore personhood was extended to created being. The freedom of the person, which makes it possible for his actions to transcend necessity, and the solidarity between mankind and the rest of material creation are the basis for the mission of mankind within creation. The Fall is interpreted within this view of personhood. It expresses the ecstatic movement on the part of the human person who seeks to make the world an expression of its own will, not the will of God28. Freedom from necessity was possible only through communion with the creator and this responsibility for communion was given to man29. This mission was to be the agent of communion between God and his creation. But the personhood of mankind also means that the freedom of personhood may be realized not by communion with God but by con- forming creation to the will of mankind. The desire to be independent, to actualize the individuality of mankind’s fallen state means that “…he wishes to be free not only to create but to destroy. Reasonableness and harmony are not his ultimate goals in existence…”30. But this manifesta- tion of freedom, even to choose destruction, proves that personhood was not lost in the fallen state. This is a perverse form of personhood which constitutes its identity in a destructive relationship to other persons and

23. Cf. Christologie et existence, p. 168. 24. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Preserving God’s Creation (Part II), in Sourozh 40 (1989), p. 40. 25. Cf. Preserving, II, p. 37. 26. Cf. Christologie et existence, pp. 164-165. 27. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Preserving God’s Creation (Part III), in Sourozh 41 (1990), p. 35. 28. Cf. Human Capacity, p. 420. 29. Cf. Truth and Communion, pp. 101-102. 30. Human Capacity, p. 429. 444 R.D. TURNER creation. The Fall identifies the human decision not to seek communion with God. The individual becomes the creator31. The Fall, for Zizioulas, does not change the ontological reality of creation and salvation is fundamentally understood in ontological terms not ethical terms32. The Fall does not constitute the ontological need of creation for salvation from non-being33. Salvation is the realization of personhood in humanity by a sharing in the personal existence of God34. Fulfilling the will of God is never simply identified with doing what is good. The ontological perspective of Zizioulas appears to make the con- sideration of sin secondary in regard to salvation. Salvation is explored in terms of the requirements of his ontology. The threat of non-being was not initiated by the Fall. Sin does not introduce the possibility of the destruction of being. This possibility is present from creation and is the result of the difference between divine being and created being. The threat of non-being is overcome because of the ontological freedom in divine personhood and through the personhood of mankind which in freedom embraces communion with God. Mankind has a role in regard to the world, but does not realize the salvation of the world through his actions. Human actions can personalize the world, bring the personal character of communion into the created world, but only divine personhood, not human action, offers creation salvation. The break in communion with God leads to the experience of the person as an individual, in isolation from others and the rest of creation. Personhood was not lost with the advent of sin, but life is not an experience of communion. The effect of sin then is double. It is both the experience of mortality and an understanding of the world not based in communion. The mission of the human person and knowledge of the world through love become foreign. Communion is not recognized as the context for gaining knowledge. Human life becomes the experience of individuality rather than personhood35. The ekstasis of the person seeks an af- firmation of individuality rather than accepting the world through a communion in which one’s own will is united with that of God. Contem- porary culture reflects the human person as an autonomous individual or as a nature. Two examples are: understanding the person as a “…rational individuality on the one hand and psychological experience and con-

31. Cf. ibid., p. 433. 32. Cf. ibid., p. 424. 33. With his ontological perspective and his resistance to ethics eclipsing the place of ontology, the challenge for Zizioulas is how the human person has an awareness of his role in creation or an awareness of his relation to God. He suggests that in a view of creation in which life forms evolve, the Fall does not introduce mortality into creation. Rather, creation has awaited the advent of man for its freedom from mortality. With the Fall, death which has marked creation, claims man, the one awaited to save creation from mortality. Cf. Preserving, III (n. 27), p. 37-38. 34. Cf. Personhood and Being, p. 50. 35. Cf. Human Capacity, p. 427. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 445 sciousness on the other”36. In these two examples, the understanding of the person is based in the mind of the autonomous individual. This approach to the human person does not address the ontological status of the created being. What distinguishes humanity within creation is neither reason nor consciousness; it is personhood. Darwin found that the difference between the mind of man and of animals is “certainly one of degree, and not of kind”37. The same concerns that were expressed in regard to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as persons will play a role in Zizioulas’ approach to the human person. Freedom from necessity cannot be addressed in the same manner because of the difference between divine being and created being and the effect of the experience of human life without communion on the understanding of the person. Zizioulas also introduces the question of the cause of being for the human person38. The person of Christ provided the resolution to the ontological obstacles facing the human person and the theological effort to understand Christ provided the conceptual tools for expressing this ontological perspective on salvation. In regard to the divine persons, he was able to speak of the Father causing the divine persons to exist. For the human person, part of creation, existence is dependent on the will of God; it is not caused by itself in freedom. Zizioulas clarifies the relation between person and nature to establish that the existing person, not the nature, is the basis for understanding human being. This determination is made with the help of the concept of hypostasis in the christological formula of Chalcedon39. “The person as an ontological category cannot be extrapolated from experience…”40, the incarnation of the Son of God is the foundation for the person as an ontological category. The starting point from which to understand Christ is the hypostatic union, “…it is his person that makes divine and human natures to be that particular being called Christ”41. “One must see in Christ a person in whom the division of ‘natures’ is changed into an otherness through communion”42. Freedom from necessity for creation is possible by communion with Christ understood as a person. It is not just the divine nature of Christ but the person of Christ who assures the possibility of salvation. Nor is it just the spiritual reality of mankind but his whole person which is brought into union with Christ. An understanding of Christ must not separate his divine and human nature; he is one person. Zizioulas insists that the freedom of created being in Christ means a resurrection of the

36. Ibid., p. 405-406. 37. Ibid., p. 406, Zizioulas’ quotation of Darwin, C. DARWIN, The Descent of Man, Vol. I, 1898, p. 193. 38. Cf. Human Capacity, p. 407. 39. Cf. On Being a Person (n. 20), p. 43. 40. Ibid., p. 37. 41. Human Capacity, p. 434. 42. Truth and Communion, p. 109. 446 R.D. TURNER body because the hypostatic union means the incarnate person of Christ. If the understanding of Christ’s incarnate existence as constituting the existence of his personhood is lost, the ontological implications of the person of Christ for created being are also lost43. The incarnation is the key to understand the existence of the personhood of Christ, but the relation “…which is constitutive of Christ’s particular being is the filial relationship between the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit; in the Trinity … man ‘in Christ’ becomes a true person not through another ‘schesis’ [relation] but only in and through the one filial relationship which constituted Christ’s being”44. Although this may appear as though the personhood of Christ is not that of other human persons, this is not true. There is no true human personhood which is not constituted by a union with the divine persons45. The hypostatic union of Christ unites the divine person with human nature in one personal existence. The union of the faithful with Christ also constitutes one hypostasis. The christian does not repeat what is realized in Christ; he shares in the one unique personal existence of Christ. The possibility for salvation in Christ “…n’est pas parce qu’il a apporté un modèle moral ou un enseignement pour l’homme; c’est parce qu’il incarne lui-même le dépassement de la mort, parce que, dans sa personne, le créé vit désor- mais éternellement”46. The union with Christ is neither psychological nor moral but ontological, and therefore surmounts the limits of created existence not by eliminating them but by bringing created being into union with divine being. The human person in order to escape ontological necessity must have an ontological identity that is constituted by communion with God47. His hypostasis, his unique personhood is constituted anew in communion with true personhood in Christ48. The person of Christ is the foundation for the ontological hope of survival of the human person, but the person of Christ is not simply the hypostatic union of two natures in one person. The eschatological Christ is a communion of all the members of the body of Christ with their head: “…Christ is ‘one’ in his own hypostasis, i.e. as he relates eternally to the Father, but he is also at the same time ‘many’ in that the same ‘schesis’ becomes the constituent element…”49. There is a double perspective to the communion of Christ, trinitarian and ecclesial. But the ecclesial perspective does not constitute a separate ontological existence. It is a communion in the unique personal existence of Christ50.

43. Cf. Human Capacity, p. 439. 44. Cf. ibid., p. 436. 45. Cf. ibid., p. 437. 46. Christologie et existence, p. 166. 47. Cf. Personhood as Being, p. 54. 48. Cf. Christologie et existence, p. 171. 49. Human Capacity, p. 438. 50. Cf. ibid., p. 437. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 447

Baptism is a new birth which constitutes a new hypostasis for the human person. “As death and resurrection in Christ, baptism signifies the decisive passing of our existence from the ‘truth’ of individualized being into the truth of personal being”51. Baptism is inseparable from the community because communion in the life of Christ is a personal existence, a hypostasis which is ecclesial. There is the unique filial relationship which constitutes the hypostasis of the Son of God. From the perspective of the incarnation and resurrection, one recognizes in Christ the communion of all baptized into the life of the Son of God. The incarnation of the union of natures in one person brings the ontological possibility for the survival of created being which is fully realized in the resurrection52. The incarnation alone does not assure salvation. “All things in Christology are judged in the light of the resurrection. The incarnation in itself does not constitute a guarantee of salvation. The fact that finally death is conquered gives us the right to believe that the con- queror of death was also originally God”53. The resurrection gives the ontological perspective of Zizioulas an eschatological basis. The incarnation brings the truth of divine personhood into the world but the victory of the resurrection is the presence of the eschatological reality in time, in Christ. This eschatological character of the person of Christ brings us to Christ as a corporate person and to the role of the Holy Spirit in christology. The whole life of Christ is inseparable from the Holy Spirit. Christ is constituted in the work of the Spirit from his conception to his resurrection. The historical reality of Christ, the Church as the Body of Christ, as well as the eschatological reality of the Church are realized by the Spirit, “…we can say without risk of exaggeration that Christ exists only pneumatologically, whether in His distinct personal particularity or in His capacity as the body of the Church and the recapitulation of all things”54. The Son of God is a person only by his relationship with the Father and the Spirit. Both the historical and eschatological Christ owes his identity to the intervention of the Spirit55. Christ exists only pneumatically, it is this presence of the Spirit in the Christ-event which requires that christology and ecclesiology not be separated. Because the communion realized by the Spirit is not simply with the historical Jesus but with the risen Lord; the historical communion realized by the Spirit is also eschatological.

51. Truth and Communion, p. 113. 52. Cf. Christologie et existence, p. 168. 53. Personhood and Being, p. 55, note 49. 54. Truth and Communion, pp. 110-112. 55. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Mystery of the Church in Orthodox Tradition, in One in Christ 24 (1988), p. 296. 448 R.D. TURNER

II. ESCHATOLOGICAL TRUTH REALIZED IN TIME

What is the meaning of human history in regard to Zizioulas’ understanding of ontological communion? How should the historical character of salvation be understood? The key is to understand how Christ is the truth of salvation. Zizioulas builds a solution to his concerns about time and history and their effect on how the Church is understood by the implications and requirements of the assertion that Christ is the truth. An assertion which entails the ontological premises of divine and created being. There are five premises in Zizioulas’ approach to salvation that shape the role of history in the subjects he addresses. Salvation is a fact within reality not simply within the human mind. It truly overcomes human death and division. If salvation is proposed as an escape from nature or does not confront death, it is not a true salvation for creation56. Salvation comes into the history of the cosmos and not just into human history. There is not a duality of histories, one human the other natural57. Because salvation is a matter of existence and life, salvation requires that history be understood in an ontological way. History should not be limited to an understanding of human consciousness, decisions and actions, but the future all of creation will share58. Salvation must be a fact within history without contradicting the absolute demands of God’s freedom and tran- scendence59. Salvation must be a fact within history without the historical events annulling the freedom of the person60. Zizioulas recognizes three difficulties in contemporary theological ex- ploration of the significance of time for salvation. These difficulties fall under the general heading of the relation of the christian to the world. How time is understood determines: a) either an ethical or an ontological approach to christian life; b) the understanding of the authority and role of Church institutions and structures and c) the relation of the christian to the environment. The role of the christian in the world has been characterized by two approaches: “celui de se confondre totalement avec le Royaume du Christ et le processus historique, et celui de s’opposer à l’histoire en s’engageant dans une vie uniquement spirituelle sous une forme ou sous une autre”61. Both approaches are an ethical approach to life. Especially Protestant theologians in this century proposed eschatol-

56. Cf. Personhood and Being, p. 49. 57. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Implications ecclésiologiques de deux types de pneumatologie, in B. BOBRINSKOY et al. (eds), Communio Sanctorum: mélanges offerts à Jean-Jacques von Allmen, Genève, Labor et fides, 1982, p. 147, note 23. 58. Cf. Human Capacity, pp. 418-419. 59. Cf. Being as Communion, p. 20. 60. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Eucharistic Prayer and life, in Emmanuel 81 (1975), p. 470. 61. J. ZIZIOULAS, Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique, in G. ALBERIGO et al. (eds.), La chrétienté en débat: histoires, formes et problèmes actuels (Théologies), Paris, Cerf, 1984, p. 100. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 449 ogy as the essence of christianity62, but without a focus on an ontological, cosmological or ecclesiological character of it. The new focus on the Kingdom of God resulted in a new interest in changing the social and political structures of the world. “Et par conséquent, l’Église, de façon paradoxale, sous prétexte d’introduire l’histoire en théologie par le biais de l’eschatologie, s’est engagée dans le monde au point d’abandonner complètement la perspective eschatologique”63. The loss of the ontological perspective is due in large part to how one understands truth within history and this loss makes a fundamental contribution to the polarization of Spirit and institution, the reduction of christian life to ethics64 and the crisis of the environment65. Both christianity in the East and the West face particular challenges when seeking to understand the Church in the world because of their treatment of time.

Orthodoxy is often thought of, or presented by its spokesmen, as a sort of Christian Platonism, as a vision of future or heavenly things without an interest in history and its problems. By contrast, Western theology tends to limit ecclesiology (and actually even the whole of theology) to the historical content of the faith – to the economy – and to project realities belonging to history and time into the eternal existence of God. In this way the dialectic of God and the world, the uncreated and the created, history and the eschata is lost…Orthodox theology runs the danger of historically disincarnating the Church; by contrast, the West risks tying it primarily to history, either in the form of an extreme Christocentrism – imitatio Christi – lacking the essential influence of pneumatology, or in the form of a social activism or moralism which tries to play in the Church the role of the image of God66.

Zizioulas builds a solution to his concerns about truth in history and how the Church is understood in the light of truth in history by developing the assertion that Christ is the truth. Early christians were influenced by Greek and Jewish approaches to time and history. The Jewish mentality was historical. The acts of God and mankind composed a historical relationship which was oriented to the future where God’s will would be fulfilled in his creation. The Greek mentality was cosmological and looked to the origin of things. Time and history represented decay or destruction. Each approach presented its own advantages and disadvantages to understand christian salvation67. The an-

62. Cf. ibid., pp. 89-100. 63. Ibid., p. 95. 64. Cf. ibid., p. 94. 65. Cf. ZIZIOULAS, Implications ecclésiologiques (n. 57), p. 147, note 23. The separation of human acts and history from the history of nature is the consequence of separating mankind and nature. The human person and the cosmos are bound together and share the same space and time. Together they are God’s creation. The understanding of the union of mankind and creation has been so diminished that they have been treated as if they each had a separate history. 66. Being as Communion, pp. 19-20. 67. Cf. Truth and Communion, pp. 70-72. 450 R.D. TURNER swer was obtained only gradually in the patristic period68. Again, the requirements of salvation guide the selection and invention which will serve the christian approach to time. Zizioulas does not find a full articu-

68. The first attempts to express how the historical Christ was the truth are called the Logos Approach by Zizioulas. This approach has three representatives: Justin, Clement and Origen. They build on Philo’s application of the concept of logos to relate Greek and Jewish cosmology. “Christ is the truth by virtue of his being simultaneously the logos of God and of creation…” (Truth and Communion, p. 77). For Justin there was an ontological link between God and creation by means of the soul; this made it possible for the person to know God. The mind, not the material world, was the link between the person and the truth. This dualism gave no role to historical events, therefore, Christ was the truth because he was the logos. The incarnation had no role in Christ being the truth. Historical events that reveal the truth are not fundamental to the truth they reveal. For Origen the incarnation does not add to the truth, truth does not change; it actualizes in time what is already true from the creation of the world. In this approach “…the incarnation does not realize the truth in a fundamental way, but merely reveals a pre-existing truth” (Truth and Communion, p. 77). To reveal the preexisting truth does not give the historical Jesus any fundamental significance for salvation. Salvation is revealed rather than realized. The logos approach offered a way to reconcile the historical Christ with the demands of Greek cosmology, but the reconciliation did not give the historical events in the life of Christ a fundamental connection with the truth found in Christ. The next step in the development of an understanding of the truth of historical events is represented by Saints Ignatius and Irenaeus. Zizioulas calls this the Eucharistic Approach. For St Ignatius truth is eternal life. He doesn’t speak of truth in relation to being itself but being alive. St Irenaeus did not understand Christ as the epistemological principle which explains the universe but rather as incorruptible life. In the face of docetism and gnosti- cism, to defend the belief that the Eucharist truly imparts life, the true life of the Eucharist had to be shown to be both historical and ontological. The sources for identifying being with life were the scriptures and the life of the eucharistic community. The key question which drew on these two sources for its answer was: “If the eucharist is not truly Christ in the historical and material sense of the word “truth”, then truth is not life and existence at the same time” (Truth and Communion, p. 81). Turning the discussion from being in itself to being identified with life, made it possible to speak about true being within human life. This understanding of truth allowed the celebration of the Eucharist, a historical event, to impart true life. But the character of the being of God and the being of creation and the relation between them was not clear. This leads to the next step in the development of an understanding of truth and time. Zizioulas calls this the Trinitarian Approach. Arianism provided St Athanasius with the challenge to explain Christ in terms of divine and created being, the freedom of the creator in relation to creation, the unity and diversity of the Trinity and how God offered true life to creation. Divine being was distinguished from created being by the difference between substance and will. The Son’s being belongs to the substance of God, while that of the world belongs to the will of God. “…through this distinction between substance and will, Athanasius was in a position to break out of the closed ontology of the Greeks…” (Truth and Communion, pp. 83-84). The ontological freedom of God was maintained in relation to creation, but also, because the being of the Son of God was part of God’s substance, the incarnation of the Son of God brought true being into history. But Athanasius did not explain how otherness could be found in divine being. The being of the Son was part of the divine substance and not part of the being of the world created by divine will. But, how could the divine substance be understood as Father, Son and Holy Spirit? This ontological question was answered by the Cappadocians but Zizioulas did not find in the Cappadocians’ explanation of otherness in divine being an explanation of how the truth was found in history nor the possible contribution of historical events to the realization of the truth. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 451 lation of the how the truth is present in time until the contribution of St Maximus the Confessor. St Maximus reworks the insights already found in the tradition as well as innovates. Zizioulas identifies four keys in the thought of St Maximus: a) the incarnation reveals the will of God to be love, therefore, God is truly free in the creation of the logoi of things; b) Christ is the link between the ontological truth of divine being and the ontological truth of created being throughout time; c) the truth of history is eschatological, because the ultimate end of creation, salvation or oblivion, determines if truth is present in creation; and d) the elements of historical events that realize the truth of history do not identify the truth with history. The eschatological reality comes into history but does not become history. Zizioulas presents the contribution of St Maximus by two approaches: the Christological Approach and the Iconological Approach. These two approaches move the discussion from an ontological foundation for the truth to an explanation of the truth present and realized in time. The bridge between ontology and time is Christ. The acts of Christ which realize salvation and salvation itself ties the past, the present and the future together by the one truth they share. St Maximus develops “…a christological synthesis within which history and creation become organically interrelated”69. The logoi of things depend on the will of God for their existence and their unity; they do not exist in themselves nor by themselves. They come into being by the will of God. Their existence depends on God, but is not required of God. Cre- ated being is dependent on the freedom of God to will its existence. At this point St Maximus shows how Christ makes a contribution to ontology. The logoi of things come into being through the logos, Christ, but the Greek understanding of logos is not simply synonymous with Christ. By his actions in history, Christ gives additional content to the meaning of logos for ontology. The incarnate Christ reveals that the freedom of God in willing existence for creation is love for creation. “Christ, the incarnate Christ, is the truth, for he represents the ultimate, unceasing will of the ecstatic love of God, who intends to lead created being into communion with His own life, to know Him and itself within this communion-event”70. This means that the acts of Christ in history do not only actualize the truth by making it known but realize the truth. History has ontological meaning. It also means that the incarnation of Christ, divine being coming into history, was not triggered by the Fall of creation. “All things were made with Christ in mind, or rather at heart, and for this reason irrespective of the fall of man, the incarnation would have occurred”71. History did not take on a role in regard to the truth only after a problem occurred. The truth of history is found in the realization of the

69. Truth and Communion, p. 96. 70. Ibid., pp. 97-98. 71. Ibid., p. 97. 452 R.D. TURNER loving will of God in time, because it is the loving will of God which gives being to creation and the freedom of God in creating is revealed in history by the incarnation. The truth of history and of created being is found in the realization of God’s will, therefore, truth is not limited to the beginning in an unchang- ing state nor is truth present in history as a natural phenomenon intrinsic to the passage of time. The fulfillment of the will of God gives the movement of history more than just a future orientation. The truth of history depends on the future because there would ultimately be no truth in history if the end of history was non-existence for creation. The truth of history and creation are found in Christ because in him is found salvation, freedom from destruction and decay for creation. But the truth of history is not simply the historical Jesus but rather the eschatological Christ found in the historical Jesus. Without this future, there is no truth in history or creation72. The premise that there would be no truth in history if history leads to a non-existence is consistent with an ontological understanding of salvation and gives truth an eschatological foundation. This eschatological foundation does not mean that the truth, in its proper meaning, exists only in the future. The eschatological truth is not only revealed in history, made actual, it is also realized. This realization is not a gradual growth of the truth, a seed truth which germinates and gradually grows to completion in the future. It is the truth which will be fully realized in the future. It is not produced by historical forces found in the movement of time but it is found in time; this marks the eschatological movement of creation. If the presence of truth in history marks an eschatological movement and it is the eschatological truth which is the foundation for the truth in history, a question that remains is the relation of the historical event to the eschatological truth. St Maximus relates the past, present and future by the meaning of salvation in Christ. The Old Testament is called shadow, the New Testament is called icon, the future is called truth because it is the fulfillment of salvation for creation through communion with its crea- tor73. For Zizioulas the term icon is intended to express a dialectic between history and the eschaton which “…empêche l’histoire de ‘s’escha- tologiser’ et l’eschaton de se transformer en histoire, tandis qu’il assure en même temps la rencontre existentielle de tous les deux”74. This was

72. Cf. ibid., pp. 95-96. 73. In Protestant tradition other means continue to relate the truth realized in Christ to christian life throughout history, “…the role of the icon has been transferred in Protestant- ism to other means, namely to word and action. And the problems begin at this point. Ver- bal descriptions or indications or pointers to the kingdom, i.e. to eschatological realities, are necessarily bound and conditioned by history. Dogmas, like scriptures, presented the same problem in the eastern patristic tradition, and this gave rise to apophatic theology as a way out of the difficulty, but apophaticism runs the risk of dichotomizing between history and eschatology and should be handled with great care” (Communion and Truth, p. 99). 74. J. ZIZIOULAS, Les groupes informels dans l’Église. Un point de vue orthodoxe, in J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 453 the difficulty that Zizioulas recognized in the approach to the world that either abandoned engagement or limited the kingdom of God to ethics. Zizioulas uses the term icon along with the term vision when he speaks of the eschatological truth in history. This is not meant to restrict the reality of the truth to ideas or to an object for contemplation. Other terms Zizioulas uses help to clarify the term icon; these are: visit, dwelling, the word, or to incarnate75. These terms make the use of the term icon refer to the historical life of Christ. St Maximus’ use of the term icon referred to the New Testament experience of Christ, and Zizioulas relates the historical life of the Church to the historical life of Christ by the concept of icon. The iconological approach is meant to refer us to New Testament experience of the visit or dwelling of the Word of God among us, a true, historical presence of the Christ, but still limited by the bounds of time and space. He recognizes that other traditions have different ways of re- lating the truth of the life of Christ to christian life76. Zizioulas ties the truth in time to the gathering of the faithful for the celebration of the Eucharist. Ultimate ontological reality is truly seen, here and now, in the Eucharist, where God realizes the life of salvation it expresses. It is seen not as a reproduction of the past but as the presence of what will be. The truth present here and now is not simply the historical past nor present, but an eschatological truth. This iconic experience of the eschatological truth is like the iconic experience of the historical Christ. Zizioulas does not strip history of truth, the truth is realized not simply actualized in history. But the truth of history depends on the truth of the future. The eschatological truth in time becomes an icon in time of the fullness of truth as God realizes salvation in historical communion. What is the authority of the historical vision of the truth? Truth is found in history but the historical character of the truth in history is not the determining criterion for the authority of the truth in history. This authority comes from the eschaton; it is not caused by historical factors. The truth in history is not an idea but the historical event does not have an authority in itself. The objective circumstances that present the truth do not necessarily impose themselves because of their role in the historical event. The truth of history is found in the eschatological truth and therefore, the elements of the historical event depend on the eschatological reality not the authority of historicity. Zizioulas anticipates the objection that the authority of the eschaton over the objective circumstances of the

R. METZ AND J. SCHLICK (eds.), Les groupes informels dans l’Église (Hommes et Église, 2), Geneva, C.E.R.D.I.C., 1971, p. 265. 75. When Zizioulas spoke about informal groups in the Church he used the verb incarnate to distinguish between oriental monasticism and the episcopal centered Church. “Mais cet effort ne pouvait pas incarner ce qu’incarne l’Église en tant que communauté eschatologique dans l’histoire par sa synaxe eucharistique” (Les groupes informels, p. 267). 76. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Eschatology and History, in T. WISER (ed.), Wither Ecumenism?, Geneva, W.C.C., 1986, p. 35. 454 R.D. TURNER historical vision of the truth render it impossible to determine exactly which is the authentic vision of the eschaton. “True, without what has happened or as been said by the historical Jesus there would be no way of knowing what will happen yet. But the content of revelation is not fully identical with the historical reality”77. Giving priority to the eschaton means giving priority to the acts of God which realize the truth in history. Zizioulas is trying to assure that the eschatological reality is clearly understood as an act of God. The truth is realized in human history, but it is realized as an act of God. The ontological and eschatological perspective of Zizioulas provides a way to speak of truth both present within history as well as realized in history. The truth is an ontological communion, and this truth, as an eschatological reality, is an act of God. The truth of history depends on the reality of an eschatological and ontological communion. The historical communion realizes the truth, not as a joint venture between God and the faithful, but as an act of God. This ontological and eschatological communion plays a constant role in the way Zizioulas approaches all as- pects of the Church. The two main components of his explanation of this communion, both ontologically and eschatologically, are the Holy Spirit and the eucharistic assembly. The integrality of the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist within the dialectic of the eschaton and history respects the limits of creation and enables mankind to fulfill its role in regard to the truth in creation. The truth of history is Christ; this could give the impression of Christ having priority over the Holy Spirit in the dialectic of the eschaton and history. The focus on the eschatological truth could give the impression that the Holy Spirit has priority over Christ even though Christ is the truth of history. It is possible through liturgical or scriptural justifications to propose a priority for either one. The question becomes unnecessary once there is a recognition of the unity of the Trinity in the economy of salvation. For Zizioulas, “…the activity of God ad extra is one and indivisible […] the Father and the Spirit are involved in history, but only the Son becomes history”78. The significance of the role of Christ or the Holy Spirit is the particularity of each. The particularity of Christ is to become a part of history and the particularity of the Holy Spirit is to assure that in coming into history, Christ is freed from its limits to be the eschatological Christ. The gift of the Holy Spirit is also a historical event, does not the Holy Spirit become a part of history also? Zizioulas clarifies the difference between the two events by showing the unity of the divine persons in both events. The sending of the Holy Spirit is a historical event which brings the eschatological Christ into history. The gospel was proclaimed; the

77. Eschatology and History, p. 36. 78. J. ZIZIOULAS, Christ, the Spirit and the Church, in Being as Communion…, pp. 128- 129. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 455 ministry of Christ was continued. The Holy Spirit made Christ present in history through the incarnation and Pentecost. The gift of the Spirit in the life of the Church is inseparable from the presence of Christ. Zizioulas envisions a “full and organic synthesis” of christology and pneumatology in which neither holds the priority but each has its particularity79. Only Christ becomes a part of history. There are not two complementary historical truths, one christological the other pneumatological. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ enters history and by the Holy Spirit, the historical Christ is the eschatological Christ80. The Holy Spirit assures the presence of the eschatological Christ in history and the freedom of the truth of Christ from the limits of history. The liberation from the limits of history is found in the unity of the believers. It is the truth of the eschaton here and now, the eternal life of God in history81. The Spirit brings the eschatological truth into the present by making the communion of believers here and now an incarnation of the eschatological Christ. Christ, not the Spirit, becomes part of history but the gift of the Spirit is recognized in time and space in the communion of believers in the Church. Therefore, the truth of history is not a concept, it is truly a historical reality. It is life and communion as the body of Christ. The truth in history is a person not an idea, memory nor dogmatic formulation. It is Christ united with all the members of his body, through the power of the Holy Spirit in one place in time. The communion is historical not psychological. It is neither an idea within history, nor just fragments of the truth sifted out of the historical events. It is a living communion within time. Without becoming a part of history the truth does not exist in the world. Zizioulas is persistent in saying that his approach to history is not like Platonism’s approach to history because he does not dismiss the presence of truth in history whereas history does not realize the truth for Platonism. The existence of the Church is fundamental for the salvation of the world82. Christ is the source of the truth of salvation in history. The possibility of ultimate survival is offered to all of creation through Christ, whose incarnation brought created being and divine being into communion in his person. “Le créé est, par nature, tragique: car son existence est déter- minée par le paradoxe qui synthétise deux éléments s’excluant de façon absolue, la vie et la mort, l’être et le néant…”83. The problem for creation is the ontological impossibility for it to overcome ultimate destruction

79. He rejects the priority of pneumatology he finds in Khomiakov and Lossky as well as that of Nissiotis and Bobrinskoy. Although they stress that the Holy Spirit and Christ belong together not separated, their syntheses give priority to the Holy Spirit (cf. Christ, the Spirit, pp. 125-126). 80. Cf. Christ, the Spirit, p. 130. 81. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Pneumatological Dimension of the Church, in International Catholic Review Communio 1 (1974), p. 147. 82. Cf. Being as Communion, p. 19-20. 83. Christologie et existence, p. 164. 456 R.D. TURNER and death. This is overcome through communion with Christ but this ontological problem is not a complete view of the significance of creation for truth in history.

Thanks to the eschatological character of the Eucharist, it is clearly shown that the problem faced by created beings lies not with matter or with the time and space in which they live, but with their cleansing and transfigura- tion so that these elements become carriers of life rather than death84. Communion with God is possible for humanity – and through it for the en- tire creation – only in and through creaturely existence. History is no longer as it was for the Greek world, the obstacle to communion with God, but its ground85.

Creation, therefore, is also integral to the resolution of the ontological dilemma. The necessity of the communion of divine and created being becoming a historical reality is that, only as such, will salvation come to created reality. Creation is integral to truth becoming a part of history but neither creation nor history is its cause. To recognize the importance of creation for truth to come into history is not to make this importance historical causal- ity. The fact that the ontological reality of created being has not changed means that even though the truth exists in the history of creation and was realized in the historical Christ, the elements of the historical events that realize the truth are not the cause of the truth. These elements participate in the realization of salvation but are not its causes. The cause is the act of God. There is nothing within the movement of the history of creation, prior to the events, which produced the truth of the event. The sole cause is the freedom of God. History is not the cause of truth, historical events do not evolve toward the truth nor do they have an authority which comes from their historicity. Creation cannot assure its own existence yet communion is realized in creation. This has particular implications for the human person as an agent of history, as one whose actions transform the world. The truth in history is realized through human actions. This does not mean that the truth of history was caused by human action. The human act which incar- nates truth into history is a kenotic act86, an act which is empty of refer-

84. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Eucharist and the Kingdom of God (Part III), in Sourozh 60 (1995), pp. 43-44. 85. Human Capacity, p. 439. 86. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, Communion and Otherness, in Sobornost 16 (1994), p. 14. I will include three of the examples of Zizioulas’ reference to kenosis: “…asceticism was accompanied in the Early Church by the breaking of one’s selfish will so that the individual with his of [sic] her desires to dominate the external world and use it for their own satisfaction may learn not to make the individual the centre of creation” (Preserving…II [n. 24], p. 11). “Mais sur cette terre, cette victoire [du Christ sur le diable] ne sera jamais qu’une victoire de la ‘kenose’ et la victoire de la croix, la victoire de l’ascèse héroïque, telle que l’a com- J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 457 ence to the self and therefore manifests the will of God. This kenotic character of human action in the world recognizes the impossibility of created being to save itself. But it also highlights the role of human freedom. Just as the ontological impossibility of creation to assure its own survival does not lead to creation being having no importance; this is also true of human freedom. Human action does not cause the Kingdom of God but it does incarnate the Kingdom of God87. The meaning of creation is not limited to the threat of non-being. The meaning of creation is discovered in the freedom of God to create. Crea- tion exists because of the freedom of God. Because creation was not necessary, but rather the free decision of God, the act of creation is a grace. Consciousness of the free decision of God to create leads to gratitude on the part of creation to its creator. “Man’s responsibility is to make a eucharistic reality out of nature, i.e. to make nature, too, capable of communion. […] Christ becomes a cosmic Christ, and the world as a whole dwells in truth, which is none other than communion with its Crea- tor”88. The act of offering creation to its creator is an act of gratitude; it is a recognition of the act of creation as a grace89. There is a distinction, based on the character of freedom, between human actions which seek to incarnate the truth and those which seek to cause the truth. An action based in love is based in freedom whereas an action based in moral action, personal discipline, seeking to impose a pro- gram on history seeks to limit human freedom, “…praxis, be it ethical or social, cannot produce life in the form of historical determinism and cau- sality. […] If it were possible to do that, this would automatically mean the enslavement of man to historical determinism…”90. The incarnation of the kingdom realized in history is a kenotic act through which creation enters into communion by an act of love which is conformed to the will

prise et vécue l’Orient dans le monachisme” (J. ZIZIOULAS, La vision eucharistique du monde et l’homme contemporain, in Contacts 19 [1967], p. 91). “The eucharistic community constitutes a sign of the fact that the eschaton can only break through history but never be identified with it. Its call to catholicity is a call not to progres- sive conquest of the world but to a ‘kenotic’ experience of the fight with the anticatholic demonic powers and a continuous dependence upon the Lord and His Spirit” (J. ZIZIOULAS, Eucharist and Catholicity, in Being as Communion…, p. 161). 87. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, 1st Comment, [Response to: Communal Spirit and Conciliarity by Prof. Zabolotsky], in S.C. AGOURIDES (ed.), Procès-verbaux du deuxième congrès de théologie orthodoxe, Athens, 1978, p. 145. 88. Truth and Communion, p. 119. 89. Zizioulas finds the approach to being, which equates being with substance, objectivizes being. When being is objectivized, the existence of the human person is individualized. This individualization often leads to the abuse of creation: “By becoming an individual definable by its own substance and especially its intellectual capacities, man has managed to isolate himself from creation, to which he naturally belongs, and having developed an indifference to the sensitivity and life of creation has reached the point of polluting and destroying it to an alarming degree” (Human Capacity, p. 406, note 3). 90. The Eucharistic Prayer (n. 60), p. 470. 458 R.D. TURNER of God. Because it is an act of love, it does not limit human freedom. The significance of human acts in history is the incarnation of communion between divine and created being. This incarnation does not cause the truth nor does it require a concession of freedom. Full human freedom is expressed in a love that seeks the will of God rather than one’s own will. The kenotic character of human action underscores the eschatological truth in relation to human action. It is an act within history which recognizes the incapacity of human action to cause the truth91. The christian act of love recognizes the limits and divisions of the historical context; it does not deny brokenness and suffering nor claim that ones actions are without limits or divisions. The action is made with confidence that the world will be transformed through acts in history which incarnate the truth because of God transforming these acts not because of the act itself nor because suffering in itself has some inherent fruitfulness. Zizioulas’ insistence on God as the cause of the truth in history rejects the transfor- mation of the world by human ethical action not because human acts are without significance but because the only cause of the truth is God. The eschatological truth is the life of God which God realizes in human his- tory92. This is the same basis for his rejection of human suffering as a cause of the kingdom. He does not deny the fundamental experience of human suffering. But he rejects giving suffering a place in his theological vision which identifies it with the cause of the kingdom. It is the sugges- tion that the kingdom is brought into existence by human acts, even if these are suffering, rather than divine initiative which he consistently rejects. This kenotic character of the life of the Church helps to express what Zizioulas means by the work of the Holy Spirit which realizes in time the communion of Christ with all creation.

III. EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE

The framework for Zizioulas’ epistemological concerns is the primacy of the ontological and historical character of salvation realized in ecclesial communion. This primacy rests on three points: a) communion is not additional to being, therefore communion is integral to knowledge of the truth; b) the eschatological truth is realized in history, therefore the mind is not the ground of the truth and c) epistemology should not be the primary question of theology. Zizioulas’ understanding of Christ led him to recognize God existing as a communion of divine persons. It is again Christ who is the basis for understanding his epistemological concerns. Because truth is identified with Christ, knowledge of the truth is identified with the communion which constitutes Christ’s unique person, his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit and his relationship with the members of his body. 91. Cf. Déplacement (n. 61), pp. 97-98. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 459

The Greek patristic approach to truth “…rests in the identification of truth with communion”93. This identification of truth with communion is based on Christ’s claim to be the truth (John 14:6)94. Christ’s claim to be the truth is based on his divine and human communion. Christ is the truth not because of his nature nor substance but because of the person he is, the incarnate Son of God, inseparable from communion with the persons of the Trinity and inseparable from communion with the members of his Body95. Christ’s communion with the members of his body, the way this communion exists, is not a psychological phenomenon nor is it a spiritual or ethical concept. It is the historical life of a concrete community. Com- munion is not an addition to being and this communion is realized in history. “Communion is expressed only in terms of historical existence (this is Biblical mentality). The concrete structures of the community are not ‘forms’ of expression of love – of a love or communion which is somehow conceivable in itself – but they are this communion”96. It must be remembered that the truth of this historical existence is eschatological and the importance of the eschatological truth in history is the ontological meaning of salvation. It is not a spiritual communion but an incarnate communion, a historical communion. Truth is tied to the historical Church not as human institution or sociological phenomenon but as eschatological communion which realizes the truth here and now in the historical life of the Church. The significant obstacle to recognition of communion as the source of knowledge of the truth is that human experience contradicts it97. Human experience does not teach us that communion is essential to attain knowledge. This is due to the fallen state of existence. The state of fallen98 existence is characterized precisely by the fact that our approach to truth, to being, is constituted before communion99. The experience of knowing can still lead to communion, but communion is not essential to the process of knowing. Attaining knowledge is fundamentally a rational process in

92. Cf. Les groupes informels (n. 74), p. 266. 93. Truth and Communion, p. 101. 94. Cf. ibid., p. 67. 95. Cf. ibid., p.106. 96. Procès-verbaux (n. 87), p. 143. 97. Cf. Human Capacity, pp. 426-427. 98. Zizioulas turns to the experience of fallen existence as the key to his understanding of communion being displaced as the fundamental context for knowing. His presupposition is that without the Fall, mankind’s relation to the world was one of communion not isolation. Does the “Fall” adequately account for knowledge by isolation. One question that could be raised about Zizioulas perspective is found in W. ONG, Fighting for Life. Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1981, 231 p. Ong ex- plores the effect of gender difference on the development of human consciousness. Ong’s study suggests that gender plays a role in basic differences of approach for understanding the world in relation to the person. Difference of gender is not attributed to the fallen con- dition. 99. Cf. Truth and Communion, p. 101. 460 R.D. TURNER which “…the known and the knower exist as two opposite partners; the res and the intellectus must somehow reach an adaequatio, the subject and the object constitute a pair whose presence determines epistemology”100. Christian treatments of the human person may repeat this pattern and have as their point of departure the experience of knowledge by isolation which reflects the experience of fallen humanity101. Academic disciplines also reflect this pattern, the model for knowing entails the isolation of the subject. Each discipline has its own epistemological tools, but in addition to the variety of tools, an isolation among the disciplines has developed which expresses the loss of the conviction that truth is essentially one102. In this isolation, theology lost a dialogue with the world in which it could express the specific cosmological content of the christian understanding of the truth103. The liturgical and sacramental life of the Church continues to preserve communion as the basis for knowledge. These areas preserve the epistemological factors which are fundamental to Zizioulas’ theological approach. He turns to the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church to present the foundations for understanding the truth in the life of the Church. He is not simply building a liturgical theology. He is building his discourse within the epistemological constraints of both his ontological and eschatological perspectives. Because truth is found in communion, communion is fundamental to knowledge of the truth. This communion is realized in history in ecclesial life, in particular in the Eucharist, which becomes the fundamental source for knowledge of the truth. The eschatological truth is realized in history, therefore, the mind is not the ground of the truth. This integration of the historical character of the eschatological truth was the result of understanding Christ as the truth. The integration of history into the method for understanding happened only gradually. Justin, Clement, and Origen applied the Greek understanding of truth to the christian message of salvation104. Justin established a link between the created and uncreated world through Christ using the concept of the logos, but this manner of establishing a link was not able to show how divine being was truly free in its relation to creation nor how the life of Christ was a realization of the truth. Both Clement and

100. Truth and Communion, pp. 102-103. 101. Cf. Human Capacity, p. 405. 102. Cf. Truth and Communion, p. 119. The effect within orthodoxy on theological education was the development of faculties of theology that did not turn to other faculties for the resources which were not primarily theological in nature. An example is the study of languages, which serves the needs of theological studies but is not a discipline primarily of theology. 103. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Ecumenical Dimensions of Orthodox Theological Educa- tion, in Orthodox Theological Education for the Life and Witness of the Church, Geneva, W.C.C., 1978, pp. 37-38. Zizioulas is interested in dialogue between theology and other disciplines. This is expressed particularly in regard to the environment. 104. Cf. Truth and Communion, pp. 73-74. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 461

Origen “…identified spiritual perfection with the true revelation and knowledge which the Logos of God grants to the human soul”105. The in- terior life, typified by separation from the material world, would bring the person to illumination of the mind. Historical events were significant for what they revealed, a significance which was hidden in its historical as- pect but accessible through allegory. Knowledge is not tied to the historical event as a source of truth but only as a means to know a pre-existing truth106. The connection between created and uncreated is formed ratio- nally, not ontologically in historical events. The event is valued because it provides the access to know the truth, but without appreciating that the event has also realized the truth it reveals. The ontological presuppositions of Justin, Clement and Origen led to their epistemological approach to revelation, which actually undermined the ontological importance of the events which realized salvation. St Irenaeus developed an early christian approach to knowledge which responded to those approaches which diminished the importance of history and the material world. By stressing the goodness of creation because it is the direct result of the will of God, he responded to the rejection of the material world and the human body. The Eucharist was an antidote against death and the resurrection of the body was necessary to enjoy full communion with God. He also countered the understanding of logos which gave knowledge the key role in salvation. He did this by linking salvation to the incarnation and to the Church107. Zizioulas finds several points in Irenaeus’ response to gnostic influences within christianity that serve his epistemological presupposition that the mind is not the source of truth. The mind is kept from becoming the source of truth by the emphasis on life, within ecclesial communion. Zizioulas emphasized that Irenaeus kept the biblical approach alive but by the use of the term “biblical approach”, he does not mean maintaining the memory of fundamental events of the past. The biblical approach of Irenaeus is tied to life, to living the truth and especially living this truth in the eucharistic celebration. Zizioulas refers to the biblical approach as a remedy for a theological method too focused on ideas. When Zizioulas speaks of the biblical approach represented by Irenaeus, it is not in the sense of the continuing memory of history of events communicating the truth. It is rather, a real historical and human love lived within the Church. The identification of the biblical approach with historical love, rather than memory of historical events, keeps the biblical method from falling into the same primacy of epistemology over ontology like the logos approach of Justin, Clement and Origen.

105. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Early Christian Community, in B. MCGINN – J. MEYENDORFF – J. LECLERCQ (eds.), Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century (World Spiritual- ity, 16), London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985, p. 38. 106. Cf. Truth and Communion, p. 76. 107. Cf. The Early Christian, p. 37. 462 R.D. TURNER

Zizioulas recognizes the influence of a Greek understanding of truth in Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. In St Augustine and St Thomas, knowledge takes the primary role because knowledge precedes love. Truth identified with life was undermined in favor of truth identified with knowledge because the christian life of love required knowledge before one could love. According to St Augustine and St Thomas, without knowledge one cannot love108. First Greek ontology raised a question about christian salvation: how is the truth present within history? But now the question is raised by Greek epistemology. Zizioulas proposes the same resolution to this new question. Knowledge comes from life, from the ecclesial life of love. But the emphasis on ecclesial life for knowledge raises another point for clarification. Although knowledge comes from living the truth, living the truth is not to be taken in an ethical sense. The biblical correction of the logos approach was not understood as memory of the past, but rather, as a living, historical, ecclesial communion. But this emphasis on the living of the truth could be understood in terms of ethics, human strategies for doing the truth. Zizioulas clarifies the living the truth by speaking of the kenotic character of christian life. Knowledge is based on ecclesial communion, and the kenotic character of the life of Christ is the model. Living the truth is not simply actions which apply a body of knowledge. It is a movement of communion, marked by the limits of knowledge, whether due to human incapacity or the hiddenness of God’s plan. The truth of one’s action will be found only in the eschatological truth. Christian life is based in eschatological hope rather than the ability to know the contribution of one’s actions. Zizioulas’ focus on life is not ethics. Ecclesial life leading to knowledge cannot be properly understood separated from his ontological and eschatological presuppositions. Zizioulas’ final concern is that epistemological method must not become primary in theology. Theology must articulate the meaning of salvation. This challenge may be eclipsed by the requirements of the epistemological method. When epistemology becomes the primary concern in theology, attention to the eschatological truth realized in the historical communion of the Church is refocused on the requirements which the epistemological method dictates. This concern moves Zizioulas to go beyond an apophatic theology. His epistemological concerns have been interpreted as an apophatic approach but this is not exact109. Zizioulas goes beyond an apophatic theology by examining the interpersonal communion of the divine persons. The need to articulate the meaning of salvation in Jesus Christ obliges him to reason the meaning of the God revealed in the life of Jesus. When epistemology is the overriding concern of theology, the mystery itself and therefore, the salvation it offers, is no longer what necessitates the development of the discourse. This concern is also

108. Cf. Procès-verbaux (n. 87), p. 141. 109. Cf. DE HALLEUX, Personnalisme ou essentialisme (n. 1), p. 237ff. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 463 the reason for Zizioulas’ criticism of theologians committed to a theological discourse built on revelation alone. Here the problem is that the Trin- ity itself does not truly become fundamental in the theological method. Zizioulas revalues the revelation and turns to it, rather than concepts such as substance or nature, to renew an understanding of God in himself. By doing this he develops an understanding of person that is based in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. His use of the term person is not based primarily on modern philosophy or culture but rather draws on the implications of the revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Only revelation discloses God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But there is a double problem which results from developing a discourse on God limited only to revelation. Without the discourse on God apart from his acts in history, the freedom of God is not adequately established. Without developing a discourse on God in himself beyond the historical context of revelation, the personhood of God is not primary and therefore, is not the foundation of the discourse on God. Zizioulas does not limit the understanding of God to revelation; neither does he diminish revelation as the foundation of his theological discourse. Revelation is primary in his epistemological approach but its historical character is not its limit. Moving beyond a method limited to revelation is not a return to an ahistorical metaphysical approach to theology. By refocusing on what has been revealed in Christ, Zizioulas revisits the discourse on God’s existence in himself. He is able to renew the importance of the concept of person in light of revelation and to then explain salvation in terms of communion, divine and ecclesial in terms fully based on a renewed understanding of the content and the role of revelation in the theological discourse. The focus on revelation alone can have additional effects which do not serve Zizioulas’ concerns. When revelation or tradition are separated from ecclesial communion, truth is identified with objective historical authority. This means the loss of the eschatological and ontological character of the truth in history. When these two points are lost, there is an additional result; a diminished understanding of the Holy Spirit, “…Pneumatology is weakened whenever the approach to God is dominated primarily by the epistemological concern”110. When theology is primarily preoccupied with epistemological concerns rather than soteriological concerns, theological discourse is dominated by the information from history which is centered on Christ. The result is that the role of the Holy Spirit is diminished. It is Zizioulas’ desire to keep the epistemological focus from becoming primary which is the reason for the role of the liturgy as the basis for his theological understanding of God and Church. “The safest theology is

110. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Teaching of the 2nd Ecumenical Council on the Holy Spirit in Historical and Ecumenical Perspective, in Credo in Spiritum Sanctum (Teologia e filosofia, 6), Rome, Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 1983, Vol. I, p. 52. Zizioulas criticizes Rahner and Barth on their focus on revelation alone. For Zizioulas, this is inadequate because it does not address the importance of the discourse on God in himself. The revelation of God in Jesus calls for a renewed understanding of God apart from his acts in history. 464 R.D. TURNER that which draws not only from the Economy, but also, and perhaps mainly, from the vision of God as He appears in worship”111. This is seen in the debate about the divinity of the Holy Spirit112. The liturgy has a fundamental contribution to his theological method because it is the event which within history can express his concerns about epistemology, ontology and eschatology. It is good to recall that the Eucharist is inseparable from the whole of the life of the particular Church. Zizioulas does not isolate the Eucharist as the sole foundation for the realization of the Church. His approach to the liturgy reveals Zizioulas’ strategy for how to avoid having epistemological concerns eclipse the importance of ontological and historical communion. In the liturgy the truth is realized and therefore in the liturgy the truth is known. Knowledge is not isolated from the event in which the eschatological truth is realized. In the liturgy, knowledge is not reduced to an operation of human reason, the event engages the operation of reason. The mind is not the ground for the truth, the event is the ground for the truth which the mind grasps. This knowledge in the liturgy is not simply memory of a historical event but the recognition of an eschatological event in which the Holy Spirit implicates the community gathered113. The integration of the liturgy for knowledge of the truth keeps the discourse which describes the truth from taking the place of the eschatological truth realized in ecclesial life. It keeps epistemology from eclipsing theology. An example given of the reduction of the eucharistic liturgy to epistemological concerns is the identification of the Church with the congregation celebrating the Eucharist. No longer are the ontological presuppositions of salvation at the heart of the understanding of the Eucharist. Changes in the liturgy can also demonstrate a lack of recognition of the ontological presuppositions of the Liturgy114. Zizioulas does not offer a way to re- solve the question of the distortion of the liturgy and its effect on the communion the liturgy realizes. He recognizes the situation but without any criteria to determine what degree of distortion would mean that the liturgy has lost its eschatological and ontological character. He does not enter into a discussion of the liturgy in this way.

IV. CONCLUSION

The three foundations of Zizioulas’ theological approach provide a framework which makes his ecclesiology standout from the multiple in- terpretations of ecclesial communion. The understanding of the Church as

111. Teaching of the 2nd, p. 40. 112. Cf. Teaching of the 2nd, pp. 41-42. 113. Cf. Implications ecclésiologiques (n. 57), p. 152, note 29. 114. Cf. J. ZIZIOULAS, The Eucharist and the Kingdom of God (Part I), in Sourozh 58 (1995), pp. 7-8. J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 465 a communion, without determination of clearer theological foundations, can quickly arrive at saying very little115, and accounts for fundamentally different ecclesiologies even when they share a consensus on significant points116. Zizioulas’ three theological foundations are so interwoven in his approach to Church that, without accepting these foundations, one cannot authentically appropriate points which are found in his ecclesiology. Zizioulas’ theological foundations and his ecclesiology reflect the development of a neo-patristic theological approach in Greece since the 1930’s. Zizioulas’ work represents a commitment to elaborating the origi- nal theological contribution of Orthodoxy, especially in its application to ecclesiology. Zizioulas’ ontological foundation offers four important contributions: a) it renews the theological importance of Trinity and creation for the understanding of salvation; b) renews christology in terms of the ontological significance of historical events in the life of Christ and the role of the Holy Spirit, avoiding limiting christology to simply ethical significance or reducing the Holy Spirit to an adjunct role in the understanding of christology; c) he situates the understanding of Church in terms of the renewed understanding of Trinity, creation, and Christology conditioned by pneumatology; and d) the ontological foundation becomes the catalyst for integrating different dogmas by their contribution to the understanding of salvation in terms of communion, divine and ecclesial. The second foundation of Zizioulas’ theological approach, the realization of the eschatological truth in history, makes four contributions: a) it gives human history real meaning for salvation; b) it relates the historical character of the Church to christology; c) it clarifies the relationship between christology and pneumatology; and d) the eschatological truth is not historicized so that the autonomy of creation and the human person are clearly established. Zizioulas’ distinction between the actualization of the truth and the realization of the truth expresses an authentic integration of human history. This is elaborated in terms of the realization of the eschatological truth in the historical events in the life of Christ. Christ’s historical life realizes the eschatological truth in creation. Just as Christ is the key for valuing human history, Christ is also the key for maintaining the distinction between creation and its creator. The truth realized in Christ is not caused by the historical character of the events but by the eschatological character of the historical events. Recourse to eschatology in ecclesiology is not a strategy to avoid the ambiguity of historical facts but rather reaffirms the christological character of the Church and clarifies the action of the Holy Spirit to realize the eschatological Christ in

115. Cf. N. HEALY, Communion Ecclesiology: A Cautionary Note, in Pro Ecclesia 4 (1995), pp. 49-450. 116. Cf. D. DOYLE, Möhler, Schleiermacher and the Roots of Communion Ecclesio- logy, in TS 51 (1992), pp. 467-480; P.C. BORI, KOINWNIA. L’idea della comunione nell’ecclesiologia recente e nel Nuovo Testamento, Brescia, Paideia, 1972, pp. 1-131. 466 R.D. TURNER history. The importance of the realization of the eschatological truth in history conditions the ontological character of ecclesial life as a communion in relation to both the role of the liturgy and the role of the Holy Spirit. Ecclesial communion has a historical character and an ontological character which are primarily seen and realized in the liturgy. The liturgy is not an event which takes the faithful out of history but rather brings into history the eschatological truth of Christ by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s action in history is not an action parallel to Christ. It does not eclipse the uniquely christological character of ecclesial life. The gifts of the Holy Spirit realize the ministry of Christ in human history as an eschatological reality. Zizioulas’ historical foundation conditions his ontological foundation in an essential way. The movement of the person out of self, the ecstatic character of personhood, realized both in a movement toward God or toward the material world alone, does not lead to a mystification of the relation of the Church to the world nor an elimination of an authentic autonomy for creation and the human person. The truth is realized in history as an eschatological reality which cannot be identified with history itself. Zizioulas focuses on the ontological character of communion and presents the movement toward communion as integral to human life; it is not limited to a religious context. But this ontological character never destroys the historical character of creation and therefore, never destroys the autonomy of creation or human action. Zizioulas approaches history both in terms of asserting its real contribution, i.e., the realization of the eschatological truth in history, and the autonomy of creation and human action, i.e., the recognition that the truth in not identified with the historical actions of the person. His ontological foundation presents the movement toward communion as basic to human life and human identity but his historical foundation assures that in communion, divine reality does not eclipse created reality. His historical foundation assures that the realization of the eschatological truth in ecclesial communion does not mean an identification of the historical life of the Church with the truth. Zizioulas does not propose a communion which is tantamount to a fusion. The truth which this communion realizes in history does not become identical to history. Ecclesial communion does not eliminate the autonomy of the person and the world. Zizioulas does not provide an understanding of the contribution of human action apart from communion with God or more specifically ecclesial communion. But even in this context, human action is not identified with the truth. Zizioulas’ epistemological concerns result in the importance of the ecclesial event in the way he articulates his theological approach, in particular, the eucharistic assembly as event. The Eucharist becomes the most fruitful event in history for elaborating an ecclesiology. But Ziziou- las does not reduce ecclesial communion to the Eucharist. The object of theology remains the mystery of salvation and not to assure the theologi- J. ZIZIOULAS' APPROACH TO ECCLESIAL COMMUNION 467 cal system itself. Zizioulas goes beyond a truly apophatic approach because he rejects the primacy of epistemology in theology. Zizioulas is able to go beyond a traditional apophatic approach to the Trinity, and to speak about the personal communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit because of the vision of the truth in the life of the historical Christ. The mystery of salvation is revealed in the person of Christ as a communion of divine persons. The limits of the discourse on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, cannot keep the importance of this reality revealed in Christ from informing theology. Not to speak about this revelation, which is fundamental to salvation, because of the limits of epistemology, would be to make epistemological concerns primary in theology. The mind is not the ground of truth, the realization of the eschatological truth in history is the ground of truth, but the truth which has been revealed takes precedence even over the constraints on human reason’s penetration of the mystery. Salvation demands recognition of the truth in history, even if this recognition meets real limits both in terms of articulating the recognition and in terms of understanding the truth fully. But these limits, rather than fatal obstacles, may also be viewed as iconological. Christ himself is the model of this approach to the truth. The vision of ecclesial communion according to John Zizioulas offers an important contribution to ecclesiology and the study of dogma. He has not completed his synthesis, but he offers a remarkable contribution awaiting further developments.

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