Pontus Poysti Bachelor Thesis, 15 credits. Eastern Christian Studies Stockholm School of , Spring term 2020 Supervisor: Michael Hjälm Examiner: Cyril Hovorun

Theory and praxis John Zizioulas and Andrew Louth compared Abstract This thesis is a critical study of John Zizioulas’ use of the inner Trinitarian relations as a model and ontological foundation for ecclesial praxis. It compares Zizioulas to Andrew Louth, who, based on his understanding of the Incarnation as recapitulating creation, begins in the . The purpose is to explicate how the two approaches could affect the role of theology in the realization of praxis. Zizioulas is criticized in his attempt to create a holistic structure, as it implies that his reading of the fathers and his understanding of praxis must be congruous with his Trinitarian logic. Louth, on the other hand, differentiates between and creation, which enables him to describe how we can transcend ourselves by relating to God, without the risk of confusing revelation or our experience of Him with His essence, which is beyond words. The ontological difference between God and creation means, in Louth’s implicit criticism of Zizioulas, that the task of the theologian is to enable communication about what the shared experience of God could mean in a particular time and place – to which there could be a diversity of ideas – not to dictate principles from an idea of totality, or a realm that transcends existence as we know it. It also implies that encountering God in and through creation, enables communication with the world and other fields of study.

Keywords: John Zizioulas, Andrew Louth, , social trinitarianism, ontology, apophatic and kataphatic theology, theory and practice.

Table of contents Part one: Introduction ...... 4 1.1. Background ...... 4 1.2. Purpose and problem statement ...... 5 1.3. Method ...... 5 1.3.1. Comparative method ...... 5 1.3.2. Limitations ...... 5 1.4. Literature ...... 6 1.4.1. John Zizioulas ...... 6 1.4.2. Andrew Louth ...... 8 1.5. Questions ...... 9 Part two: Theory ...... 9 2.1. John Zizioulas...... 9 2.1.1. The Patristic synthesis: Ontological personhood ...... 10 2.1.2. Creator and creation: The ontological difference ...... 15 2.1.3. Theology as the truth of existence ...... 23 2.2. Andrew Louth ...... 29 2.2.1. Patristic reflections on mediation between God and creation...... 30 2.2.2. The ontological difference ...... 35 2.2.4. Theology: Man’s response to the experience of God ...... 39 Part three: Analysis and discussion ...... 43 3.1. Comparative analysis ...... 44 3.1.1. The Patristic witness ...... 44 3.1.2. The relationship between God and creation: Adoption or relation? ...... 45 3.1.3. The and the world ...... 47 3.2. Discussion and conclusion ...... 51 3.2.1. Zizioulas: The lack of differentiation and the totalitarian harmony ...... 51 3.2.2. Andrew Louth: Solutions and unexplored possibilities ...... 53 3.2.3 Final conclusion and suggestions for further research ...... 55 Sources...... 57

Part one: Introduction

1.1. Background Metropolitan John Zizioulas has attempted to make human personhood a matter of ontology, by using the inner Trinitarian relationships as normative for and anthropology. As an important figure representing Orthodox theology in ecumenical settings, he has argued that we must be willing to debate the “…cultural consequences of doctrine.”1 He uses the term ethos to describe how a Christian mode of being, modelled after the , transcends ethics or any notion of truth as external to human beings. One of his critics, Andrew Louth – an important representative of Orthodox theology in the English-speaking world – similarly suggests that dogmatics and spirituality are integrally united in the life of the Church. In contrast to Zizioulas, however, Louth's anthropology and ecclesiology begin at the crossroads between the created and the divine, where the Church recapitulates creation and transcends it through union with God.

This thesis will investigate the problems of Zizioulas’ method in the realization of praxis in actual communities, and compare it to Louth’s implicit attempt to create an alternative. It was motivated by the realization that in my parish, we experience difficulties knowing how to effectuate our explicit ideal to celebrate the ‘ after the Liturgy’ as a community; to provide love and regard for those in need. I especially remember my wife and I having coffee with a newcomer to our Liturgy, let us call him Issa. He told us he was homeless, and asked how long we could keep the Church open, for him to stay warm from the winter cold. Unfortunately, we soon had to close up, and he went to a protestant Church a few blocks down, where he knew he would be provided shelter.

Issa celebrated the Eucharist with our community, but the Liturgy after the Liturgy was celebrated elsewhere. This left me with unanswered questions: could our theology impact how we as a community respond to his request and presence here and now, and if so, how?

This thesis is dedicated to Issa.

1 See for example John Zizioulas, “ and Order Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” Ecumenical Permanent Delegation to the World Council of Churches, October 20, 2017, https://www.ecupatria.org/articles/748-2/.

4

1.2. Purpose and problem statement This thesis will address problems arising from Zizioulas’ method of using the inner Trinitarian relations as a model for the realization of praxis in the economy. The purpose is to compare Zizioulas to Andrew Louth who – based on his understanding of the Incarnation as Christ recapitulating creation – begins in the economy, to see if and how the two could be useful in the realization of praxis in actual communities.

1.3. Method

1.3.1. Comparative method

The method is comparative and will be based on a literature study of Zizioulas and Louth. The thesis will begin by presenting a background of Zizioulas: 1. his use of patristic writers to describe his understanding of personhood, and 2. his understanding of the difference between God and creation, and 3. how these points affect his understanding of ecclesiology and praxis. Criticism by a selection of theologians (Cf. 1.4. Literature) will be presented as part of each larger section about Zizioulas to highlight problems relevant to the research questions. The chapter about Zizioulas is followed by a presentation of Louth: 1. his reading of the fathers used by Zizioulas – with a particular focus on St. Maximus the Confessor – and their understanding of God’s acting in the economy, 2. the difference between God and creation in his reading of these fathers, and 3. how these points affect his understanding of anthropology, ecclesiology and praxis. The sections about Louth will not include criticism of his conclusions; rather, the aim is to highlight the consequences of taking the criticism posed against Zizioulas seriously (Cf. 1.3.2. Limitations). The final chapter will compare Louth’s and Zizioulas’ methods and make a conclusive remark on the consequences of using them in the realization of praxis in actual ecclesial communities.

1.3.2. Limitations

Zizioulas works with historical material to develop his ideas as a systematic theologian; he is trying to create a unified theory and present it to the contemporary world. Louth, on the other hand, allows for ambiguity and contradiction in his use of historical material. His ambition is to describe what is possible, not to create a unified theory or make conclusive statements, which sometimes makes it difficult to discern what he considers normative and not. This also makes him hard to criticize; his ideas rarely stand or fall with one particular item of study. Even if Louth and

5

Zizioulas often rely on the same authorities, what is compared in this thesis are “observations of observations”. Their different interpretations of particular patristic writers serve as examples of two different approaches; the focus of this thesis is not to compare details on particular items of study, but to compare two ways of approaching theology.

1.4. Literature

1.4.1. John Zizioulas

1.4.1.1. Primary sources

Three collections of articles serve as primary sources to understand Zizioulas’ thinking. The first, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church was first published in 1985 and presents a summary of Zizioulas’ theology.2 The second, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church was published in 2007 and includes old material together with responses to criticism posed against it, as well as new material reflecting on the idea of otherness as an ontological category.3 The third collection, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, published in 2009, is here used to understand Zizioulas’ account of Christian doctrine and its relationship to freedom.4

1.4.1.2. Considerations

It is difficult to present a complete overview of Zizioulas’ work. Firstly, because a large portion of it remains scattered throughout journals and lectures, published throughout an approximately 50-year time span. Secondly, because much of it is addressed to an audience unfamiliar with Orthodox approaches, resulting in Zizioulas quite often repeating himself, and sometimes trying to offer clarifications after being the target of criticism.5 In addition to the primary sources, other articles and materials, most available online and published in dialogue with a broader audience,

2 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2004). 3 Jean Zizioulas and Paul McPartlan, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, Reprinted (London: T & T Clark, 2009). 4 Jean Zizioulas and Douglas H. Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics (London ; New York: T & T Clark, 2008). 5 Cf. Andrew Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the to the Present (London: SPCK, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2015)., p. 217.

6

have been included to illustrate how Zizioulas addresses contemporary issues in a more concrete way. The problem of using such material is that it rarely includes developed reflections on how his conclusions relate to his .6

1.4.1.3. Criticism of Zizioulas

A selection of critics have been included based on their relevance for understanding the problems of Zizioulas’ ideas in themselves, with a particular focus on their anthropological and ecclesiological consequences. Criticism of Zizioulas’ historical method and use of patristic sources are included on the same basis.

The first critic, Nicholas Loudovikos, is a psychologist and patristic scholar who studied Maximus the Confessor under the supervision of Zizioulas. His article Person Instead of Grace and Dictated Otherness: John Zizioulas’ Final Theological Position is used to highlight the philosophical and anthropological consequences of Zizioulas’ ideas and use of patristic material.7 The second critic, , is a Protestant scholar. His classical work After Our Likeness: The Church as an Image of the Triune God is primarily used to point out some of the difficulties and logical inconsistencies in Zizioulas’ ideas, independently of how they relate to the Orthodox tradition and patristic material.8 Michael Hjälm’s doctoral dissertation entitled Liberation of the Ecclesia: The Unfinished Project of Liturgical Theology is used to show how Zizioulas’ point of departure risks making the created condition irrelevant, and is irreconcilable with a Palamite description of the human condition being transformed by synergetic relatedness to God.9 Finally, criticism by Louth, scattered throughout many sources, is used to highlight the differences between the two, and especially how Zizioulas’ method risks demoting or making knowledge about the human condition subject to Trinitarian doctrine.

6 Cf. Ibid., 217 ff. 7 Nicholas Loudovikos, “Person Instead of Grace and Dictated Otherness: John Zizioulas’ Final Theological Position,” The Heythrop Journal 52, no. 4 (July 2011): 684–99, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468- 2265.2009.00547.x. 8 Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity, Sacra Doctrina (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans, 1998). 9 Michael Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia: The Unfinished Project of Liturgical Theology” (Södertälje, Anastasis media, 2011).

7

1.4.2. Andrew Louth

1.4.2.1. Primary sources Louth’s Introducing Eastern Orthodox theology, published in 2013, is written as an introduction to the Orthodox faith and used as a point of reference for understanding his approach to theology as beginning in the human condition.10 Discerning the mystery: an essay on the nature of theology, published in 1983, is used to describe Louth’s notion of tradition and the role of the tacit dimension of knowledge, and how theology may learn from other fields of study.11 The origins of the Christian mystical tradition: from Plato to Denys, first published in 1981, is used to describe how the tacit [mystical] dimension was understood by the as enabling a human response to God’s movement towards creation, and how they developed a technical vocabulary in order not to confuse knowledge of God with God Himself.12 St. John Damascene: tradition and originality in Byzantine theology, published in 2002, and Maximus the Confessor, published in 1996, are used to describe how St. John and St. Maximus, in Louth’s interpretation, began in the human condition and how they developed slightly different technical language to describe the same reality; Man as growing in God’s likeness, acting as the bond of the visible-invisible and the created-uncreated.13 Two articles, Ignatios or Eusebios: two models of patristic ecclesiology, published in 2010, and The Ecclesiology of Saint Maximos the Confessor, published in 2004, have been used as primary sources to describe how Louth uses historical sources to reflect on ecclesiology.14

1.4.2.2. Considerations

Akin to Zizioulas, much of Louth’s work is found in different articles and journals published throughout several decades. Articles and books, included in the footnotes of Introducing Eastern

10 Andrew Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 2013). 11 Andrew Louth, Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology (Oxford: New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, 1983). 12 Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys, 2nd ed (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 13 Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, The Early Church Fathers (London ; New York: Routledge, 1996).; Andrew Louth, St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford [] ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 14 Andrew Louth, “The Ecclesiology of Saint Maximos the Confessor,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 4, no. 2 (July 2004): 109–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/1474225042000288920.; Andrew Louth, “Ignatios or Eusebios: Two Models of Patristic Ecclesiology,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 10, no. 1 (February 2010): 46–56, https://doi.org/10.1080/14742251003643833.

8

Orthodox theology, are used as secondary sources to gain a deeper understanding of Louth’s take on his point of departure, anthropology and understanding of revelation. Other sources are included when considered relevant for comparing him with Zizioulas, but this thesis is still unable to provide a comprehensive overview of Louth’s works.

1.5. Questions

This thesis will attempt to answer the following questions:

1. How does Zizioulas use the early patristic writers to describe the relationship between theology, anthropology and ecclesiology, and what are the problems involved? 2. What are the differences between Zizioulas and Louth in how they describe the difference between God and creation? 3. What are the differences between Zizioulas and Louth in how they describe the relationship between theology, anthropology and ecclesiology, and how are these differences affected by their use of the fathers and their respective understandings of the difference between God and creation? 4. In what ways could Zizioulas and Louth be useful in the realization of praxis in contemporary ecclesial communities, and how is this affected by the previous questions?

Part two: Theory

2.1. John Zizioulas Zizioulas explains his notion of praxis using the term ethos, which refers to customs, or patterns of thinking and acting, in real communities, as opposed to ethics, which are based on abstract principles or a system of thought. The ethos flows freely from within the members of a community, not individually, but personally, which also makes it a foundation for unity inherent in the very being of those who share it. In order to understand its significance in Zizioulas’ thinking, however, one must first investigate how it relates to the ontology of the person. What does it mean for Man

9

to be created in the image of God? How does the ethos relate to the Fall, Christ's Incarnation and the Church?

2.1.1. The Patristic synthesis: Ontological personhood

For Zizioulas, what primarily constitutes a person is not nature, but the ability to transcend nature. The notion of identifying freedom as the capacity to transcend nature and ethics, is affiliated with philosophical personalism and existentialism.15 For Zizioulas, however, this idea is integral to the ecclesial understanding of communion, koinonia [κοινωνία], and his understanding of the created-uncreated condition.16 In the words of Zizioulas:

The doctrine of God is of fundamental importance if we are to understand who we are. Human beings are called to become persons in the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity, for this is what theosis is. Created nature will never turn into divine nature, but man can become a person in the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity. Here we can see the decisive contribution that Patristic theology can make to the world. It can replace the psychological conception of person and teach us the meaning of the person from the doctrine of the Trinity.17

Zizioulas does not identify with existentialism because, to borrow Loudovikos' epigrammatic conclusion, existentialism is a “. . . projection of human existence on the divine, while [Zizioulas] wants to do the opposite.”18 For Zizioulas, it was the development of the doctrine of the Trinity that offered an ontological foundation for personhood. He describes this foundation by contrasting it to contemporary humanism, Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology.

2.1.1.2 Personhood in Humanism, Hellenism and Judaism According to Zizioulas, contemporary humanism pays significant attention to personal freedom, yet seems “[...]unable to recognize that historically as well as existentially the concept of the person is indissolubly bound up with theology.”19 After the Enlightenment, Humanism separated personal freedom from Christian dogmatics.20 The separation, continues Zizioulas, made humanism unable to address the questions of ontology of being and its relationship to death and

15 Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 130; Chrēstos Giannaras, The Freedom of Morality, Contemporary Greek Theologians, no. 3 (Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984)., p. 10 16 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 15 ff. 17 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 69 18 Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 694. Cf. for example Zizioulas, Being as Communion., pp. 100-112/235-236, n. 41. 19 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 27 20 John Zizioulas, “The Task of Orthodox Theology in Today’s Europe,” International Journal of Orthodox Theology 6, no. 3 (2015): 9., pp. 14-15. Cf. Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 18/64

10

createdness, making humanism dependent on ethics to defend human integrity and freedom.21 This reduces the person to an individual who conforms to ethical principles, based on religious and ideological authorities, social conventions or logically constructed theoretical systems.22 Indifference to personal existence means, for Zizioulas, a decisive step towards thinghood: a person searching for security in ethical systems is therefore in greater danger of faithlessness than a person without any security at all.23

The artist is, according to Zizioulas, closer to the truth of personhood than a person of ethics. Creativity is a form of resistance against the objectification inherent in this world. The artist usually depicts the world, not as it is, but in a way that transcends it. The art also carries something of the artist within itself; yet it is materially and psychologically detached from its creator, giving the artist a presence through absence, by refusing to be circumscribed by a final interpretation.24 It is, argues Zizioulas, an example of genuine personhood, transcending what is comprehensive, yet “demonic”, since it is a transcendence “. . . tending towards the negation of the given world.”25

Zizioulas suggests that ancient Greek philosophy struggled with problems similar to that of Humanism, due to what he calls ontological monism: a world of ideas, where truth of being was understood as the mind perceiving the intelligible beauty and harmony of the Cosmos.26 He continues that Platonism, in particular, related everything concrete to an abstract idea.27 Aristotelianism, despite its emphasis on the concrete, likewise demoted the person by viewing individuality as a temporal expression of nature, bound to die with the body; humanity was only “immortal” through procreation.28 In Zizioulas’ analysis, Platonism and Aristotelianism did not, as such, think of personhood in ontological terms, but as something added to nature. For Plato, not even the Creator was free, as he created the world out of pre-existent matter according to eternal ideas.29 It was primarily in the theatre, and the tragedy in particular, that the

21 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 46 ff.; John Zizioulas, “Ontology and Ethics,” Sabornost, no. 6 (2012): 1–14, https://doi.org/10.5937/sabornost6-3109., pp. 5-7 22 Giannaras, The Freedom of Morality., p. 22 ff.; Zizioulas, “Ontology and Ethics.”, pp. 5-7 23 J. D. Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood,” Scottish Journal of Theology 28, no. 5 (October 1975): 401–47, https://doi.org/10.1017/S003693060003533X., pp.421-22 24 Ibid., pp. 421-22 25 Ibid., p. 431 26 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 67 f. 27 Ibid., p. 29 ff. 28 Ibid., p. 67 f. 29 Ibid., p. 42 f.; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 85 ff.

11

experienced a process similar to the artist, discussed above. The actors rebelled against the and the natural order, tasting the freedom that the natural world denied them. They always found themselves defeated by destiny, however, and the moral of the story was that humans ought to adapt to the absolute good.30 Zizioulas argues that this signified, despite its moral implications, the Hellenistic existential search for meaning beyond the ephemerality of temporal life, in a world they assumed to be eternal.31

Zizioulas claims that if Hellenism thought of truth and goodness as prefiguring both Creator and creation, Hebrew theology identified truth as something that “. . . makes itself known historically as God’s faithfulness towards His people.”32 Zizioulas claims that unlike Nicene , however, Hebrew theology lacked ontology. Truth was revealed in part, through God’s will and commandments, yet remained separated from Man by interruption of time and space by death. This means, to summarize Zizioulas’ points, that both Hellenism and Judaism considered truth to be revealed, in part, in creation. Goodness was studied as external to the human person, yet contemplated and obeyed.33

2.1.1.3. The Trinitarian solution Zizioulas claims that the Nicene fathers were deeply steeped in both the Hebrew Scriptures and Greek philosophy, which made them amalgamate the Hebrew notion of truth as personal, and the Greek notion of truth as eternal.34 Faith in Christ also prompted reflection on the unity of God and God’s relationship to creation, in a way that was congruent with the Scriptures and Eucharistic experience. Zizioulas claims that it is from the patristic response to this challenge that the idea of personhood as an ontological category was born.35 In order to expostulate Tritheism, Sabellianism and Arianism, the Nicene fathers redefined the term hypostasis [ὑπόστασις] and distinguished it from [οὐσία].36 According to Zizioulas, both hypostasis and ousia traditionally referred to essence or substance/nature; now hypostasis referred to a complete and personal being:

30 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., pp. 31-33 31 Zizioulas, “Ontology and Ethics.”, p. 3 f.; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 91 ff. 32 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 68 33 Ibid., pp. 67-78 34 Ibid., p. 67 ff. 35 Ibid., p. 69 ff.; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., pp. 47-68 36 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 39 ff./86 ff.

12

The term ‘hypostasis’, which had referred to what was most fundamental and unchanging, was now a synonym for person, which consequently was understood as an ‘ontological’ category. Person no longer denoted just a relationship that an entity could take on or the role that an actor would play.37

Zizioulas’ idea is that unlike Greek philosophy, the Nicene fathers did not consider nature or essence as preceding person. There was no ‘nature-as-such’; nature or essence did not cause a person, nor was it caused by a person, because they referred to the same thing.38 They identified God as three Persons with a unique mode, tropos [τρόπος], of being. One is always unique, yet the divine Persons inhere the fullness of each other in a kind of interpenetration, [περιχώρησις].39 A person is not unique because of division or separation, but because of loving relationships, in which one embraces the other’s peculiarities, idion [ῐδ ̓́ ῐον] and discovers the self in the other.40 Love is, continues Zizioulas, the supreme ontological predicate for a person: “Love as a mode of existence ‘hypostasizes’ God, constitutes its being.”41 Since the Other is constitutive of the self, personhood and otherness are incompatible with division.42

According to Zizioulas, the eternal relationships within the Trinity are primary, because God is love. He continues that love presumes freedom and relationship, and it was in order to safeguard the freedom and unity of the Trinity that the Cappadocians described the Father as the cause, aitia [αιτία], and principle, arché [ἀρχή], of God.43 What the Father gave the Son was, in Zizioulas’ understanding, ontological Otherness, not nature-as-such.44 One always constitutes the many, and Zizioulas claims that “[w]hen we say that ‘God is love,’ we refer to the Father, that is, to that person which hypostasizes God . . . “45 The Son does not emanate from the Father, He is begotten, meaning that He is truly Other, with His own peculiarities and properties. The Trinity exists as a reciprocal movement of ekstasis [ἔκστασις] of the Three persons towards each Other; not

37 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., pp. 51-52 38 Ibid., p. 52 39 Ibid., p. 63 40 Ibid., p. 54 ff. 41 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 46 42 Ibid., p. 106 f. 43 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 44 ff.; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., pp. 47-82 44 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 83 ff.; Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p.128 f. 45 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 56, n. 40

13

transitory, but eternally, meaning that, in Zizioulas thinking, God’s being is communion in Otherness.46

For Zizioulas, this also means that equating the immanent Trinity with the Trinity of the economy would locate and restrict the identities of the divine Persons to the level of properties, at the expense of freedom, making them bound to relate to creation in a certain way. The how of the immanent Trinity refers, according to Zizioulas, to their eternal relationships, as revealed by the liturgical texts.47 The essence-energies distinction thus means, for Zizioulas, that God, in His very being, is involved in history, but that the divine activities must be understood ad extra and not as God-in-Himself. In Zizioulas’ system of thought, any encounter with God in the economy is an encounter with all three Persons, and not the basis for ontology.48

It could, in summary, be said that for Zizioulas, the three persons of the Trinity constitute each other: The Father being cause, and the Son and the Holy Spirit conditioning the Father’s eternal, ecstatic love. Nature is thus secondary to communion, and communion is in some sense secondary to the freedom of the Father, yet the Father is only Father in communion with the Son and the Holy Spirit.49

2.1.1.4. Criticism

Zizioulas’ attempt to correct and improve Western personalism with Trinitarian theology is not without both supporters and critics.50 In a foreword to Zizioulas’ Being as Communion, John Meyendorff praised Zizioulas’ attempt to create a bridge between theology, ecclesiology and anthropology, since they are “. . . simply meaningless if approached separately.”51 Critics such as Louth, Loudovikos and Volf have suggested, however, that Zizioulas may have been selective in his reading of the fathers, to make them compatible with his anthropology and ecclesiology.52 According to Volf and Loudovikos, Zizioulas’ theology sideplays the role of nature, which creates

46 Ibid., p. 89 ff; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 52 ff. 47 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 69 ff.; Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., pp. 182-204. 48 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 201 ff.; Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 111, n. 112. 49 Cf. Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 46. See especially Ibid. n. 41. 50 For an excellent summary, see Hovorun, Meta-Ecclesiology., pp. 129-137/197-198, n. 86, 88, 90, 91, 94. 51 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 11. 52 See for example Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers., p. 216 ff.; Louth, St. John Damascene., p. 50 ff.; Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”; Volf, After Our Likeness., p. 79 f.

14

problems as to how to explicate the difference between causing and conditioning, in a way that gives priority to the Father while maintaining perfect reciprocity, unity and freedom within the Trinity.53 For the Cappadocians, argues Loudovikos, the Monarchy was not only based on the presupposition of the Father causing the Spirit and the Son, but also equality of nature and a convergence of the two. Convergence and a common nature are also, he continues, what distinguish God from the rest of creation.54 These points are, as we shall see, important as Zizioulas fails to make a clear differentiation between God and creation, and thus vulnerable to the problems of describing the human condition with categories used to approach the inner life of God, such as the perfect coinherence of the three persons of the Trinity.

2.1.2. Creator and creation: The ontological difference

2.1.2.1. Creation and the Fall According to Zizioulas, the world owes its existence to the choice of God, who created out of nothing, ex nihilo. Creation did not emanate from God’s nature; God does not act out of necessity.55 First there was God, and then creation, and between them an abyss of nothingness, which means that creation would inevitably relapse into nothingness if it was separated from God.56 Being created ex nihilo is, however, what makes creation other, and a precondition for freedom; freedom without otherness would mean emanation, i.e. nothing in itself at all.57 Therefore, according to Zizioulas, Adam being created in the image of God does not imply that he at one point subsisted of divine nature or shared His properties: omniscience, pre-existence, immortality etc. Trinitarian theology situates the question of truth within the domain of personhood, and it is also as such that the truth of creation should be understood.58 Some of Zizioulas’ critics point out, however, that no created being ever caused its own existence, which

53 Volf, After Our Likeness., p. 79 f.; Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 691. 54 Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 691 55 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 69 ff. 56 Ibid., p. 88 ff.; John Zizioulas, “Proprietors of Priests of Creation?,” in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought (Fordham University Press, 2013), 163–74., p. 167 f. 57 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 18 ff. 58 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., pp. 89-93

15

means that creation is conditioned by nature. For God, personhood has priority over nature, but the same is not true for creation.59

Zizioulas finds a resolution in Man’s vocation to participate in Personhood. Existence out of nothing means that we exist out of choice, and we are invited to partake in that choice. Adam received his ontological otherness when God gave him his name. This otherness is imperative for being, since otherness is imperative for love.60 According to Zizioulas, Adam’s first identity was that of his relationship to the Father, in a way similar to how the Son is the Son because of His relationship to the Father, and the Spirit being the Father’s Spirit by proceeding from the Father. Adam, as the representative of Man, needed to make his relational existence primary through participation in the life of the Trinity. Zizioulas identifies three aspects that supported Man in this vocation:61 Firstly, Man was created as a logikon zoon, as a rational being. It meant, in addition to its modern connotations, the ability to collect what is diversified and bring it into harmony.62 Secondly, Man was created autexousion, meaning that Man was granted some ability to acquire a universal grasp of reality and a certain extent of freedom from the laws of nature.63 Thirdly, Man was ‘Prince of the creation’, or a ‘microcosm of creation’. The title refers to God’s original intention for Adam and Eve; to let them fulfill their desire to unite, by transcending nature and becoming God’s Priest of creation.64 As a Priest, the human person was to inaugurate the salvation of the world by being the mediator between God and creation through participation in the life of the Trinity through a unique and ecstatic relation to both the Father and the created world.65 Zizioulas explains that for Maximus, communion with God was never static, but a movement in which Man was invited to participate, metokhḗ [μετοχη], in what God is ontologically: communion, koinonia [κοινωνία].66

The Trinitarian imprint on Man is, according to Zizioulas, a movement of growth towards communion. The human hypostasis escapes individuality by forgetting him- or herself, apatheia [ἀπάθεια], and discovers the self in the other. The Fall was not a creation of something new, but the turning

59 See Hjälm’s summary of Cumin in Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 131 ff. Cf. Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 49 ff. 60 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 40 ff. 61 John Zizioulas, “Proprietors of Priests of Creation?”, p. 166 ff. 62 Ibid., p. 166 63 Ibid., p. 166 64 Ibid., p. 167; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, p. 89 ff. 65 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., pp. 83-119 66 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., pp. 105-107

16

away from communion.67 Zizioulas explains that it was the abruption of the imitation of God’s relational mode of being, “. . . the refusal to make being dependent on communion.”68 The human person turned towards nature as its existential reference point, followed by a new mode of being, tropos [τρόπος], called biological existence. It means, argues Zizioulas, that Man started living according to nature, kata physin [κατα φυσιν]; what rather than who as a relational being.69 Man is, as a consequence, inclined to let truth of being take priority over truth of person by habitually obtaining knowledge of the self and the others and contrasting differences before loving.70 This movement towards separation is manifested in Man’s bodily existence. In the words of Zizioulas:

Between A and B is space and time, and it is this that gives A and B their individuality and particularity. Space and time both connect them and separate them: the space between us both makes us separate beings and it divides us and makes us subject to dissolution. A and B are composites, made up of smaller elements, so when their dissolution reaches a certain point there is no more connection or communication between them. One form of separation is when A and B lose touch with each other and their relationship ends. The other is when the whole person of A disintegrates into composite elements, the unity that time and space gave his body is dissolved, and he ceases to exist.71

Zizioulas explains that allowing nature to be Man’s existential point of reference pushes him or her towards individualism, and reaches its climax in death.72 Zizioulas thus recognizes that the only personal dimension left in Man, after the Fall, is longing for communion, i.e. a position similar to the actors of the Greek theater.73 As we shall see, however, he argues that this longing is satisfied in the Church.

2.1.2.2. The Incarnation and the Church The Incarnation of the Son was, according to Zizioulas, an event of freedom and relationship. Mary gave her full consent to the Holy Spirit, who exists in perfect relationship with the Father and the Son.74 Mary was the representative of Man, and her consent was imperative; love presupposes freedom and reciprocity.75 According to Zizioulas, the Incarnation enabled Christ to recapitulate the temporal material world in the eternal life of the Trinity. Chalcedon affirmed the

67 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 98 ff. 68 Italics original. Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 102 69 Ibid., p. 46 ff./101 ff. 70 Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity.”, p. 435 71 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., pp. 100-101 72 Zizioulas, “Ontology and Ethics.”, p. 10 f. 73 Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity.”, pp. 428-9 74 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., pp. 105-109; Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 106 f. 75 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 106

17

importance of the hypostasis in explaining the relational character of this event; a union of natures would have made it impossible to differentiate between what the Father did and what the Son did, leaving no room for personal union with God.76 Unlike the notion of communicatio idiomatum and the mediation of natural properties, Chalcedon located Christ’s primary identity as ontological otherness and freedom from the restraints of nature.77 The Chalcedonian understanding of the Incarnation is also imperative to preserve the otherness of creation. In Christ, the two natures remain distinct, united in one hypostasis, without separation, revealing how otherness is not conditioned by distance.78

The hypostatic interpretation of the Incarnation shows how man can escape biological existence into ecclesial existence; a life in Christ and Christ’s tropos – His how, rather than His what.79 Without Christ, the human body becomes a source of separation: it is, in the words of Zizioulas, “. . . born as biological hypostasis [and] behaves like the fortress of the ego. . . “80 The Incarnation means, however, that we are saved as bodily beings, since our bodies are united with Christ's hypostasis.81 Unlike the biological birth, forced upon Man, the new birth in Christ is conditioned by consent and participation: it begins with Baptism and is renewed in each celebration of the Eucharist.82 In the liturgy, the human body becomes an instrument of offering up all of creation to God.83 Unlike the artist, who secures his or her otherness through absence, the Christian participates in the ecstatic life of the Trinity through the Church in the synaxis, and is thus able to escape the confinement of our existence as circumscribed by chronological time, but without rejecting the world as such.84

Zizioulas’ understanding of time and space must be seen in light of how he describes how the Trinity operates in the economy. It is only the Son who becomes history, whereas the Holy Spirit “. . . liberate[s] the Son and the economy from the bondage of history.“85 The Spirit allows for the Church to participate in a life beyond time, by bringing Christ and the Church into the eschaton

76 Ibid., p.115 f. 77 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 109. 78 Ibid., p. 19 ff. 79 Ibid., p. 165 ff.; Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 49 ff. 80 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 52. 81 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 100 ff. 82 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 49 ff. 83 Ibid. Cf. Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 80 f. 84 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 117 ff. 85 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 130.

18

as the .86 It is also the Spirit who unites the particular members of the and enables Him to be “not ‘one’ but ‘many’” as the ‘corporate personality of Christ’.87 Christ/the Church is polyhypostasized, meaning that the hypostasis of Christ is able to unite the many hypostatic beings of the Church, not only natures.88 Communion and eschatology are therefore the two aspects of that ontologically constitute ecclesiology.89

Zizioulas elaborates on this with reference to St. Maximus the Confessor. Maximus described created beings as microcosmos that express the will and action of the through their logoi. Creation is in movement from Christ [the Logos], towards Christ, who reveals the truth of time.90 God’s telos for creation, its movement towards Christ, does not violate the freedom inherent in the logoi, because the logoi is an expression of Christ’s will for Man, which is for us to exist hypostatically and ecstatically within Himself.91 This is not, in other words, to be confused with the Aristotelian notion of entelechia: All the logoi of creation are united in Christ, hypostatically, on the level of tropos, where natures are granted a relational mode of being in a unique way.92 Man’s first identity is not what he or she is now, neither is it discovered in our origin, but in who we are in an event of communion. Maximus’ theology was thus groundbreaking, argues Zizioulas, since no philosophy ever managed to unite the beginning with the end of existence, without creating a ‘vicious circle’.93

Zizioulas recognizes that his eschatological understanding of salvation prompts the question of how we could find meaning in temporal existence.94 The synaxis interrupts history through the relationship between Christ [the Church] and the Holy Spirit, but without transforming chronological time as such.95 Zizioulas calls this experience a “. . . dialectic of ‘already but not yet.’”96 The presence is that of an ; a vision of the Christian hope in which Christ recapitulates

86 Ibid, p. 130 f/181 ff. 87 Ibid., p. 113 f./130. 88 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., pp. 74-75, n. 168. 89 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 131 f. Cf. ch. 2.1.2.1. 90 Ibid., pp. 93-101 91 Ibid., p. 98; Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 64 ff.; Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity.”, p. 445 92 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 23 ff./64 ff.; Zizioulas, Being as Communion., pp. 71-73/p. 94 ff. 93 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 98 94 Ibid., p. 97 ff. 95 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 160 ff. 96 Ibid., p. 62

19

all of creation, including history.97 It is Christ who offers and is offered, but it is made possible thanks to the gathering, where each subject is Christ's body.98 Each Eucharist, however unique, continues Zizioulas, allows for the participants to partake in the medicine of immortality, where they are granted ontological otherness, without the interruption of death.99

2.1.2.3. Criticism

Loudovikos believes that Zizioulas’ interpretation of St. Maximus identifies salvation as an escape from nature, rather than grace, by falsely attributing to Maximus his own creation of two beings: ‘nature’ and ‘personalized nature’.100 In Loudovikos own interpretation of Maximus, “. . . the person is not an ecstatic escape from nature to freedom, but precisely that mode of existence that allows nature to become innovated, by ‘acting or being acted upon’, without changing its ‘logos of being.’”101 Loudovikos’ point is that, for Maximus, nature is relational and “. . . inextricably connected with a mode of existence.”102 This means, in other words, that nature – including Man’s created nature – is naturally seeking communion.

Volf likewise criticizes Zizioulas’ notion of grace and how he is basing his insistence on the full realization of the Kingdom in the synaxis on “. . . his ontology of person and on his understanding of salvific grace as the process of becoming a person.”103 Modelling personhood after immanent Trinity means that the ecclesial being must be separated from the economy in order to avoid monism, which motivates the question of how human subjects are unique in their relationship to each other and God. Is it a form of otherness that we can only understand the same way we understand the Trinity? Or is it the Otherness of the corporate hypostasis of Christ, in which all ecclesial beings partake?104 The first limits what we can say about ourselves, whereas the latter reduces the individual to an impersonal being, absorbed and transformed by the Church, leaving us with a description of personhood simply animated by Christ in the economy.105

97 Ibid., p. 19 ff./134 ff.; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 135. 98 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 150 ff. 99 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., pp. 78 ff./291 ff. 100 Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 687. 101 Italics in quote mine. Ibid., p. 687. 102 Italics in original quote.Ibid., p. 687. 103 Volf, After Our Likeness., p. 101. 104 Ibid., p.86 ff. Cf. Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., pp. 69-75; Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 113 f./149 ff. 105 Volf, After Our Likeness., p. 86 ff./100 ff. Cf. Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 696.; Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, pp. 131-143.

20

Hjälm comes to a similar conclusion, and develops it with reference to Heidegger’s ‘ontological difference’ and the Neo-Palamite tradition of beginning in the energetic transformation of Man (rather than the Godhead).106 According to Hjälm, Heidegger suggested that classical metaphysics has failed to take into consideration the ontological difference between beings (das Seiende) that exist in time, and Being/existence itself (das Sein). The human being (Dasein) relates ecstatically to Being (das Sein), and Hjälm continues that for Heidegger, it is the appearance of beings in time that brings into effect the awareness of Being (das Sein). This means that our understanding of Being must begin ‘in time’ as we exist as beings ‘in time’. Keeping Heidegger’s ontological difference in mind seems to be important for Hjälm for two reasons. Firstly, because it enables us to move away from the notion of ‘being’ as a self-enclosed subject with an essence at its center, towards a notion of ‘being’ (Dasein) that can transcend its existence by relating ecstatically to Being (existence-in-itself), safeguarding the freedom of Man.107 Secondly, because it changes Man’s point of departure and enables a positive distinction between the ontological and ontic, without demoting the latter. Hjälm elaborates on this last point with reference to Kristina Stöckl’s use of Heidegger’s ontological difference, in which she comes to the conclusion that, in the words of Hjälm, “. . . freedom as a given [characteristic] of the human being is incomprehensible without the ontic perspective of freedom in time.”108 His point is that we cannot access the ontic from the perspective of the ontological, only the other way around.

Hjälm continues that Zizioulas, by not taking the differentiation between God and creation seriously, also loses the sharp distinction between God's essence and God's energies, which threatens the tradition of beginning in the energetic transformation of Man. For Hjälm, the benefit of Neo- is that it safeguards the notion of God as truly Other, allowing Man to enter into a relationship with God that transcends the givenness of that relationship, similarly to how Heidegger’s ontological difference enables a notion of ‘being’ (Dasein) that is able to transcend itself by relating to Being (das Sein). The problem of beginning in the inner Trinitarian relations, Hjälm continues, is that it is a realm that can only be accessed through revelation and that this realm must be approached apophatically.109 Hjälm explains the problem using the following figure:

106 Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 136. 107 Ibid., p. 117 ff. 108 Ibid., p. 121. 109 Ibid., pp. 119-139.

21

Figure 1. The Ontological difference of Zizioulas110 Source: The Ontological difference of Zizioulas, “Liberation of the Ecclesia: The Unfinished Project of Liturgical Theology.” Anastasis media, 2011., p. 137, figure 4.

Hjälm’s figure illustrates how Ziziouas’ method of analysing ‘Being-in-the-world’ (right quadrants) from the perspective of Zizioulas’ understanding of ‘Being’ (left quadrants) makes a positive/affirmative interpretation of created condition impossible. The bottom left quadrant illustrates ‘Grace’ and ‘Authentic Relationality’ as the manifestation of ‘Authentic Personhood’ (top left quadrant), modelled after the Trinity and grounded on the understanding of God as ultimately free. Such existence is, however, only accessed in the eschaton, with the exception of Christ Incarnate, and cannot be transcended. The top right quadrant illustrates ‘Being-in-the- world’, which is the ‘Being’ Heidegger claimed that we become aware of thanks to the appearance of beings in time. Zizioulas’ understanding of ‘Being’ is, however, incommensurable with the created condition, which means that the manifestations of beings in time evolve into manifestations of the fall and individualism (bottom right quadrant). Hjälm's point is, in other words, that Zizioulas’ notion of Being transcends the economy itself, and that the essence-energies distinction is imperative for explaining how Man can relate to God through God’s manifestations in time. Without the essence-energies distinction, and the clear differentiation between God and creation, Zizioulas has no way of moving beyond First Philosophy – relating to the world only gives access to our Given Nature.111 Zizioulas’ only escape from ‘biological existence’ is therefore to be absorbed by the de-individualized Christ, which is a mode of existence that can only be accessed by revelation, and therefore worked out within the same paradigm as .

110 Figure 1. The Ontological difference of Zizioulas in this paper. Referred to as “Figure 4. The Ontological difference of Zizioulas” in Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 137. 111 Ibid., p. 136 ff.

22

In effect, any experience of love, companionship or solidarity in creation becomes a negation of Zizioulas’ notion of authentic relationality. 112

2.1.3. Theology as the truth of existence

2.1.3.1. The ontological hierarchy

Zizioulas makes a distinction between God and the world as we know it, which means that we cannot expect our created existence to be guided by ontological principles outside the Church. The Church being the exception means, however, that both its structure and its mode of being should be guided by ontological principles.

For Zizioulas, the ecclesial hierarchy is inseparable from the Eucharist, which means the Church structure is modelled after the Trinity: One is first, the other conditioning, meaning that the Church is constituted by communion and otherness. The Son is the image [εἰκών] of the Father, who causes the Son, and the Son conditions the Father. The Son is the cause of the Church, and the Church is conditioned by the synaxis, brought together by the Spirit. The Bishop is the first in the Eucharistic synaxis, and the image of Christ par excellence, conditioned by the many in his diocese.113 One cannot be without the other; the constitution of the Church is relational, in a dynamic of the one and the many.114 The one Eucharist also excludes any dichotomy between and pneumatology, local-universal etc.115

2.1.3.2. The ecclesial ethos

Zizioulas seems to recognize that grace, understood as ontological personhood, reveals createdness as deprived of grace. He argues, however, that the dialectic between ‘already but not yet’, i.e. the dialectic between ecclesial existence and biological being, cause an existential change in the Eucharistic assembly, as it “. . . always make[s] the human person sense that his true home is not of this world, a perception which is expressed by his [sic] refusal to locate the confirmation

112 Ibid., p. 134 ff. Cf. Volf, After Our Likeness., p. 100. 113 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 132 ff/209 ff.; Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness.,p. 127; Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church., pp. 59-68/218-227 114 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 121; Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness.,p. 294 ff.; Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 152 ff. 115 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., pp. 145-169.

23

of the hypostasis of the person in this world. . .”116 This proleptic, eschatological existence is, according to Zizioulas, characterized by a Eucharistic and Catholic ethos: a desire to partake in bringing creation into union with God.117 It comes from the conviction that the Kingdom is made present here and now in the Eucharist, where the Church transcends “. . . all natural, moral and social divisions in Christ.”118

According to Zizioulas, the Eucharistic ethos recognizes the Bishop as the charismatic leader par excellence.119 , evangelisation, almsgiving etc. is, claims Zizioulas, not constitutive for the Church, but emanates from the existential realization of not belonging to this world.120 False asceticism has, at times, challenged the charismatic leadership of the Bishop, by suggesting that grace operates as a gift of spiritual knowledge, obtained through moral accomplishments.121 Its ethos operates according to the false presupposition that emotions, psychological dispositions and spiritual insight affect the presence of grace. This makes parishioners inclined to seek guidance from charismatic ascetics, as they try to obtain spiritual knowledge or moral patterns of behavior. The moral charism of a monk or a nun is, argues Zizioulas, given priority over the ontological priority of the Bishop, introducing a form of individualism that is incompatible with the Eucharistic ethos.122

For Zizioulas, the true ascetical ethos is signified by a fundamental break with history and the abandonment of the individual will, kénōsis [κένωσις].123 The ascetics get a taste of the heavenly Kingdom in the Eucharist, providing them with courage to freely taste the cup of Hell as they unite with creation.124 They do not search for spiritual knowledge or psychological insights, but willingly carry the sins of others, trusting that nothing in the world is abandoned or unloved by God.125 Mount Tabor is the final destination, where the ascetics, filled with the hope of the Crucified Son, share the will of God. Having seen the emptiness of creation, they know that the Eucharist is the

116 Ibid., p. 62. Cf. Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 137. 117 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 58 ff.; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p.127 ff. 118 Quote from Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 88, n. 204. 119 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p.152 ff.; Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p. 124 ff.; Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness.,p. 296 ff. 120 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p.130 ff. 121 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 305 f. 122 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p.124 ff.; Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p.151 ff. 123 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness. ,p. 301 ff. 124 Ibid., p. 301 ff. 125 Ibid., p. 301 ff./81 ff.

24

quintessence of grace, and they place all their trust in the Church. They are thus not inclined to challenge the hierarchy of the Church; the hierarchy reflects its essence.126 The way of the Cross is not at the center of the Church’s ethos – that would cause an obsession with providing relief for endless suffering and social concerns. Its center is eschatological; it is in the eschaton that the true remedy for evil is found.127

The Eucharistic ethos must, argues Zizioulas, be personal, in the sense that it is a mode of being where the person sees nature and self as enemies of otherness.128 Its ascetic dimension rejects introspection and individualism, and the other is seen as a revelation of the truth of existence. Everything around us is a gift, including our identities. Faith is not a cognitive or psychological endeavour, but the existential realization that everything created is a gift from someone.129 By rejecting the self, claims Zizioulas, the ecclesial being does not distinguish between persons according to race, gender or other attributes. A person must be loved without categorization: a Eucharistic body that discriminates has no Eucharist at all.130 Respect for the person also means that almsgiving and humanitarian work cannot be institutionalized, but must be based on actual relationships, since love cannot be impersonal.131 All forms of fragmentation must be avoided, suggests Zizioulas, including how we relate to the environment, each other, knowledge/education etc.132 Unity should not be understood in sociological terms: the Eucharist allows the eschaton to break through history, but it cannot identify with it.133

The episcopacy is, for Zizioulas, the Ministry of unity, and incompatible with democratic ideologies or tendencies to view the Bishop as an administrator. The Bishop is interconnected with the doctrinal substance of the Church, and the ecclesial body must organize itself with a clear understanding of the Bishop as ontologically constitutive for the Eucharist and the Church’s

126 Ibid., p. 305 f. 127 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p.134 f. 128 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 88 f. 129 Ibid., p. 96 ff. 130 Cf. Ibid., p. 301 ff. and Ibid. p. 40 f.; Zizioulas, “Communion and Otherness”; Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p.106/158 ff. 131 Zizioulas and Knight, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics., p.127. 132 See for example John Zizioulas, “The Black Sea in Crisis,” Orthodox Research Institute, 1997, http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/john_zizioulas_black_sea.html. 133 Zizioulas, Being as Communion., p. 161.

25

catholicity.134 There can be only one Bishop in a region, conditioned by the people, as well as the Bishops of other regions, leaving no room for schismatic tendencies.135

According to Zizioulas, the Orthodox ethos sees the world as a gift that is willingly offered back to God; Christ perfects it and gives it back to creation, in a spirit of unity. Creation is the means for communion with God and each other, and cannot be treated like a dumpsite.136 Sin, which is sometimes understood in anthropological or sociological terms, should just as much be understood as affecting ecology.137 Zizioulas continues that this realization begins from within, as the “. . . ‘liturgical’ use of nature by human beings leads to forms of culture which are deeply respectful of the material world while keeping the human person at the centre.”138 is, for Zizioulas, a didactic process that fosters appreciation for food as a gift from God.139 The Church promotes a more moderate way of living: “Love of God’s creation and our fellow human beings would lead us naturally to restrict the consumption of natural resources and share them more justly with other people.”140 By respecting the otherness of creation, the world becomes sacrificial in the sense that we are, to quote Zizioulas “. . . ready — like Christ who died for the whole of creation — to sacrifice our happiness.”141

Zizioulas also argues that the eucharistic and eschatological ethos rejects moralism, since “. . . the truth of beings is not in the beginning, but in the end, not in what they were, but in what they will be.”142 A person is seen in the light of the Cross, where the existential failure of nature is transformed by the resurrection.143 Persons exist because they are loved, not because of what they do.144 In the future, everyone is a potential saint, which means, for Zizioulas, that “[w]e cannot

134 Jean Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop during the First Three Centuries (Brookline, : Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001)., p. 6 f./ 30 ff. 135 Ibid., pp. 247-263; Zizioulas, “Communion and Otherness”. 136 John Zizioulas, “ and Ecological Problems: A Theological Approach,” Orthodox Research Institute, accessed March 12, 2019, http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/. 137 John Zizioulas, “Ecological Asceticism: A Cultural Revolution,” http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/john_zizoulias_ecological_asceticism.html. 138 Ibid. 139 John Zizioulas, “Orthodoxy and Ecological Problems: A Theological Approach.” 140 Zizioulas, “Ecological Asceticism: a Cultural Revolution”. 141 John Zizioulas, “Ethics versus Ethos: An Orthodox Approach to the Relation between Ecology and Ethics,” http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/ethics/john_pergamon_ethics_vs_ethos.html. 142 Zizioulas, “Ontology and Ethics.”, p. 5 143 Ibid. p. 10 144 Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 89.

26

discriminate between those who are worthy of our acceptance and those who are not.”145 Creation is to be seen from the perspective that Christ, in an event of communion, will be ‘all in all’, and the dialectic of the Fall is replaced with that of created-uncreated, which is of “. . . difference and not of division.”146

2.1.3.3. Criticism Zizioulas is accused of not taking the limitations of the created condition seriously. Loudovikos suggests that Zizioulas assumes that the Orthodox ethos occurs automatically, which makes him ignore the practical troubles of temporal existence.147 Volf likewise argues that Zizioulas’ insistence that the Church organisation must be based on the inner Trinitarian relationships, neglects the fact that the Trinity is love, whereas the Bishop is not, and may abuse his position. It also prompts the question of how anything but obedience to the Bishop could be appropriate, if he is the alter Christus?148

Volf also argues that Zizioulas’ rejection of the cognitive and psychological self risks endangering the very basis for human communication and the kerygmatic mission of the Church. Dogmas, scriptures etc. must pass through the consciousness of individual human beings, even if they are understood liturgically, as a community.149 Loudovikos similarly claims that Zizioulas’ description of personhood as a complete turn towards the other, presupposes an inherent capacity to escape passions and unconscious motifs. It also excludes any form of reciprocity; a person dictates and is dictated to.150 Zizioulas’ notion of Otherness is not, continues Loudovikos “. . . my otherness, since it is the other who decides about it and then dictates it to me.”151 It means, continues Loudovikos, that love no longer assists otherness, it becomes totalitarian and determines it.152 You do not exist because you are loved and love, you exist because you are loved.153

145 Quote from Zizioulas, “Communion and Otherness”, . See also Zizioulas, “Ontology and Ethics”, p. 11 f. 146 Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity.”, p. 440. 147 Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 695 ff. 148 Volf, After Our Likeness., p. 112 ff. 149 Ibid., p. 92 ff. 150 Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 694 ff. 151 Ibid., p. 694. Cf. Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 133 f. 152 Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 688 ff. Cf. Nicholas Loudovikos, “Eikon and Mimesis Eucharistic Ecclesiology and the Ecclesial Ontology of Dialogical Reciprocity,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 11, no. 2–3 (May 2011): 123–36, https://doi.org/10.1080/1474225X.2011.571411., p. 129 f. 153 Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 693. Cf. Zizioulas and McPartlan, Communion and Otherness., p. 89.

27

Louth and Loudovikos also argue that Zizioulas’ system of thought forces other fields investigating personhood, such as philosophy and psychology, to outline their theories according to his theological presuppositions. He imposes on them a system of thought that was mapped out by the fathers for a different, uncreated reality.154 Without mentioning Zizioulas by name, Louth writes that:

One sometimes gets the impression that the notion of the person . . . was articulated in its final and complete form by the , and that all we Orthodox have to do is administer this treasure to the benighted Christians of the West (and presumably to their secular successors). But there are problems raised by the conditions of modern society, and the demands of modern thought, not least psychology, that the Cappadocian Fathers could not have been aware of.155

What, then, would a more fruitful approach look like? Loudovikos suggests that a recovery of the notion of a reciprocal otherness would enable a synergistic relatedness to God, by which the human subject and the community is shaped by the eschatological vision and grace, without the need to escape temporal reality.156 Hjälm comes to a similar conclusion, which he illustrates using the following figure:

Figure 2. The Ontological difference Reconstructed157 Source: The Ontological difference Reconstructed, “Liberation of the Ecclesia: The Unfinished Project of Liturgical Theology.” Anastasis media, 2011., p. 138, figure 5.

154 See for example Louth, St. John Damascene., p. 50 ff./113 ff.; Loudovikos, “PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS.”, p. 688. 155 Louth, “Orthodoxy and the Problem of Identity.”, p. 101. 156 Loudovikos, “Eikon and Mimesis Eucharistic Ecclesiology and the Ecclesial Ontology of Dialogical Reciprocity.”, p. 125 ff. 157 Figure 2 in this paper. Referred to as “Figure 5” in Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 138.

28

The figure illustrates Hjälm’s suggestion that by accepting the ontological difference – i.e by accepting that our understanding of existence in the world begins in the world – ‘authentic relationality’ would no longer be the foundation for the human/ecclesial existence (Cf. Figure 1, above). If the ecclesial being exists in the world (top right quadrant) and relates to grace – understood as the Holy Spirit assisting Man’s escape from the trap of individualism by enabling us to relate to God – Man’s unfinished growth is no longer a problem, but a revelation that we are not alone in the world. Our understanding of Grace is based on revelation of the freedom and love granted whenever we accept God’s invitation to exist in ecstatic relatedness, reaching out beyond ourselves. The ontological difference means, in other words, that we are able to move beyond First Philosophy (the two top quadrants), since the revelation of Grace (bottom right quadrant) is the revelation that we may relate to God in this world, and thus become able to transcend our current condition.158

2.2. Andrew Louth According to Louth, most religious and philosophical systems have felt the need to mediate between the world as we know it, and a more ideal realm. He suggests that the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo complicates this, because it means that created beings are completely dependent on God, without emanating from Him or by sharing His essence. The created- uncreated chasm could therefore be interpreted in a way that makes it hard for the two realms to converge. According to Louth, the problem of mediation between the two realms gave rise to a diversity of opinions and ideas among the patristic writers; a discussion that still continues among many, with Zizioulas being one prominent figure.159

Louth does not underestimate the diversity of patristic ideas on the subject; he does not try to synthesize them into one harmonious system of thought. By allowing the Church fathers to speak for themselves, he makes the boundaries of tradition more explicit, in order to enable dialogue about what their ideas could mean today, as we face contemporary problems. I will, however, highlight three aspects of how the problem of mediating between God and creation has been approached in Louth’s works, as an alternative to Zizioulas’ system of thought.160 Firstly, how it gave rise to patristic reflection about Providence, the notion of God’s making Himself known

158 Hjälm, “Liberation of the Ecclesia.”, p. 134 ff. 159 Andrew Louth, “Theology of the ‘in-Between,’” Communio Viatorum 55, no. 3 (2013): 223–36., p. 227 ff. 160 Cf. Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p. 40 ff.

29

through the wisdom/harmony of creation, as well as the presence of God’s energies in creation. Secondly, how the patristic tradition of making distinctions between God’s essence-energies and kataphatic-apophatic theology, implicitly presumes a clear understanding of the ontological difference between God and creation, meaning that the study of theology begins from the perspective of Man. Thirdly, how the first two aspects affect Louth’s understanding of the relationship between theology, ecclesiology and the experience of being in the world.

2.2.1. Patristic reflections on mediation between God and creation

2.2.1.1. Providence and the harmony of creation According to Louth, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo was used by Nicene Christianity, in opposition to Gnosticism, to describe how the world was created by God in his providential goodness.161 Similarly to Platonism and Stoicism, the Christian notion of Providence was, according to Louth, related to logos, otherworldly wisdom. Stoics thought of Providence as a chain of events, fate, ordered for the good of Mankind, whereas Platonism described it as the impersonal logos reproducing truth in the realm of material existence, without controlling the results of human choices or the shaping of our characters. In Louth’s understanding, the Christian notion of a personal Logos was thus unique, and allowed for an amalgamation of the Stoic notion of absolute Providence, and the Platonist distinction between logos and necessity.162 Louth refers to the 4th century writings of the Syrian bishop Nemesios to illustrate the triadic dialectic that enabled this. Nemesios rejected the Stoic notion of fate, using the Platonist argument of how it would undermine the moral foundation for law and justice. It was also incongruent with the Christian belief in the efficiency of prayer. According to Louth’s understanding of Nemesios, God’s Providence was still absolute; God was described as working through our choices to design His Providence to meet our needs, both on a universal and on a particular level.163

According to Louth, St. Maximus later synthesized many of Nemesios’ ideas on Providence, with the Neoplatonist terminology of logos and logoi. Maximus departed from Neoplatonism, however, argues Louth, by replacing its notion of rest-procession-return with creation-

161 Louth and Maximus, Maximus the Confessor., p. 65. 162 Andrew Louth et al., “Pagans and Christians on Providence,” in Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity, ed. J. H. D. Scourfield, Inheritance, Authority, and Change (Classical Press of Wales, 2007), 279–98, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvvnb1n.16., pp. 280 ff./293.; Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition., p. 75 ff/95 f./190 ff. 163 Louth et al., “PAGANS AND CHRISTIANS ON PROVIDENCE.”, p. 288 f.

30

movement-rest.164 Creation ex nihilo meant that the Logos did not reproduce goodness in time and matter; it was not external to it. In the words of Louth:

For Plato, beings participate in the Forms; for Maximus, created beings participate in God through the logoi, but these logoi must also be seen as expressing God’s will and intention for each created being and for the cosmos as a whole. There is a dynamism about Maximus’s understanding of God’s relationship to the cosmos through the logoi, a dynamism lacking in Plato; the cosmos itself is moving toward fulfillment, and that fulfilment is ultimately found in union with God, by whom it had received being. . . . these logoi are inviolable, they may be obscured by the Fall, but they cannot be distorted. . .165

In Louth’s reading of Maximus, God cooperates with the free will of humans, synergia; the logos of things are unchangebly good, but not static, as they relate to the logoi of Providence.166 What Man is, our logos or inner principles, is unchangeable, whereas how we are, our tropos or mode of being, is unique to each person, and not static.167

According to Louth, St. Maximus also used this same terminology to describe how Man is shaped in the image and likeness of God. All that exists has its own meaning, logos, participating in the Logos of God. The presence of the logoi in creation is analogous to the presence of the Logos in Christ Incarnate. The logos of Man are fashioned after the image of the Logos [the Son], meaning that all the logoi are summed up in the logos of Man. In Louth’s reading of St. Maximus, human beings are also described as logikos, the adjective from logos, which implies freedom and capacity to discern – and perhaps confer – meaning in relation to creation. This is largely accomplished by Man’s natural desire to unite what is divided. The human person contains all the divisions of creation, and also, to some extent, the created-uncreated division, as Man participates in the activities of God. The human person is a ‘microcosm’, the bond of Cosmos, and its Priest.168 Louth illustrates this reading of Maximus as follows:

164 Louth and Maximus, Maximus the Confessor., p. 67. 165 Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos in St. Maximus the Confessor,” in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, First edition, Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 59–74., p. 63. 166 Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos.”, p. 63 ff. 167 Louth and Maximus, Maximus the Confessor., p. 50 f./57 ff. 168 Ibid, p. 63f/72 f.; Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos.”, pp. 61-64.

31

Figure 3. Maximus’ Human Person169 Source: Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos in St. Maximus the Confessor,” in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, First edition, Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 59–74., p. 67.

In Louth’s interpretation of Maximus, the meaning of each nature in creation is bound up with Man’s priestly vocation to embrace and transcend them to become manifestations of the manifold, rather than divided, nature of the Cosmos. Louth continues that will, energy, virtue etc. are, according to Louth’s understanding of Maximus’ Chalcedonian logic, natural properties, providing Man with desire to overcome division and draw near to God. The four divisions within creation are healed according to nature, kata physin [κατὰ φύσιν], making the human person an image of God. The final division, between the uncreated and the created, can however only be healed by love, which is beyond nature, ypér physin [υπέρ φύσιν]. The capacity to participate in God’s love and transcend the human condition is, in Louth’s reading of Maximus, what makes Man created in the likeness of God. This understanding of growth is, continues Louth, due to Maximus’ emphasis on creation-movement-rest, and the assumption that how natures relate to each other is determined by their tropos. The fulfilling of Man’s priestly vocation is, as such, determined by the hypostatic activities, when human and divine energies converge.170 Asceticism means, as Louth reads Maximus, cooperation with God according to nature, enduring suffering and tribulations, and it prepares man for the gift of love, as the ascetic separates from earthly inclination, apatheia [ἀπάθεια]. According to Louth, Maximus thereby acknowledges that “[l]ove is something that we can learn.''171

169 Figure 3 in this paper. Without a name in the original. Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos.”, p.67. 170 Andrew Louth, “Virtue Ethics: St Maximos the Confessor and Aquinas Compared,” Studies in 26, no. 3 (August 2013): 351–63, https://doi.org/10.1177/0953946813484410., pp. 354-358; Louth and Maximus, Maximus the Confessor., pp. 58-67.; Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos.”, p. 62 ff. 171 Louth, “Virtue Ethics.”, p. 356.

32

2.2.1.2. The Fall and the Incarnation

In Louth’s interpretation of Maximus, the Fall was not understood as a distortion of nature; it was rather caused by Man acting contrary to nature, pará physin [παρά φύσιν]. The process of growth in God’s likeness was lost, and the whole of creation became a place of confusion and disorder, at least for Man, who could no longer apprehend the harmony of creation and overcome division.172 Maximus therefore argued, continues Louth, that self-determination, to consciously order one’s energies towards God, is how Man reflects God’s image on the level of tropos. Will is not a matter of opinion or intention: in Maximus’ context, it was assumed that a person who knows what is good, also naturally wills what is good. Instead, Maximus made a distinction between natural will, thelēma [θέλημα] and ‘willing’ according to opinion or intention, gnômêi [γνώμῃ]. The latter causes confusion and loss of direction and is a result of the Fall. Christ Incarnate had, in Louth’s reading of Maximus, both a perfect human and divine will, but no ‘gnomic’ will.173

According to Louth, Maximus considered the Gospel narrative of Christ to be the manifestation of grace par excellence. Firstly, because Christ provided Man with an example of how the ascetic was to live according to nature in communion with God, by expelling passions contrary to nature and replacing or sublimating them into what is natural.174 The Chalcedonian affirmation that Christ is truly God and truly Man, reveals how human nature desires salvation, to be "lifted up" by the divine, in a way that does not cause any division or confusion [gnômê] within the hypostasis; human nature naturally cooperates with God’s natural desire to save. Secondly, the Incarnation made creation a realm of God’s uncreated activities, an “in-between” or metaxú [μεταξύ], allowing the Church to transcend the created condition in a tropos proper to both Man and the uncreated love of God. The Christian personally participates in the communal life of the Church, and the Church participates in the divine. Lastly, and most importantly, Christ’s Incarnation healed the divisions illustrated above (Figure 3), beginning with the healing of the division and opposition between the sexes by the virginal conception, and ending with healing the division between the created and uncreated, by Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father. The failure of Adam and his descendants was restored by the Son of God, the new Adam.175

172 Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos.”, p. 62 ff.; Louth, “Virtue Ethics.”, p. 357 f. 173 Louth and Maximus, Maximus the Confessor., p. 50 f./60 ff. 174 Ibid., p. 39 ff./54 ff./72 ff. 175 Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos.”, pp. 64-67.; Louth and Maximus, Maximus the Confessor., pp.72- 74.

33

2.2.1.3. The image-identity and essence-energies distinctions

Louth makes a similar interpretation of St. John Damascene’s thoughts on the mediation between God and creation. Akin to Maximus, John built upon Nemesios’ notion of Providence and emphasized the importance of distinguishing between what is arranged by God, and what is under human control.176 Louth continues that rather than using the Maximian/Neoplatonist terminology of logos and logoi, John explained Man as the bond of Cosmos, in terms of the human person being rational, empowered with will and soul. The soul is able to rule the material as its servant, through which it communicates meaning. Being aware of its spiritual-material condition, the human person is able to express and disclose the spiritual in and through the body, becoming the bond between the intellectual and the sensible.177 According to Louth’s reading of John, the symbols, etc. are images that manifest the hidden, spiritual, in the material world: the icon is not what it depicts, but an expression of it, which means that it does not share its identity. Human persons are material and spiritual, body and soul, and the icon or symbol communicates the spiritual to the spiritual-material person. Louth explains that for John, the distinction between image and identity means that Man’s veneration of images, the saints and even the respect we show our kings and rulers, are not due to their intrinsic worth, but their place in God’s providential ordering of the world, partaking in the divine without being confused with God.178

Providence, the harmony of creation, and the use of images and symbols all mean, in summary, that God is not separated from creation.179 The essence-energies distinction, associated with St. , could therefore be helpful in explaining how God is able to operate in creation, as God, without introducing division or composition to God’s essence.180 Just like human nature was raised up by the uncreated energy in the Incarnation, so could the symbols and etc. be described as empowered by the same uncreated energies. The incarnation makes the person of Christ the adamantine bridge between God and creation; the created realm is a place of divine activities. God is thus not only known by analogy, by contemplating the harmony of the

176 Louth, St. John Damascene., p. 141 ff. 177 Ibid., p. 122 f. 178 Ibid., p. 215 f. 179 Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p.44/115 f.; Louth, “Theology of the ‘in-Between.’” 180 Louth, “Theology of the ‘in-Between.’”, p. 232 ff.

34

Cosmos or even by the visible effects of his activities, but through participation/sharing in His energies or activities.181

2.2.2. The ontological difference

2.2.2.1. Apophatic and kataphatic theology: God’s descent and Man’s ascent

The incommensurability of God and creation could be understood as creation being on one level, and God on another.182 In Louth’s interpretation of St. Athanasios, who is sometimes seen as leaning towards this view, this meant that there is no hierarchy of ontological knowledge within the created order; knowledge of the ultimate depends on God’s descent, not on us contemplating the depths of the soul.183 As we have seen in the previous section, however, Nicene Christianity came to recognize God as revealing something of His will and intention through the harmony of creation, and in the shaping of the human person.184 Knowledge about the human condition, studied through the prism of Christ, was the means to attaining some knowledge of God.185

Louth explains how the task of trying to understand the nature of this knowledge, or how to speak of it, prompted theologians such as and Denys the Areopagite to develop the theme of Divine Darkness. For Gregory, continues Louth, the spiritual life was characterized by a dialectic of movement and rest. The soul’s desire for God was, on one hand, always satisfied, since the presence of God enables the soul to transcend its current condition. It was, on the other hand, never satisfied, since every encounter with God made the soul realize that God is beyond. This dialectic created a desire within the soul to move further into the divine realm, beyond concepts; a realm of ‘darkness’. Gregory did not deny that God made himself known in the intelligible world, but used the theme to describe a process of transcending the human condition, without the risk of annihilation or of dissolving the mystery.186

181 Ibid., pp. 230-5.; Louth, St. John Damascene., p. 91 ff./139 f.; Louth,; Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p. 40 f. 182 Louth, “Theology of the ‘in-Between.’”, p. 226 f. 183 Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition., p. 75 ff./95 f./190 ff.; Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p. 35 ff/85 f. 184 Louth points out that St. Athanasios also acknowledged this, to some extent, as he wrote of the human soul as a ‘mirror’, in which we can see the image of God taking form through purification, perfected by Christ Incarnate, the perfect image. Cf. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition., pp. 75-78. 185 Ibid., p. 192. 186 Ibid., p. 87 ff./160 ff.; Andrew Louth, “Man and Cosmos.”, p. 66.

35

According to Louth, Denys introduced a modified version of the Neoplatonic distinction between kataphatic and apophatic theology, as he approached the theme. Kataphatic theology means that we can use words – based on distinctions, attributes and images, revealed by God – when we address Him in . The attributes unfold a deeper unity, beyond distinctions, that must be understood apophatically: we must deny them as comprehensive. Louth explains that God is also “known” through symbols and sacraments, in a broad sense of the word, such as incense, oil, music and painting, that are converted by the Church from the realm of the senses to the praising of God. They adumbrate the divine, and the soul denies them as expressions of God's essence, as it moves deeper into the mystery. Apophatic theology is, in summary, concerned with the soul’s inward movement towards God, whereas kataphatic theology is concerned with God’s movement outwards, i.e. His manifestations in and through creation.187

In Louth’s reading, St. Maximus and St. John Damascene extended the use of apophatic and kataphatic theology to include not just the Trinity, but also the Incarnation. The Son exists on the uncreated side of the uncreated-created divide, yet became flesh, transcending creation, as He cannot be confined by its ontological structures. We know from revelation that Christ was born, but we cannot know about the how or what in relation to this mystery.188 There is, however, in Louth’s interpretation of Maximus, something to be taught in this mystery, an assimilation according to the principle of ‘like knows like’. Akin to how parents educate their children by adapting themselves to their level, through play, so does God come down to our level to ‘play’ with us. The liturgy and scriptures with their parables and symbols are part of this play, as they foreshadow a deeper truth, disclosed in Christ. Their meaning is attainable in the community, by being united to Christ, yet clouded, as a result of sin. Each Christian must therefore experience a metanoia, a transformation of the heart, in order to ‘see’ for him- or herself.189

187 Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition., pp.160-172; Andrew Louth, “‘Beauty Will Save the World’: The Formation of Byzantine Spirituality,” Theology Today 61, no. 1 (April 2004): 67–77, https://doi.org/10.1177/004057360406100108., p. 69 f. 188 Louth, St. John Damascene., p. 91 ff. 189 Andrew Louth, “Maximus the Confessor on the Foolishness of God and the Play of the Word,” in The Wisdom and Foolishness of God, ed. Christophe Chalamet and Hans-Christoph Askani, First Corinthians 1-2 in Theological Exploration (Augsburg Fortress, Publishers, 2015), 89–100, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt155j3m5.8., p. 95 ff.; Louth and Maximus, Maximus the Confessor., pp. 52-57; Louth, “‘Beauty Will Save the World.’”, p. 70 f.

36

2.2.2.4 Recapitulation: The vertical and horizontal dimensions of ecclesiology

Louth rejects the idea of modelling the Church after the Trinity. In his reading of St. John Damascene, for example, the persons of the Trinity are described as united in a form of coinherence/interpenetration, perichoresis, which is a category that cannot be applied to the created condition.190 Louth continues: “John is quite clear, in contrast to some modern Orthodox theologians, that what is the case with the Trinity is not the case with human beings; the Trinitarian communion of persons is not a model for human communion.”191 It is characteristic of the uncreated nature of God that the three persons should coinhere, whereas created beings are naturally separated, but able find communion in a form of sharing.192 This means that we should not anthropomorphize God.193 We must also realize that “. . . the Church is part of the fallen world, so we should not expect to find in any unambiguous way the ideal human community in the Church.”194

The use of symbols, the distinction between apophatic and kataphatic theology, and especially the notion of ‘in-between’, is therefore important for Louth’s understanding of ecclesiology. In his reading of Denys, the Christian participates in the divine, as the Church mediates between the created and uncreated realm through symbols, sacraments etc. The visible hierarchy is not organized like a pinnacle, with the Bishop at the top, nor does any of its particular orders constitute it. It is the rites that are at the top of the visible hierarchy, and the members of the Church ascend into it.195 The energies of God establish its order, and the soul’s role is to be as closely united to the energies as possible.196 You could, in other words, say that God descends and recapitulates the human experience, i.e. the ‘horizontal dimension’ of our existence, which means that Man experiences God within creation, which makes us want to grow in His likeness as we organize our lives on the ‘horizontal level’.

According to Louth, Maximus later built upon Denys as he described the Church as an image of God, by virtue of its participation in His energies. The distinctions visible in the partitions of the Church building and the different ecclesial orders are – akin to how the symbolic forms of the

190 Ibid., p. 31 f. 191 Ibid., pp. 31-32. Italics in original quote. 192 Ibid., p. 31. 193 Ibid., p. 91 f. 194 Ibid. 195 Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition., pp. 159-166. 196 Ibid., p. 171.

37

sensible Cosmos are images of the intelligible – manifestations of connectedness, not division.197 The purpose of the hierarchy is to partake in God's uncreated energies, transcending and transforming time, by uniting our existence with the eschaton.198 This understanding of the Church also enabled an emancipatory interpretation of the hierarchy in relation to any worldly aspirations to control it. Communion was only genuine communion if it was based on the confession of Christ and the shared experience of the meaning of the liturgy. This proved to have practical implications, argues Louth, as Maximus was put to trial with the accusation of splitting the Church in his resistance against . Faithfulness to Tradition was, in Louth’s interpretation of Maximus, a precondition for genuine communion and could not be the cause of schism; any external guarantee for truth, other than the faith of the Church, would be superfluous.199

Louth also makes an emancipatory interpretation of the monastic resistance against imperial iconoclasm. He suggests that the imperial endorsement of iconoclasm may not primarily have been about the use of images as such, but how they challenged the importance of the clerical orders.200 The iconodule position of Nicaea II affirmed that the icons are holy because they depict holy people and holy events, without the need of clerical rites or blessings. Consecration of Church buildings, the Eucharist etc. was, however, performed by a defined group, often with close ties to the state. As for the images, however, the iconodules made the clerical orders subject to the symbolic and sacramental order of the Church, over which the Emperor exercised less control.201

As for contemporary ecclesiology, Louth claims that historically, Orthodox ecclesiology has depended heavily on the Eusebian vision of symphonia and the Byzantine notion of one Christian Empire, under which the entire 'inhabited world' [œcumene] was to live in unity under God.202 A too literal interpretation of this tradition meant that the ties between Church and State were kept – independently from the ‘œcumenical vision’ – after various new Orthodox nation states established autocephalous churches.203 Louth contrasts this notion with that of Eucharistic ecclesiology. It was born out of the experience of the diaspora, which had prompted renewed

197 Louth, “The Ecclesiology of Saint Maximos the Confessor.”, p. 110 f. 198 Ibid, p. 113 ff. 199 Ibid. p. 117 ff. 200 Louth, St. John Damascene., p. 195 f. 201 Andrew Louth, “The Doctrine of the Eucharist in the Iconoclast Controversy,” Sobornost Incorporating Eastern Churches Review 32, no. 2 (2015): 7–15., p. 12 f. 202 Louth, “Ignatios or Eusebios.”, p. 46 f. 203 Ibid., p. 48.

38

interest in the ecclesiology of the early Church, and the writings of St. Ignatios of Antioch in particular.204 The ‘Ignatian model’ used pre-Constantinian writings to discern what in our heritage is due to ‘empirical factors’ vis-à-vis purely ecclesial factors, i.e. that which shows continuity with the New Testament and early patristic reflection. The Ignatian method undermined an overly literal interpretation of Eusebian vision; it was not the organisation as such that made Eusebian ecclesiology Orthodox, but the New Testament vision of catholicity that the Byzantines tried to implement within their formal structures.205 Inspired by the Ignatian method, Louth argues that early Christian writers described their ecclesial identity as living as foreigners in their own countries, never settling down. Such reading puts into question the hope, prevalent among Orthodox in the diaspora, of establishing new autocephalous churches in their new countries.206 What is needed, Louth continues, ". . . is repentance, μετάνοια, and that involves personal commitment, not political programmes.”207

2.2.4. Theology: Man’s response to the experience of God

For Louth, “[t]he only knowledge that counts, the only theology that is truly Orthodox, is participation in God’s movement in love towards us in creation and Incarnation by our response of love.”208 Theology should not be concerned with knowledge about God, but knowledge of God through communion.209 The doctrines are boundaries for what is possible to say about the mystery, without losing proper direction. They must be understood apophatically and cannot be separated from the context of prayer, where we attain the most intimate knowledge.210

2.2.4.1. The Incarnational logic: History as the raw material of theology

Louth’s Incarnational understanding of theology allows him to acknowledge a certain affinity with philosophers such as Heidegger and Wittgenstein, who claimed that we have some knowledge of the world simply from living in it. For Louth, orthodox theology similarly begins with Man standing before the mystery of God, who is beyond concepts, and the role of theology is to reflect on and partake in this experience.211 The mystery of God is disclosed in Christ who enters into

204 Ibid., p. 49 f. 205 Ibid., p. 53 ff. 206 Ibid., p. 54 ff. 207 Ibid., p. 55. 208 Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p. 122. 209 Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition., p. 159. 210 Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., pp. 21-34. 211 Ibid., p. 3 ff.

39

history to actively seek us by descending on the ‘vertical level’. The theologian must therefore, argues Louth, resist any attempt to dissolve the mystery, or think of it as subject to our investigation. We should rather participate in it, engage with it, and invite it to challenge us.212 In Louth’s understanding of the Nicene fathers, tradition was understood as a unique mode in which we encounter God, not a source from which unequivocal statements could be extracted.213 They introduced the Greek term paideia [παιδεία] to describe how God teaches truth through an education of culture, as a response on the ‘horizontal level’.214 The education takes place in the Church, explains Louth, and its concrete manifestations are accomplished in a kind of dialectic, in which each generation of Christians is shaped by the time and space in which they live, while the Church also transforms that same time and space through its architecture, liturgy, asceticism etc.215 For Louth, unity is not enforced by compressing the many into one, but rather an expression of something genuinely held in common.216

According to Louth, the Incarnation sanctified time and made it the raw material of theology. It has, as such, a lot in common with the humanities, who also deal with history. Using insights from some of its great minds, primarily Hans-Georg Gadamer, Louth counters the claim often associated with certain elements of the Enlightenment, that the method of the natural sciences is the only way to discern the truth.217 Louth continues that Cartesian method of doubt – when applied to theology – is iconoclastic and unfit for dealing with the God of history. Truth of existence cannot, and should not, be without bias. If man is a tabula rasa, tradition must be treated as prejudice, and truth would be discovered using methods that seek knowledge independently from the one who knows it.218

Louth also makes use of Gadamer’s criticism of the literary tradition of finding an ‘original meaning’ in literature by trying to penetrate the mind of the author. The problem with this method is that it does not take interest in what the author said, but the author him- or herself, as if we could (or should) be detached from ourselves. Gadamer suggested that the study of texts should involve the discovery of the moral realm of free human persons, where our understanding of others is analogous to our understanding of ourselves. It is, unlike the study of natural laws, a

212 Louth, Discerning the Mystery., p. 71 f./92/143 ff. 213 Ibid., p. 73 f./92 ff. 214 Ibid., p. 75 ff. Cf. Ibid., p. 42. 215 Louth, “Orthodoxy and the Problem of Identity.”, p. 99 ff. 216 Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p. 91 f. 217 Louth, Discerning the Mystery., p. xi f. 218 Ibid, p. 54. Cf. Ibid., p. 1 ff.

40

mystery in which both the author and reader participate; it confronts us with human freedom and interaction.219 To commence the studies of the humanities is thus not about learning techniques, but an initiation into tradition. It seeks, in the words of Louth, “. . . a sufficiently activated subjectivity, a sensitivity to our historical situation and all that has contributed to it . . . so that we can engage with the past in a fruitful dialogue.”220

According to Louth, theologians must likewise realize that prayers and Scriptures are about man’s relationship with God, not words studied as objects or theories, separated from their readers.221 The Son was sent by the Father, and the Son sent his disciples into the world, in the power of the Spirit; the apostolic tradition affects life in its totality and is a divine sending.222 Louth advocates a rediscovery of the patristic use of allegory in interpreting the Scriptures. It does not primarily seek to find original meaning, continues Louth, but aims at bringing out the many senses in it, thereby enabling communication between the Scriptures and its readers throughout history, including the present.223 The discovery of meaning thus takes place as an engagement between the text and its readers, and is not separated from history, which is sacred.224A theologian is, in this tradition, educated by God’s presence in history.

2.2.4.2. Spirituality as the foundation of genuine communion

Ecclesial education, paideia, cultivates an integral approach to life, to others, and to God. Louth explains how this integral whole forms together what the scientist and philosopher Michael Polyani called a ‘tacit dimension’. Polyani argued that everything we perceive, is interpreted in a framework that operates according to certain anticipations from previous experiences. The knowledge is tacit, in the sense that it belongs to the totality of experiences, shaping a framework too complex to deconstruct. He uses the example of the skill or knowledge that makes a proficient physician excellent in diagnosing patients, which cannot be taught without actual practice; the patterns recognized in the patient often involve a number of perceptions far too vast and complex for even the physician to be consciously aware of them, other than by ‘intuition’. Reflection on the shaping of the tacit framework is, however, important, because it helps determine the focal point

219 Ibid., p. 28 ff. 220 Ibid., p. 43. Italics mine. 221 Ibid., p. 2 ff./45 ff. 222 Ibid., p. 83 ff. 223 Ibid., pp. 96-131. 224 Ibid., p. 103 f.

41

of our awareness.225 For the Christian, continues Louth, the focal point is the mystery of Christ, and the paideia helps the community cultivate a common framework, centered upon the mystery.226 The liturgy, in particular, is of prime importance for the realization and continuity of the tradition that cultivates the framework for engagement with God.227 It is also in the liturgy that we engage with the inexhaustible truth that the doctrinal boundaries of the Councils are set up to protect.228

The purpose of the paideia is, for Louth, to attain the life of a saint; metanoia is a prerequisite for undertaking theology and partaking in the universal experience of the Church. Theologians work in libraries, but they are studying literature which requires practical application to be understood. The saint resolves fundamental conflicts within him- or herself: between objectivity and subjectivity; between the rational, communicable knowledge and the incommunicable tacit knowledge that transcends the rational. Orthodoxy is communicated by the saint’s mode of being; but also words, understood by those properly prepared.229 Louth suggests, however, that professional theologians are often too occupied with concepts and categories derived from past controversies, without much significance today. They are not concerned with the living manifestations of faith, but with ideas separated from the lives of those who formulated them.230 If it is not in conflict with the Liturgy and the living faith, Orthodoxy can in fact embrace different, not easily reconcilable, theological standpoints, because they are mapped out according to different idioms, and these idioms may all be capable of expressing orthodox ideas.231 Even Thomism and Palamism, which use different idioms, could possibly be seen as equally valid, or as offering a ‘fundamental complementarity’: neither one is complete, yet both enable important reflection on the life of the Church.232

St. Maria (Skobtsova) of Paris could serve as an example of how life and theology are inseparable, in the thinking of Louth. In his short exposition of her life, he explains how St. Maria, after the death of her only child, decided to divorce her husband and become a nun; to love all humans like

225 Ibid., p. 59 ff. 226 Ibid., p. 64 ff./75 ff. 227 Ibid., p. 122 ff. 228 Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p. xviii f./29 f./139 f.; Louth, Denys the Areopagite.,p. 26 f. 229 Louth, Discerning the Mystery., p. 134 ff. 230 Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers., pp. XII-XVI. 231 Andrew Louth, “Theology of Creation in Orthodoxy,” International Journal of Orthodox Theology 8, no. 3 (2017): 26., p. 75 f. 232 Ibid.; Louth, “Virtue Ethics.”, p. 362 f.; Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology., p.139 f.

42

family. A discouraging experience of “traditional” monasticism motivated her to follow a less conventional monastic path, taking part in cultural activities and caring for those in need.233 She believed abstinence was not only about avoiding evil, but also involvement in the economy, where good works are sanctified. Responding to the needs of one’s neighbor required attentiveness to the actual state of their inner life; how the image of God has been ravaged by sin, but also how it grows in His likeness.234 Analyzing the religious climate of her time, she criticized types of Orthodoxy which she considered as deviating from keeping love at their center: synodalism, reducing the faith to part of one’s national identity; ritualism or aestheticism, making the services or the beauty an end in itself; asceticism, searching for spiritual power, instrumentalizing the neighbour by treating charity and good works as a means for personal salvation, etc.235 For Maria, the humble love of Christ Incarnate, was the same love found in the bosom of the Trinity, meaning that we must treat others as lovable for their own sake. Maria’s life, as well as her heroic death, taking the place of another concentration camp prisoner sent to the gas chamber, bear witness to the manner in which her theological method allows for creativity, attentiveness to the current context and practical application.236

Part three: Analysis and discussion

Both Louth and Zizioulas describe Christianity as amalgamating Hebrew theology and the Greek concept of Logos. Their criticism of the notion of truth as external to human persons and communities is also similar, insofar as they both argue that it replaces questions of meaning with methods used to extract facts about entities. The purpose of this thesis is, however, to highlight the critique of Zizioulas’ method in the realization of praxis in actual communities, by comparing him to Louth. I will do this by arguing that Louth understands the Logos as becoming history and recapitulating our whole existence– i.e. our actual communities, including the ontic aspects of ecclesial life – whereas Zizioulas understands the amalgamation of Hebrew theology and the Greek concept of Logos, as the emergence of ontological personhood. Zizioulas works out his notion of personhood from his understanding of the Trinity, which transcends creation. I will make the argument that, as a consequence of this, his understanding of created existence – meaning the world as we know it, both existentially and scientifically – evolves into a negation of ontology, which makes him incapable of entering into dialogue with the world here and now.

233 Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers., pp. 111-116. 234 Ibid., p. 116 ff. 235 Ibid., p. 120 ff. 236 Ibid.

43

3.1. Comparative analysis

3.1.1. The Patristic witness

Zizioulas’ theory could be understood as an attempt to synthesize the patristic tradition into a harmonious theory, by interpreting the fathers from the perspective of his own understanding of the meaning of the inner Trinitarian relations. The task of the theologian is, from this perspective, to find solutions as to how patristic terminology – traditionally used to approach the transcendent God – could be applied to unfolding the meaning of created existence. The project is based on the implicit assumption that the fathers shared his understanding of the Trinity as unfolding the truth of existence itself. Zizioulas’ understanding of Being is, in other words, based on his theory about Being, and this theory is primary to praxis.

Zizioulas’ Trinitarian theology is based on his emphasis on the logic of finitude and how it relates to freedom, which results in a series of dualism: uncreated-created, hypostasis-nature, freedom- necessity, communion-individuality, eschaton-chronos etc.237 Zizioulas does not transcend them, however, but makes the aspects associated with createdness subject to ontology, identified as Being as communion. Beginning in the Godhead means that his understanding of any subject – including his ecclesiology and anthropology – reflect these dualisms, whether they were present in the fathers he refers to or not. Critics such as Louth and Loudovikos have therefore suggested that Zizioulas’ method makes dialogue difficult; it makes Zizioulas immune to any criticism that is not worked out according to his own theological presuppositions.

Louth, on the other hand, does not hold on to a theory which he assumes unfolds the true meaning of revelation in a harmonious way. He claims that doctrine does not inform us about what God is, it rather sets up the boundaries for that which can be said about our shared experience of Him. God’s essence is unknowable and without change, which for Louth means that 1. beginning in the inner Trinitarian relations would implicitly deny the meaning of time and the world as we know it, demoting the fact that God became flesh and transformed the created world, and 2. applying hermeneutics to approach the Trinity would anthropomorphize God and dissolve the mystery, which was exactly what the fathers tried to avoid.

237 It is, as shown in ch. 2.1.2., sometimes hard to tell what comes first: His understanding of the Trinity or his understanding of creation and the Church. Cf. Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Creation as Communion in Contemporary Orthodox Theology,” in Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, First edition, Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Thought (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 106–20.

44

Louth’s reading of the fathers suggests an implicit assumption that we need to differentiate between the Trinity and creation. The notion of God’s otherness engendered a number of distinctions, used to describe God's movement towards creation, and Man's response, without confusing the two: Essence-energies, apophatic-kataphatic, likeness-image, identity-image etc. These distinctions reflect an understanding of God as descending to creation through his activities in the economy, making himself known on the ‘horizontal level’, and Man transcending our current condition by partaking in revelation and His activities. For Louth, the Incarnation made creation a realm of divine activities in the most intimate way possible. God's transcendence means, however, that we cannot approach our own ontic conditions from the ontological perspective, but that we – thanks to the Incarnation – can approach ontology from the perspective of being in this world.

3.1.2. The relationship between God and creation: Adoption or relation?

Zizioulas’ stress on the logic of finitude leads to the conclusion that creation would relapse into nothingness if it was separated from God. According to his reading of Maximus, Man becomes the bond or Priest of creation by being adopted by the polyhypostasized Christ through baptism, which enables Man to unite creation with the life of the Trinity, where the logoi of creation are given a relational mode of being. His project of overcoming all essential differences between God and creation effectively means, however, that he does not differentiate between ecclesial being and Being. Zizioulas’ ontologized understanding of personhood transcends praxis, which means that our cultural, psychological and intellectual/scientific experiences of existence evolve into a negation of his ecclesial being. The task of the theologian is, as a consequence of this, to discern meaning from his or her understanding of the three persons of the Trinity, and dictate it to those who willingly want to escape ‘biological existence' through participation in the sacraments. The Son did not, from this perspective, become Incarnate to restore our nature or existence, but to save the world from its worldliness (itself!), by giving it a relational mode of existence. Salvation is accomplished in the Church through the sacraments, as it connects it to the eschaton. The logical conclusion of this is, however, that the ‘Liturgy after the Liturgy’ – i.e. the partaking in the transformation of the world and ourselves in our everyday lives – is secondary to our eschatological experience of the Eucharist, and not a matter of ontology, since the Eucharist cannot identify itself with history.

45

Zizioulas is careful to remind his readers, however, that his understanding of Being is not ‘something’; it is not a series of principles, attributes or impersonal truths, but to be – existence in perfect freedom and love. For Zizioulas, the task of the theologian is therefore not – at least not theoretically – to dictate impersonal principles like some ‘grand inquisitor’, but to describe a mode of existence that transcends morality, ethics etc. Such existence can only be found in Christ, however, which makes Zizioulas vulnerable to the pitfalls of emanationism. He tries to avoid this by taking refuge in Christology, and claims that his understanding of the polyhypostasized Christ respects the peculiarity of each ecclesial being. His argument is that Chalcedon affirmed that distinctiveness and otherness are not conditioned by distance – what is dictated is a reality that enables otherness. Zizioulas’ understanding of otherness is, however, outlined using technical terms that the fathers developed or adopted to describe a realm of existence with no immediate connection to Man’s existential experience of being in the world, with the exception of Christ Incarnate. Zizioulas’ solution not only transcends ethics and morality – it transcends praxis itself, which effectively means that he ignores the difficulties of navigating through temporal existence in a responsible way.

Louth differentiates between God and creation, and understands the difference from the perspective of the Incarnation. Creation ex nihilo means, from this perspective, that the world – including time, created nature, the harmony of the cosmos etc. – is a gift from God in a positive sense. As can be seen in his reading of Maximus, God makes Himself known in/through the very constitution of creation; we participate in the wisdom of God through the logoi. Our desire for communion and righteousness is thus not something added to nature, but the inherent potential which we are unable to reach due to the confusion caused by sin. According to Louth’s interpretation of Maximus, the Incarnation accomplished 1. the renewal of creation on the ‘horizontal level’, i.e. the world as we know it, by revealing how all the logoi in creation are summed in Man, and 2. the establishment of creation as a realm of divine activities on the ‘vertical level’, as God is always beyond creation.

Louth’s reading of Maximus means that Christ healed creation from within, but also that He became accessible to us ‘in the world’ as a gateway for us to transcend our current condition beyond the world as we know it. Creation cannot encapsulate God, which means that our experience of God on the ‘horizontal level’ points towards a realm of ‘Divine Darkness’ that transcends the limitations of art, language etc – a realm approached apophatically. Theology does not, in other words, make any sense without spirituality – but spirituality is impossible without

46

moving towards God, as He makes Himself known through the intelligible: images, written prayers, harmony of creation etc. Louth’s reading of St. Maximus approaches the Incarnation apophatically, meaning that the God of history teaches us through His activities and the beauty of creation – not in a comprehensive way, but in a way that allows us to grow in His likeness. The vocation of Man is thus to move towards God, beyond our current existence, while trying to ‘mirror’ God as to how we organize our lives.

3.1.3. The Church and the world

Zizioulas’ understanding of the Church as saving Man from the bondage of time and the limitations of the created condition, puts theology/ecclesiology in a position above and apart from sciences dealing with ontic knowledge/laws of our created condition; it is these laws – whether physical, psychological or sociological – that Christ saves us from. Praxis is Christian by being personal in an ontological sense; by being Christ’s and not animated by nature or the psychological self. As has been illustrated by Hjälm’s criticism of Zizioulas, any experience or understanding of freedom, charity or beauty etc. that we attain from ‘being-in-the-world’ inevitably evolves into a negation of authentic relationality, and thus only reveals the Fall.

Zizioulas’ inability to move beyond the apophatic paradigm leaves him with a poor description of how the ethos becomes integral to communities on a practical level; all he manages to say is that it requires participation in the sacraments, and obedience to the structures that enable them. His exposition of the nature of the sacraments – i.e. the Church breaking through history without identifying itself with it – could only be described as an escape from any other experience of the world as we know it. This means, in summary, that no actual experience of existence in this world could ever correspond to Zizioulas’ notion of the praxis of the ontologized ecclesial being. We know that such a person should mirror the existence of the Son, but we do not know what it means or how he or she comes to be; the ‘ecclesial being’ only exists in Zizioulas’ eschatological vision, and is mapped out within the paradigm of apophaticism. Zizioulas claims, to be fair, that using the created world liturgically makes us treasure it, but he does not develop on how this claim is coherent with the rest of his theoretical framework.

Louth's understanding of the difference between God and creation makes him outline Man’s experience of God using the kataphatic-apophatic method. Knowledge of others is, for Louth, analogous to how we know ourselves. God reveals Himself, using words and symbols familiar to

47

us, without us confusing them with God as such – God’s what is always beyond our being. This means that he begins from the perspective of Man, who kataphatically embraces God’s revelation in the world and transcends our current condition by moving towards the mystery beyond knowledge. This also means that revelation does not provide Man with an exhaustive interpretation of the human condition, or a final model for how to organize our lives. There is, for Louth, always more to say – about God and about ourselves, since art, linguistics etc. belong to a world of limitations that cannot encapsulate God; he is not a being among other beings. Louth’s understanding of the limitations of created knowledge means, however, that Man’s experience of transcending his or her current condition by encountering God, generates a kind of ‘tacit knowledge’ that sets Man in motion towards the transcendent, a realm beyond words. Louth also argues that even the Incarnation must be approached apophatically, and that Christ primarily taught us through praxis. The result is a kind of knowledge that cannot be reified into theories or structures; it is the kind of knowledge that must be experienced.

The experiential dimension of Louth’s thinking makes him emphasise the importance of personal metanoia. This experience is shared with others, which means that the Christian experience is communal and the basis of a shared tacit knowledge, beyond words. This line of thinking is particularly present in his reading of Maximus, according to which the Incarnation revealed something about the meaning of created natures, and how it is natural for Man to be lifted up by the Divine. God presents Himself to us but he does so through us, as the movement is always reciprocal and requires a response on our behalf. This also means that praxis is primary in the sense that Man, by cooperating with God, has the ability to exercise created freedom; the impaired judgement of the Fall is not natural to us. Just like an icon is not what it depicts – it does not share its identity – so is Man not God, but Man is recapitulated through participation in His energies. Receiving the gift of love is, in Louth’s reading of Maximus, the ultimate goal, transcending all divisions, and something we can affect through asceticism. Asceticism is participation in the Incarnation, i.e. the overcoming of unnatural divisions, and the opening of Man’s heart for Christ to enter.

Asceticism is about union with creation for Zizioulas also. He claims, however, contrary to Louth, that the ascetic only discovers emptiness from this union, which motivates a deepened trust in the eschaton/Church. Zizioulas’ reading of Maximus means that acting according to nature results in death, which means – to paraphrase Loudovikos – that the Incarnation provided Man with a personalized nature. For Zizioulas, the ecclesial ethos bears – from the experience of the

48

Eucharist – the stamp of 'already but not yet', bringing something of the eschaton into the world, transcending nature. Such ethos emerges, however, from a realm beyond created time, which prompted Loudovikos to criticize Zizioulas for assuming that it is accomplished automatically. Zizioulas’ position could also be described as emanationism, where the activities of the Church are, like God's energies in the economy, expressions of what is held in common, and not the basis for ontology. You could, in other words, say that the Eucharist is the only escape from the Fall, as long as we exist in the temporal world. What the ecclesial being brings from the eschaton to the temporal world is thus not only an experience of transcending nature, but the experience of transcending praxis itself.

What emerges is two very different perspectives as to the nature of the communal experience. For Zizioulas, the Church is the manifestation of grace par excellence – it functions as an icon of the Coming Kingdom. The Church operates, like God’s energies, ad extra in the temporal world, but the ontological/personal dimension is realized in the Eucharist. The Church constitutes the Church through the Eucharist, which is conditioned by its visible structures. The hierarchy is thus interconnected and modelled after Trinitarian dogma. Its meaning – which is freedom and unity in Christ – is revealed to Man, and all Man needs to do is participate. Zizioulas’ perspective thus escapes dealing with the problem of dissensus, at least theoretically; his system of thought sees revelation as more clearly applicable to created existence, and it does not need to integrate the interests and conflicts of temporal human communities. For Zizioulas, participation in the Church is a matter of ontology, and the role of theology seems to be to reflect on its content and to identify that which deviates from genuine tradition.

Louth, on the other hand, suggests that the visible structures are subject to the sacramental and symbolic order of the Church. They are holy because they participate in the energies of God; the same energies that mediate grace through a saint or an icon. This does not necessarily imply that they are charismatically constituted in the sense that the presence of grace depends on the morality of the or the like, only that the hierarchy is inseparable from other essential aspects of truth that the communion of saints have in common. Louth likewise rejects the idea of finding an ideal community in the Church, as it is part of a fallen world. Instead, he locates a shared foundation in the spiritual experience of God, and the shared tradition of the Church, as it is synthesized with the existence of a specific time and place.

49

Participation in truth requires, for Louth, a shared mindset or mode of being: the mind cannot and should not be dissociated from our bodies, souls or psychological dispositions. The liturgy, which involves a common work of the people and the sharing of a symbolic and sacramental framework, provides a foundation for unity. Being a theologian involves dialogue and engagement in the meaning that objects, texts, gestures and symbols have attached to them. Tradition, acquired in the paideia, enables a shared focal point of awareness. Without it, revelation reified into structures or theories risks losing the meaning it derives from its context, resulting in dissensus, as Louth’s understanding of unity requires a shared understanding of meaning among the ecclesial subjects. A clear notion of tradition prevents us from replacing meaning with exterior manifestations, as occurred when the autonomous churches modelled their hierarchies according to the notion of symphonia, separated from the Byzantine notion of œcumenicity. As can be seen in Louth’s exposition of St. Maria Skobtsova, being grounded in tradition is also essential for determining the current state of the Church, and for finding creative solutions for how to bring Christ’s Gospel into the world today.

Meaning occurs, for Louth, when grace becomes integral to the will, convictions and narratives of the self. He thereby places bias – i.e. the psychological and existential experience of being in this world – at the heart of knowledge, including how we treat revelation. We cannot treat ideas, concepts or images as independent or separated from the lives of those who thought, lived and formulated them. That is, suggests Louth, what ‘some modern theologians’ do when they use the Trinity as a model for human communion. The saints reveal, by their ways of life, how grace operates in different historical situations. They are primary in the sense that they manifest God’s acting in the economy in a fundamental and concrete way. Louth’s understanding of Maximus’ notion of logoi, God’s presence in the harmony of the Cosmos etc. also suggests that knowledge about creation, acquired by different scientific methods, can be synthesized with how we understand ourselves, creation and our relationship with God, as it is worked out within the paradigm of kataphatic theology. Christ provides a prism through which we see the world, and Man has the vocation to discern meaning, by being attentive to the voice of previous generations, as well as the needs and scientific discoveries of our current situation. The dialectic presented by Louth enables a positive approach to psychology, natural sciences etc. without the need to adopt their methods. The synthesis of different kinds of knowledge takes place within human persons and communities, meaning that sciences can be studied independently from theology, without being irrelevant for the Church.

50

3.2. Discussion and conclusion

3.2.1. Zizioulas: The lack of differentiation and the totalitarian harmony

Zizioulas’ ecclesial being transcends the world, which means that it cannot exist in it, or communicate with it. Zizioulas’ understanding of salvation is not God responding to our needs as we experience them, but the existential realization that we belong to the promised Kingdom. His understanding of Grace operates on nameless subjects, without culture or language or family; the communities saved bring nothing to the process, apart from their consent. Zizioulas’ understanding of a person kills the subject as we know it.

Zizioulas’ reading of the fathers, through the prism of his Trinitarian theology, also means that he attributes almost no significance to God's presence in time, other than the Incarnation of Christ and the eschaton breaking through time in the Eucharistic gathering. His attempt to synthesize the fathers not only makes dialogue difficult on an academic level by making a historical-critical criticism of him impossible; it is based on the implicit assumption that meaning is something that can be revealed to us, separated from our history, identity, personal narratives etc. This means that our reading of the fathers is not a dialogue between us and them, but a teacher-student relationship: it does not matter whether they were unaware of the questions that concern us today or not.

Zizioulas’ understanding of the Eucharist risks evolving into a negation of being-in-the-world, which makes the ‘Liturgy after the Liturgy’ deprived of ontological significance. This is evident as he evaluates, criticizes and dictates principles to the economy, from the safe perspective of the eschaton, without having to maneuver the confusing and contradictory parameters in a world of limitations and imperfections. Zizioulas also criticizes democratic tendencies in the Church for downplaying the ontological status of the episcopacy, without taking clerical abuse or passivity of the people into consideration. From the same perspective, he also criticizes institutionalized charity for being impersonal. He thus fails to recognize – to paraphrase Hjälm’s reading of Stöckl – that any notion of charity as a given characteristic of the ecclesial being is incomprehensible without the ontic perspective of charity in time. Instead, Zizioulas dictates to the suffering that they need personal charity, modelled after his understanding of being-as-such. Any actual experience of caring for one another must thus be interpreted as a negation of Zizioulas’ understanding of praxis.

51

Zizioulas’ demotion of temporal existence makes theology isolated and vulnerable to the pitfalls of totalitarianism; it can teach other fields of study, but it cannot learn from them. His ‘ecclesial being’ cannot know conflict, confusion or limitations, which means that theology cannot enter into dialogue with sciences dealing with the mind, or sciences dealing with efficient, democratic institutions, for example. The same goes for medicine, biology or any other sciences dealing with a dimension of existence that is transcended in Zizioulas’ eschatological vision. Furthermore, in addition to the non-ecclesial sciences, Zizioulas implicitly downplays the ascetical and canonical tradition of the Church, which likewise deal with the reality of unwanted patterns of thoughts and behaviours, and how to organize our lives in a way that takes the ontic dimension of existence into consideration. Zizioulas’ solution is to make an entirely spiritual interpretation by claiming that the visible structures of the ecclesial body are interconnected with Trinitarian dogma, or that the ecclesial ethos helps the ascetics taste the ‘cup of hell’ of union with this world, without fear, knowing that Christ has conquered it etc. Zizioulas is thus coherent when he states that the Church should not obsessively concern itself with finding relief for the suffering, as the ecclesial ethos is, at heart, eschatological – there is no suffering in the promised Kingdom!

Zizioulas claims that the eschatological gaze of the ecclesial being, due to its eucharistic ethos, transcends moralism, philetism etc. by virtue of seeing everyone as a potential saint and sibling in Christ. He does not, however, explain how this gaze is acquired, nor how there could be dialogue and reciprocity with those who do not share his description of the Orthodox ethos, if we are to discover ourselves in the other. Zizioulas fails, as already mentioned, to consider the difficulties for a human being, deprived of history, to enter into loving dialogue with concrete, historical beings. Without genuine investment in the economy, all Zizioulas communicates is the benefits of the Eucharist, where our mundane joys and troubles lose their significance. Zizioulas has, through his hermeneutic approach to Trinitarian doctrine, already decided what is important and what is not, effectively making him the author of the lives of others. The concrete, historical subjects we normally think of as persons evolve into a negation of his ontologized personhood.

The benefit of Zizioulas’ theory is that it enables cohesion and unity, at least theoretically, as the fundamental principles of how to organize our lives are revealed to us. It is difficult to see, however, how such an existence could involve freedom and creativity, outside his description of eschatological existence, which is a utopian state of being, free from friction and confusion – i.e. free from the need of praxis and technê. The dangers of this approach are – in addition to his neglect of the practical concerns of life – particularly evident as he is unable to address the

52

problems of sin, abuse of power etc. in the Church. Zizioulas’ theory attributes the episcopacy ontological status in a way that makes it hard to see how anything but obedience could be appropriate, which once again shows how he forgets the actual human beings upholding institutions. Louth escapes this problem, but he only partly solves it.

3.2.2. Andrew Louth: Solutions and unexplored possibilities

Louth takes the ontological difference between God and creation seriously, which is part of the solution to the problems caused by Zizioulas’ approach. His use of distinctions – essence-energies, apophatic-kataphatic, image-likeness etc. – enables a bridge between theology and the economy; not by confusion, but by connectedness. This allows for communities to take ontic considerations into account, as the ontic is distinguished, but not separated, from ontology; the ontic and the ontological dimensions are united in Christ, who sanctified time. Any understanding of God – whether it is about his freedom, beauty, unity, charity etc. – is incomprehensible without some understanding of these concepts as we understand them from the experience of being in the world.

Communion must, for Louth, be based on genuine togetherness. Louth finds a foundation for unity in the the shared spiritual experience, i.e. Man’s moving towards God. We access the spiritual through the world, which means that communities of ecclesial beings must partake in a shared symbolic framework, where we experience God. This means that not even the ecclesial institutions are an end in themselves, but subject to the symbolic framework of tradition. In Louth's interpretation of Maximus, the process of discovering meaning is emancipatory, as meaning and genuine communion of actual human beings has priority over obedience. Louth’s notion of truth cannot be controlled, other than by attributing institutions, symbols etc. a final interpretation and ontological status - which is what Zizioulas does. For Louth, communion requires genuine togetherness, making love primary to truths deduced from formulas.

The problem with this approach is that Louth does not explain to what extent we are free to reinterpret what has been handed down to us. This involves the risk of dissensus, on the one hand, and emanationism, on the other; how do we maintain the same world of thoughts and patterns of behavior as the extended community, without simply repeating and reproducing what is given, or by destroying the individual? Louth does not solve this conflict, other than by implicitly suggesting that initiation into tradition gives us tools to discern what is an end in itself, and what is or has

53

been the means to an end. If our lives are to be imbued with the Gospel, it must first be hearable by all, avoiding elitism. It must also be open to dialogue, if we are not to give in to emanationism.

Zizioulas makes a good point when he claims that the task of formulating a vision for the Church cannot only be left to those recognized as saints, if we are to avoid all the risks of a charismatically constituted leadership. He explains why the people of God gather around its Bishop and thereby constitute the Church. Zizioulas fails, however, to explain how the Church could interact with the world in a meaningful way. Louth likewise answers why the people should gather arounds its Bishop, albeit vaguely. He also – through his understanding of the Incarnation and the ontological difference between God and creation – answers why the Church could interact with the world as we know it, but he does not take on the task of answering how. What Louth fails to answer is, in other words, how we can find an understanding of the Church as a concrete and visible subject, capable of communicating with the world.

Louth’s understanding of the paideia and creation of meaning and communication is almost entirely concerned with spirituality and asceticism. Our encounter with God in the world is therefore at risk of being interpreted as the simple means to transcend our current condition, without changing it as a communal subject. This attitude is particularly evident when he responds to the hope of establishing autocephalous churches in the so-called diaspora – i.e. overcoming the canonical anomaly of having several competing bishops in the same area – by saying that the Church’s vocation is “. . . repentance, μετάνοια, and that involves personal commitment, not political programmes.”238 Such an approach may transform small groups of individuals into mystics and ascetics, but it does not take the notion of the Church as a polis seriously enough.

Louth’s understanding of the Incarnation as becoming history should enable an interpretation that not only involves synthesizing our cultural and psychological experiences with the Church’s symbolic framework to give us a shared focal point of awareness; it should also be able to affect how we organize this togetherness as political entities (in a broad sense of the word). Louth’s emphasis on the tacit and spiritual means that he neglects the importance of language that can be reified into structures and theories to help us interact with each other and the world. Furthermore: Louth explores the similarities between theology and the humanities insofar as they are both dealing with knowledge [epistêmê] and the practical wisdom required for a dealing with

238 Louth, “Ignatios or Eusebios.”, p. 55.

54

meaning/wisdom [phrónēsis] in order to achieve contemplation [theôria], but he neglects interacting with sciences dealing with constructing things [technê] or praxis. If we as human beings participate in the wisdom of God by trying to make sense of it, should not that also affect how we use it?

3.2.3 Final conclusion and suggestions for further research

Zizioulas’ theology is incapable of entering into dialogue with Issa’s request to provide shelter (Cf. Background), since Zizioulas’ understanding of Being transcends existence as we know it. Louth takes the ontological difference between God and creation seriously, which enables an understanding of the Incarnation that protects the otherness of God and the freedom of Man. Louth shows how Christ’s union with our world reveals the possibility of infinite growth in His likeness. Moving towards God creates a foundation upon which unity can be built – not by obedience, but by genuinely having something in common. Communion, based on a shared understanding of meaning, could be the means for an emancipatory understanding of the Church. Louth must, however, answer the question as to how we can understand the Church as a communal and political subject, a polis.

Another benefit of Louth is that he treats Christians like adults who must make adult decisions; to try to do what we think is best in our given circumstances, while traveling towards our final destination – the Kingdom. Such understanding challenges Christian communities to take ontic considerations into account, and to accept that we will make mistakes, trusting in God’s Providence. It also challenges us to listen; to show curiosity and try to understand the world and the people of our own time, as well as previous generations of Christians, especially the saints. The Church’s kerygma, as well as its charities etc. can thus be treated as a response to the concerns of a particular time and place, in dialogue with the past. It could also mean that Louth sets up boundaries for theology, leaving certain questions better answered by other fields of studies. Louth thus answers why theology could communicate with sciences dealing with our ontic conditions, but he does not explain how.

A task for future theologians could be to investigate how Louth’s reading of St. Maximus’ could enter into dialogue with fields of studies like medicine, to use one example; not just to learn something about the harmony of creation in a way that affects our sense of wonder, but in a way that informs us about how to make use of medicine? Would it also be hypothetically possible for other fields of study to improve on St. Maximus, by pointing out that the harmony of creation

55

witnesses against some of his conclusions? Furthermore: if God becomes history, should that not also mean that we try to learn from his mode of being in the way we think about money, distribution of power, human rights etc.? Could Louth’s notion of genuine togetherness benefit from communicating with sociology or organizational psychology? Could our theological understanding of the meaning of tithing benefit from entering into dialogue with fields like economics, or organizational psychology or the like?

56

Sources

Chryssavgis, John, and Bruce V. Foltz, eds. Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation. First edition. Orthodox Christianity and contemporary thought. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.

Hjälm, Michael. “Liberation of the Ecclesia: The Unfinished Project of Liturgical Theology.” Anastasis media, 2011.

Hovorun, Cyril. Meta-Ecclesiology: Chronicles on Church Awareness. First edition. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

John Zizioulas. “Proprietors of Priests of Creation?” In Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, 163–174. Orthodox Christianity and contemporary thought. Fordham University Press, 2013.

Loudovikos, Nicholas. “Eikon and Mimesis Eucharistic Ecclesiology and the Ecclesial Ontology of Dialogical Reciprocity.” International journal for the Study of the Christian Church 11, no. 2–3 (May 2011): 123–136.

———. “Person Instead of Grace and Dictated Otherness: John Zizioulas’ Final Theological Position.” The Heythrop Journal 52, no. 4 (July 2011): 684–699.

Louth, Andrew. “‘Beauty Will Save the World’: The Formation of Byzantine Spirituality.” Theology Today 61, no. 1 (April 2004): 67–77.

———. Denys the Areopagite. Re-Issued. Outstanding Christian thinkers. London: Continuum, 1989.

———. Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology. Oxford [Oxfordshire] : New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, 1983.

———. “Ignatios or Eusebios: Two Models of Patristic Ecclesiology.” International journal for the Study of the Christian Church 10, no. 1 (February 2010): 46–56.

———. Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 2013.

———. “Man and Cosmos in St. Maximus the Confessor.” In Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and

Creation, 59–74. First edition. Orthodox Christianity and contemporary thought. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.

———. “Maximus the Confessor on the Foolishness of God and the Play of the Word.” In The Wisdom and Foolishness of God, edited by Christophe Chalamet and Hans- Christoph Askani, 89–100. First Corinthians 1-2 in Theological Exploration. Augsburg Fortress, Publishers, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155j3m5.8.

———. Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present. London: SPCK, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2015.

———. “Orthodoxy and the Problem of Identity.” International journal for the Study of the Christian Church 12, no. 2 (May 2012): 96–104.

———. St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology. Oxford early Christian studies. Oxford [England] ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

———. “The Doctrine of the Eucharist in the Iconoclast Controversy.” Sobornost incorporating Eastern Churches Review 32, no. 2 (2015): 7–15.

———. “The Ecclesiology of Saint Maximos the Confessor.” International journal for the Study of the Christian Church 4, no. 2 (July 2004): 109–120.

———. The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys. 2nd ed. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

———. “Theology of Creation in Orthodoxy.” International Journal of Orthodox Theology 8, no. 3 (2017): 26.

———. “Theology of the ‘in-Between.’” Communio viatorum 55, no. 3 (2013): 223–236.

———. “Virtue Ethics: St Maximos the Confessor and Aquinas Compared.” Studies in Christian Ethics 26, no. 3 (August 2013): 351–363.

Louth, Andrew, Anna Chahoud, John Dillon, Richard J. Goodrich, Roger P. H. Green, Mark Humphries, Scott McGill, et al. “Pagans and Christians on Providence.” In Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity, edited by J. H. D. Scourfield, 279–298. Inheritance, Authority, and Change. Classical Press of Wales, 2007. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvvnb1n.16.

Louth, Andrew, and Maximus. Maximus the Confessor. The early church fathers. London ; New York: Routledge, 1996.

Papanikolaou, Aristotle. “Creation as Communion in Contemporary Orthodox Theology.” In Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, 106–120. First edition. Orthodox Christianity and contemporary thought. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.

Turcescu, Lucian. “‘Person’ versus ‘Individual’, and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa.” Modern Theology 18, no. 4 (October 2002): 527–539.

Volf, Miroslav. After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. Sacra doctrina. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Zizioulas, J. D. “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood.” Scottish Journal of Theology 28, no. 5 (October 1975): 401–447.

Zizioulas, Jean. Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop during the First Three Centuries. Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001.

Zizioulas, Jean, and Douglas H. Knight. Lectures in Christian Dogmatics. London ; New York: T & T Clark, 2008.

Zizioulas, Jean, and Paul McPartlan. Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church. Reprinted. London: T & T Clark, 2009.

Zizioulas, John. “Ecological Asceticism: A Cultural Revolution,” 1996. Accessed February 2, 2020. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/john_zizoulias_ecological_asceti cism.html.

———. “Ethics versus Ethos: An Orthodox Approach to the Relation between Ecology and Ethics,” n.d. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/ethics/john_pergamon_ethics_vs_eth os.html.

———. “Faith and Order Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.” Ecumenical Patriarchate Permanent Delegation to the World Council of Churches. Last modified October 20, 2017. Accessed January 25, 2020. https://www.ecupatria.org/articles/748-2/.

———. “Ontology and Ethics.” Sabornost, no. 6 (2012): 1–14.

———. “Orthodoxy and Ecological Problems: A Theological Approach.” Orthodox Research Institute. Accessed March 12, 2019. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/.

———. “Orthodoxy and Ecological Problems: A Theological Approach,” n.d. Accessed February 2, 2020. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/john_pergamon_ecological_prob lems.html.

———. “The Black Sea in Crisis.” Orthodox Research Institute. Last modified 1997. Accessed February 2, 2020. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/john_zizioulas_black_sea.html.

———. “The Task of Orthodox Theology in Today’s Europe.” International Journal of Orthodox Theology 6, no. 3 (2015): 9.

Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2004.

“Orthodox Research Institute.” Orthodox Research Institute. Accessed February 2, 2020. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/.