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Home , Lateran Council of 649, Maximus the Confessor, Nikolaos Loudovikos

St : A Bridge Between the Churches*

Very Rev. Arch. Maximos CONSTAS

Summary St. Maximos the Confessor is in many ways a bridge between the eastern and western churches. He lived for many years in the West, initially in northern Africa and then in Rome, where he was a close ally of the in the struggle against monotheletism. In the fifteenth century, at the Council of Florence, St Mark of Ephesus suggested that the of St Maximos provides the best possible place for the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches to meet and perhaps find greater agreement. At the time, St Mark's suggestion was ignored, but an increasing number of modern scholars concur with his judgment. After providing a summary of St Maximos's life, with particular attention to his sojourn in the West, and especially at the Latern Synod, this paper considers the Confessor's theology of the as a corrective to tendencies in both the eastern and western Christian traditions. The paper closes with some reflections on the utility of the symbolic language of bridges.

Keywords: St Maximos the Confessor; ; Orthodox - Roman Catholic Dialogue; Charisma and Institution

Introduction: The and the Churches To suggest that a patristic writer, who lived more than a thousand years ago, could serve today as a bridge between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches,

* This paper was originally given at Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans, on 20 February 2019, for the second annual Dathal and John D. Georges Lecture for Orthodox-Catholic Relations. I am grateful to the president and rector of Notre Dame, Fr James A. Wehner, to dean Rebecca Maloney, and to the faculty, students and staff for their hospitality and friendship. Many thanks are also due to Dathal and John Georges for their kind and generous support.  Arhim. Maximos Constas, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Senior Research Scholar - Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, MA, USA, Email: [email protected] 65

Arch. Maximos Constas might seem unusual. Yet the recovery of the patristic tradition has always been vital for both churches, not simply for their own inner renewal, but precisely for ecumenical dialogue between them. Both churches turn to the Fathers to “grasp the mind of the Church before the occurrence of historical schisms, and to better understand what is absolute and permanent in the Christian faith, and what is of only relative importance, determined by passing historical and cultural factors.”1 This was certainly the case at that greatest of ecumenical encounters, the Council of Florence (1438-1439), where the two churches sought to unite on the basis of their common patristic heritage.2 At a crucial impasse in the discussions, one of the leading Byzantine delegates, Mark Eugenikos, suggested that the only way to break the deadlock was to adopt the theology of Maximus the Confessor. Resorting to Maximus, he said, would be a windfall for both sides. Here, the word “windfall” translates the Greek hermaion, which is derived from the name “Hermes.”3 Hermes was a mediating figure, a messenger between realms, a god of borders, boundaries and bridges.4 As Eugenikos undoubtedly knew, bridges are metaphors used to suggest links between cultures and ideas; they promise connection and coexistence between things that are separate. But the metaphor of the bridge is more complex than common usage generally admits, and I address some of these complexities in my concluding remarks. Since the Council of Florence, the Fathers have continued to serve as a bridge between the churches, modern examples of which are not hard to find. On the Orthodox side, the “Neo-patristic synthesis” of Russian Orthodox theologian George Florovsky was not only a program for renewal within the , but also a

1 John Meyendorff, “”, in Nicholas Lossky, et al., eds., Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2002), 888; cf. Boris Bobrinskoy, “Le renouveau actuel de la patristique dans l’orthodoxie”, in Les Pères de l’Église au XXe siècle: Histoire-littérature-théologie (: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1997), 437-44. 2 The literature on the Council of Florence is vast; for a bibliography covering the years 1861-2002, see Maximos Constas, “Mark Eugenikos”, in La théologie byzantine et sa tradition, vol. 2, ed. Carmelo Giuseppe Conticello and Vassa Conticello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 468-75 3 St Paul himself was once confused with Hermes, “because he was the chief speaker”, a phrase that is even more telling in the Greek: ἡγούμενος τοῦ λόγου (Acts 14:12). 4 Mark Eugenikos, Second Oration on Purgatory 18, ed. Louis Petit and Georg Hofmann, De Purgatorio Disputationes in Concilio Florentino Habitae, Concilium Florentinum, Documenta et scriptores, Series A, vol. 3, fasc. 2 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1969), 108-51, at p. 18, lines 34-35. Note that a letter by Eugenikos is an indirect witness to the text of Maximos’s Mystagogy, transmitting chaps. 8 and 16 (cf. CCSG 69:cxvi-cxvii), which are parts of his larger argument against the use of unleavened bread; cf. Louis Petit, Marci Eugenici Metropolitae Ephesi opera anti-unionistica, 10/2, Concilium Florentinum documenta et scriptores A. (Rome, 1977), 152-56, 162-75 = Constas, La théologie byzantine, 427, no. 26. 66

St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches program to promote . Florovsky’s synthesis aimed to rediscover a common consensus to serve as the foundation for a larger reintegration of the Christian tradition.5 On the Roman Catholic side, there are even more examples, beginning with the great patristic revival of the early twentieth century (i.e., the ressourcement of the Nouvelle théologie movement).6 The patristic series, Sources chrétiennes, founded in Paris in 1941 by and Jean Daniélou, was a conscious attempt to “restore the tradition of the early Church within Catholicism, thus making ecumenical dialogue easier.”7 The series, which has produced about 600 volumes, initially emphasized the writings of the Greek Fathers, since it was felt that their voices were absent from contemporary Roman . More recently, Maximos the Confessor’s status as a bridge figure was highlighted in a collection of conference papers called: A for East and West: Maximus the Confessor’s Contribution to Eastern and Western Christian Theology.8 Also worthy of note is the work of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, a specialist on Maximus the Confessor, who served as editor-in-chief of the new Catholic Catechism (promulgated in 1992). Thanks to his background as a patristics scholar, the new

5 Georges Florovsky, “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology”, Anglican Theological Review 31 (1949): 65-71; cf. John Meyendorff, “Patristics”, 887-89; Buda, “Foundations for Ecumenism in Patristic Theology and Church History”, in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, et al., eds., Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education (Volos: Volos Academy Publications, 2014), 69-76; Andrew Blane, Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1933); and Matthew Baker, “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition”, in Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness, ed. Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (Basingstoke: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014), 235-60. 6 On which, see Flynn and Paul D. Murray, eds., Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 7 Buda, “Foundations”, 73; cf. Grumett, “Henri de Lubac: Looking for Books to Read in the World”, and Bernard Pottier, “Daniélou and the Twentieth-Century Patristic Renewal”, in Flynn and Murray, Ressourcement, 236-49, and 250-62. 8 Daniel Haynes, ed., A Saint for East and West: Maximus the Confessor’s Contribution to Eastern and Western Theology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019); cf. Sotiris Mitralexis, et al., eds, Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017); Deano Geanakoplos, “Some Aspects of the Influence of the Byzantine Maximos the Confessor on the Theology of East and West”, Church History 38 (1969): 150-63; and Jaroslav Pelikan, “The Place of Maximus Confessor in the History of Christian Thought”, in Maximus Confessor: Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Fribourg, 2-5 septembre 1980, ed. Felix Heinzer and Christoph Schönborn (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1982), 387-402. 67

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Catechism was enriched with references to the Greek Fathers, including excerpts from the writings of Maximus the Confessor.9 Of all the Greek Fathers, then, Maximos the Confessor would appear to be the most promising conversation partner for ecumenical dialogue. This was certainly the judgment of , who, echoing the sentiments of Mark Eugenikos, identified Maximus as “the philosophical thinker between East and West,” granting him a privileged place as a bridge between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic worlds. 10 My remarks focus on Maximus’s vision of the Church, partly because ecclesiology has been an ongoing theme in the dialogue between the churches,11 and partly because our churches today are facing a crisis of identity, meaning, and purpose. Theologians in both churches now regularly question the nature of the Church, along with its relevance in the modern world. Despite the proliferation of various ecclesiological models and theories, many questions regarding the structure, orders, and ministries of the Church remain largely open and under discussion–and these are not merely academic questions but to the contrary express a genuine and widespread crisis. I will not, however, be undertaking a comparative analysis of Orthodox and Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Instead, I propose to consider a central problem in the life of both churches, namely, that hierarchy and institutional structure have come to dominate the vision of the Church, and as a result provoke a range of anti-institutional, existential, and charismatic reactions. In short, what modern scholars of sociology and religion have identified as a conflict between “charisma” and “institution.”12 In

9 I.e., Questions and Doubts 66 (CCSG 10:52-52) (in par. 129 of the Catechism); Ambigua to John (DOML 1:247) (in par. 398); and Opusculum 11 (PG 91:137-40) (in par. 834). 10 The quotation is from Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: the Universe According to Maximos the Confessor, translated by Brian E. Daley (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 25; cf. Edward T. Oakes, “Balthasar and Ressourcement: An Ambiguous Relationship”, in Ressourcement, 278-88, who ranks Balthasar as “perhaps the premier representative of the ressourcement school” (283). 11 Beginning in Munich, in 1982 (“The Mystery of the Church and the in Light of the Mystery of the Holy ”); Bari in 1987 (“Faith, , and the Unity of the Church in Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity”); New Valamo in 1988 (“The of Order in the Sacramental Structure of the Church, with Particular Reference to ”); and, after a hiatus, in 2007 (“The Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesiastical Communion, Synodality, and Authority”). 12 These categories were established by Max Weber, and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of 68

St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches response to this dilemma, Maximus the Confessor has something to offer not simply to Roman Catholic theologians but to Orthodox theologians as well. Before proceeding, it will be helpful to sketch briefly the life of St Maximus.

Maximus the Confessor: A Life in the West As a bridge between East and West, Maximus the Confessor has some rather distinctive qualifications. Unlike all the other later Greek Church Fathers, he spent much of his adult life in the West, initially in , where he lived for more than 15 years, and then in Rome, where he lived for nearly 10 years.13 Born in the late sixth century (580), he witnessed the gradual collapse of Justinian’s empire, which at its height reached from Spain to Mesopotamia. When the eastern provinces came under successive waves of attacks from the Persians and the Arabs (ca. 630), he fled to the West, where he settled in a monastic community of Greek-speaking refugees living in Carthage.14 Many of these refugees were from Palestine and Asia Minor, who had fled the destruction of their homelands. His prolonged residence in North Africa was a period of remarkable literary activity, when he wrote, among other things, the Dialogue on the Ascetic Life, The Chapters on Love, The Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, the scholia on Dionysios the Areopagite, as well as his two greatest works, the Ambigua to John and the Responses to Thalassios. It was also during this time that he wrote one of the earliest commentaries on the Eucharistic liturgy, known as the Mystagogy, to which we shall return in a moment. Maximos’s life of monastic leisure changed forever in in 640, when he made the dangerous decision to take a public stand against the of monotheletism, which was being promoted by the imperial government. Maximos’s program of resistance gained the support of Rome, and his sojourn in North Africa culminated with a public debate in 645, where he defeated Pyrrhus, a former monothelite of

California Press, 1978), 241-54, 439-50, though my use of them is not always strictly Weberian. 13 See Andrew Louth, “St Maximus the Confessor Between East and West”, Studia Patristica 32 (1977): 332-45. For a detailed discussion of the life of Maximus the Confessor, including a survey of earlier bibliography, see Paul M. Blowers, Maximus the Confessor: Christ and the Transfiguration of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 25-63. 14 It is often suggested that while he was in North Africa, Maximus came into contact with the thought of Augustine and , though there is no absolutely convincing evidence for this; cf. Johannes Börjesson, “Augustine on the Will”, in The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor, ed. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 212-34. 69

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Constantinople.15 Maximos’s triumph was confirmed by two large African church councils, which condemned monotheletism. After the debate, Pyrrhus and Maximos traveled to Rome, where Pyrrhus renounced his heretical beliefs and submitted a confession of Orthodox faith to Pope Theodore (sed. 642-49).16 The pope took the provocative step of recognizing Pyrrhus as the true patriarch of . (Theodore, it will be remembered, was a Greek-speaking pope born in Jerusalem, where his father, also named Theodore, had been a .) These events were being closely watched by the emperor, who saw them as acts of treason. Maximos remained in Rome for nearly ten years,17 and his anti-monothelite theological agenda became closely aligned with the Roman pontiffs. At the time, the eastern were all in a state of formal heresy, and Rome stood alone in its defense of the Orthodox faith. In 649, Maximus was present at the Lateran Synod (5-31 October, 649), which was a major event in the history of the monothelite controversy. The Synod was convened by Theodore’s successor, Pope Martin (sed. 649-655), and was attended by 106 and a delegation of 36 monks and from the Greek East.18 The Synod produced two versions of its official proceedings, one in Latin and one in Greek. Linguistic analysis has demonstrated that, even though the Synod was conducted in Latin, the proceedings were originally composed in Greek and then translated into Latin by a team of translators. The proceedings closely follow and express the theology of Maximus, who supervised their composition and was almost

15 For an English translation of the debate, see P. Farrell, The Disputation with Pyrrhus of our Father among the Maximus the Confessor (South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1990); for the Greek text, see PG 91:288-353. 16 That Maximos went with Pyrrhus to Rome is implied in the Disputation with Pyrrhus (PG 91:353A). 17 Apparently at the monastery of Cella Nova, on the Aventine Hill. This was a home for Greek monks who were refugees from the Muslim invasions, and was later renamed San Saba in honor of the great eastern monastic leader; cf. Robert Coates-Stephen, “Byzantine Building Patronage in post-Reconquest Rome”, in Massimiliano Ghilardi, et al., eds., Les cités d’Italie tardo-antique (IVe-Vie siècle), Collection de L’École française de Rome (Rome: École française de Rome 2006), 149-66; and id., “San Saba and the ‘Xenodochium de Via Nova’”, Reallexicon für Antike und Christentum 83 (2007): 223-56. 18 The Greek Life of Pope Martin states that, when Maximos arrived in Rome, he found “bishops and abbots of the Orthodox faith who had been persecuted by the heretics”, which is likely a reference to the monastic refugees (p. 254, lines 6-7, cited below, n. 20). At the end of the document submitted to the Lateran Synod by the Greek delegation, there is a list of names, including “Maximus, ”, which is presumed to be Maximus the Confessor; cf. Price, Lateran Synod, 155, no. 34 (cited below, n. 19). 70

St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches certainly their principal author. The five sessions of the Synod were carefully planned, with the bishops reading the parts that were assigned to them, which they had seen and approved in advance.19 Pope Martin sent a copy of the proceedings to the emperor in Constantinople. This was a rather grave provocation of imperial authority, and set in motion a series of fateful events. The emperor dispatched the exarch of Ravenna to arrest and depose the pope. Martin was subsequently taken to Constantinople, where he spent three months in prison before he was tried before the senate. He received a sentence of death, but this was commuted to exile in Crimea, where he died two years later. From the time of his exile to his death, the pope was treated brutally: his letters from exile present a pitiful picture of a man in poor health, in need of food and supplies, and lamenting the failure of his supporters to send assistance.20 The fate of Maximus the Confessor was no less tragic. Arrested in Rome along with Martin, he was kept in prison for two years before facing trial in 655, where he was charged with both political treason and heresy.21 His close ties to Rome were especially galling to his accusers. At his first trial in 655, the Byzantine finance minister, in a fit of rage, asked him: “Why do you love the Romans and hate the ? … And what will you do, if the Romans come over to our side? What church will you belong to then? Be careful: we will burn you just as we burned Martin.”22 Sent into exile, Maximus was brought back to Constantinople for a second trial in 662. For his alleged crimes against the state, he was tortured and had his tongue and right hand removed, these being the instruments with which he had defied the religious policies of the government. At the time, he was 82 years old. After his torture and mutilation, he was sent into permanent exile to a military prison on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, where he died soon after on 13 August, 662.

19 On which, see Richard Price, The Acts of the Lateran Synod of 649, Translated Texts for Historians 61 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014); and Catherine Cubitt, “The of 649 as an ”, in Chalcedon in Context: Church Councils 400-700, Translated Texts for Historians, Contexts 1, ed. Richard Price and Mary Whitby (Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2009), 133-47. 20 Ibid., 81-83; cf. Paul Peeters, “Une vie grecque du pape S. Martin I”, Analecta Bollandiana 51 (1933): 225-62. 21 John Haldon, “Ideology and the Byzantine State in the Seventh Century in the ‘Trial’ of Maximos Confesor”, in Vladimir Vavrinek, ed., From Late Antiquity to Early Byzantium (Prauge, 1985), 87-91. 22 The quotations are from the Record of the Trial 11, 7; the Letter of Maximus to Anastasius; and the Disptute at Bizya 13; ed. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil, Maximus the Confessor and His Companions: Documents From Exile (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 71

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Maximos the Confessor and the Church As I stated a moment ago, my remarks will now focus on the dichotomy of the institutional and the charismatic. This dichotomy, which results in a kind of ecclesiological dualism, has historically divided Western between Roman Catholicism and . The Orthodox Church could have played a mediating role in this unfortunate parting of ways, but this did not happen, partly because it too suffers from a similar ecclesiological imbalance, stumbling between sacramental piety and ascetic piety, between an intellectual theology and an experiential, between the bishop and the monastic elder, and between the parish and the monastery, these being eastern iterations of the tension between “charisma” and “institution.”

Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy To fill in some of the background, it is helpful to recall that had earlier attempted to bridge the gap between charisma and institution. He did this by integrating mystical experience with the sacraments, dramatized in the story of a hierarch who entered a state of ecstasy while presiding at a Eucharistic liturgy.23 Dionysius’s notion of “hierarchy”–a word he famously coined–is far more fluid and dynamic than is generally recognized. While it certainly has the sense of order and structure, it is also the means of God’s outreach to the world, and the means for drawing all things into union with God. In order to assimilate charismatic experience to hierarchical structure, Dionysius emphasized the interior dimension of the hierarchies, so that the external, structural elements of the Church were spiritually interiorized, creating a new ecclesial reality that was both dynamic and static, both structural and existential, and both institutional and mystical. In the process, however, he necessarily retained both sides of the dichotomy, and among later generations it was the institutional notion of hierarchy that came to prevail. The result was an ecclesiology in which hierarchy is reified as an objective fact of being and not an existential fact of becoming. What was needed was a new framework that did not simply include the dichotomy, but transcended it. This is what Maximus did. Building on and modifying the Dionysian framework, Maximus found a way out of the impasse, making him not simply the “greatest Byzantine theologian,” as he is often called, but the greatest ecclesiologist among the Church Fathers. In my analysis of this question, I draw on the recent work of , who has produced important and thought-provoking studies on Maximus the Confessor, with particular attention to his ecclesiology.24

23 Dionysios the Areopagite, On the Divine Names 3.2 (PG 3:681CD). 24Nikolaos Loudovikos, Church in the Making: An Apophatic Ecclesiology of , translated by Norman Russel (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 72

St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches

The Mystagogy Maximus’s vision of the Church is found primarily in his Mystagogy, which, after the work of Dionysius, has the distinction of being the second oldest commentary on the Eucharistic Liturgy.25 The Mystagogy is Maximus’s ecclesiological masterpiece. In it he articulates a new vision of the Church, in which the movement of the liturgical drama reflects the movement of human beings and indeed of all creation toward their final consummation in God. The Mystagogy places the Church at the center of a series of relationships linking God to human beings and creation. In chapter 1, Maximus presents the Church as an “image” of God, insofar as it imitates God’s activity. In the same way that God brings created beings together in an unconfused union, preserving them in mutual accord without abolishing their differences, the Church, as an image of its divine archetype, brings together diverse human beings in unity through rebirth in the Spirit.26 In chapter 2, he presents the Church as an image of the created universe, reflected in the architectural layout of the church building, so that the distinction between what is visible and invisible, or material and spiritual, corresponds to the distinction between the nave and the sanctuary. The two are not separate but exist on a continuum, so that each is mutually present and interior to the other. In the same way, he says that the nave is the sanctuary in potential, while the sanctuary is the actuality of the nave. The rest of the Mystagogy details other images and models of the Church, including the Church as an image of the human person, the soul, and even of Scripture, whose historical letter is its body, while its inner meaning is its soul, which together point to a greater and more hidden word to be revealed in the age to come. We have, then, a dense network of interlocking images, in which all things exist in a condition of mutual reciprocity. At the center of these images stands the Church,

2016); and id., A Eucharistic : Maximus the Confessor’s Eschatological Ontology of Being as Dialogical Reciprocity, translated by Elizabeth Theokritoff (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2010). 25 Ed. Christian Boudignon, Maximi Confessoris, Mystagogia. Una cum latina interpretatione Anastasii Bibliothecarii, CCSG 69 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011); an English translation is available in George Berthold, Maximus the Confessor: Selected Writings (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), 183-214; and in Julian Stead, The Church, the Liturgy, and the Soul of Man: The Mystagogia of St Maximus the Confessor (Still River, MA: St ’s Publications, 1982), 59-117. In the 9th century, Anastasius Bibliothecarius sent extracts from the Mystagogia, in Latin translations, to ; cf. S. Pétridès, “Traités liturgiques de S. Maxime et de S. Germain traduits par Anastase le Bibliothécaire”, Revue de l’Orient chrétien 10 (1905): 289-313; 350-64. 26 Maximus here cites the apostolic community described in Acts 4:31-32, in which “all the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they were of one heart and one mind” (CCSG 69:13, lines 181-82). 73

Arch. Maximos Constas which is not simply a place where God is made known, but where God is active in and through the activity of the Church, and where the faithful have the possibility to participate in God through his activities or energies. Against this general background, we may now enter into these themes in greater detail, following the lead of Loudovikos.

The Church as Maximus begins with the idea that the Church is an image or of God. He introduces this idea by stressing God’s radical transcendence, which is so absolute that, when comparing God to beings, it would more accurate to describe God as “non- being,” so different is he from creatures.27 But how can such a God be imaged in the Church? And how can the Church be, as Maximus says, the “mode and locus” of God’s activity? Dionysius, of course, answered this question by foregrounding the Church’s hierarchical structure, as a kind of earthly reflection of a celestial superstructure. Maximus does something different. He takes both sides in the dichotomy, the structural and the existential, and brings them together in what Loudovikos describes as a “mode of ecclesial being.” This mode or modality (tropos) is neither structural nor charismatic, nor is it the simple aggregation of both, but rather the dynamic fact of participation in the very mode of God’s being.28

Apophatic Ecclesiology The “mode of ecclesial being,” understood as dynamic participation in the mode of divine being, is realized in part through apophatic negation. This means that, rather than give us a new way of defining the Church, Maximus gives us a new way of seeing the Church; a new, existential vantage point from which we can witness and experience the Church’s being as it is constituted in Christ through the Spirit.29 That the mode of ecclesial being has an irreducibly apophatic component safeguards the Church against any reification of its structures and charisms. Here, negative theology is not understood in a reductively linguistic sense, but encompasses the negation of all stasis, whether it is objective or subjective, internal or external, institutional or charismatic.30 It is a corrective, in other words, to the reification of either extreme in the polarization of charisma and institution, along with any ecclesial office, charism, sign or symbol taken as an end in itself. If the Church is an image or icon of God, then the apophatic negation of institutional or charismatic idolatry is a necessary part of its definition. This is an

27 Mystagogy, Prologue (CCSG 69:9, 110-11). 28 Loudovikos, Church in the Making, 44-45. 29 Ibid., 58. 30 Ibid., 44 74

St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches

“apophatic ecclesiology,” as Loudovikos calls it, signaling the triumph of the icon over the idol, since the Church cannot be the icon or image of God if it loses this apophatic quality, and becomes instead a static, closed system or structure.31 Apophatic ecclesiology has a positive aspect as well, since it insures that the Church as icon remains an open, dialogical reality. From this point of view, the icon does not denote a mere representation, but a reality that exists in dynamic continuity with its source, making it the locus of an active encounter, an existential response to a gift, a condition of openness and a movement toward its uncreated archetype, which offers itself to the world in and through the Church. An icon or image is always an image of something, and thus by definition is a referential reality, inherently relational, dialogical in its very being, pointing beyond itself–and not simply “beyond,” but forward, in a dynamic movement toward its eschatological fulfillment and completion in God, who is also its cause and origin.32

Consubstantiality Together with this apophatic component, there is another concept that Loudovikos rightly emphasizes, since it is key to the whole of Maximus’s vision, namely, consubstantiality. As we have just seen, the apophatic is a presupposition for the participation of the image in its source, and this, according to Maximus, is what enables the Church to partake of and “imitate” the activity of God. Apophatic negation is a kenotic, self-emptying gesture of the Church that enables it to receive the fullness of the divine activity. And this activity, as Maximus says, is God’s “providential binding together of all beings to himself, as their cause, beginning, and end.”33 Despite their different natures, God draws all beings toward each other and himself, into a pure and unconfused identity, an ontological communion without confusion, bringing them together without abolishing their natural differences. In other words, God manifests the consubstantiality of created beings, not by negating the differences of their natures, but by joining them without confusion in a harmonious, undivided, and unconfused identity.34 Maximus uses the word “consubstantiality” only once in the Mystagogy,35 but Loudovikos has correctly identified it as the central concept that underlines the entire work and which is key to Maximus’s ecclesiology.

31 A concept initially put forward in his An Apophatic Ecclesiology of Consubstantality (Athens: Harmos, 2002) (in Greek). 32 On this question, see Maximos Constas, The Art of Seeing: Paradox and Perception in Orthodox Iconography (Alhambra, CA: St Sebastian Press, 2014), 16-28. 33 Mystagogy 24 (CCSG 69:10-11). 34 Loudovikos, Church in the Making, 45. 35 Mystagogy 23 (CCSG 69:52, 841). 75

Arch. Maximos Constas

The Christological Dimension If this language reminds us of the unconfused union of the natures in Christ, this is no coincidence, and points to the deeper sense of “consubstantial” operative in Maximus’s thought. The consubstantial gathering of creation in the Church takes place in and through Christ’s human nature. It is nothing less than the consubstantiality of the Trinity transferred to creation through Christ’s consubstantiality with human nature. Christ’s double consubstantiality–that is, his consubstantiality with the Father according to his divinity, and his consubstantiality with his mother according to his humanity–was a doctrine canonized at the (451), and here we see Maximus highlighting its relevance for ecclesiology, as the unity of the natures in Christ opens up the Church, which is his body, to participation in what Maximus calls the mode of divine being, that is, the very activity of God, whereby God realizes consubstantiality among created beings.36 This is how the Church is an “image” of God, by fulfilling God’s will for the unification of all human beings and all creation in Christ through the Spirit. It is important to stress that consubstantiality is also always eschatological, since it is a present reality pointing to a future fulfillment and consummation, in which all things find their proper end in God. As Maximos said at the outset of the Mystagogy, the event of unification that God brings about through the Church is the “providential binding together of all things to God as their cause and end.”

The Anthropological Dimension Maximus turns next to the anthropological dimension of his ecclesial vision. Like the Church, the human person is also an image of God, and, by extension, an image of the Church, just as the Church is an image of the human person. This allows Maximos to develop the more inward or subjective aspects of ecclesiology, which comprise the interior dimension of consubstantiality. Maximus sees the human person not simply as a microcosm, but as a mystical church, a living temple, in which body, soul, and mind correspond to nave, sanctuary, and holy table. From this perspective, human interiority becomes an ecclesial and indeed priestly reality. Far from being a merely subjective, psychological state, this is the transformative, existential internalization (or “introjection,” as Loudovikos calls it) of the visible Church into the inner life of the person. Through free choice and the gift of grace, the Church becomes the person’s existential content, which is an ontological refashioning of the person in Christ, which is, at it were, the “ecclesialization” of the inner human being.37 In his efforts to link anthropology and ecclesiology, Maximus enters into a complex and lengthy discussion of human rational and cognitive powers, such as

36 Loudovikos, Church in the Making, 50-54. 37 Ibid., 33-34; 46. 76

St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches mind, reason, will, wisdom, prudence, and so on. While all of these faculties are distinct, they are nonetheless consubstantial, and become unified in the whole person only when the whole of the person is unified in God, like multiple strings of an instrument, producing a single melody.38 These consubstantial human capacities correspond to the consubstantial activities of the Church. Each of the soul’s potentials and activities is existentially validated as an image of the whole of the soul’s unity in God; and each of the Church’s activities is spiritually validated as an image of the divine activity to which it belongs. Man and Church become dialogical realities, each accepting the divine mode of being as their own.39 As a living microcosm of the Church–and thus an icon of the mode of ecclesial unity–the human person is a key place where the institutional is realized in and as the existential.

Charisms in the Church Consubstantiality also has implications for the ministries and orders of the Church (which Maximus refers to as “charisms”). By virtue of their natural consubstantiality, the diversity of charisms in the Church comprises a unity; the charisms exist in what we can call a perichoretic mode or relationship, through which each charism is present and internal to the other. “Each abides interchangeably in the other,” according to Maximus, so that each exists “reciprocally in the other,” guaranteeing that the Church remains one and the same in all of them: one, whole, integral entity in each one, and severally and in all of them together.40 For Maximus, the of the charisms, united in their consubstantiality, is a fundamental ecclesiological principle. It means that the whole Church is present in each charism. Each charism or order expresses the whole, because each contains the other consubstantially. This is yet another way in which the gap between the charismatic and the institutional is eliminated, because the concept of consubstantiality offers a much deeper ontological framework for both. The fullness of ecclesial structures and charisms imitates and extends the divine activities to which they correspond, which like them are, once again, consubstantial with each other. It follows that each ministry of the church, each ecclesial charism, is a manifestation of divine activity rendering created beings consubstantial in Christ. Every ministry, charism or order manifests the Church as an image of God, because the charisms manifest a specific consubstantial divine energy directed toward the consubstantial unification of created beings. 41 What

38 Mystagogy 5 (CCSG 69:19-31). 39 Loudovikos, Church in the Making., 48. 40 Mystagogy 24 (CCSG 69:59-66). 41 Loudovikos, Church in the Making, 48. 77

Arch. Maximos Constas is supposedly either charismatic or institutional, when it is seen as manifesting consubstantiality, transcends the dichotomy inasmuch as every charism or ministry embodies the whole of ecclesial being, to the degree that each contains and communes consubstantially with all the other charisms and orders. Here Maximos again emphasizes the importance of , since the Church, as an icon or image of the kingdom, is realized through participation in Christ through the Spirit. For Maximos, the Church is the supreme Christological mystery, since the whole of the Church, with all its charisms and ministries, is incorporated into Christ’s mystical body and in the Eucharist, the aim of which is to make Christ, who transcends all things, the substance of all things.42 Thus each charism receives incorporation through the Spirit, who makes it a distinct member of the ecclesial body; it is a particular mode of Eucharistic participation in the body of Christ, which implies participation in the whole of Christ.43 By virtue of the Church’s consubstantial nature and vocation, all charisms without exception are Christological, and all are absolutely equal and consubstantially inclusive of each other in the Spirit, when they function properly. There is, in other words, no ontological difference between the charisms, only a difference of function. Just as each divine activity or energy contains all the others, each charism contains all the others, and thus is not something that occurs in the episcopal charism alone. From this Loudovikos concludes that “there is no real unity of the Church in the bishop when and to the extent that his episcopal charism does not function as an existential struggle to imitate the divine activity of Christ,” which is a “struggle he undergoes as a bishop who consubstantially contains within himself all the other charisms.” The bishop does not simply “coordinate or administer the charisms, but preserves them in their fullness … If even the most humble (by worldly standards) ecclesial charism functions properly, if it functions while containing all the other charisms within it, then it is the whole Christ who is manifested by it as a living force, and who thereby reveals the existential truth of the whole Church, that is, the truth of all the other charisms.”44 As a result, the manifestation of the Church’s truth can occur in any of the charisms, when they function in a consubstantial, Christological manner. Then, and only then, is the Church’s truth manifested in its unity. This is why, throughout history, the Church’s unity in truth has been expressed by various charisms, whether of , monks, teachers, or bishops, without disturbing either the Church’s conciliarity or its hierarchical structure. In this regard it is worth recalling that Maximus the Confessor expressed the truth and unity of the Church at a time when the eastern patriarchates were in a state of

42 Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 48.3 (DOML 2:215-17) 43 Id., Amb. 47.2 (DOML 2:211). 44 Loudovikos, Church in the Making, 54-55. 78

St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches formal heresy, though he himself was a simple monk. As Loudovikos explains: “A holy hermit or charismatic layperson, by preserving the whole Christ consubstantially within himself, and therefore also the truth of the other charisms, including even that of bishop, could maintain the truth of the Church’s unity. He is able to do this, of course, not by standing in place of the bishop, but by creating the spiritual conditions manifesting the unity of the Church’s truth, in such a way as to revivify the other orders in the Church.”45

Conclusion Moving beyond the dichotomy of the institutional and the charismatic has always been a struggle for the Church, but the need to do so seems especially urgent today. We live in a society that is deeply distrustful of institutional authority, acutely aware of the corruption that seems endemic to all bureaucratic systems, and opts for “believing without belonging.” Traditional institutions and the values they once supported are under attack on all sides, fueled in part by frustration with institutional lethargy, and by disappointment and anger at the extent to which these institutions have failed us. As social scientists have observed, it is precisely in times of crisis, dislocation, and disorientation that charismatic leaders tend to emerge: theirs is a devotion born of distress. To the extent that the institutional church fails to respond effectively to the cries of the broken world, the danger of succumbing to the charms of charismatic leaders and movements remains great. This crisis is nonetheless an opportunity for us to rethink the nature of ecclesial authority, so that it reflects more closely the spirit of the Gospel. Hans Urs von Balthasar, a pioneer of modern Maximus studies, contrasted two opposing models of authority in the Church. The Petrine, institutional model, which is motivated by the acquisition of power; and the Marian model of self-emptying, humility, and the renunciation of power.46 A Marian Church would be the Church of the New Eve, through whom the Word of God became flesh, thereby modeling the activity of divine embodiment, the mystery of consubstantiality, which takes place in the lives of believers. Reclaiming the liberating power of the apophatic also seems imperative, because this alone opens up finite structures to the horizon of the infinite. In its negation of

45 Ibid.,55; cf. Nikodemos Hagiorites, On the New Martyrs (Venice, 1794), 3-4: “The new martyrs appeared (i.e., in the 18th century) for the renewal of the whole Church … they certify the Gospels and confirm the divinity of Christ … they have sealed the entire Orthodox faith”, 46 See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mary for Today, translated by Robert Nowell (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988); and Francesca Murphy, “Immaculate Mary: The Ecclesial Mariology of Hans Urs von Balthasar”, in Sarah Jane Boss, ed., Mary: The Complete Resource (London and New York: Continuum, 2007), 300-13. 79

Arch. Maximos Constas ecclesial idols–whether they be institutional or charismatic–apophatic ecclesiology insures the possibility of genuine relationship with God; it removes any obstacles that threaten to obscure that relationship; it renders the opaque surface of the world transparent to the glory of God; it frees us from our attachment to the superficial appearances of things, and leads us to their depth. Without an apophatic ecclesiology, the Church loses its iconic character; it ceases to function as a reciprocal exchange between the created and the uncreated, and becomes instead a closed, self-referential system. The Church as icon, on the other hand, places us in a life-giving, dialogical relationship with Christ; it summons us to, and empowers us with, a new mode of vision, enabling us to see our life as an ongoing event of communion with God. As Loudovikos has demonstrated, the concept of consubstantiality is at the very heart of Maximus’s ecclesiology, providing the ontological foundation without which the Church is nothing more than a merely human or social organization. For the Church to be Catholic means that it is called to participate in God’s own activity by raising creation to the level of consubstantiality in Christ, so that the Church becomes the very place and manifestation of that consubstantiality, which is nothing less then the life of God, the mode of divine life, freely offered to human beings. Without it, we remain isolated individuals, each going his own way, unsure of how to bridge the gap between us. Apart from its strictly theological and ecclesiological aspects, consubstantiality fulfills the deepest human desires for connection, and our need to reconcile and unite all things that are separate. As such, it is a much-needed counterweight to a world torn apart by identity politics, cultural polarization, and social and economic conflict. As we have seen, the whole of Maximus’s ecclesiology is thoroughly eschatological. If an apophatic ecclesiology frees us from the constraints of closed systems, provides us with a direction and a goal. In this sense, eschatology does not refer merely to the “end of the world,” but to the concrete realization of the fundamental direction of being in Christ, which is always a sacrificial, kenotic, being-for-others. Eschatology can challenge and transform our sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency. It undermines the false hopes of secular worldviews; it exposes the hollowness of our ambition for self-realization in this world. It is not an excuse to avoid the world, but to the contrary makes possible a participation in the world’s struggles that is sober and realistic, since it enables us to live and work with genuine hope free of illusions.

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Finally, a word about bridges. The human being is a connecting creature who feels the desire to link, to reconcile and join things together. The major metaphor for

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St Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between the Churches this is the bridge, which suggests the coexistence–or at least the possibility or promise of coexistence–between things that are separate. But do we use this metaphor too easily? Do we test it to see how much weight it can support, or what kind of traffic our bridge can sustain? To be sure, bridges do not stand alone. They are always part of a longer road, and almost always situated at a winding, difficult and dangerous part of that road. A bridge is a place of passage, not a place of rest. No one lives on a bridge. Acknowledging the bridge as an uncomfortable place to live recognizes the difficulties of being in- between or at the meeting point of cultures. Attempts to cross such bridges are always fraught with danger, as demonstrated by the lives of Pope Martin and Maximus. At the same time that the bridge links two separate entities, it reinforces and makes visible their separateness. What the bridge connects never actually comes together, and the connection created by a bridge does not eliminate or replace separate identities. Seeing a bridge as both a connector and a separator perhaps better reflects the long and complicated relationship between East and West.47 We are connected by many bridges of shared traditions, but also by a history of separation and misunderstanding. Will the bridges we build be a reconciling and rebuilding of links between us, or will they be an empty gesture, a bridge to nowhere? To gather together and reintegrate the fragments of a divided world is not simply the task of genuine theology or ecumenism, but is itself a kind of Eucharistic event. In the well-known image from the , genuine bridge building is a “gathering of what was scattered” and the unification of their elements into one, “just as wheat that was scattered across the mountains is gathered together and transformed into bread.” Only then, as St Maximus says, will “Christ himself take us by the hand, and lead us into the place of his wondrous tabernacle, unto the very house of God; and he will count us worthy to attain the ineffable place of feasting, singing, with the silent voices of the intellect, the praises of his unutterable mysteries.”48

47 For these ideas I am indebted to Martin Heidegger, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” (1951), cited in Neil Leach, ed., Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 104-105. 48 Responses to Thalassios 48.2, translated by Maximos Constas, Maximos the Confessor: Responses to the Questions of Thalassios (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 268. 81