Category: Metropolitan John Zizioulas

There’s another city that Benedict XVI would like to visit soon: Istanbul. The date he has in mind is November 30, the feast of St. Andrew, who is the patron of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople. Patriarch Bartholomew I has already invited the pope. And he has already sent to Rome, on June 29, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the patrons of the Roman papacy, his most authoritative and trusted theologian, Ioannis Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon. Zizioulas and Ratzinger have respected each other and met with each other for decades. They have begun working on a resumption, in the fall, of the work of the commission for theological dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. They have compatible views on the main point of division between the two Churches, the primacy of the pope of Rome. The solution is to be sought in light of the axiom: “Where the Eucharist is, there is the Church.”

From Chiesa

I have put my Introduction to John Zizioulas over on the Resources website, since it is too long to post here. It is my best shot at saying what we may learn from the Eastern Church, what makes Zizioulas a great exponent of the Eastern tradition, and why he has not been particularly well understood by us Westerners. I deal briefly with person and individual, monarchy and communion, eschatology and history, Christ and the Spirit , bishop and people, and catholicity and ecumenism – all your favourite issues. And as ever I would be grateful for your comments.

It starts like this:

John Zizioulas is one of the best known theologians of the contemporary Orthodox Church, a central figure of the ecumenical scene and one of the most cited theologians at work today. This volume demonstrates the unity of Zizioulas’ work by setting out the connections he has established between theology, philosophy and the community of the Church. Zizioulas’ central concern is human freedom, and his work offers a radical discussion of the relationship between freedom and community. Freedom is not restricted, but enabled, by our relationships with other persons, Zizioulas argues, for the community in which God includes us is the place in which our personal identity and freedom come into being. God is intrinsically communion and free, and his communion and freedom he shares with us. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the source of the communion of the universal Church, and the promise of real freedom for the world. This communion is being actualized by God in the community of the Church. The persons gathered into this communion will participate in the freedom of God, and through them the world will participate in this freedom too.

Read on

Today we have to take into account that there is a variety of views and differences among Christians as to how reception operates. It is also peculiar to our actual situation that the divided Churches are called to receive from one another or indeed to receive one another, which raises all sorts of fundamental ecclesiological questions, since the highest form of reception in this context is that of mutual ecclesial recognition and not simply agreement on doctrine.

The notion and experience of reception is deeply rooted in the historical origins and the very being of the Church. The Church was born out of a process of reception and has grown and existed through reception. The Church receives: she receives from God through Christ in the Holy Spirit; but she receives also from the world, its history, its culture, even its tragic and sinful experiences and failures, for she is the body of the crucified Lord who takes upon himself the sins of the world.

The second aspect is that the Church is received: this involves two points; on the one hand the Church as a distinct community within the world exists in constant dialogue with whatever constitutes the ‘non-ecclesial’ realm, in an attempt to make herself acceptable to the world. What we used to call ‘mission’ is better rendered with the notion of reception, because ‘mission’ is loaded with ideas of aggressiveness, whereas the Church should be offering herself to the world for reception instead of imposing herself on it. (It is interesting that in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel the Son of God is spoken of as not having been received by the world: his own did not receive him).

The other point in the Church’s being received is that of a reception of one Church by another Church – a most important aspect of reception, stems from the basic ecclesiological fact that the Church, although one, exists as Churches (in the plural), and these Churches exist as One Church in and through constantly receiving one another as sister Churches.

What is received in the first place, and also in the final analysis, is the love of God the Father incarnate in his own unique and beloved Son and given to us in Holy Spirit. The Church exists in order to give what she has received as the love of God for the world. Because the content of reception is this love of God for the world incarnate in Christ, St Paul uses the technical term (and it is technical) of parelabon and paralabete with reference to the person of Our Lord. In Colossians 2.6 he writes ‘as you have received Christ.’ Equally it is interesting that in Hebrews 12.28 the verb ‘to receive’ is used in the sense of ‘receiving the kingdom’. Reception is not a dry, practical idea.

John Zizioulas The Theological problem of Reception

In order to find the deeper roots of this coincidence between Church and Eucharist we must again go back to the question of the relation between Christology and Pneumatology. All the biblical accounts of Christology seem to speak of Christ as being constituted by the Holy Spirit and in this sense as a corporate personality, the Servant of God or the Son of Man. The Person of Christ is automatically linked with the Holy Spirit, which means with a community. This community is the eschatological company of the Saints who surround Christ in this kingdom. This Church is part of the definition of Christ. The body of Christ is not first the body of the individual Christ and then a community of ‘many’, but simultaneously both together. Thus you cannot have the body of the individual Christ (the One) without having simultaneously the community of the Church (The Many). The Eucharist is the only occasion in history when these two coincide. In the Eucharist the expression ‘body of Christ’ means simultaneously the body of Jesus and the body of the Church.

[John Zizioulas The ecclesiological presuppositions of the holy Eucharist]

Another characteristic of the eschatological community which the Eucharist as the body of the Risen and corporate, spiritual Christ must portray, is its charismatic nature. All the members of the Church possess the Holy Spirit through Baptism and Chrismation (or Confirmation), and being a charismatic means in the final analysis being a member of the Church. Ordination is a bestowal of a particular charisma on certain people and as such it does not raise the ordained person above or outside the community, but assigns him to a particular position, an ordo. The Eucharist includes not only the laymen but also other charismata and orders. Its proper performance therefore must include a variety of orders and not simply what we call the laymen or the clergy.

John Zizioulas The ecclesiological presuppositions of the holy Eucharist