THEOLOGIA ORTHODOXA

1/2009

STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABE-BOLYAI, THEOLOGIA ORTHODOXA, LIV, 1, 2009

THE EXISTENTIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ORTHODOX ECCLESIOLOGY By Metropolitan IOANNIS (ZIZIOULAS) of Pergamon

ABSTRACT. Ecclesiology, as we call the study of the mystery and the reality of the Church, has been at the centre of theology in the 20th century, mainly because of the emergence of the Ecumenical Movement in which the Orthodox participated actively from the beginning. The theological debate between the various Churches and confessions in the context of this Movement made it necessary to clarify the meaning of the Church. What is the Church? What are her characteristics, her essence and her boundaries? The Church is not simply an institution; she is above all a way of being, there is a way of relating the human being to God, to the rest of human beings and to creation. This is the essence of the Church. In the Church, the human being is placed in a specific relation with all these three factors that make up human existence, namely God, society and nature. The Church is a Eucharistic community, and the Eucharist has, as already the Fathers have shown, a social and a cosmic (and therefore ecologic) dimension. But in order to respond properly to the most recent challenges, the Church has to listen to the existential problems of modern man and to be less conservative. Keywords: orthodox ecclesiology, Eucharist, communion, modern society, conservatism.

I should like to express my profound gratitude and appreciation for the decision of this University to confer on me an honorary doctorate. I regard this distinction as one of the greatest honours I have received in my life and this for the following reasons: In the first place, the fact that this honour has come to me at the suggestion and the proposal of an Orthodox Theological Faculty which is deeply respected in the ecclesiastical and the scientific community internationally makes me feel that my modest contribution to theology has had some impact on the Orthodox of this country, and this naturally gives me great satisfaction. Secondly, I feel proud that this great honour has been given to me by a renowned academic institution such as this University, which has kindly placed me among well-known personalities who have received the same honour. It is a great privilege to be associated with this great centre of learning and, through it, with the historic city of Cluj-Napoca, the capital of Transylvania with its great contribution to civilization and culture. Finally, I am very pleased that through this academic distinction the ties between my country, Greece, and Romania are becoming even stronger. As a member and former president of the Academy of Athens I am happy to be associated with this city which hosts an extension of the Romanian Academy along with other important academic and cultural institutions. As members of the European Union, our two countries, Romania and Greece, are now called not only to live together under the same European roof, but also to contribute to the spiritual progress of this great continent for the benefit of all humanity. Romania, with its unique combination of Byzantine and Latin spiritual heritage can be of immense value to the future of Europe. As a Greek and an Orthodox I feel happy to be associated with the spiritual and intellectual life of Romania at this critical time in history. I am grateful to your University for offering me this privilege.

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* On this solemn occasion I have chosen to offer to this distinguished audience a few thoughts on a subject which has preoccupied me during my whole life: the subject of the Church. Ecclesiology, as we call the study of the mystery and the reality of the Church, has been at the centre of theology in the 20th century, mainly because of the emergence of the Ecumenical Movement in which the Orthodox participated actively from the beginning. The theological debate between the various Churches and confessions in the context of this Movement made it necessary to clarify the meaning of the Church. What is the Church? What are her characteristics, her essence and her boundaries? Questions of this kind became part of the agenda of the Ecumenical Movement in the previous century and many volumes were produced to address them. Orthodox theologians of all nationalities have contributed to the ecclesiological discussions with important studies, among them theologians from Romania, such as Fr. Dumitru Staniloae of blessed memory, whose theological thought has exercised a great influence world-wide. All these ecclesiological studies, rich and important as they have been in describing the Church as an institution, did little to show how the Church relates to the human condition in general, to show, in other words, the significance of the Church for human existence. Is the Church necessary for the existence of the world, or is she simply a matter that concerns the Christians exclusively? What is the significance of the Church for society in general, for culture and human life as a whole? To questions like these I shall try to give an answer, as I address an audience which probably includes persons from disciplines other than theology itself. Before we answer these questions, we have to emphasize something which is usually forgotten by the theologians themselves. The Church is not simply an institution; she is above all a way of being, there is a way of relating the human being to God, to the rest of human beings and to creation. This is the essence of the Church. In the Church, the human being is placed in a specific relation with all these three factors that make up human existence, namely God, society and nature. For the human being cannot be defined without reference to these three dimensions: a) God, because the human being by definition tends to transcend its limitations, that is to liberate itself, to be free from what is given to it as a necessity - above all from mortality and death. This tendency lies behind Art or even Science, as distinctly human characteristics. Through this tendency the human being affirms its search for what is not strictly speaking human, what in religious language is named as God. b) The other human beings. There is no human being that can be conceived in isolation from other human beings. The individual is a myth, not a reality. There is no I without a Thou. The Thou makes me an I. What gives a human being its identity, what makes him or her a person is its relation with other human beings. One person is no person. Relationship is constitutive of the human identity. c) Nature or the material world. It is a mistake to regard the human being as a soul that has a body. Man does not have a body, he is a body. St. Irenaeus, the 2nd century Greek Father, insists on this: the soul and the spirit may be parts of the human 44

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being, but in no way a human being. Now, the body cannot be conceived without the rest of creation. Biology, since Darwin and the theory of evolution, has shown that 98% of the human genes are identical with that of the chimpanzee. Theology has no reason to object to this scientific truth. On the contrary, we must stress the fact that the human being partakes fully of the rest of creation and is the link between the material and the spiritual world, as the Greek Fathers, particularly St. Maximus the Confesssor, have repeatedly affirmed. This, as we shall see, has important consequences for the ecological responsibility of the human being. The proper relationship of the human being with these three factors (God or freedom to transcend the given reality, the other human beings or social life, and nature or ecological balance) constitutes the basis for being human. All problems in human existence stem from a disturbance of some kind of this threefold relationship. What can the Church, as a way of being, offer to the human being in order to maintain this relationship? In order to answer this question, we must emphasize the following aspects of ecclesiology which, unfortunately, are almost absent from Orthodox Dogmatics which have been influenced by Western Medieval Scholasticism. a) The Church is a community. The Church is the body of Christ in the words of St. Paul, but she is also the temple of the Holy Spirit, according to the same Apostle. If we take seriously the role of the Holy Spirit in ecclesiology, we immediately realize that the Church is in her essence the most anti-individualistic community in the world. The Holy Spirit is by definition koinonia communion (II Cor. 13, 13) and wherever He blows, He does not create good individual saints, but a community of persons. The Church, therefore, is not a collection of good individuals but a communion of persons who draw their identity from their relationship with the other members of Christs body. b) The Church is a baptismal community. The overcoming of individualism amounts to no less than death of the old man, i.e. of the human being that gives priority to the self instead of the Other (this is the essence of original sin). In the Church, the Christian is constantly called to renew and keep alive his or her baptismal vocation. This is not easy. Some Christians undertake to do this by leaving this world and forming monastic communities, while others struggle to achieve this in remaining in the world. In either case the principle is the same: metanoia, death of the self, kenosis, i.e. emptying of ones self from philautia (self-love) so that the Other may find space to enter and give us our true identity. Like in the Holy Trinity, the three divine Persons exist in one another, or like Christ emptied Himself of His divine glory and became Man, in the same way the members of the Church are called to a constant struggle against individualism and towards communion, i.e. love. c) The Church is a Eucharistic community. Only in the Eucharist, says St. Nicolas Cabasilas, can we see the reality of the Church. In our time, we are all familiar with the expression Eucharistic ecclesiology. This goes back to the late Russian theologian Nicolas Afanasiev, who taught in Paris in the last century and proposed the principle wherever the Eucharist is celebrated, there is the Church. This view has been criticized by some rightly and by others not. I have myself objected to some of the aspects of this theory but basically we must agree that there is no other moment in the Churchs life when the Church is realized and revealed as fully as it is in the Eucharist. There the Church becomes really and fully the body of Christ and the communion of the Holy Spirit. It is also by studying the Eucharist that we can grasp the existential significance of the Church (something that Afanasiev did not consider at all). What is the existential significance of the Eucharist? 45

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There is, in the first place, what we may call a social significance. Whereas in the everyday life and in the organization of secular societies human beings are grouped according to natural or social divisions and differences (age, race, nation, physical qualities, sexual characteristics etc.), in the Eucharist all these differences are transcended. There is no Eucharist especially for children or old people, for black or white persons, for men or women, for those belonging to a certain social class or nation etc. The Eucharist is the place where the human being learns to exist together with all human beings regardless of their natural or social differences. There is a great deal of talk about tolerance and acceptance of difference in our time. The Church has been practicing this throughout the centuries in the celebration of the Liturgy. If sometimes the Church teaches intolerance with regard to social or moral questions, this is a deviation from or a betrayal of Eucharistic ecclesiology. The Church should not be tolerant in the Liturgy and intolerant in ethics. As in the Eucharist so in society, too, the Church must be ready to accept and transcend all natural and social differences, since in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female etc. (Gal. 3, 28), that is no natural or social discrimination of any kind. Eucharistic ecclesiology has tremendous implications for social life. It is not simply a ritualistic or merely religious matter. It is, above all, a matter of existential significance. In the Eucharist, the human being ceases to be an individual and becomes a person, i.e. a relational being, a being of communion. This is why in all languages the word Eucharist is also rendered with the word communion. The Eucharist is communion not only with God, but also with the rest of human beings. This is often forgotten and yet it is absolutely essential. But the existential significance of the Eucharist is not exhausted with the relation of the human beings with one another. It reaches beyond that to include also the natural environment. And this is extremely important, particularly in our time. The cosmic dimension of the Eucharist and by extension also of the Church was recognized by the Greek Fathers already since St. Irenaeus and St. Maximus the Confessor. Irenaeus teaches that in the Eucharist the elements of bread and wine represent the material creation which is also sanctified and raised up to the life of the Holy Trinity together with the human being who acts in this way as the priest of creation. Indeed, creation has no possibility to reach God and be deified, except through the human being. This was the purpose of God in creating Man, according to St. Maximus, namely to unite the material world with God through the mediation of Man, the microcosm who in a sense embodies in himself the macrocosm, the whole of creation. This makes apparent the ecological significance of the Eucharist. This happens in two ways in particular. The first is that in celebrating the Eucharist, the Church declares in the most solemn way the sanctity of the material world, of our natural environment. The Plato view that matter is inferior to the spirit and the body is the prison of the soul has no place in the Eucharist. On the contrary, the material world is as sacred as the spiritual, and it is intended by God to survive eternally and share in divine glory. This is already implied in the Incarnation and is revealed ultimately in the Resurrection of Christ. In both cases the human body, and through it, the material nature as a whole are unite with God and lifted up to eternal life. In every Eucharist the Church declares in the most solemn way the sanctity of the material world and the need to protect it. At the same time, the Eucharist makes apparent the responsibility of the human being for the survival of creation. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans (8, 19 f.) 46

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the whole creation suffers with us and waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God so that it may be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. The human being is responsible for creation as a whole. Creation needs the human being in order to fulfill itself, just as the human being needs the rest of creation in order to exist. As a Eucharistic community the Church takes in her hands the whole of creation and declares that the purpose of creation is to be united with God, i.e., in existential terms, to acquire the highest significance. Thine own of Thine own, we offer unto Thee in all and for all, exclaims the Eucharistic celebrant as he lifts up the material elements, the bread and the wine, at the most sacred moment of the Liturgy. With the invocation of the Holy Spirit, these material and natural elements will become the body of Christ, in other words nature will acquire immortality and the utmost significance in and through the hands of the human being. The Eucharist, therefore, shows that the task and responsibility of the human being is not limited to the protection and survival of creation. According to the book of Genesis, Man was created not only to keep nature, but also to cultivate it, i.e. to bring out of it and to it eternal meaning. As a Eucharistic community, the Church blesses and encourages all forms of culture which aim at giving to creation eternal value and meaning. Thus an artist or a scientist who try to give meaning and eternal value to the material world through their creativity, perform a Eucharistic function. Through the Eucharist, the Church reaches out and joins the Artist, the poet, the writer and scientist and together with them creates culture, i.e. cultivates nature and gives it the highest meaning in existence. * The Church is not a ghetto, but a catholic community. When we call the Church catholic and confess that we believe in a holy, catholic and apostolic Church, we imply that she is the body of Christ, which in the Holy Spirit transcends all barriers of division between human beings as well as between humanity and nature. This is why the Orthodox Church throughout its long history has been marked by two characteristics which it must strive to keep at all costs: (a) it condemned ethnophyletism and did not allow for any discrimination on the basis of race or social class or political ideology or even morality, since the Church is made up not only of saints, but also of sinners. And (b): it has contributed to the creation of culture in all its forms (painting, literature, architecture, poetry, music and even science). Being catholic, the Orthodox Church is by her nature open and inclusive and this makes it existentially significant for all human beings, even for the natural world. In the times in which we live, this catholicity and openness of the Church seems to be undermined both from outside and from inside the Church. Even since the European Enlightenment there grew an opposition between Church and Science and, as a result, scientific truth and religious truth became two different matters. But there can never be two truths. The scientist and the theologian are both searching for Truth, albeit through different paths and methods. On the other hand, the Church itself became in our time more introspective and closed to itself. This is seen in the growing tendency among the Orthodox to avoid or suspect dialogue with non-Orthodox or even with society and culture. Whereas in the past 47

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the Orthodox Church was leading society in the creation of culture, today it simply reproduces forms of the past with no relation whatsoever to secular culture. This is because the Church is not open and ready to listen to the existential problems of modern man and enter into creative and constructive dialogue with it. This conservatism and introspectiveness is, I believe, the greatest danger facing the Orthodox Church today. As I have tried to indicate in this brief address to you, the Church as a way of being bears tremendous existential significance for the world. She must be aware of that and try to incarnate it in society and culture through patient and creative dialogue with all other spiritual forces. This distinguished high academic institution which has made me the honour to be one of its members, by including theology among its disciplines has offered the Church the possibility to develop a close relationship between theology and other forms of knowledge and culture. This is a golden opportunity for the Church to show and apply the existential significance of Orthodoxy. I wholeheartedly wish Gods blessing and every success in this great task! Thank you!

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