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Lessons on Christian Dogmatics Contents These are the notes that were taken from the lectures of Professor

I. Zizioulas (current Metropolitan of Pergamus and Chairman of the Athens Academy) at the Poemantic Division of the Thessaloniki Universitys School of Theology, during the academic year 1984-1985. They are published with the blessing and the permission of the reverend Metropolitan. The notes were published with the caring and the responsibility of the students, for use during their examinations. Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki Published by : Publication Services Because of its size, this series of Dogmatics will be presented by us in segments, in the hope that the entire text that we have in hand will be made available very soon. It is with immense joy, that we are hosts to this significant piece of work in our website. We consider this presentation an honor, and acknowledge the extremely significant opus of the reverend Metropolitan of Pergamus. We are referring to the hand-typed notes of the reverend Metropolitans lessons at the University of Thessaloniki, which benefited us so much, that we wished to make them more broadly accessible. It is our fervent desire that you study these notes, which exude the fragrance of the Orthodox faith and are delivered with scientific precision, in a simple and comprehensible manner. We wish to thank with all our heart those who toiled and participated in the acquisition of these notes for us. May the blessing of God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be with every person who seeks Him.

Professor Metropolitan of Pergamus and Chairman of the Athens Academy I. Zizioulas Contents . ON DOGMATICS AND DOGMAS 1. Definition Sources Content and Method of Dogmatics: 1a. Form and character of Dogmatics 1b. Dogmatics as Hermeneutics (Interpretational) 1c. The Dogmatics method 2. The term: Dogma and its significance 3. The affiliation of dogmas to the Holy Scriptures 4. The work of the Holy Spirit in the phrasing of the dogmas 5. The work of the Church in the phrasing of the dogmas 6. The prestige and the authority of the dogmas . ON COGNIZANCE AND FAITH I. On cognizance:

1a. 1b. 1c. 1d1. 1d2. II. On faith

Cognizance of things Cognizance of God Cognizance through the Son and Logos Cognizance in person part 1: The element of Freedom Cognizance in person part 2: The element of Love

C. ON GOD 1. The biblical premises 2. Basic principles of Patristic teaching: 2a. Up to the Cappadocian Fathers 2b. The contribution of the Cappadocians 2c. Augustines views 2d. Discerning between "Theology" and "Providence" 2e. Existential interpretation D. SUPPLEMENT 1. Discernments of the Cappadocians on the being of God: 1a. The whatever, the what and the how of God 1b. Essence, energy and person 2. The transferral of the terms essence, Energy and Person into Theology (The problem of freedom) 2a. 2b. 2c. 2d. 2e. 2f. 2f2. The prerequisites of the Patristic Synthesis The contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers The patristic notion of the person Augustins theology and the problem of the Filioque The theological problem of the Filioque The Filioque in Theology and in Providence The dogma of creation - the problem of Gnosticism The correction of Platonic ideas by the Christian faith

. ON CREATION, SALVATION, CHRISTOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The dogma regarding Creation Creation from nil Existential consequences of the dogma on Creation The consequences of mans downfall Christology Salvation Ecclesiology

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS Introduction Questions 2. Orthodox Ecclesiology topics: 2a. The eschatological identity of the Church 2b. Therapeutic or Liturgical Ecclesiology: the synthesis of Saint Maximus the Confessor - Questions

2c. 2d. 2e. 2f. 2g. 3.

The Trinitarian basis of Ecclesiology Imagery in ontology - Questions Formation and structure of the Church The Local and worldwide Church The Synodic institution The functions of the Church Questions Commentary on Western Ecclesiology 3a. The dialectics of the one and the many. The priority of a universal Church 3b. The problem of priority between Christology and Pneumatology (of the Spirit) Ecclesiological consequences 3c. History and Eschatology Questions

G. ORTHODOXY AND WESTERN THEOLOGY Texts by Rev. John Zizioulas (Addendum) (Dogmatics Therapy - Theology Filioque Ecclesiology Christology Pneumatology) 1 1b. 2. 2b. 3. 4. 5. Introductory, basic characteristics of Western thought Western Ethicism and Dostoevsky Theology and Providence (Oekonomia) in Western thought Sickness and healing in Orthodox Theology The problem of the Filioque The existential repercussions of the Filioque - Questions Ecclesiology, Christology, Pneumatology

A ON DOGMATICS AND DOGMAS 1. Definition, Sources, Content and Method of Dogmatics a. Forms and character of Dogmatics () Adorational and mostly Eucharist () Baptismal () Anti-heretic (V) Synodic (V) Empirical b. Dogmatics as Hermeneutics (Interpreting) c. The Dogmatics method

a. Forms and character of Dogmatics Dogmatics as a particular branch and lesson of Theology appeared in the West for the first time and was introduced in the Orthodox Theological Schools during later times. A major characteristic of this branch, as compared to other lessons of Theology, is its systematic

character. While other branches of Theology are preoccupied with the dogmatic belief of the Church, Dogmatics approaches this faith by theme, and systematically expounds it. The Churchs systematic preoccupation with the faith appears during the patristic period for the first time, especially with Origen (his work On Principles), and in a strictly organized way with Saint John the Damascene (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith). Ever since that time, this subject has continued to develop in the West during Medieval times (Thomas Aquinatus, SUMMA) and during the post-Reform period, with the blossoming of Confessional Theology, in which Orthodoxy (wrongly) participated (Mogila Confession, Cyril Lucareus, Dositheos etc). In later times (after Eugene Vulgaris), this phenomenon blossomed in the 19th century (Athanasios Parios Epitome 1806. Moschopoulos Epitome of dogmatic and ethical theology, 1851. Especially among the Russians, we note the Metropolitan Anthony, Makarios of Moscow both widely acknowledged). In the 20th century, Z. Rossis is in the lead in Greece, with Ch. Androutsos as the central person; I. Karmiris and P. Trembelas follow, basically correcting Androutsos but still maintaining the same method and division. This branch was successfully cultivated in the Theological School of Chalki, by the Metropolitan of Myra, Chrysostom Constantinides. A new boost to Dogmatics was given by John Romanides, with his persistence that the character of the dogma entails the experience of it, and also his search for the patristic roots of the dogmas, as opposed to Western Theology. However, systematic preoccupation is not the only form of dogmatic theology. This species didnt exist in the Bible or in the Fathers of the first century; instead, a circumstantial dogmatic theology prevailed, in the following forms: () Adorational and mostly Eucharist: Christological hymns in the New Testament, which Paul discovered in the first communities (i.e., Philippians 2). These comprise theological-dogmatic elements for his entire line of thought. The same applies with the literary content of Johns Gospel (Johns Gospel is considered by many as a Eucharist-liturgical text; if not entirely, then at least in its basic core. As for the Gospels prologue, it most probably comprises liturgical material that John found to be used in worship). Peters literary work also: (Peters Epistle A is quite possibly a baptismal Liturgy), etc. The same applies to the Eucharist references of the first centuries, which comprise forms of prophetic-charismatic theology by the bishops that headed the Eucharist congregations (who by the way- were initially free to improvise, as testified in Justin, the Teaching, etc.) () Baptismal The baptismal form, along with the catechist preparation that preceded it. This is also the chief source of Symbolic Theology (i.e., the Symbols of Faith). All Symbols were Baptismal and they remained thus during the first centuries. For example, the 1st Ecumenical Council (Synod) uses as the basis of its Creed the baptismal symbols of the local Churches. () Anti-heretic This form boosted the development and expansion of the initial baptismal symbols to a broader range of symbols, in order to confront the dangers of heresies (i.e. Gnosticism, Arianism, etc.). In this context, Patristic Theology (Irenaeus, Athanasios, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor etc.) attained special importance and evolved as opposition, and were not intended as a positive exhibition of faith. (V) Synodic

and especially the Ecumenical Councils (Synods), which originated from a combination of anti-heretic theology (=the exclusion of heresies), and the baptismal-symbolic theology. Thus, the terms and the symbols of the Synods -as well as many of their Canons- likewise comprise fundamental forms of dogmatic theology. (V) Empirical This is a form of theology that originated in the ascetic (mainly) experience of the Fathers, which is of special significance to the Orthodox. Here, the maxims of the desert Fathers, the works of Saint John of the Ladder, Maximus the Confessor, Simeon the Young Theologian, the Esychasts and especially Gregory Palamas, all express dogmatic theology through ascetic experience. Because of all these elements, Dogmatics is basically an experience, an empirical issue, and not a matter of intellectual perception or the presentation of logical proposals. It is not a matter of approving and confessing truths that are merely directed at ones mind and logic, but are empirically experienced relations between man and God. From this last point it can be surmised that the meaning of empirical experience should not be understood as reverential (=a psychological experience of the person), or as ethical (=a specific behavior of the person - certain actions of his); it should be understood existentially, in the broader sense of the term, which relates to ontology. In other words, Dogmatics involves issues that relate to the very being of a person (=to exist or not to exist), and such issues are for example- the naught (non-being) (=creation), life and death as terminal points of existence, the created and the uncreated as an issue of freedom (of being), the person and love as the borderline distinctions between man and animal (=the moment during which man is either elevated as a man, or falls), in other words, the problem of evil and sin and generally everything that touches on fundamental and ontological matters, and not merely on matters of life improvement (i.e., the organizing of social life in a more productive way etc.. Certain theologians preoccupy themselves mainly with this, in the West). A result of all these positions is that Dogmatics always pertains to vital issues, of salvific significance; the Church always dogmatizes in order to save, and not in order to enrich our knowledge of God, the world etc.. Each dogma of the Church and each synodical dogmatic decision always pertains to a specific problem of salvation; this means that our entire relationship with God and the world changes in a dangerous way if a certain dogma is not accepted, or, in the opposite case, it will be formulated in a salvific way for us and the world, if the dogma becomes accepted. Consequently, in Dogmatics we must always seek the salvific significance of the dogmas and not just present them dryly, like logical formulas. This is what we mean by existential comprehension of the dogma or empirical theology in its true sense. Thus, Dogmatics has to always strive to interpret the dogmas, and not preserve them or present them as expressed in their original form. This subject is huge and extremely sensitive, and needs to be analyzed.

b. Dogmatics as Hermeneutics (Interpretation) 1. The problem of hermeneutics (interpretation) is of timely importance, not only for the dogmas, but for the Holy Bible itself. I would say that hermeneutics itself is essentially the problem. Just as the Bible is a dead letter when not interpreted, thus the dogmas become fossilized and museum items archaeological objects which we simply preserve and describe if we dont proceed to interpret them. One could say that the dogmas are essentially the interpretation of the Bible.

2. The interpretation of the dogmas or the Bible involves two limbs: a. The attempt to comprehend faithfully (not anachronistically which is a difficult thing, as it needs good historians) the historical reality, in the framework of which the dogma (or the Scripture) was expressed. This involves the following questions: . What kind of problems did the Church have to confront during that historical period? . What means did it resort to, to solve these problems ? In other words: . What kind of written and verbal tradition did the Church have at its disposal? (Holy Bible, Tradition etc.)? (Every Synod would always take into account any previous tradition). . What kind of vocabulary and meanings did the cultural environment of that era have at its disposal? (for example, the 4th century uses the word homoousios of the same essencewhich the New Testament doesnt have, while the 14th century includes other meanings etc.) C. What kind of experiences (worship, ascetic living etc.) did it have? (for example, martyrdom in the New Testament, the icons in the 7th Ecumenical Council/synod, Esychasm, etc.) All of the above must be taken into account, in order to form an idea of the historical environment. Without an accurate historical basis, every interpretation would be a risky one. The interpretation of the Bible is not possible, unless there is previously an accurate and subjective (as much as possible) research into the historical background, as with the dogmas. We need to see which problems led to the drafting of a dogma; what kind of literary and philosophical material the Fathers utilized, and from what experience (worship, ascetic etc.) the formulation of the dogma sprang. An able dogmatist must also be an able historian. b. The attempt to locate and to define contemporary problems that demand evaluation, for example: . Possible new heresies or new, agonizing questions of mankind, always of a fundamental character (nowadays the so-called Jehovahs Witnesses etc.; also technology, ecology etc.) . The vocabulary and the categorizing of that time (we saw how the Fathers were also contemporaries of their time, yet without remaining fixed to the letter of the New Testament see reference on homoousios) . The adorational and ascetic lifestyle of the Church (which cannot essentially differ from the old one, but is possible for it to have varying forms and emphasis, for example martyrdom, mental prayer in the specific Hesychastic form, the influence of monkhood on the secular services of the Church Hours, etc. and the gradual disengagement from it - albeit incomplete and inconsistent, as observed for example in our days. All these are indications of a shift in emphasis in the adorational and ascetic experience, which cannot but affect the interpretation of a dogma. In order to provide a good interpretation, the dogmatician must not only be a good historian, but a good philosopher as well (with philosophical thought and a knowledge of contemporary philosophy), and he must also have a poemantic disposition (love towards mankind, leaning over their problems etc.). He is also obliged to be familiar with the liturgical experience and the life of the Church and its Canonic structure, because these elements also express the dogmatic faith of the Church. (Of course all of the above cannot be concentrated in one person in a unique way - in other words, a unique researcher of all the above but he must, if he desires to be a good dogmatician, be kept informed of the latest positions of the

specialists in those individual areas).

c. The Dogmatics method As you can see, Dogmatics has a broad spectrum of research and presupposes a manifold knowledge as well as sensitivity and creative thought. It is for this reason, that the Dogmatics method must include: A. A very general plan or structure, which would be the Symbol of Faith (Creed) as it had always prevailed in Baptismal and Eucharist worship. The reason this structure is recommended, is that it was basically upheld during the Patristic era, and also, because it is linked to the very structure of relations that God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit had provided for our salvation. You must observe here that, when the subdivision by theoretical material of topics such as Triadology, Christology, Salvation, Sacraments, eschatological, etc. is not directly linked to the structure of the Symbol of Faith (Creed), it becomes dangerous. This was developed in the West and was copied by the Orthodox, with the Russians and Androutsos at the lead. . This plan has to be very general, so that it may accommodate the various components. For example, in the sector on the Holy Trinity, reference can be made to the Church and vice versa. Or, on the Sacraments, to End Times etc.. In this way, Scholastic Dogmatics that came from the West is avoided. However, analogies must always be maintained, as we shall see in the respective chapters. C. Verification and a faithful presentation of the significance of dogmas in their era are imperative, i.e.: What kind of problems did they have in mind, and what means (literaryphilosophical) did they use, to confront those problems? In other words, Orthodox Dogmatics must always contain an element of history; if it lacks a solid dogmatic history, then it cannot become part of Orthodox Dogmatics. D. Attempts should be made to interpret each dogma, with the following as guides: . By linking it to the adorational and ascetic experience of the Church (e.g., Christ, as the Son of God: how He is worshipped and how He is experienced within the Church?). . By linking it to mankinds most fundamental existential problems during each era, such as: the quest for freedom, love, the transcendence of death etc. (example: the significance of faith in a Trinitarian God in each of these cases). . By linking it to mankinds current problems. This is mainly the field of Ethical Poemantics, but it should be prepared at least with cues- by dogmatic theologians. (for instance, current day social problems, issues that are raised by technology, ecology, etc.) V. By linking it to the broader problems of Knowledge nowadays, as posed by Natural Sciences etc.

2. The term dogma and its significance The origin and the evolution of the term The term in the Old Testament The affirmative meaning by the Church

According to the first apostolic fathers The technical, contemporary meaning

The term is derived from the (Greek) verb dokein (= seeming, believing) and originally, its literal meaning was that which seems good or proper to someone; it also pertains to belief, ideology, principle, opinion, faith, and other related meanings. (Platos Soph.256C: by making use of the many dogmas and words). From its original meaning of a personal opinion, the term was transposed to the field of philosophical positions; in other words, it became a knowledge belonging to a (philosophical) School. (e.g. Plutarch, Ethica 14B: the dogmas pertaining to souls or the Stoic philosophers dogmas, etc.) The transposing over to this meaning is justified, by the fact that ancient thought demanded eclecticism in philosophy. Later on, this term was transposed to public life (the state) and it signified decisions or decrees bearing state authority (Platos Laws, 644D: the city dogma, also in Luke, 2:1: a decree (dogma, in the Greek text) was issued by Caesar Augustus to conduct a census of the population. Thus, the term took on the meaning of something compulsory, something characterized by authority and prestige. It afterwards took on a religious meaning, through the Old Testament and Judaism, with a legal-compulsory character. This is why it had a rather negative inference in Apostle Paul (Colossians, 2:14), where Christ is said to have erased the manuscript of dogmas that were against you and in (Ephesians, 2:15), where Christ abolished the enmity in His Body, by abolishing the dogma of the Law of the Commandments). In Luke, however, they specifically adopted the initial, affirmative meaning that was to prevail from then onwards in Christian usage. Acts, 16:4: as they passed through the cities, they delivered unto them the decrees (dogmas in Greek text) that were validated by the apostles and the elders. We thus arrive at the dogmas of the Church, as being the authentic decisions pertaining to faith, that are delivered for compulsory acceptance, and are linked to the presence and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. A classical example is in Acts, 15:28: it seemed proper (refer above, to the origin of the word dogma) to the Holy Spirit and to us (=us the Apostles) The usage of the term with its contemporary, technical meaning is rare, in the Fathers of the Church. Whenever it appears, it has the following characteristics: A) For the original, Apostolic Fathers, the term is most likely linked to practice rather than theory (ref. Ignatius, Megnesians 13:1, Barnabas, etc.) B) It is equally used in instances pertaining to the Church and heretics (Vasilios the Great, To Esychasts: possible to destroy the heterodox dogmas ; also, in John The Chrysostom: the devil has sown these deceitful dogmas of irreverence; in the Menaion of January as for the dogmas of the infidel, they are justly drowned C) Very important: the dogma is linked to worship, contradistinguishing it to kerygma (teaching, sermon). This is expressed in a monumental proposal by Vasilios the Great, in his work on the Holy Spirit: ..for, dogmas are hushed, whereas sermons are publicized.... This passage gave rise to younger patrologists to interpret Vasilios hushing as pertaining to the divinity of the Holy Spirit. But for our present topic of discussion, this phrase of Vasilios has

the following significance: Dogmas are those things that the Church (as a worshipping community) confesses, and not those things that it promulgates to others, who are outside the Church. The deeper meaning of this viewpoint will preoccupy us again later on, but for the time being, we can just make a note that according to Vasilios the Great, the meaning of dogma has the community of the Church as a prerequisite, along with a participation in its worship, otherwise it bears no authority. This basic position of the Fathers - which we often forget is also expressed by Gregory the Theologian, in the familiar phrase of his Address to Eunomians: let us philosophize, within our own boundaries. As testified by these words, the meaning inferred is: within the holy territory (and not in Egypt and Assyria), in other words, within the Church. From this, we surmise that the authority of a dogma does not belong to the sphere of logic, nor to a blind obedience to -and resignation from- logic, but to a new logic, which is generated from the relations between the people of the ecclesiastic community. But we shall talk more about this later on. Summary: Dogma is that which an ecclesiastic community embraces as an (existentially) salvatory truth that applies to every man, and requires its members to accept it (through personal experience) as authoritative, because of the specialized relations that it ordains between members, as well as towards the world and God. The kerygma (sermon) on the other hand is whatever is addressed to all persons, publicly, in order that they may become members of the Church, and only then (as members of the Church) confess it as a dogma, having experienced it personally. The truth does not become a dogma, unless it has been experienced and certified from within the Church. From this, it is obvious that the dogmas of the Church are not limited in number; new dogmas can be formulated in every era, because the Church is a living organism and the Holy Spirit is not associated to certain isolated periods of history. But, for a truth to become a dogma of the Church (and not a personal opinion), it must necessarily go through the community of the Church in its totality, and not only through a few people be they theologians in the current (academic) sense, or saints. This point needs clarifications, because two important issues are posed: 1st: How the dogma is linked to the Holy Bible and 2nd: The authority of a dogma in general and in respect to Dogmatics itself.

3. The affiliation of dogmas to the Holy Scriptures The fake concerns of the West The means of revelations The superior revelation of the New Testament Memorandum on the event of Christ

The affiliation of dogmas to the Scriptures is a hermeneutic one. The problem posed by Western theologians, after the Reform Era, as to whether we have one or two sources of

divine revelation as they were named, denotes the specific concern between Roman Catholics and Protestants, given that the latter had rejected the authority of the Tradition of the Church, and had introduced the principle of sola scriptura (=only the scripture). In Orthodox Theology, the problem was posed through the so-called Orthodox Confessions of the 17th century (prev.ref.). Thus, depending on the deviation of these confessions (Mogilas=Roman Catholicism, Cyril Loukaris=Calvinism, etc.), the answer was and continues to be- provided by the Orthodox. The West was led into this concern for two reasons, which do not apply in Orthodoxy: 1. The West lacked the element that a revelation is always something personal, and never something logical or intellectual. God revealed Himself to Abraham, to Moses, to Paul, to the Fathers, etc.. Consequently, it is never an issue of a new revelation, or an addition to a revelation, or even a case of Johns Revelations being incremented, as suggested even by Orthodox theologians. 2. In the West, an objectification of the Scriptures and the Church had become prevalent to such an extent, that expressions such as treasuries of the truth were coined. But in Orthodox tradition, both the Scripture and the Church are considered to be testimonies of experience of the truth, and not merely masterminds that perceive, record and transmit truths. This is because the truth in Orthodox Tradition is not a matter of objective, logical proposals; the truth consists of (personal) stances and relations between God, mankind and the world. (For example, I do not become acquainted with the truth by intellectually knowing and finally accepting that God is Triune; it is only when I am personally involved existentially in the Triadic existence of God, through which my entire being as well as the worlds acquires a meaning. In this way, any ordinary, everyday woman who is however a proper member of the Church, can know the dogma of the Trinity. The same applies for Christology etc.). But we shall go into this topic of Gnosiology in more detail, later. Consequently, if the Revelation of God is a matter of personal experience and a broader implication of man in a lattice of relations with God, with fellow-man and the world, and if it pours new light onto overall existence, then the Scripture that testifies to this Revelation is considered complete, both from the aspect of the Revelations content, as well as for every other similar kind Revelation pursuant to the composing of the Bibles Canon. We must add the following clarifications here: Even though in every case of such personal and existential revelations, the revelations are of the One and Only God, the means by which they are revealed differ; for instance, on Mount Sinai we have a revelation of God Himself, which is revealed to us in Christ, but not in the same way. With Christ, we are enabled not only to see or hear God, but to actually touch Him, to feel Him, to commune with Him physically: Who was from the beginning, Whom we heard, Whom we saw and Whom our hands touched. (John I, 1:1). The divine epiphanies of the Old Testament, and subsequently in the New Testament, while having the same content, are not revealed in the same way. And, because a Revelation as we said is not a matter of objective knowledge but a personal relationship, the form of a Revelation is of vital importance because it introduces new relationships, or in other words, new existential ways. (The matter of relations between Old and New Testaments is historically very old in Patristic Theology, and it was solved through the Theology of saint Irineos, who dramatically corrected Justins teaching on the Logos, and was later formulated excellently by Saint Maximus the Confessor, in his principle that stated: the contents of the Old Testament are the shadow, the contents of the New Testament are the image, and the (contents of) the things to come is the truth.) Consequently, in the person of Christ we have a unique form of revelation that is characterized by communion with the senses (vision, touch, taste, etc., as per the passage of John I, 1:1 where we read: and Whom our hands touched), and not only with the mind or

the heart. This is why this way was judged by the Fathers as being the supreme and fullest way. Nothing is superior to Christophany (Christ being revealed): Whomsoever has seen me, has seen the Father. Thus, the New Testament in which is recorded the experience of those people who had this physical communion with God (Whom we saw and Whom our hands touched) gives meaning to both the Theophanies (God being revealed) in the Old Testament, as well as those that followed, after the Bible. In fact, the Fathers (Irineos and others) maintain that after the Incarnation of the Logos, we have a fuller and newer form of revelation than that of the Old Testament. In respect to the Disciples, this superiority is attributed to their tangible and physical association with Christ; in respect to the subsequent Church, this superiority is attributed to the Sacraments and especially in the Eucharist, which has preserved this physical communion (see Ignatius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria etc.). Those who participate deservedly in the Divine Eucharist, can see God much better than Moses. Thus, the entire life of the Church draws the revelation of God from the event of the historical Christ, as recorded in the New Testament. And that is why the New Testament has the status of an exceptional and primeval dogma, compared to which, all other revelatory means (including the Old Testament and subsequent dogmas) comprise renditions of it, in the more profound, existential sense of the word, i.e. the means of experiencing existence, as a new relationship between God, mankind and the world. Conclusion: Neither the rendering of the New Testament or the dogmas can circumvent the event and the person of Christ, because that would require the insertion of a new kind of revelation, fuller and superior to that of Christ. We can draw a great number of individual conclusions from this, but I will note only the following: . The Divine Eucharist, as the exceptional form of tangible communion and therefore cognizance- of God, remains forever the highest and most perfect form of Gods revelation, in its personal, existential sense (and Whom our hands touched). . The viewings of God (every form of Theophany), whether through holy icons or through the ascetic experience, are viewings of the Uncreated Light, always in the form that it is revealed in Christ, and not independent of it; in other words, they are essentially Christophanies. (This should be stressed, in order to avoid misunderstandings that are unfortunately beginning to increase in number). As proof of this, it suffices to mention that, as regards the icons, the entire argumentation of saints John the Damascene, Theodore the Studite etc Iconophiles is: that Christs incarnation imposes the veneration of icons as forms of Gods revelation; and as for the Uncreated Light, that this light was understood by the holy Esychasts to be the Taborian Light, in other words, as a partaking of the light that radiated from the historical body of Christ. Getting back to the association between Scripture and dogmas, we therefore note that every dogma, regardless to what it pertains (even the issue of the Holy Trinity), is essentially a memorandum to the event of Christ, through which God is revealed as an existential experience of a relationship, in other words, as truth. It is not by chance, that, for instance, the 1st Ecumenical Council (Synod), while founding the Trinitarian theology, also did this on the pretext and the basis of the truth regarding the Person of Christ. The same was done by all the pursuant Ecumenical Councils, even though they were also preoccupied with all other issues. This indicates that the Apostolic experience that is recorded in the Bible comprises the first dogma, which is then interpreted by all the other dogmas. It is therefore impossible for any dogma to impinge on this experience; it can only interpret it. The Apostolic experience and tradition is of decisive importance for the dogma. In this way, we have a consecutiveness of dogmas, a sequence of dogmas, which resemble icons of Christ that are painted by different people in different eras, and with the means that every era had at its disposal.

This sequence is both external (= a fidelity to the preceding tradition and finally to the Bible), and also internal (= a preservation of the same existential relationship between God, mankind and the world, as fulfilled and revealed in Christ).

4. The function of the Holy Spirit in the formulation of dogmas Present and future dimension Comprehending the function of the Holy Spirit Who is equipped to theologize? The ecclesiological action of the Holy Spirit The charismatic persons of the Church Love and variety within the Church

Theophany (the manifestation of God) as Christophany (the manifestation of Christ), which comprises the basis of the dogma, contains two basic problems. The one problem is that, one needs to cover the period of time that intervenes between the historical Christ and His (=the Apostolic) era, with the pursuant generations; these are the eras in which the dogma is formulated. So, How is it possible to bridge this time chasm? The second problem is that, within that same historical Theophany in Christ, there is the dimension of already, and not yet: in the historical Christ and the experience of the first apostles, we have Gods revelation as an inner reflection and an enigma and not as something seen face to face. The fulfilled, face to face revelation is an eschatological reality. Christ bears a pre-portrayal and a pre-savoring of the Kingdom, in other words, the complete and direct, personal cognizance (knowledge) of God. Until that last day has come, no prophet or saint has a full cognizance of God, in a stable and unchangeable form. How is it possible for this pre-savoring of paradise, this complete cognizance of God to be attained from now, with a complete certainty that the proclaimed dogma expresses this pre-portrayal, and that it formulates it faithfully and accurately? In other words, the dogma -as a faithful portrayal of Christ who reveals God- has to be faithful in the following two dimensions: A. The faithful portrayal of the historic Christ (= past), and B. The faithful portrayal of the future, eschatological Christ and His Kingdom. (ref. Byzantine icons they are not limited to historical representations, but they also portray the future situation, for example the icon of the Pentecost). This task of bridging the present (=dogma) with the past (historical Christophany) and the future (=Second Coming), is the exceptional task of the Holy Spirit in Divine Providence. It seemed proper to the Holy Spirit and to us (Acts 15), is the decision reached by the Apostolic Synod. It comprises the fixed conviction of the Church that the dogmas are of the Holy Spirits inspiration, as is the Scripture (every divinely inspired scripture..) (Timothy II, 3:16). But this requires serious attention, because it can be understood in different ways; thus:

The presence of the Holy Spirit and His action can be misconstrued as a kind of magical and mechanical intervention of God. This reminds us of the divine inspiration of the ancient Hellenes (divination, oracles etc.), where personal freedom was excluded: the authors of the Bible and the Fathers of the Councils (Synods) were thus involuntary instruments of the Spirit. This is a perception that prevailed in the West (from where it also originated), in the form of so-called Fundamentalism. The presence and the effect of the Spirit can be comprehended as being the result of moral changes in man. When we say moral changes, we imply a broader meaning of mans every improvement that is attributed to his own striving. (for example, catharsis from vices; acquiring virtues etc.) The effect of the Holy Spirit can be perceived as being the result of a community event, in both its perpendicular and its lateral dimensions, in other words, as a result of the communion within an ecclesiastic community. Of these possibilities, the first one must be excluded altogether. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of freedom, and does not force man. Besides, the event of Christ, the very nature of Christophany, is such that it fully respects a persons freedom. The second possibility has more value and gravity and is more fitting to the prerequisites of ascetic experience, which, as we saw, must always be taken into consideration. Without catharsis from vices, it is not possible for anyone to see God (for example, whoever hates his brother cannot see God ref. John I). In this same spirit, saint Gregory the theologian rebutted the Eunomians, who had created an entirely different, intellectual theology that allowed anyone to theologize, even after horseracing events and singing and feastingwhich (theology) deemed equally a part of enjoyment, by pointing out to them that it is not for everyone to philosophize on God. not for everyone, but only by those who have been tested and who have spent their life in theory (of God), and prior to this- have a cleansed soul and body, or are at least cleansing them. However, if ascetic living is taken as an isolated and self-sufficient prerequisite, then it is suffering from two serious faults: that of individualism and moralism. In other words, we shall be in danger of believing that God reveals Himself to isolated individuals and under certain conditions of human achievement. This is why the second possibility must necessarily be combined with the third one, which the ecclesiastic form of action of the Holy Spirit. In order for this to be comprehended, we must first of all rid ourselves of a faulty perception that we have; i.e., that the Holy Spirit acts upon isolated persons. This perception is so widespread, that it might seem strange to refer to it as faulty. Those who defend this view are overlooking a fundamental distinction between the action of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the action in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the Spirit is given to certain people (prophets, kings, etc.) and not the entire nation of Israel. During the Messianic era however, when the Holy Spirit is introduced in the New Testament with the arrival of the Messiah, it was expected that the Spirit would be given to the entire nation of God. This is why Luke in his narration of the Pentecost uses the phrase of the prophet Joel: in the last days I shall pour forth from My Spirit over every flesh..says the Lord Almighty As a result of this, all baptized Christians -in the New Testament- were considered as having the Holy Spirit and possessing various charismas. If we examine chapter 12 of Corinthians I, we can see how, for the apostle Paul, being a member of the Church is equivalent to possessing a certain charisma of the Spirit. Given that the Corinthians were under the impression that some people can be more charismatic than others, Paul refutes this perception vehemently, and stresses that everyone has some sort of charisma, even those who perform a simple task such as administration etc. Paul thus strikes back at every form of spiritual elitism, stressing that even if someone has adequate knowledge or faith to move mountains, he will be nothing, if he has no love.

What does love signify here? If we take a look at this text as a whole (chapters 11 14) and not as isolated verses, we can see that for Paul, love therein- signifies the communion that the community of the Church creates. Love here is not about the feelings of a certain person (good intentions etc.), but the inter-dependence of the members of the church, as one body. Love means not saying that I am the head and I dont need the legs etc This is what Paul was stressing here: the inter-dependence of the assorted charismas. It is precisely for this reason, that Paul ends his Epistle by naming the Holy Spirit community. In Corinthians II, 13:13, it actually appears to be an expression that existed prior to Paul in the liturgical usage of the first Churches, and one that has remained a basic element of the Divine Eucharist ever since. Wherever the Spirit drifts, It creates a community, and destroys individualism. We must understand this thoroughly. This was how all the Fathers of the Church had also perceived the Holy Spirit. One could present a multitude of quotes from the Fathers of the first centuries, for example Gregory of Nazianzo, who especially focuses on personal theory (= viewing), hence endowing a special significance to the way he refers to the Holy Spirit. In his 12th Address, he compares the desire for theory with the Spirit as follows: On the one hand, there is the desire for theory, that is, the tendency for solitude, a catharsis of the mind and theory; but, this is not where the Spirit leads to. The Spirit moves within (the congregation of the church), leading it and making it fruitful (the ecclesiastic community), in the desire to benefit it, that they may benefit each other, and make public the (Spirits) enlightenment. This is why the prepared (congregated) church is to saint Gregory- so much more superior than the experience of theory, as the skies are by comparison to a star, or a garden to a plant, or a whole body to a body member. To the Fathers, this is the chief work of the Spirit: to lead towards the overall Church, and not towards isolated, personal experiences. Consequently, all the charismas of the Church are necessary for the revelation of God; not just the few and far between ones. The reason for this is that no charisma can be imaginable, without its inter-dependence with the other ones. The Church has a variety of charismas; not everyone possesses knowledge, not everyone has healing abilities, or the gift of speaking languages, or administrative abilities etc.. They are not all god-seers in the same way. At any rate, no-one can see God on his own and independently of the other charismas. The Spirit acts as a community, and that means: within the body of the Church. Thus, we reach the conclusion with regard to the dogmas, that the revelation of the truth always presupposes a communion and a community of the Church in order for the dogma to be a truth. What exactly does this mean?

5. The task of the Church in the formulation of dogmas Gods revelation within the Church The association between the Churchs members The leadership of the Church in the bishop Ecumenical Councils (Synods) The acceptance by the laity

What is the Church, and how does it act in the formulation of dogmas?

We shall speak more of the Church in the respective chapter, but as far as the dogmas are concerned, we can make note of the following: Church means the communion and the community through which -and within which- the new existential relations between God, mankind and the world (as manifested and realized in the person of Christ) are revealed and realized. In other words, in the Church, the entire world, with the new Adam (Christ) at its head, acknowledges God as Father and is thus saved from alienation and deterioration. The cognizance and the revelation of God is thus an empirical reality within the body of the Church, which has the form of a paternal-filial association wherein the entire world is embodied, thus constituting the body of Christ. Consequently, the Church as the body of Christ is, in this sense, the only proper and complete existential form of cognizance of God, through the lattice of relations that are realized within the community.

In order for the Church to comprise the full revelation of this existential form of cognizance of God, it must have the following elements, which arise from the aforementioned definition: A. It must be a community-congregation that consists of all the Church members. All of the baptized members of the Church (who continue to preserve the association between Godmankind-people, as manifested and realized in Christ) are necessary, for the constituting of the body that will reveal Christ. Consequently, the lay people who remain faithful to the baptismal relationship between God and the world are of an opportune significance to the revelation of the truth of the Son as the new association between God and the world. B. It must have at the head of the community a ministry that will express the presence of Christ and the Apostles as the ones who will constantly judge the communitys preservation of the original form of the body of Christ as revealed and experienced in the Old Testament era (see above). This ministry cannot be anything other than the prelate bishop of the Eucharist community as an image of Christ, surrounded by the presbyters, as images of the Apostles. This prevailed from the 2nd century A.D. onward (Ignatius of Antioch) without interruption (until the Reform in the West), because in the Eucharist, the community of the Church exceptionally lives and reveals this Christ-centered association-revelation between God and the world. The cognizance of God there is experienced as the revealing of the new, salvatory association between God and the world as manifested in Christ (more in the respective chapter). Consequently, the leadership of the Eucharist community, in the person of the bishop, expresses the faith of that community with one mouth and one heart, as cited during the Divine Eucharist; in other words, it is expressed as a unanimity and not a dissent. C. Given that the Church is not comprised of one only community but of many, the expressing of the entire Churchs faith throughout the world becomes a reality, when all of the communities through their prelate bishops- coincide in the same faith; or, as Saint Ignatius of Antioch says: when the bishops in every corner of the world are of the (same) opinion as Jesus Christ. It was thus, that the synods (councils) of the prelate bishops -as the means of expressing the unanimity of their communities- came to be the most comprehensive expression of the proper faith of the Church. Therefore, the dogmas of the Church that are expressed by such synods (councils) and especially when these synods include or represent all of the prelate bishops (these are the ecumenical councils) are those that express the faith of the Church and reveal the cognizance of God within His association to the world through Christ, in the fullest manner. D. In order for the dogma to be a living reality and not a simple logical or expressive formulation, it must continuously be filtered through the community of the Church, to all of its members, as a perpetual confirmation and reception of it, in the conscience of the entire body of the Church. This reception does not have any legal status in the Orthodox Church

(that is, no specific procedures for the reception of dogmas by church members are foreseen), instead, reception acts in a positive way as the liturgical Amen of the laity, without which the bishops cannot authentically perform anything liturgically, or proclaim and express anything dogmatically. It also acts negatively, in cases where there is a disagreement between bishops and the crew of the Church (for example, the Council of Florence). But, above all, the passing, the circulation of the dogma within the body, inside the veins of the entire community, is effected through the experiencing of the dogma, which we referred to above (with the variety of charismas). Thus, the entire church, the clergy with the bishops at the head, and the populace, all participate in the shaping of the dogmas as living and empirical truths that reveal God as the Father of Jesus Christ, and through Him, of the entire world, with Jesus Christ the God-man at its head. Bishops have the special ministry-charisma (and responsibility) of convening synods (councils), through which the faith-dogma can be confessed as a common and unanimous cognizance of God for all the Churches. That is why it is up to them to formulate the dogmas. But, the completion of a dogma demands the circulation, the reception and the experiencing of it by the entire body of the Church.

6. The prestige and the authority of dogmas The prestige of constancy The prestige of the community The infallibility of the Church Patristic errors Patristic interpretation of dogmas

From what we have said so far, it has become obvious that: A. Dogmas acquire their prestige from the constancy that they display towards the initial form of existential relationship between God and the world, which is not only revealed as a noetic knowledge, but is realized as a communion between God, the world and mankind in Christ; also in the experience of the first Disciples and apostolic communities, and as recorded in the New Testament. . In order for the dogmas to have prestige and authority, it is imperative that the eucharist community functions properly; in other words, it must be built properly, with the elements that we mentioned previously, and it must function as a community that consists of all the charismas and all the social classes. Consequently, the prestige of the dogmas is not imposed from on high, in the name of an authority that is perceived juridicially (=as already existent by definition in an institution), but is made evident and is consolidated as the Amen of the entire community. Thus, from the moment that the dogma has been completed in this manner and is consolidated in the conscience of the Church, its prestige becomes irrevocable, and the only thing that is permissible from then on, is the experiencing and the interpretation of that dogma (by dogmatic theology, by ascetic living, by hymnography, hagiography, etc..).

Thus, whatever was decreed (in the above sense) as a dogma has absolute prestige and authority, and no pursuant synod or theology is allowed to rescind it, only to interpret it, perhaps formulating new dogmas, which, however, in order to become dogmas with prestige and authority of an equal stature to the preceding dogmas, must fulfill the same prerequisites that we mentioned above. C. From the above, we can comprehend the meaning of infallibility in the dogmas (and the Church). To the Orthodox, infallibility is not contained in any institution per se (for example in synods or in bishops), not even in any moral perfection or individual experience, or its acknowledgement through experience. The saints or the fathers, as individuals, are not automatically and by definition infallible. Infallibility is the result of the communion of the Holy Spirit, Who composes the wholeness of the institution of the Church. Therefore, noone as an individual can be infallible; in other words, on his own, without any reference to the other charismas and functions of the Church. But, each individual can empirically express the truth of the Church as formulated by the synods of the bishops in an infallible way, provided the individual is faithful to this truth (as, for example, a hymnographer, or a hagiographer or an ascete or a martyr or an ordinary Christian who lives faithfully and humbly as a member of the eucharist body of the Church.) D. Especially in the case of dogmatic theology, it is obvious that it cannot claim infallibility in the same sense that the decreed dogmas do. Many theologians confuse the dogmas with the theology of the Fathers when speaking of authority: This was stated by Father so-and-so, therefore it must be infallible. This can lead to a dangerous confusion. In order for a patristic position to acquire full authority, it must be passed through the furnace of the communion of the Holy Spirit that we described above, and neither the holiness nor the personal prestige of that Holy Father qualify enough to make it of an equal stature to the dogmas. For example, Athanasios the Great had correctly phrased the faith of the Church, before the 1st Ecumenical Synod (Council) had convened to dogmatize. But it was only when the teaching of the 1st Ecumenical Synod was established in the Church, that Athanasios theology was rendered an infallible dogma, with a compulsory, overall acceptance. Of course the question is raised, as to what happens in those periods when ecumenical synods are inoperative and dogmas are not decreed. In this case, the Church continues to live and confess the truth of Gods Christophany, through various forms of experience and confessions, through the its contemporary Fathers (the Church always has Fathers); the Patristic era did not come to an end in the 9th century, as was predominantly believed by the West. However, these Fathers interpret the existing dogmas without producing any new ones; in other words, without expecting the overall acceptance by the Ecumenical Church of whatever they say. Thus, in the case of Dogmatics (for all of us who are preoccupied with the holy dogmas as teachers or as students), what we strive for is an (existential) interpretation of the dogmas, which is something that cannot demand any kind of prestige. It would be somewhat excessive if not audacious for a theologian to expect his own interpretation to be the one that fully and validly expresses the interpretation of the dogmas. Every one of us is capable of erring, and that is why we must all be humble enough to listen to each others views. Without this humility, we are at risk of proclaiming ourselves infallible popes, which is something that often appears in Orthodoxy, whereby each theologian tends to become a pope. The truth is revealed and is consolidated (=becomes infallible) only through our humble incorporation in the body of the Church, and by resigning ourselves to the communion and the community of the Holy Spirit. Because God, after all, is recognized only in the Spirit, through Love. But we shall speak of this in the next chapter on Gnosiology.

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B. ON COGNIZANCE AND FAITH I. On cognizance 1. Cognizance of things

The Western dilemma on revelation The relating of things . by exclusion . definition C. description The origin of attributes The utilitarian aspect Time-Space and definition

The theories on supposed natural revelation maintain that man has an inbuilt cognizance (knowledge) of God, which man then further cultivates. In other words, man is born having knowledge of God. Other theories say that there is no natural revelation, only a direct revelation on Gods part. This is a dilemma that developed chiefly among Protestants and Roman Catholics. A leading upholder of the theory that natural revelation does not exist, was and continues to be - in the West : he is Karl Barth. Like all other issues, this problem does not exist within our Orthodox tradition and mentality. Before we start to talk specifically about the patristic views the views of Orthodox tradition on the subject of knowing God - I would like to first define the problem: what is cognizance. And we shall begin by approaching the subject entirely objectively lets say, not as theologians, but as ordinary thinking people, or as scientists, if you wish. What is cognizance (knowledge) ? 1. Cognizance of things When we say that I know something, for instance: the table, it means that I am behaving in the following way: I am pointing out this table in order to relate it to my person. Aristotle had introduced this basic principle, which became familiar as the this here of Aristotle. When you point towards something and you identify it, saying: this (thing) is this one and not something else, you are in fact saying that you know (recognize) it. In other words, knowing always has something to do with some kind of identification. From the moment that the objects identity is lost, then the knowledge of it is also lost. If this table is not this table but another one, then I dont know it. To be unable to identify it means I cannot recognize it. Consequently, the identity of an object or a being is a necessary prerequisite for cognizance (knowledge). Now, how do we identify various objects? (This has to do with the gnosiology of every science. We are not speaking as theologians here, but in general, as we already said). And so, in order to simplify matters, I pose the following question: In what way do I identify this table, and consequently say that I know it?

A. This includes a negative action to begin with; in other words, I identify this table and I say that it is a table, thus ruling out that it is something else; I am saying that A is A and that it is not B. Therefore, in defining A, I try to define what is not A, i.e., by excluding another being. When I say it is this, it means it is not that. B. The second basic action that is contained in the act of cognizance (knowing) is that I am obliged precisely because I am excluding other objects to somehow encompass the object of my cognizance; I have to define it. (Pay attention, how the use of words is very important). What is the meaning of the word define? The word define contains the inference of boundaries, or limits, or terms, which I place around the object. I am indicating it by excluding other objects, but: I am also placing limits around it. C. The third action that I perform, which is a consequence of the second action, is that I am describing it. (here we have another term of gnosiology, which, however, signifies precisely the relating of an object by the method of isolating it) To describe an object means that I inscribe (write) things around that object and thus create a frame around it. I say that A is A and not B, and in this way, I identify it. Now, how do I go about describing it? In order to describe, I utilize certain properties that the object has; for instance, in order to say that I am describing this table, and that I am identifying it by describing it, I need to give it a form. If it loses its form ( as conceded to me by space and time ), I will say that this table is another one and not that one. I identify it as being another. Imagine, if space and time were non-existent, and likewise the ability to isolate and to describe on the basis of the tables form, thus rendering this table united to the other table to an absolute degree, then, I would no longer be able to know (discern) the specific table. Identity is lost and there will be a confusion of objects. Cognizance (knowledge) will disappear. Consequently, description ( usage of the limits that space and time place between two objects ) is a necessary element and is accomplished on the basis of the objects attributes (for example its form); this is advanced even further (Aristotle analyzed all of this), with the attributes of objects, which originate from a judgment expressed by the object of cognizance. In other words, I say that this table is square in shape; as cognizance of the table progresses, I can now define its form and say it is square. But where did I obtain the concept of square? It is a concept. Plato would have said it is an idea that we draw from the permanent cosmos of ideas and then apply to tangible objects. Aristotle says that it is not an idea, but merely attributes that the object itself possesses. In other words, the attribute of squareness already resides within the table. At any rate, for me to say that something is square, I must use a logical shape, which can apply everywhere, and not only to a table. It must also be applicable to other objects. It is not the table only that has a square shape. If we supposed that in all the world, only the table is square in shape, then I could not call it square. I have borrowed the concept of square from my experience of another object. We shall examine this eventually; (and you will see how opportune it is, when we apply it to God, which is a very serious issue. ) In any case, we are now at a point where we describe the object by using its different attributes, which, apart from its shape, include thousands of other things. The more attributes that I add, the more I know the object. For example, it is square; then I go to the colour. It has that colour. Then I go to various other attributes. And, based on all of these, I end up ( and this is our next element ) with the ability to utilize the object. And I can now define the object on the basis of its usefulness. I say that it is a table, because I use it for writing on. Thus, we always have a latent utilitarian aspect to this cognizance, which originates from the identification of an objects attributes, because these attributes are automatically available for usage. This usage may be aesthetic (i.e. it is beautiful), or the object may be altogether exploitable from a realistic aspect, in which case, I use it for a specific purpose.

So, to summarize: For the cognizance (knowledge) of an object, so that we may know it, relate it, we must have an exclusion of another object and a description based on the attributes that the object possesses, with the help of time and space. This is because we do not only relate objects that we perceive with our eyes, but also objects that we dont see. I can relate my father; I know him. He is no longer alive. However, time has made it possible for him to be isolated from me, otherwise, there would have been confusion between my father and myself. If things were totally indistinct, I would never have known my father. I know him, thanks to the distance that time and space have allotted, as in the case of the table. Therefore, this description that I am making with the aid of time and space, is what helps me distinguish that A is A and not B. I can therefore know things, on the basis of this procedure of description, which leads me to the detection of attributes. And because of this detection of attributes, I am led as I said to their evaluation and their utilization. I can say that this table is larger than the other one; it is better than the other one, etc., etc.. This ability to compare, also offers the possibility to utilize it later; to say: I want a larger table now; this one is not suitable. All this procedure of knowing resides inside that which we call scientific knowledge, which is very much dependent on the cultural level and the cultural era in which one lives, so that one can see which of those attributes comprise useful attributes. For instance, in ancient Greek times, when beauty was important, the attribute of form, of beauty, was the basic attribute by which one could get to know something. In our age, and especially in the West, (where we can see how much theoretical sciences suffer), knowledge is accompanied by usage. If you dont provide something along with knowledge that will be useful and will produce results, you are not providing anything. It is as though you know nothing. This knowledge is of no interest. Why should we speak of God, or of art? What can it give us? What are the results? And nowadays, in England, theoretical Schools are in danger of being closed down, because the prevailing philosophy is how is the industry benefiting from these Schools? Give the money to Schools that produce results. But how is a result produced? From that very procedure of knowledge, which defines and describes and consequently provides the possibility of usage and the benefit through that usage. Well, that is basically the method one uses in science. Although we must stress here that after Einstein and chiefly after the recent quantum theory, we definitely have a change in the perception that the researcher the one who knows distances himself from the object of his knowledge. Because, as you are aware, natural sciences today believe that the researcher is somehow entangled in the procedure of knowing his object and affects that knowledge. In other words, to know that this table is square is not simply a matter of detecting the tables attribute of squareness; it is as though the experimenter is affecting the result of the experiment. Therefore, the experiment is not simply the object that has certain attributes. We too allot certain attributes. And knowledge is an interaction of our involvement within this procedure, to the point that knowledge is entirely changed. We cant expand on this right now of course. This is just a parenthesis. I would like to say however, that the basic perception, the classical perception prior to Einstein, in short, the common perception of knowledge (cognizance), has those elements that I just described.

2. Cognizance of God

Inadequacy of comparison Inadequacy of distance Inadequacy of relating attributes Paternal anthropomorphism and atheism Utilitarian prayer Negation and mysticism

Beyond

I have expanded on this description, in order to pose the following question: If everything that I said which is necessary for the cognizance of an object is applied to the cognizance (knowledge) of God, what will happen straight away? -An absolute failure to apply it at all, and, for the following reasons: A. Because first of all, we apply the exclusion method, that A is not B. This means that in order to know A, it is presupposed that there is something else nearby, which I must exclude. Therefore, we are obliged to accept that along with God, something else always coexists. Even if that something is nothing. Be careful! We are looking at very profound notions here. Notions like creation out of nothing. It is a huge issue. When we say that God creates something from nothing, what is that nothing, if it isnt His self? To many, (Thomas Aquinatus and Karl Barth) this nothing is a thing that God repulses. In other words, it is as though the nothing already exists, and God then says: No, the nothing shall not act. Let the world come into being! The nothing is rejected. So, you are repulsing something in a certain sense- in order to relate God. If you do apply this method to God, you must suppose that God is that which is not God. And what is that which is not God? It is impossible to compare God to other things, because you lose the meaning of God. In order for God to be God, He must be so unique, that He does not co-exist with anything else. Hence, I cannot know Him, by the method of excluding something else. B. The second element that we mentioned description which has the prerequisites of space and time (remember, I cannot relate something, without describing it within a space and time), again cannot be applied to God. We cannot describe God, because in order to describe God, we must introduce His Existence into time and space. But if you do introduce time and space, then God becomes a creation that has a beginning, just as time and space presuppose a certain beginning; hence the distance between objects, this void. We cannot say that God is describable. Even the Fathers referred to Him as indescribable. You cannot describe God. Indescribable means that not only is it impossible to say anything about God, but it is also impossible to inscribe limits (boundaries) around Him. You cannot say something about God as you would say of the table, i.e., that the table has this shape. Consequently, we cannot apply this method of cognizance either. And here we also have a very delicate issue. We are accustomed mainly from Scholastic Theology onward to saying that we can know God, through His attributes; for example, in every dogmatic area, we have a complete analysis of His attributes: God is Benign, Almighty, Powerful, etc. There is a grave danger here, and I had stressed it, when I said that in order to know an object on the basis of its attributes, it is necessary to draw those attributes from an experience of other objects. I am not supposed to detect them, exclusively within my object. For instance, if I say that this table is strong, and this attribute of strength exists only within my table, I am not truly specifying it. I often give my students the example of the clock. Take a clock, and show it to a native, a primitive person who has never seen a clock, and ask him to relate it to something, as soon as he sees it in motion. He will throw it down and say that it is some kind of animal. You see, it reminds him of something (else): an animal. He cannot know it as a clock, because he has never seen a clock before. He has only seen animals, which are capable of motion. We see how his basic method of cognizance was to use familiar things, in order to recognize the new. This indicates that knowing is always linked to a prior experience; in other words, objects are classified on the basis of existing experience. For example, I know that a clock is that thing, which has those characteristics. That is when I recognize it as a clock. If I dont recognize it, if I have never seen a clock before, then I cant state that it is a clock. Thus, I reach the conclusion that the attributes that I allocate to an object during the course of cognizance (knowledge) have all been taken from attributes that

relate to other objects and are never unique to that, one, single object. (Imagine someone so unique from the aspect of physical anatomy that one cannot know him by relating him to the experience one has from other people. It will be impossible for a doctor to examine him; in order for the doctor to recognize his ailment, he must be identical to other people. A doctor can never truly know anything, if it is unique. All our knowledge is dependent precisely on the hypothesis that the objects of our knowledge resemble each other; that they have common characteristics). So, if this is true, then what can we do about God? From where can we draw the attributes of God? For instance, so that I can say that He is benevolent. From where did I draw this attribute of benevolence? From experience of course; I know that so-and-so is a benevolent person. I know Gods power. I draw this from the experience I have of powerful people. Thus, after this projection of my experience, I can reach God. God is thus a creation of your own imagination, your own experience. But those attributes arent exclusive to God; others have them also. And that is why so many people replace God with those objects. Why should I be afraid of God and not be afraid of lightning? After all, both of them are powerful. Attributes - even the most affirmative ones, such as benevolent are still attributes that we borrow from our knowledge and experience of other things, which God isnt. I am characteristically underlining the notion of God as Father, which is one of the most difficult meanings, for the reason that anthropomorphism penetrates this theme very profusely. We teach our children from their early years to refer to God as our Father, but in what sense? It is on the basis of the childrens experience of their father at home. They bestow their father certain attributes, for instance: that he is stronger than them; that he can do things that they cant; that he protects them, etc.. So, with all of these amassed together, the child forms an idea of God, the way that we have given it to the child. The child embraces it, and then what happens? When puberty arrives, and freedom starts to set in, and the child wants to rid itself of the guardianship of the father in the house, that is when the crisis of its faith in God appears, because all this patronizing that the youth wants to shake off, is entangled in its conscience along with God, and the revolution - the reaction against authority in general - leads the youth towards a revolution against God. And this is the precise moment that the crisis of atheism appears; whether one views it at a personal level, or at a level of civilizations history. In cultural eras, where we find exactly this emphasis on freedom that opposes authority, that is when the idea of God is discarded. Why? Because we came to know God; we related Him, on the basis of experiences and attributes that we acquired from our family. It is therefore impossible, if you correctly preserve the idea of God and wish to relate God ( because this is what its all about), to avoid all those dangers and not give God any attributes that can be found in other objects. And that is why this route that I described ( which reaches the point of using familiar objects ) if applied to God, will have ugly consequences. The cognizance of God is very often confused with the results that this cognizance offers. Do you know how many people lose their faith in God, because He doesnt answer their prayers? Just as I choose to reject this table if it is of no use to me and I ignore it altogether, thus, in the same way, if God is a useless object, I choose to ignore Him. And the word ignore does not simply imply that He doesnt exist, but that He doesnt exist for me; it is I who do not know Him; it is I who ignores Him. There is such a thing as a conscious ignorance a willed ignorance. You can see what kind of danger the cognizance of God gnosiology contains, when it is based on the attributes of God. It can lead to an outright atheism, because by definition, God cannot be fitted into these molds, neither can He become an object of exploitation. If this were the case, then at any given moment, just as I push a button to start up a machine, I could likewise push the prayer button and wait for the answer to come. This would be an objectification of God, and what is worse, it is the demoting of God, down to the status of an object.

Thus, we cannot speak of Gods attributes and then attain cognizance based on these attributes, because that would be dangerous. And of course we cannot also resort to any categorizing that includes place and time, because we already said that time and space came into being during Creation and are therefore not applicable to God. So, the question is raised: How then can I relate God? Is there anything to be found in experience that could show me the way? Is it possible to relate something, without going into all this procedure of objectification, of exclusion, of attributes and of utilization? Can I relate something, without doing all this? If I can, then there is a chance that I can also relate God. If I cant, then one of the following two is happening: either I cannot relate God at all, and consequently I cannot say that I know God, or, I withdraw from this attempt to express Him on the basis of experience, i.e., I know God, but I cannot express it, I cannot give a meaning to it. Therefore I cannot apply gnosiology; I cannot say anything about God. These two forms of response to the question posed, have already been expressed, repeated and are still heard in our times. The one reply takes on the name of negation, which signifies that you cannot say anything about God there is absolute silence; we may have cognizance perhaps, but without any possibility of actually putting cognizance into words. The other reply is a form of mysticism that allows a phrasing of cognizance of God, provided that we are referring to emotions and experiences which, in an extreme form of mysticism, obliterate the distinction between the one who knows (the recognizer) and the one who is known (the recognized). This is why religions applied these two Gnosiologies to a broad extent, and created a certain confusion to us Orthodox; because Negation was developed by the Greek Fathers in a certain way, while mysticism was also present. This combination of mysticism and negation became the subject of a special expounding, and especially in our times, by a renowned Russian theologian, Vladimir Lossky, who wrote The Mystic Theology of the Eastern Church, that caused some confusion. So, the problem indeed arose: if this is the way, if this is gnosiology, i.e., through a negation that claims I do not know God at all, the question eventually remains: What can I say affirmatively about God, and how can I form an affirmative Gnosiology and not just a negative one? It is easy to say I cant say anything about God. It is easy to say what God is not. But, when we reach the point of asking: What affirmative thing can I say about God?, the problem is, not to fall into the trap and say things that I have borrowed from prior experience of other things, because those other things cannot be placed on the same level as God, otherwise they become anthropomorphic projections. I must therefore say something about God, which, however, must not be derived from the method that I use in order to know things. Negation made its appearance in history as a problem of contrast between God and the world. In order to know God, you must go beyond the world; you must leave the world behind. This is a method that we find in neo-Platonism: the principle of beyond the essence. With Dionysios Areopagitis, this method took on the form of using expressions with the prefix hyper (=super, beyond). For example, whatever affirmative thing we say about this world, we should use the prefix hyper when we refer to God. We refer to God as benevolent, but, because this expression is taken from the experience we have of people, this could result in anthropomorphism. In order therefore to avoid anthropomorphism, we say that God is hyper-benevolent. Hyper-benevolent does not imply (in this usage) that He is exceedingly benevolent, which is a superficiality of benevolent; it implies rather a surpassing. It is the same as when we say that God is not essence, but hyper-essence (Greek: yper-ousios) : beyond the essence. This is why the terminology of Negational Theology which commences from Dionysios Areopagitis refers to God as hyper-god; he means to stress that all the categorizing that we use from our experience of the world, contains the danger of anthropomorphism. That is

why we go beyond; and the term hyper is precisely that which implies beyond.

3. Cognizance through the Son and Logos The gnostic mind according to Justinian The Platonic dangers of this view Makarios' correction with the heart The Scriptural notion regarding the heart The gnostic heart according to Maximus The Logos according to Maximus The Logos as the image of the Father The cognizance of God through the Logos Mind and heart Cognizance through loving of the person

In order to comprehend the Fathers viewpoint on the problem of the cognizance of God, we must bear in mind the following, historical sequence of events: Initially, there was a belief, which sprung from the meaning of the term Logos as introduced by Justinian, around the middle of the 2nd century A.D.. This belief elaborated that the human mind was an instrument intended for comprehending. After Origens time however, this line of thought evolved into the form that Evagrios gave to the overall subject of gnosiology, as well as Evagrios subsequent influence on monks, which according to the principles already set down by Justinian was characterized by the cleansing of ones mind of all perceptible things According to this theory, God and the human mind have something in common. One could say that they are related ontologically, but they differ and are opposite to, anything material. God is a spiritual being, non-material and non-corporeal, as is the human mind. Therefore, the link between God and man - and logically, the path or the instrument for acquiring cognizance would be the mind. However, this doctrine contained the danger, firstly, of excluding from the cognizance of God anything that is perceived by the human senses. This of course may seem quite natural at first; but, remember what we said in previous lessons pertaining to the incarnation: that Christology upholds that Christ is the path that leads to the cognizance of God; that God reveals Himself through Christ in a perceptible way, and that He also makes Himself accessible, to the human senses. This is not the only problem generated by this doctrine. The greater difficulty is that the human mind appears to be able to interpret God, and in a certain way becomes the ground which God touches upon (this being the ancient Greek perception, and mainly Platos). This entire doctrine - which resulted in a heresy with Origens followers, who were eventually condemned by the 5th Ecumenical Synod was duly corrected by yet another monks doctrine which took on the name of Makarios the Egyptian, whose doctrine introduces another element in the cognizance of God: instead of the mind being the instrument for comprehending, he introduces the heart. The heart is now acknowledged as the cognitive instrument, and no longer the mind. But, because this may be classified by classical psychology as being mans cognitive instrument in which his emotions are situated, it is quite possible that we may be led to misinterpret this doctrine of Makarios. But, it has nothing to do with emotions versus logic, but another thing altogether. What is this other thing, which is neither emotion, nor logic? What do we mean, when we say the term heart? We have already said that, according to the Semitic perception as apparent in the Bible, where the heart is presented as being the cognitive instrument for of God, (.a clean heart within

me); where the heart is that which recognizes God (the clean in heart shall look upon God....) and with a typical Semitic mentality that naturally permeates the Bible, the heart signifies mans realm of obedience. It is there, that the yes or the no is decided on. It is the place of freedom, where man decides to concede or refuse, where he says the yes or the no to anothers request, and of course to Gods. This perception, whereby man executes Gods will with his heart, is the Bibles practical way to the cognizance of God. The cognizance of God is neither a notional nor an emotional issue; to actually do what God wants is a practical and an ethical issue. While this could have satisfied Semitic mentality, it could not satisfy Greek mentality, through which the Bible had to be interpreted. To a Greek, knowledge had to have an ontological content. It had to point towards an identity: i.e., that something exists, and that I acknowledge it as existing; as an entity. I do not recognize it merely as a moral obligation, or as something to which I reply with my yes or no; it is an entity, an identity. The interpretation of this viewpoint of Makarios that the heart is the cognitive instrument must necessarily contain ontological elements. Elements that will lead me to the possibility of relating it to something; to say that it exists, that it actually is. Because if it is not, then I do not recognize it. The answer to this question can be found, as early as the time of the Fathers, in one of the great I would say the greatest theologians of that time, as regards the conception and the latitude with which he conceived and connected all the major problems: Maximus the Confessor. It is there, that all of Makarios doctrine is utilized, to correct Evagrios theory. Besides, Maximus does this to Origenism in general, and completely changes its appearance and content in a positive manner. Not with aggressiveness, wherein we often believe that things can be changed by fighting. It is not so. During the Patristic period, changes were made without generating any fuss. Origen had so much authority; that is why Athanasios and the Cappadocians - mainly Maximus - amended him radically, but without actually waging war against him. One of the changes that Maximus made was to amend the meaning of the term Logos. With the help of Makarios doctrine, Maximus situates the cognitive instrument within the heart, but, with the following content: To Maximus, the Logos is basically the Logos of God; in other words, it is the person of Christ. And it its through Gods Logos, that one recognizes God. Maximus also develops the idea that the Logos has cosmological extensions; i.e., that all beings have their own logos, within the one Logos of God. But the important thing is, that Maximus perceives this Logos of God as a person, with whom God the Father has a loving relationship. And here now is the way that the heart as a seat of love is transformed into that instrument which does not merely provide emotions as the means of recognizing God; it actually provides a personal relationship, a relationship between two parties, which Maximus named a loving relationship. In other words, only the Logos of God can basically recognize God, because only the Logos is in an eternal loving relationship with God which actually reveals, discloses, makes known, the identity of God as that of a Father, of a person. Subsequently, the Gospel of John says, noone knows the Father, except for the Son, and only through the Son can you know the Father. But the fact that the Son knows the Father, is an issue - according to Maximus that has to do with the loving relationship that exists between the Father and the Son eternally, in which relationship God is related to the Father-figure and is revealed, recognized - call it what you will by the words: You exist as my Father. Within this Father-Son relationship, God is revealed and is acknowledged as veracity. Athanasios the Great had already made similar observations when he refuted the Arians, saying that the Son was forever with the Father, and that it was impossible for the Father to have existed without His Son, because he said the Son is the Fathers veracity. The Son is the Image and the Veracity of the Father. Image and Veracity are one and the same thing. This is a significant topic of gnosiology: that the Father also recognizes Himself, by looking at His Image, which is His Son. You can never recognize yourself on your own. You need a relationship - lets say, a sort of reflective relationship, a mirror. Gods mirror is the Son. That is why He is called the Image of God and His veracity, as analyzed by Athanasios the Great in his speech opposing Arians. This is approximately the perception that underlies

Maximus the Confessors viewpoint. A relationship, therefore - a personal, loving one reveals the truth, and it makes known an entity in a way that no-one would recognize it otherwise. God, therefore, is basically recognized through His Son, and this is why the Son is His Logos. But not because He is the Logos in the notional sense with the mind which is the enormous trap that Augustine later fell into, when he incorrectly envisaged the Logos as being Gods logic, Gods intellect (i.e., God has Logos means that God has intellect). The Greek Fathers avoided this. It has nothing to do with the Logos of God in the intellectual sense. We therefore abandon Origenism and Evagrianism altogether: all those doctrines, which upheld that the mind is the cognitive instrument. The Logos is a person, who loves and is loved, and through this loving relationship, it recognizes and ontologically relates to the other person. Hence, God is eternally recognized; there is an eternal cognizance of God. We do not wait for the world to be created, in order for God to become known. He is made known through His Son, in His Son, and through the love that exists between the two of them. We shall see what gnosiological consequences this hypothesis has, when we analyze it even more; but we will need to digress a little from the Patristic doctrines in order to interpret it. So, these are the Patristic doctrines. Of course, when we approach the 14th century, at the time when this entire topic is discussed with Saint Gregory Palamas, we are free to once again involve the mind in gnosiology, given that Maximus doctrine no longer exists, and we are no longer in danger of espousing Origenism again (just as saint Gregory Palamas didnt espouse Origenism, precisely because he didnt pursue Maximus tradition). Thus, the mind is no longer the intellectual instrument that it was for Origen and Evagrios; however, when coordinated with the heart, can it become a unified instrument. In other words, the heart essentially acquires intellectual abilities: the heart is able to recognize, but the mind is also able to love, in order to recognize. The mind -on its own- does not recognize. In more technical terms, this meeting of the heart and the mind is referred to as the descent of the mind into the heart. It is a Gnosiology, which ultimately takes us far away from Origenism. However, it must never be interpreted without recalling the previously mentioned elements that were introduced by Maximus: that the supreme logos, the mind, the love of God Himself - by which God is eternally recognized - is the Son, and that we too attain cognizance of God through the Son, and only the Son, and not with exercises of the mind or the heart, (as though it were a Buddhist exercise), which make us believe that we know God. You cannot come to know God, outside of the Christ. And what does that mean? It means precisely that the only true revelation, the cognizance of God, is the one that is seated in the loving relationship of the Father and the Son. The Son is the Logos of God; He is the Only-begotten Son, in the sense that He is the one that is uniquely and eternally loved by God, who is likewise revealed through this loving relationship, in which He also recognizes Himself, through the other. This is where the question of interpretation of all these issues, arises. How is it possible for a loving relationship to comprise the knowledge of, or the revelation of the identity, or the relating of a being? In our previous lesson, we examined the way in which we recognize objects. Remember, however, that we said that this method could not be applied, when attempting to recognize God, given that there are certain prerequisites for recognizing those objects, which would directly abrogate the meaning of God. We also said that there is another way, which is always directly linked to our experience. (because if there is no link to our personal experience, we are unable to interpret. It is easy to stop at whatever the Fathers had said. If, however, we attempt to interpret them, we need a link to that experience; it cannot be done in any other way. There can be no knowledge, without some link to experience). And what is that experience of knowledge, which could be applied in Gods case, without encountering the problems that we observed the other time, with objects? It is exactly that which we called a

personal relationship.

4. Cognizance in person The characteristics of the person The person of God as Father The element of freedom Knowledge as wills The presence and the absence of the person Voluntary ignorance

Part 1 : The element of Freedom Now let us focus on analyzing what the term person means. What is significant is that the person is of course seated within a personal relationship. It cannot be imagined on its own, but solely within a relationship. One person equals no person. However, that which characterizes the person is that it is unique and that it cannot be repeated, subsequently, when defining it, it does not allow for any possibility of comparison, of substitution or incorporation - within the lattice of our experiences - which is the case with all objects. Subsequently, we cannot recognize God based on His attributes, because attributes can also be applied to other objects, to things other than God. As we said, this is the way we can know things, not persons. You cannot come to know a person based on its attributes. You would essentially be relating it in spite of its attributes, and it is then that you realize it is indeed a person. In other words, someone can be a bad person, but because you love him, you acknowledge him as being unique, without taking this attribute into account. On the contrary, if you relate a good person to his goodness, then you are not relating to the person per se. If you likewise identify God on account of His goodness, you are not identifying Him as a person; you are identifying Him as you would an object, or a thing, which, if tomorrow it proves it is not as you expected from the aspect of His attributes, your faith will instantly be shaken and you will lose your relationship with Him. God is not recognized by His attributes, the way that objects are; it is precisely because He is a person, that He is recognized without the need to associate His identity with His attributes. This therefore is the basic characteristic of a person. The other characteristic is that the person ontologically comprises an irreplaceable element of our existence; that is, if the person were to disappear, then our entire existence would collapse. It is then that we perceive the person ontologically, in the profoundest ontological sense: in other words, that He exists, and that we exist thanks to Him; and furthermore, that the interruption or rather the nonexistence of the one affects the existence of the other. Theologically, this means that if the Son ceases to exist, the Father ceases to exist. If the Father ceases to exist, so does the Son. There is a personal relationship here. This loving relationship is ontological because from it, hangs the existence of each of the parties of this relationship. Thus, we do not recognize God simply as a kind Being or whatever else, but instead, as an element from which our existence hangs. And we shall now see the special meaning it carries, in the realm of Christian knowledge. This personal relationship in Christ the one between Christ and the Father is also given to us in Christ, thus enabling us to recognize God as sons of God, and to address Him as Father. You must be aware that our addressing God as Father originates exclusively, one hundred percent, from this relationship, from the right that Christ bestowed on His disciples, to

address God as Father. The concept of Gods paternity was of course also common outside of Christianity, before the Bible. To the ancient Greeks, Zeus was the father of gods and mankind. But this concept has nothing in common with the concept of God as Father in the New Testament, in the Bible. In the New Testament, only the Son has the right to address God as Father; only Christ. But He bestowed this right upon His disciples, when He pointed out to them how they should pray; and this was the meaning of the Lords Prayer, when Christ says: for I instruct you to pray thus, by saying : Our Father Addressing God as Father does not involve an inherent religiousness. It involves a personal relationship, which only the Son the exclusive, only-begotten Son had. God has no other Son that could address Him as Father; God has only one Son. Well, it is this same Son who bestows this right; not in a judicial way, but, by relating Himself to us, and our relating ourselves to Him, we too become sons of God the Father, thus creating a relationship and subsequently able to know God. What does it mean, to know God? As what do we know Him? As someone good? As someone powerful ? We could surmise all these, without Christ. What Christ gives us as Gods identity, is that He is the Father. This is what creates a personal affiliation, a filial relationship. This relationship that God has with His Son eternally is the one that is relayed to us, and it is thus that we know the Father; that we know God as Father. This is the basic content in the cognizance of God: it is the paternity of God; that God is the Father. Let us not forget this. We do not learn about God. We do not gather information on Him. We do not create a dossier with Gods attributes, the way that Dogmatics often do. For the Christian, the content of God is that He is the Father; that God relates to Father and that we cannot comprehend this outside a filial relationship. You cannot address someone as Father without being a son. In the intellectual sphere, one can state that God is the Father of His Son. I know that; I know it from the Bible, from Dogmatics; but, in order to know Him existentially, to acknowledge Him as Father, you must be His son. It cannot be any other way. It is another thing to say: that is the father of my friend, therefore, I know him to be a father because he is my friends father, and it is another thing to say existentially I acknowledge him as my father because I am his son. A son knows his father in a different manner than the one by which he knows his friends father. This is different kind of knowledge. Well, this existential relationship, this loving relationship, is attained only through Christ, because only He is the Son who knows God as Father, eternally. And it is bestowed only to those who acquire this filial relationship thanks to the Son. We shall see what this means, in more detail. We shall now make a brief analysis of this cognizance. What does this cognizance contain, which we call personal? This is the cognizance in person that Paul speaks of, when we know God in the person of Jesus Christ. What does it mean, to know someone in person? What elements does it contain, which could be compared to the elements by which we recognize things? We shall now make this comparison. The first basic element that the cognizance of a person entails, as compared to the cognizance of things, we could call the element of liberty. What does this mean? It means that I can never recognize something liberally, neither does that thing have any liberty of its own, during the moment of cognizance. Neither the recognizer nor the recognized behave freely; can you freely ignore, or not recognize this table that is in front of you, or me, who is speaking to you? Of course not. Whoever says that he does not recognize my existence is obviously not in his right mind. He doesnt have the liberty to not recognize me. The object itself imposes its recognition. Just as I, being something recognizable by you, cannot be considered non-recognizable. Therefore, cognizance contains the element of compulsion. It is somewhat like the compulsion that is used in Apologetics, in its attempt to prove all those things that we say about God and His existence. There is a certain element of compulsion there: we want to convince someone logically that God exists. If you convince someone with logic, then this knowledge (cognizance) will be compulsory by nature, just as you are compelled to acknowledge the existence of the table or any other object. God therefore also

becomes a compulsory object of cognizance, both to Himself and to us. This is the way that God is usually recognized by people, by demons and by animals. God is the supreme power. This is the way that idolaters and most people recognize God; how they compulsorily see Him. That is so, because they are conscious of their own weakness. It is the almighty Being that they cannot control. He is known to them, as a thing. They refer to a supreme power, and not to a person. Being recognized in this manner, he is recognized compulsorily and therefore lacks the element of liberty. When can we recognize something in liberty? And what does it mean, for the element of liberty to exist? Saint Maximus posed this question (It was also posed by Saint Clement of Alexandria, but he didnt utilize it): How does God recognize things? How does He recognize the world? Does He recognize it in accordance with its nature and the nature of things? His reply is No. God does not recognize the world according to its nature. And we shall explain what this means. What does it mean, to recognize something in accordance with its nature? It means that the thing that you recognize is in fact there and you cannot do anything but recognize it. For example, what is the nature of a tree? This thing that I know to be a tree, I know it on the basis of its nature, just as a scientist knows, in the old sense (as I told you, science today has changed slightly). But, just as the scientist knows something on the basis of the laws of nature, by knowing things that are based on given and objective laws, one could say that God similarly knows - lets say the tree: that it has this colour, this shape, these laws of growth, etc.. Gods omniscience is quite often perceived in this manner, giving rise to tremendous problems. We must forget this means, this concept of knowledge, when we refer to God. Maximus says: No, God does not recognize things in accordance with their nature; He recognizes them as His own wills, for He created those beings, by His wanting to. There is a vast difference between the two. For God to recognize things, the nature of those things is not a prerequisite. All things are products of His free will. In order to comprehend this, we must look for similar situations in our own experiences (otherwise all of this might impress you, but it will not enlighten you). Is it possible to relate to something as a wanter? or as an own will? And not to recognize it as a certain nature, according to its given nature ? This can only occur in the case of a person, no matter how many difficulties this issue may contain. The person is regarded, perceived as an identity, but not on the basis of its nature, which would imply its attributes; perhaps not even because of its physical presence. There is a delicate issue here. I have to mention it, and I hope it will enlighten you. Sartre mentions an example that is very useful in this instance. He says that someone had an appointment at a caf with a person named Peter, at three in the afternoon. This person was a person in the manner that we just described; that is, there was a relationship of existential interdependence between them. He goes to the appointment, but does not find this person at the caf. There are other persons who are sitting there, but not Peter. Sartre observes that what is happening at that moment is, that the absent person that is to say, the physical absence of that person immediately creates a unique presence: the entire caf is engulfed by the presence of an absent person. And he immediately observes: do not think that this is a psychological matter, or a matter of fantasy; because realization comes later, always as a secondary factor. It is an ontological matter. The absentee is present. And the absentee can be present, despite his physical absence, because there is a lets say (as we did before, between the Father and the Son) a loving relationship. Ones person is not dependent on its physical presence. That is the conclusion: in a personal relationship, you can have a presence, without a physical presence. Or rather, physical absence can assist cognizance, unobstructed by the compelling element of physical presence. What do I mean by this? You cannot deny a physical presence. The person in the example denied the physical presence of all the others. If you asked him, it is only in retrospect that he will tell you that George, Nick and others were there. These physical presences were not the determining elements for his cognizance.

And this has immense consequences on the cognizance of God without His physical presence, with all the explanations that must ensue on the matter. On a somewhat simpler level, we can recognize the person only in liberty, because if the person does not wish to divulge its identity, we cannot recognize it. Revelation is always a prerequisite for cognizance of a person. The meaning of revelation lies here. What is a revelation of God as a basic element? It means that God is recognized in liberty; He wants to and does, give Himself. Just like a person. You can regard me as much as you like as an object, with all the properties that you can observe thanks to my physical presence. But noone can actually know anyone, unless there is a willful revelation by the recognized. You cannot forcefully recognize someone. You can get to know him properly, only in a state of liberty. Therefore the element of personal cognizance always contains the element of revelation, and revelation contains the element of liberty in knowledge. This is basic. We must always remember, that God identifies with our knowledge, only if He wants to. Because He reveals Himself freely. I would now also proceed to another, somewhat provocative conclusion : that God does not want to be recognized by us, unless it is done in a state of liberty. A cognizance that is imposed on us, that is not in a state of liberty on our part, or is in defiance of our liberty, or despite our liberty, is not the cognizance that God wants; that is, if someone were to prove Gods existence logically, thus convincing us logically that God exists. If you could ever imagine that we can become convinced logically, as I am logically convinced that this table exists at this very moment (I can also do this visually), for instance, I can be logically convinced of the existence of a constellation that I have never seen, but, a scientist can prove that this constellation could exist, with a series of reasonings, it cannot be otherwise: I would be convinced logically. This is another compulsory knowledge I am not regarding it in a state of independence. God cannot be regarded, nor does He want to be regarded, under compulsion. Which means that man has the option to deny the existence of God; he can say I dont know You. Which essentially means I dont want to know You You may exist, but You dont exist for me. God wants us to know that He exists for us, for me. In essence, He wants that personal relationship. He wants recognition that springs from within a personal relationship, not just a general knowledge that a God exists. This kind of knowledge does not interest God. When He reveals Himself, He reveals Himself as my Father, your Father, his Father, and not just God in a general and vague sense. Such a knowledge, in a state of liberty, is what gives me the right to say liberally : Yes, You exist in agreement, or to say No, I ignore You, to me You dont exist. In the cognizance therefore of God, we have the element of liberty, both on the part of God and man. And this what a personal relationship entails: cognizance as we outlined it, and not according to nature; what I would now call own will. You can also acquaint yourself with God, because you want to know Him, just as He knows you, because He wants to become acquainted with you. This is why knowledge of God is revealed only to mankind; to Adam who is a person. He does not reveal Himself to nature. He of course also reveals Himself to nature, but in another, compulsory way. Animals also know that God exists, and demons know that God exists and demons believe and are terrified.. Who would want this kind of knowledge ? This is not the recognition that God wants: an objective recognition. He wants that special recognition. That is why Adam, by saying no to God, is displaying the liberty to ignore God in practice. This is a wonderful expression, not only in Greek, but in other languages also: I ignore You. It literally signifies I dont know You, but that is not the true clout of the word. When we say I ignore You it actually signifies that I dont want to know You. I do not know thee is the awesome statement that Christ said He would make to certain people. I do not know thee. But is it possible, that God doesnt know these people ? Christ surely knows them on Judgment Day, and yet He will say I do not know thee. He will say: I dont know you, implying that I have no personal relationship with you. Therefore it is not knowledge of any kind, but knowledge of a personal nature. And that is why it contains the element of liberty.

4. Cognizance in person The compulsory element of love The latticework of relations Conclusion Love and the nature of God Father in Christ Cleansing Knowledge and ignorance of God

Part 2 : The element of Love Another basic element is the element of love. Once again, we are not referring to an emotion. There are certain words that we must constantly interpret. We are also not referring to a relationship that arises from a compulsory state, with no liberty. And be careful here, because this is so very profound, that it escapes us. Every relationship contains a compelling factor when it is governed by laws, like for instance the laws of biology. Or aesthetic laws for Plato and especially for the Ancient Greeks for whom Eros was a basic element. Sykoutris analyzes this very capably; you should also definitely read Platos Symposium in your free time especially its Introduction. It discerns between Christian Love and Platonic Eros. And it proves that in Platonic Love, the attraction to something good - which was understood to be beauty - is irresistible. It wasnt possible to not love a good thing, or not be attracted by good. We therefore have an aesthetic necessity here, which was prevalent in ancient Hellenism. You can furthermore have a moral necessity; one cannot avoid loving a good person. Or even, a biological necessity Wherever we encounter a necessity, we cannot acknowledge a case of love therein. And how do we prove that there is no necessity, or that it does indeed exist? Or, how do we prove that in a certain instance I do not have any such necessity? Only when one can reverse the conditions, and this is exactly where the Gospel introduced the greatest revolution. Sykoutris mentions in a footnote that, If Satan asked God why do You love people? Tell me, give me one reason, knowing how humans are thus and thus and thus and even though You can see their pitiful state.., he would have put God in a tight corner. What sort of excuse would there be for such a love? Where would you find a reason to justify His love towards a sinner, where everything, simply everything indicates that he is worth despising and not loving? Well, it is exactly then that you have proved that you love, of your own free will. You do not love because you have to love; you love because you willingly want to love. Well, I am saying all this to show that when we speak of knowledge that contains love, we must concede that it also has to contain the element of freedom. We are subsequently speaking of a love that does not arise from any necessity whatsoever, of any kind, even the most delicate kind and the most spiritual, or moral, as we would call it. God loves in exactly this manner, and this is exactly what Christ reveals to us. He reveals a Love of God that is liberal to such an extent, that it is not hampered by mans sinfulness. If you remove the love towards a sinner from the Gospel, the entire notion of the liberty within Gods love will fall through. Because, to love a just person and a good person is almost inevitable; however, to love a sinner and to die for a sinner as Christ did, well that may be sheer madness or foolishness, but it is surely an expression of liberty. The third element that comprises love which we are describing as a means of cognizance and notice carefully how we are slowly reaching the crucial point, that is, that one comes to know God only through a lattice of relationships. If there is no loving relationship, if there is no love, no-one can ever know God. And here we stand at a point so outstandingly obvious in

the New Testament. We could examine several verses that mention this curious albeit simple point: that if someone does not love God, he will never know God. Paul, in his 1st Epistle to Corinthians which, as I have said in the past, deals chiefly with the issue of cognizance, and has been elaborated on with precision concludes that .many boast that they have knowledge.. !! And of course, we must examine what it means, to have knowledge. Paul says in chapter 8: knowledge provides something physical, whereas love provides something constructive . And he mentions the phrase if one believes he knows something, he has never known anything whatsoever, in the way that it should be known; if one loves God, he shall be known by Him (Cor.A 8.2-4). Pay attention to this verse, which is pure gnosiology. if one believes he knows something, he has never known anything whatsoever... A complete absence of knowledge. Then he goes to the point where if one loves God, he shall be known by Him. Even in the critics edition, you might observe that many manuscripts have omitted the word God, and they may quite possibly be the most ancient ones. It thus becomes obvious that . if one loves, he shall be known by God. That is, love is a prerequisite. As for known by God , it basically means (as Paul says elsewhere, in the Galatians Epistle having known God but afterwards immediately correcting it and saying or rather, being known by God..), that you cannot meet God unless He has acknowledged you; because we - as creatures do not have the liberty of knowledge that the uncreated God has. Now, God knows us primarily, and He reveals Himself to us; but this cannot occur if the prerequisite of love is not there. If man cannot love, he cannot meet God. When we go to John Ch.1, it becomes quite clear. He says there .. he that loveth not, knew not God, for God is love (John, 1.4,8). The words he that loveth not have a special meaning in this chapter, in this epistle. It denotes the relations within a community, a congregation. One must exist, one must belong in such a lattice of relations, within a congregation. We shall hence examine the significance that ecclesiology has in Gnosiology. It may be quite specific there, in Johns words, but there is also something else that we should also observe. Immediately after he spoke these words, he continued with an explanation of what God is love means; this is something that we have frequently misinterpreted. . In this, Gods love was made apparent... .. that God is love because . He sent forth His onlybegotten Son.. Gods love is not an emotion, nor is it something that flows from His nature, as we sometimes say God loves us by nature. The Fathers were also very careful and retracted all such expressions. Because even the ancient Greeks and Plato used to say that God is love, and that He exudes love from His nature. Gregorios Nazianzenos does not acknowledge this either, and attacks it, because as you may remember, it was the cause of the problems created by Eunomius. He attacks precisely this idea of Platos. He refers to the Greek philosopher, and states that for us, Gods love is not an effusion from a crater. It does not proceed from His nature. Gods love consists of His being a Father and having a Son; just as I mentioned shortly before. And this Son He gave to us. The Fathers love is His Son; it is a person, a personal relationship, which henceforth is offered to us also, as a means of knowing God. The conclusion therefore that is reached, is that knowledge springs solely from a love relationship, which God Himself commenced to offer. We cannot begin this relationship ourselves in a state of liberty. This gives rise to a huge philosophical problem; why dont we as creatures freely know anything?. Why is everything to us a given thing? Well, that is exactly what it means to be a creature, to be something created and not uncreated. In reality, even your very existence is a given thing. Therefore, you are subject to compulsory knowledge. You cannot know anything in absolute liberty. God therefore, who is the only absolutely free Being, is the only One who can love freely. That is why He initially volunteers knowledge of Himself. He acknowledges us as His sons, through His own Son, which is what Paul meant when he said or rather, being

known by God, and through this means, we henceforth know Him as Father. I will therefore finish off, with the following conclusion. The cognizance of God involves an accession into the love relationship between the Father and the Son in liberty, under our own free will. This relationship is free and not compulsory, because God is not obliged to love us; He does it, of His own free will. Neither are we obliged to love Him. We also enter this relationship voluntarily. Therefore the accession into a loving relationship such as this, contains the potential for the ontological identification of God as existing in the person of Jesus Christ. Because, for us, God exists within this relationship to such an ontological degree, that if this ceased to be, our very existence would also cease to be. In reality, this means that if we dont accede into the relationship of love that exists between the Father and the Son, we cannot ever know God. We shall know Him in thousands of philosophical ways, pagan ways or mystic ways, but not as a Father; that is, as the Father of the specific Son - a person - and subsequently as our own Father, because we have related to the person of the Son as being our father. The second element is that love should be the factor that creates the lattice of these relations, where all those who acknowledge God as the Father in this manner, through Christ , find themselves in a state of existential inter-dependence amongst themselves. Therefore, one must belong inside the community, inside the body that is formed by these relations. You cannot approach God from outside this body of persons who acknowledge Him in the way the Son does. And this means that God is known fully, only within the Congregation. Only in this way. Otherwise, He will be acknowledged as something else, but not as the Father. But God is the Father. It is how He reveals Himself. It is how He wants to reveal Himself. I dont know what else He is. He may be many other things, but because as I said knowledge presupposes willful revelation, this is the way that freely reveals God to us as the Father. For these things to happen, a cleansing is imperative. You cannot reach this point of knowing God, of knowing Him in this manner, without clearing up your relationship in general; it is because in knowledge, there is interference by all kinds of relationships. In order for me to know about this table, the relationships that I have with the overall physical environment will need to interfere: with colors, with shapes, with everything. We never truly know about an object, without these general empirical relationships. Well, the same thing applies, when attempting to know God. Our entire existence, along with all our empirical relationships, is entangled in the quest to know God. I know God, through all my relationships, through things, through nature, through my senses, through objects. This is not a knowledge that flows only through my mind, nor only through my heart as an emotional center. It is a broader, existential knowledge, which engulfs my entire identity. My identity itself is linked to all the relationships that I have with things, with faces, with objects, with everyone; but especially with my personal relationships, because they can affect my identity. All of these things must therefore undergo a filtering, a cleansing, in order to determine to what extent they can be included in this relationship with God, through which His Son will reveal Him, and make Him known to us in this way. This is where we shall discover that things are not so easy, and that they truly require cleansing. I would say that this is what ascetic living is all about. What is known as cleansing of passions is exactly this clearing up of our existential relations with everything that is entangled in our personal identity. This clearing up is a necessary prerequisite. At this point, the words of Saint Gregorios the Theologian acquire immense significance, as I mentioned in the previous lesson: it is not for everyone. to philosophize about God.., but for those who have undergone scrutiny and have lived in theory of things, and who have previously cleansed or detached both body and soul.. But we should not read the Fathers by isolating quotations. Saint Gregorios himself stressed in another of his speeches the same thing that I have tried to extensively analyze here; that is, in order to

know God the prerequisite may be cleansing, but it inevitably relates to loving. He writes: God may be the ultimate radiance .. which becomes imaginable as we incessantly detach ourselves, it becomes loved as we incessantly envisage it, and, by incessantly loving, it becomes self-evident... Thus, cleansing is not a purpose on its own; An ascetic life will not reveal God to us. Neither do we automatically meet God by cleansing ourselves of our passions. God becomes known, through our communion within the body of Christ; by involving ourselves in the relationships that are created by this body. That is when God reveals Himself, and that is when our relationship with God is an actual relationship between a Father and a Son. And this is what gives a special meaning to what we say (unfortunately only in words most of the time), when we are asked what is the difference between an ascetic Christian and a guru?. We often hear the response but we live that way in Christ. What do we mean, in Christ? Do we simply respond with a word, a name, and the matter is settled? All the rest of the story is Buddhist, and from that point onwards we insert a name Christ and thats the end of the story? What sort of existential face value does Christ have, that makes Him the determining factor? If we dont set down these elements of Christs body, of the relations that Christ creates within the community of His body the Church we shall not be able to locate this determining factor in all these issues. So what? A Buddhist comes to know God by cleansing himself of his passions; therefore, his ascetic lifestyle is obviously not his ultimate goal. The cognizance of God does not spring from, nor depend on, nor is it accomplished automatically, by cleansing ones passions. There must be the positive element of accession into the body in which Christ reveals Himself as a community of many persons who are inter-connected by love, and can therefore see Gods presence, in Christ. And I shall once again reiterate, from another long and tiresome road this time, to something that I mentioned in a previous lesson, with regard to dogmas: That dogmas are interpreted within the Church, and specifically during the Eucharist. It is only here, that God is acknowledged in the fullest possible way that we have. All other ways are provisional, and although I do not disavow their importance and their significance, but, for fear that we are in danger of making them an end in themselves, I am obliged to stress that they are not ends in themselves. Cognizance, therefore, of God presupposes our willing accession into the loving relationships that God Himself has created with us, in Christ. If God loves my brother in Christ and I hate my brother, I cannot get to know God. It is imperative that I have the same kind of love for my brother that God has for him. The cognizance of God moves along this crooked path, which is not simply a perpendicular between my heart and God, but something that also has a horizontal dimension to it . That is why .. he that loveth not, knew not God, for God is love. Before closing the topic of Gnosiology, we need to clear up the issue of negation, based on everything that we have talked about. With the pretext of Losskys writings in his Mystic Theology where he has mainly referred to the Cappadocian Fathers and Saint Gregorios of Palamas, the ignorance aspect has become overstressed. Indeed, in their task of refuting Eunomian theories, the Cappadocian Fathers had overstressed the idea that God could not become known, no matter how close one may seem to have approached Him: . Even if one becomes greater than him (Paul) and reaches even closer to God, having attained a smaller distance from Him and from perfect knowledge, or even if he has surpassed us with regard to the complex and humble and earth-infested alloy.. (Gregorios the Theologian). But we must not forget the following, basic points: a) the ignorance of God is described by the Fathers as incomprehensibility or the incomprehensible notion of God. It does not therefore imply a denial of any kind of knowledge of God (if this were the case, then the Lords words so that they may know You as the only true God etc would have no meaning); it rather implies a special kind of knowledge, that of comprehensibility which is also an impossible thing. This kind of knowledge which Eunomians allowed is the kind that we analyzed above as the knowledge of things, and we saw how and why it cannot be applied in the case of God.

b) That which the Fathers do not accept, is the knowledge of the nature or of the essence of God; to actually comprehend the first and unalterable nature, as it is known within the Trinity (Gregorios the Theologian). This doesnt mean that the Fathers refuse any talk of God as a Trinity. By relating the nature or the essence of God with the Father, the Eunomians caused confusion by admitting that, if we could know God as the Father, we can also know the nature of God (since divine essence and Father are fully aligned notions). The distinction between essence and the Father, on which the Cappadocian Fathers insisted, ruled out any confusion. Thus, by saying that we do not know God in essence, does not automatically imply that we do not know Him as the Father (or as a Trinity of persons). And reversely, to say that we know God as the Father, does not automatically imply that we know Him in essence or by nature. All of these indicate that the foregoing analysis is in accordance with patristic gnosiology: that God can only be known in person, as persons, and not by nature or in essence. Patristic literature does not provide us with any existential analysis of what it means to know in person or as persons. It does, however, furnish us with the basic principle that there is a fundamental distinction gnosiologically between nature and the person, since there is absolutely no way of knowing the nature of God, whereas it is possible to acknowledge His personal existence. Subsequently, negation that refers to the nature of God should not be generalized as negation and incomprehensibility with regard to His personal existence. Beyond this general principle of distinction between the essence of God something that is utterly inconceivable - and His personal-triadic existence which is made known to us through His Son in the Spirit, the Fathers do not offer us as we said an analysis of what it means to know God in the person of Jesus Christ and as a Trinity of persons. This analysis was not deemed necessary in the years of the Fathers, but that doesnt mean it should never be done over the centuries. On the contrary, it is an obligation of Dogmatics as we said during the first lessons to proceed to interpret dogmas, provided it doesnt betray or distort the spirit of the Fathers. That is what all the greater Fathers did: they interpreted their predecessors, according to the needs of their own time, and they sought to analyze basic terminology. One such necessity that historical needs imposed with regard to Gnosiology was, during the Patristic years, the distinction between the essence and the energy of God. This distinction, which appears somewhat hazily in Saint Athanasios and more clearly in the Cappadocian Fathers, is extensively developed by Saint Gregorios of Palamas, as we know. In this way, the Patristic principle of the incomprehensibility of Gods essence is preserved, and the energy or the energies of God are offered as a basis of gnosiology. Thus, negation is again confined to the essence of God. The persons, as well as the energies of God, which are both uncreated, allow us to know God and to theologize. But in this case, as we saw from the preceding analysis, cognizance cannot be perceived as comprehension. It is a kind of knowledge that needs analyzing, if the Fathers aspect were to be interpreted. This is the analysis that we attempted here.

II. On faith Synopsis on the knowledge of beings Synopsis on knowledge "in the Son" Faith according to Western intellect Faith, Love, Knowledge Faith and reversion Definition The observable and the unobservable Physical and social relationships The city of the future

Faith, in a state of freedom

In the previous lesson we completed our examination of cognizance. And of course with respect to the cognizance of God, we shall repeat the basic points, because they are related to the things we shall be discussing today. I would like to remind you that cognizance (knowledge) has an ontological content, which means that it includes the identity of beings; that is, I acknowledge the existence of a being. This kind of identification, of recognition of a beings existence: that this being exists and not another; that this is this, and not another; that this here is this table, and not the other table. Identifying does not simply imply that this being is a being, but that it is this being and not any other being. We furthermore said that knowledge, as a means of identification of beings, is two kinds: a) It is the knowledge of things, i.e., of beings which appear as objects before us, which are given, which we identify because we are compelled to identify them; we identify them, we recognize them, by the method of isolating them from other objects; by describing their characteristic attributes based on the broader experience which we have. We place them inside a lattice of relationships, along with other objects that we recognize, so that, from things, we make them utilities, which we can utilize. This kind of knowledge cannot apply to God, for the obvious reasons that were explained. b) We now look at the other kind of knowledge, which we described as the knowledge pertaining to persons, that is, the identifying of a being in a state of freedom and love. In a state of freedom means that this being does not compel us to acknowledge its presence; that although it has certain characteristics and attributes which we may recognize, it willingly reveals its presence to us, and we likewise willingly identify it and acknowledge its existence. Knowledge is not forced on us in this case; we acquire this knowledge in a state of independence. In a state of love means that we acquire this identification of the other, within a loving relationship. The other being is absolutely essential to our own existence; it is an existential inter-dependence. Thus, we come to know someone God in this case not in the form of an impersonal power that imposes His presence on us because of His attributes His powers, lets say but, we come to know Him as a person Who comprises part of a loving relationship that is an integral and necessary part of our very existence. And we subsequently recognize Him because He willingly reveals Himself and not because we are led there by our knowledge of the world (as in Platonism), or because of a logical observation or persuasion. It is not about a knowledge derived from a logical persuasion. We also said that this knowledge of God is offered to us within a loving relationship in which God is identified eternally, He is known eternally, despite us and despite the world; and this loving relationship is the relationship between the Father and the Son. We therefore identify God in Christ, in the Son alone, by becoming a part of this existing relationship ourselves. Only the Son knows the Father. Whether in essence or by nature, we cannot know God, nor should we seek to thus know Him, because that would imply knowing Him compulsorily, i.e., based on His attributes. This is what is implied, when we say that God is known by Christ only. But because this method of knowing God also involves the factor of love, of a loving relationship, God is consequently known within the framework of a community that is created by the Holy Spirit, and that is why we cannot get to know God without Christ and without the Holy Spirit, Who shapes this lattice of loving relationships into a community. On the basis of these observations, we shall proceed to examine the meaning of faith; starting from today, we shall examine the main elements of Dogmatics, as presented in the Symbol of Faith (the Creed). This structure of Dogmatics is the only correct structure. If we stray from this structure, we systematize the dogmas on the basis of logical categories, e.g.,

when we have dogmatic concepts such as salvation etc., and we process all these meanings and make them part of a system, Dogmatics becomes a system of logic. However, if we examine the Creed, which, as we said, is not a logical structure, but is a structure based on existential relations that are introduced from the moment of baptism, and especially during the divine Eucharist, then we can consider ourselves on safe ground. Well, the Creed the Symbol of Faith - commences with I believe... What is the meaning behind I believe? The problem with the relationship between knowledge and faith as you probably know, is one of the basic problems; but, the overall problematics behind it have their roots in certain prerequisites that developed in the West, which do not apply to us. The matter of knowledge and faith is for many a dilemma. You either know, or you believe. Whoever believes, forsakes knowledge : this is the dilemma of believe, and do not inquire that is often quoted. There is a perception that knowledge precedes faith, or the reverse; that faith precedes knowledge and that at any rate it seeks the logic therein, as Augustine had said. This same theme, is a variation on the problem which, in a way, we have already touched on, i.e., if love precedes knowledge or knowledge love. In other words, can we love something that we do not know? The point had already been raised by Augustine. An answer was also given, and it had become prevalent in the West, to be later developed by Thomas Aquinatus in person, as well as by other, major Western thinkers. Their stance was that if you dont know, you cannot love; that we cannot love something that we know nothing about. Therefore, philosophically this would mean that the relationship that we create with a being, must have the prerequisite of objective recognition of that being. All of this, rests on the premise that knowledge is a matter of mental conception, while love is something emotional. But, we saw in the previous lessons that things are not like that for us; that in other words, you cannot know unless you love, as we saw in the Apostle Paul, in Johns 1st Epistle, etc. However, we must elucidate this somehow, because it isnt proper to distinguish between knowledge preceding love, or love preceding knowledge. This is equally wrong; we do not love, in order to attain knowledge. The correct thing to say as has become evident from what we have said up to now is that these two are identical, i.e., that knowledge is love and love is knowledge. Because, when love is comprehended as a relationship between persons, and not as an emotion or a natural attribute, it is then that this relationship is created, in which the others identity is revealed. And that is the meaning of knowledge: the revealing, the recognition of a beings identity. Hence, knowledge becomes actual, through a relationship of this kind, either through love, or with love, or within love. It follows that knowledge and love do not oppose one another; neither does one precede the other, however, they do relate to one another. One could say the same about faith. Faith and knowledge are basically related. They are the same thing. Let us examine this more detail. I would like us to firstly bear in mind the historical prerequisites of that which we call Symbol of Faith. We have to refer back to the first lessons once again, basically to the liturgical experience of the Church. What does I believe signify, within the framework of the Symbol of Faith?

As you may perhaps know, during the ancient Churchs baptismal rite that was delivered to us in the 2nd century by Justinian (and later by Cyril of Jerusalem in more detail), in order for someone to be baptized, they must first be submitted to certain exorcisms; these exorcisms were accompanied by an invitation to the person being baptized to turn away from the West, and to face the East. This is a very important liturgical rite, because it denotes an act of reversal, of changing ones position, from West to East. Further along, we shall see what meaning this about-face towards the East carries. However, the reversal itself signifies that in order for a person to declare I believe, he must firstly change his stance towards beings. Consequently, Faith is basically a stance that a person takes towards existence, and this

stance is most assuredly the opposite of the stance that he takes with his biological existence. When man is born, he takes a stance towards life, towards beings, towards God. Well, this must be overturned, and afterwards, the about-face towards the East will take place (we shall see what this means). You most certainly cannot say I believe, if you remain fixed in the same direction that you have taken from the moment of your biological birth. Before analyzing this matter of towards the East, lets take a look at the other basic aspect of this liturgical rite, which is, that the words I believe are in actual fact a response to a question. They can never be something that originates on its own, from whichever stance or whichever thought or placement that man may personally have. One must reply, to a question that is posed by others. The others, who pose the question, are the community of the church. Consequently, it is not possible for a person to state I believe, outside the framework of the community of the church. A person cannot develop faith by remaining locked up, alone in his room; it is only possible within the community that poses this question. Thus, the words I believe are a reply to a question, and they cannot be presumed to be without a question. The second basic element is the one that involves the about-face towards the East, which we shall see is of immense importance. As you know, liturgically the East is the direction towards which the prayers of the early Christians were offered, because it is from that direction that Christs coming was expected. It was therefore the ultimate - eschatological lets say point of reference within the churchs liturgical rites. The turn towards the East therefore signified that we turn towards that point from which we anticipate the End of Time to enter and to materialize. From this aspect, Faith could therefore be viewed as an aboutface turn towards the End of Time. Now note carefully how, on the basis of these observations, the definition of the term faith becomes more comprehensible, as seen in the Epistle to Hebrews. You know that the only systematic definition of faith that we have, is the one found in the Epistle to Hebrews, chapter 11 verse (a) : faith is the substance/hypostasis of things hoped for, and the grasping of things not visible... What do we see in this verse, in this definition of faith? Well, exactly those elements that I have tried to describe and shall analyze again. The first element is that faith is knowledge. It is an existential identification. Notice how the author uses the word substance Hypostasis: faith is the substance . The Hypostasis is an existential expression. We can translate it, with exactly that which I named existential identification; that something actually does exist; that it is precisely this, and not something else. It was because of this interpretation of Hypostasis, that the term was officially included in the 4th century Dogmatics. Therefore, when we say that faith is hypostatical, we mean that with faith we can acquire recognition, or identification, of a being. And naturally, of things or, similarly, of points in the same direction, ontologically. But the second element is that this knowledge, this identification, this hypostasis, is eschatological. It is the substance of things hoped for, of things that are to come, things that we do not have before us at this moment. Therefore, it is with faith that one turns towards the future, towards the End of Time, and one acknowledges as substantial (notice the term substance) those things that from a physical aspect are without substance. Hence the second part of the expression, which clarifies the first part : .. the grasping of things not visible.. , things, which we cannot see and here, the term visible has a certain Platonic background. The Epistle to Hebrews cannot be interpreted in any other way. When he says things not visible, he is placing his finger on the Greeks focal point of knowledge, which was vision. Vision, therefore, generally means knowledge. The things that can be observed are those that convince us of their existence. Things not seen are those that are not subject to scrutiny by the senses in general. Hence, it is not a matter of vision alone, but any kind of

scrutiny by the senses. Now, where is the importance here? The importance lies in that which I mentioned in an earlier lesson; that, while we cannot claim faith in those things that we can see, i.e., things that can be subjected to scrutiny by our senses (and this is where we must broaden the scope and not limit ourselves to the senses, but must also include logic, i.e., whatever convinces us logically, whatever convinces us through our senses, whatever convinces us objectively), on the contrary, we can claim faith when something convinces us, but not objectively, on account of our being obliged to recognize its existence. Thus, the notion of freedom once again presents itself, in faith. We do not believe because we must believe; or because we are obliged to believe. Whatever I said about knowledge previously, the same things apply, to faith. My presence here is perceived by your senses, by your vision; it is important for you, from the aspect of knowledge. You cannot say that you do not recognize me, or do not identify me ontologically, because it is imposed on you by your senses; it is a compulsory knowledge for you. This is due to the fact that knowledge can be grasped; my substance/hypostasis is grasped by your senses, or by the senses of your mind - by your reasoning. Whichever the case, whether by reasoning or by the senses, that which is important, is that you cannot avoid acknowledging the hypostasis of a being, therefore, based on the definition in Hebrews, this cannot be called Faith. Faith, therefore, is not something that the nature of things imposes on us as compulsory knowledge, nor is it something that is imposed on us by experience or by history; instead, it is that which comes to us as a hypostasis from the hereafter; it does not come from within history, or experience, or from the not visible. Which means that faith is not derived from things governed by nature and the senses. In other words, faith calls upon us to take a leap beyond compulsory knowledge. We cannot combine these two things. And this compulsory knowledge is a very sensitive thing, because it can also have a psychological inference in which case, faith can be interpreted as trust between two persons. A child trusts its mother. Would we call this faith? This is not what the term implies here, because this trust springs from a natural and empirical cause. The child has become convinced that its mother naturally loves it. From as early as gestation, the maternal filter has convinced it that its mother cares for it, and it is thus convinced empirically when it sees the dawn of life, where again the mother is there to take care of it. This is why a child cannot be fooled as to who loves it and who doesnt. It has tremendous intuition that comes from a grasping of things not visible, but very well perceived. Obviously, this kind of trust cannot comprise the definition of faith; it is just plain trust, which is the way many people often perceive faith. I would say it is something much more dramatic. The dramatic thing about faith is that you are actually executing a giant leap, or a turn. What happens then? Your basis, your hypostasis, no longer reside in those things that nature offers you as secure and governable things. Hence, your faith is not supported on the prior experience of these already confirmed things; it comes from that turnabout, towards things that cannot be grasped by the senses. Faith, therefore, involves a non-support of our security, of our substance, by anything that can be grasped logically by our senses or our experience, because that would comprise a form of compulsion. From a positive viewpoint, it means placing our security in whatever cannot be grasped by our senses and cannot be confirmed by our experience. And when I say experience, I am referring to historical experience, as well as psychological experience, which may be pursuant to faith, but is not a presupposition and a basis for faith. This lifestyle was the one pursued by the first Christians, in a way that is difficult for us to comprehend today.

All these definitions of faith, which we also see in Hebrews and are a taken for granted during the baptismal experience, had the following prerequisites: Upon being baptized, and subsequently embracing faith, the first Christians were asked to thoroughly change the basis of their hypostasis. The source of their identity could no longer be found in the things that other people resorted to. This meant chiefly two things, two kinds of relations, which placed them under crisis. And that is why faith was called crisis: because they went through this important crisis, this significant turnabout, this turn from the West to the East. One kind was biological relations. And this is a basic kind, because it is the first thing that gives us a sense of security. I mentioned the child earlier on. Its security was founded in its physical relations with its parents, with its family. If, therefore, it is removed from inside these relations, and you then ask it to identify itself, to relate itself, or be identified by us, in other words, to be recognized independently of these relations, then you are asking it to be uprooted, to make a change in its hypostasis. The second kind, which was also determinative for ones sense of security, for ones identity, is that of social relations; specifically, the kind that existed between the first Christians, as it still does today, i.e., the political element, or civilian. In other words, imagine a person travelling without a passport; a person who is not acknowledged by any public authorities. He would the most non-existent person; essentially the most ignored and unrecognized. He cannot even identify himself; neither can he have a sense of security. Because security stems from the fact that I belong to a certain community, to a certain country, which can vouch not only for my integrity, but for my very existence that I indeed exist. Quite often, one wonders why birth certificates are required. There can be no more obvious thing, than the fact we were born; nevertheless, someone has to certify that we were born, otherwise, without this social factors certification of our birth, it would seem that we were never born. Therefore, if we are not recognized by the state, that we belong to it, we have no social basis for security. Just as if we had no family, no parents, we would have no biological basis. These two bases are the ones that define our identity, and these are also the governable bases, of things visible. Here is the premise, on which the definition of faith relies, and the first Christians experience was of this kind. They were asked to do two things, with their faith and their baptism. Firstly, they had to forsake even their family. To the extent where we read in the Gospel that if you do not forsake your kindred, you cannot follow me, as Christ said. Luke also stresses this point, with these harsh words: if you do not hate your kindred, you cannot follow me; in other words, a complete uprooting. You cannot attain faith unless you uproot yourself from the security provided by your biological hypostasis. The second thing which again applied to the first Christians but does not apply to us is that they had no civilian recognition. It was necessary for Constantine the Great to come along, and bestow legal recognition to Christians. They were in a way outcasts, and they lived as outcasts. And that is why Paul says in his Epistle to Hebrews that we have no permanent city here, but we yearn for the one that is to come. This is a paraphrasing of the definition of faith. City here implies the constitution. Our constitution exists in the heavens. We have no city in this context means that we do not have any civilian hypostasis, we have no identification, we have no passport as Christians. With baptism therefore, you lose your passport. You acquire an identity that is not acknowledged by the state as being yours. And what happens then? We yearn for the city that is to come. Here we have the eschatological reference. Our city, the one that has naturalized us as citizens, the one that gives us our identity, is yet to come. It is not yet

present. So, imagine being a naturalized citizen of a city that has not yet established its presence in history. This is indeed faith; this giant leap, the certainty that is acquired that we really do exist, that we really do have an identity which Someone acknowledges Whom we cannot see, and Who promises us certain things in the future and, based on these promises, to believe that you truly have an hypostasis, an identity. Therefore, this turnabout towards things beyond our control or as yet unconfirmed historically, empirically or biologically, this is the essence of faith. And that is why faith is interwoven with freedom; because, as explained earlier on, this faith does not stem from any certainty governed by logic or experience. Not even when, through faith, God reveals Himself to us and we become aware of this relationship, and consequently acknowledge it as an experience. Again, faith must not rely on, or stem from, these empirical experiences. Quite often, despite the absence of any such evidence or, when God often remains silent and withdrawn and we do not see Him, even in a spiritual experience that is when faith is true faith: when someone acknowledges that God exists and that His promises are realities, even when experience and logic tell us differently. We could then say that faith is that giant leap towards a Being, whom we believe loves us, no matter what. Regardless of how much evidence to the opposite we may have, we believe that this Person never abandons us, that it loves us, and that we consider it an inseparable part of our existence, and that we cannot exist otherwise. Of course we could, as we are free to do so, as we are not objectively obliged to acknowledge His existence; but when we of our own free will - make this loving relationship part of our existence, we are in fact acknowledging His existence and are hinging our security from it, and not from our experience or any other objective realities. The first Christians actually made these giant leaps, as a result of which, faith had acquired a special content. The content was the acquisition of an identity that was now given by God, and also an eschatological community; a community that will come into being, in the future. Therefore, you are not hinging your faith, your security, in any of those things that a state normally supplies, or those things that a family gives you. That is why it is so important to notice these words, in the Lords Prayer : Our Father, the One in heaven. We often demote the meaning of in heaven; we bypass it, and simply assume that God is in heaven. But, the words in heaven contain a reasoning; they stress in heaven, as opposed to on earth. This must be interpreted in conjunction with other things that Christ had said, such as and call no-one on earth your Father; your Father is one, in heaven.., or if you do not abandon your father and your mother.. All these are one and the same thing; they are a stance that the faithful is asked to take, which calls for hinging ones security on things that cannot be governed biologically, empirically, or historically, because in heaven is not something that can be defined objectively. This transcendence, this in heaven, is the way in which the Hebrews described the transcendence and the independence of God. Thus, with faith, you are developing a relationship that on one hand connects you to God as a Father, in such a way that you cannot govern God because He is in heaven; and on the other hand, a relationship with others, which is not the compulsory sort of relationship that the state or the family imposes. So this is what the first Christians meant when they said I believe. I will repeat the main point: they understood it to mean that they were asked from that day forth from the day of their baptism to no longer regard the source of their security or their identity, or even their very hypostasis, as being the state or their family or whatever else is governed by their faculties and by logic; instead, they should regard their source as being God, Who is in heaven and not on earth, Who cannot be grasped by the senses, and Who surpasses our experience; He and the future city, which in essence are the things hoped for and not

those already acquired. At this very point, on the basis of this observation, this definition of faith, a serious issue is immediately raised: What about the historical revelation of God? Do we have any historical elements I would say historical proofs of Gods existence? If we put aside the physical proofs, which are basically pagan, we have no proof of God based on nature, although in a certain sense we do perceive God from nature also, without this being the point on which our faith rests. Doesnt historical proof ( which was of great importance especially to the Hebrews ) also comprise evidence that supports our faith, as we can see in the Gospel ? After all, this God in Whom we believe, is not without witness (Acts, 14,17). He did not leave Himself unwitnessed. There are witness accounts of His existence; they are chiefly of historical nature. The fact that He miraculously saves the Israelites from difficult situations is utilized constantly by the Bible, when it says Do you forsake this God? Do you not believe in God, Who did this and this for His people? All these accounts are proof of His existence; empirical proofs, if you like. And furthermore, isnt the supreme proof that we Christians have, of the witnessed existence of God in the person of Christ Himself, as well as Christs life and Christs death - all of which are historical events a natural and objective basis for our faith? This is where we must be very careful, because although they are a basis for our faith, they should also not be. This needs to be explained. That which has already been given to us by God in witness of His existence, cannot be ignored in the Faith. That is why the Symbol of Faith commences with, and continues with, the acts, the works of God in history. But should this be the basis that supports our faith? If we observe the way in which God provides evidence of His existence throughout History, even with the Resurrection of Christ, we shall see that all these events contain a paradoxical factor. Although the events themselves are certainties and are real, however, its as though God doesnt want them to be compulsorily convincing. Sometimes I think to myself, what would have happened if Christs Ascension had not taken place, and things continued just as they did, after His Resurrection? Who could then not believe in God? Gods presence would have been absolutely compulsory and most convincing. If you saw Christ circulating amongst us the way Thomas saw Him and inspected Him and then believed, would it be possible for you not to believe? When I said as though God doesnt want, I am deducing this from Christs comment to (doubting) Thomas in the Gospel of St. John: Yes, come and see so that you may be convinced, but, blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed. In other words, it is as though He is saying that He prefers those who believe without seeing, without the aid of any empirical reassurance. And why are they blessed? Because they believe and they know voluntarily and not perforce. When Thomas becomes convinced, his faith loses its freedom. As does every person who is convinced objectively. Just as my being here does not allow you to voluntarily ignore my presence. Not unless you decide on a senseless existential vault into the absurd, and say You may truly exist, but to me, you do not exist. This is another way to express ones freedom, but here we have all the problems of the absurd. Anyway, the Lords Ascension does have this element, and perhaps it is the most important one. This is why the Ascension is associated with the administering of the Holy Spirit, which itself is freedom. Its inauguration coincides with Christs Ascension, or in other words, the no longer compulsory recognition of His presence and the no longer compulsory knowledge and compulsory faith; thus, a new era is inaugurated, in which we now believe without being compelled to. God now addresses our free will, and this free will is a characteristic of the Spirit, of Faith. I repeat, God gives us signs of His presence, but not in a committing way. He gives them in such a way, that you can even say no, if you so wish. I think that even Paul could have said no, and furthermore, if it had been someone else in Pauls place, he could have quite easily

shrugged off what happened on the road to Damascus, by saying that was just my imagination. And here we see the crucial point : that our faith is supported by the witnessed presence of God, but not in a way that imposes restrictions on our freedom, that is, they leave us a margin for denial. God never reveals Himself in a way that does not allow us to say no; no, I do not acknowledge that You exist. This point is directly related to the Churchs experience, or more so to the faith, as an experiencing of God within the Church. Be careful, because here there are a number of things that have been confused and must be cleared up. First of all, the Sacraments of the Church. The Sacraments of the Church are a form of knowledge of God, as well as a form of signs on which our faith is rooted. However, it would be a mistake to envisage the Sacraments in a way that would strangle our faiths freedom. When Christ offers Himself in the form of bread and wine, He offers Himself in a way that permits our free will to not recognize Him thus. Recognition and faith in the Sacraments are not a result of persuasion, convincingness or constraint. That is why the essence of the Sacraments is exactly their paradoxical nature. This is what is referred to, in the Epistle to Hebrews: faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the grasping of things not visible... I would say the same thing applies in the case of ascetic experience. There also, we are often given the impression that we have a constant, convincing, almost objective presence of God in the person of a Saint, which compels us, convinces us, that God is present. However, even the miracles of saints are performed in such a way, as to leave a margin for those who wish to doubt them. I dont think that we should rely too heavily on miraculous acts, as they may render ones faith in Gods presence entirely impregnable from every aspect; or, obligatory. Quite simply, God wants to give us signs of His presence, naturally, without destroying our freedom. And this is exactly what He does, through His saints. That is why the saints lifelong experience is such that always includes moments perhaps even periods of Gods absence, even though they are convinced of His existence. Saints often encounter moments when Gods presence is neither proven objectively, nor experienced. Thus, faith is not an end product of Christian experience. Faith, according to Paul, will be rescinded. Because there will come a time when this hypostasis of things not visible will no longer exist, as they are destined to become visible. Likewise, the grasping of things hoped for will no longer apply: the things now hoped for, will have then become reality. And when that moment comes, the only thing that will survive according to Paul is Love. Because, where else would you then hinge your faith? Faith hinges on this status the status of things hoped for but not visible, which you are asked to acknowledge as existing. If this status no longer exists, then there is no need for faith any more. ==================================================

C. ON GOD I. Biblical premises Positive and negative notions regarding God The Old Testament premises God's transcendence God's freedom God's personal character Historical revelation God's commandments

The The The The The The The The The The

new elements of the New Testament Son of God Son of Man delay in His appearance problem of relationship other Paraclete Triadic presentation problem of God's nature problem of monotheism attempts to resolve

In our last lesson, we summed up the topic of the prerequisites of Dogmatics - namely Cognizance and Faith prerequisites that are required for approaching the mystery of God as well as the mystery of mankinds salvation through Christ. Beginning today, we shall specifically begin to examine the Dogmas of the Faith, starting from the Dogma on God and the Holy Trinity. As you may well understand, it is not only Christians who speak of God. Every religion deals with God. Even atheism deals with God, inasmuch as it reacts negatively to and abolishes, a certain specific perception of God. Although it may seem that atheism at first sight rejects every notion of God, deep down, it is impossible for someone to uphold a rejective theory without identifying it with something. We reject something, when we have somehow related it to something else. Consequently, there is a deep-seated perception of God in our minds, which we wish to reject. It is therefore impossible for anyone to escape from the question pertaining to God, whether a Christian, or a follower of another religion, or even a denier of every notion of God. As I said, he must first make it absolutely clear in his own mind exactly what he is rejecting, before rejecting it. We here are naturally going to tackle the notion of God as it developed and was handed down to the Christian faith and the Church. So, our question is: what is the Christian notion of God? In order to reply to this question, we must first clear the historical field. The Christian faith does not introduce any radically novel concept of God. God Himself participates in the faith of the Judeans of that time; it is the God whom they embraced, and the faith that they embraced, through the Judean community of the Old Testament; the God of Christ is the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. In order, therefore, to locate the historical roots of the notion of God in Christendom, we must necessarily obtain an answer to the question of what comprised the Hebrew perception of God. A second basic question would be: what kind of modification does this idea undergo, when passing through the faith in the person of Christ? Because, while Christ does not attempt to introduce a new perception of God and speaks of the same God to Whom the Old Testament refers, nevertheless, when projecting certain assumptions regarding His person that touch on the meaning of God in a fundamental way, He inevitably modifies, or leads to modification of, the perception of God that Hebrews had, during those times. A third element pertaining to the historical modification of the Dogma on God in Christendom, is that this biblical notion of God - as it appears in the Old Testament, and later transformed in the New Testament on account of the pressure exerted by the faith in the person of Christ is eventually interpreted by the Fathers of the Church, on the basis of two elements, which we outlined in the introductory lessons: firstly, the cultural environment during the times of the Fathers, which environment supplies the Fathers with the terminology, the meanings, and everything else that is necessary for one to define Faith theologically; secondly, the experience of the Church, from which the Fathers drew the existential dimensions of the Dogma on God. We must therefore determine what comprises these cultural elements, these experiences, which shaped the Dogma on God during the Patristic

era. However, in accordance with the principles that were set out in our lessons, Dogmatics to us is not simply a collection of information and knowledge about what certain people once believed in, or about what they want us to believe today. Dogmatics is an interpretation, an existential interpretation of the Dogmas, therefore, the question that always concerns us and should concern us in every Dogma, is: what is the existential significance of that Dogma for us today? In other words, if this Dogma pertaining to God were to supposedly change in some way, what would the impact be on our existence? Would it have any impact, or would it simply remain the same, and not signal any existential change? Therefore the existential interpretation of a Dogma pertaining to God must concern us, given that it includes the following general points, especially for us today. First of all, it is that which we call a denominational or trans-Christian status, or ecumenical, or ecumenist. We must examine if and where the Orthodox Christian Dogma on God differs from other religions and Christian denominations ideas on God. Where is the definitive difference? Because one could insist that we all believe in God. With the exception of atheism, for which there will always be the question that I posed from the beginning (but anyway, atheism rejects every discussion on God), every other religion makes reference to God. The question is, if our differing from other religions merely has to do with the addition of certain things that the others dont have. Like the Holy Trinity for example: we all believe in one God, but some dont believe in the Holy Trinity, therefore, if we add the Dogma of the Holy Trinity to the concept of God, we converge with those Christians. Is that the way it really is? What is the definitive difference in the concept of God, between non-Christians and Christians? For the others, the non-Orthodox, the problem is ever serious. Because basically, all Christians certainly confess the same God, but the differences quite often are so essential with regard to the matter, that one must evaluate them and see how much and at which points these differences affect people essentially and moreso existentially. This is an area that concerns modern man. The other area is that of modern mans basic existential needs. I have repeatedly said that Dogmatics without any existential interpretation is a dead letter, which will inevitably lead to a marginalizing of theology; unfortunately, this marginalizing has become reality for modern man. And the danger especially in regard to the dogmas is severe. We theologians and even the Church itself have left the dogmas to the specialists: On the matter of God, you must ask the professor of Dogmatics I have nothing to do with the subject, is what the Bishop or the priest or anyone else will say to you. Or, our sermons avoid these dogmatic subjects altogether, because they are for the specialists. Well, this is exactly what marginalizing of dogmas means, and it has occurred, because we do not strive as I said for an existential interpretation that will or will not prove that dogmas are a matter of life and death for mankind. We may admit this in a show of piety, but we do not actually show it. We cannot convince anyone. Theology has the duty to try to convince, because it is a matter of life and death to accept this concept of God, and not any other notion about God. On these general observations, we shall now try to initially outline the historical framework within which the Dogma on God appeared - the idea about God within Christendom - and we shall naturally begin from the Bible, from the Biblical framework, because that is where the Christian concept of God appeared. Then we shall proceed to the Patristic framework; we shall see how it is shaped therein, and then we shall interpret it existentially. Christ already believed in the same God in Whom His contemporary Judeans believed. He does not ask the Judeans to change their concept of God. He makes it evident every time He communicates with them, that He participates in the same faith towards the same God the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, the God of the Fathers of the Old Testament. What, then, were the basic, characteristic elements of this faith, this concept of God, which differentiated it from other, non-Biblical concepts of God? Very briefly, we can locate these elements (the characteristic elements that comprise the

definitive difference for the Hebrews and the Old Testament, which, as I said, Christ Himself accepted) in the following: First of all, in the absolute transcendence of God; God exists prior to the world, and we can never relate Him to anything of what we see in the world. It is imperative that we transcend the experience of this world, as opposed to ancient Hellenism and ancient Greek philosophy. We have here a distinct definitive difference, because, to the ancient Hellene, the cosmos was always the place where someone could meet God. Whether their God was a logical, connective force the one that holds the world together in harmony, in beauty, (given that the word cosmos as you know, in Greek has the meaning of harmony, beauty, order) or a logic that allowed them to explain the cosmos, the ancient Hellene had gone as far as to search for God, within the cosmos. From a Biblical point of view, this was unacceptable. You cannot reach God by studying the cosmos and you cannot tie God, Gods existence, to the existence of the cosmos. Basically, you cannot simultaneously refer to God and the cosmos. You must suppose God to be Someone Who existed before the cosmos, before the existence of the cosmos. Naturally, this is connected to the idea of the creation of the cosmos from nil; in the sense that the cosmos once did not exist, whereas God always existed. The ancient Hellenes could in no way accept this idea. To the ancient Hellene, the cosmos is eternal, even when in the process of being created; in Plato, we have the creation of the cosmos by the Creator-God. This God creates pre-existing ideas, from pre-existing elements, in a pre-existing space. Hence, there is something that is ever-existent, from which the cosmos is made, in the design given to it by God, and God is somehow entangled in this existence. No matter how hard we look for transcendence in the gods of ancient Hellenism, we shall not find it to the absolute degree that we find it in the Old Testament. This, then, is one element. The second one, which explains the absolute transcendence of God and is naturally associated with the first, is that God is not bound by any physical or moral needs; in other words, this is the absolute freedom of God. Gods transcendence rests in His absolute freedom. And again, so that you may see the difference, I will remind you of the idea that the ancient Hellenes - ancient Greek philosophy - had of God. To the tragic poets mainly Euripides, but also the pre-Socratic thinkers, as well as Heracletus and all the Greek philosophers, the question was posed as to whether the gods were free to do what they wanted. The reply that they gave was a categorical no. The gods were bound to do what was correct; they could never act unjustly, nor do anything that would contravene any physical or moral laws. There was a moral and a physical law. Heracletus said that there exists a logic, a logos that preserves the continuum of the cosmos in harmony, and if something were to go wrong, the entire cosmos would vanish. That the cosmos does not vanish is precisely because this logical order exists, and the gods must respect this logical order. And within this logical order, the ancient Greeks also placed justice. Basically, Zeus as you know married Themis (themis=justice), to evidence precisely that Zeus could not act arbitrarily; that he was checked by Justice. Justice was an important element to the ancient Hellene. The tragic poets most assuredly brought this fact to the surface. Thus, to the ancient Hellene, God cannot act arbitrarily. In the Old Testament, this concept did not apply to the Hebrews perception of God. It did not cross a Hebrews mind that God could be shackled to goodness, to correctness and to justice as principles that dominated over God Himself, and that they must be respected by God Himself. That is why the Old Testament God acts extremely arbitrarily. The Old Testament is filled with murders, filled with numerous things that do not appear just and proper at first glance, but nevertheless are executed on Gods command; this is because God is not bound to moral principles. Pay special attention to this point, as it is extremely sensitive and difficult to remove from our thoughts, because we are kneaded into the Greek perception of God and

we have tied down God, we have subjugated Gods freedom to certain behavioral regulations and regulations of justice, which we have drawn from ethics. But ethics can never abolish Gods freedom, whether according to the Hebrew perception, or to the Christian perception, as we shall see. In any case, while we are on the subject of the definitive difference according to the biblical concept of God, we must stress this: God has absolute freedom, not only towards the cosmos, but also towards principles and ideas. And I will again remind you that Plato in Timaeus speaks of a god who creates, but only in conformance with ideas that already exist. Ideas are not created by God; ideas designate Gods actions. God has to comply with the idea of goodness for instance, or virtue, and thus, if he were to create a world which was not good ( a term otherwise understood as beauteous ), and instead made it ugly, he would be violating ideas; also the idea of beauty to which he is subordinate. That is why he gave the world a spherical shape as Plato explains in Timaeus because, he explains, a sphere is the ideal form of perfection, of beauty etc. And God can indeed do nothing that would violate any ideas. Whether these ideas are moral perceptions of goodness or aesthetic perceptions of beauty, the ancient Hellene always made God subordinate to these ideas. This does not apply, in the biblical perception of God. The third basic element is what we would call the personal character of God. God is personal. Of course one could say that God was personal in ancient Greek thought, but it all depends on what the word personal means. That is why we must define what we mean in the Old Testament, when we say that God is personal. What we mean is that God is acknowledged through personal relationships. He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. He is never a faceless, supreme power, as many people would say today yes, I believe in God, as a supreme power, and impersonal. One principle that explained the cosmos the way it was in ancient Hellenism is the Mind, the supremely intellectual mind (once again, the ancient Greeks had started to relate God to the Mind, and unfortunately many Christians even during the Patristic period were tempted to describe God by using the notion of the Mind quite often). Both in the Old Testament as well as in Hebrew perception, the idea of God could not be understood in relation to a Mind; nor in a physical power, or in a logical origin of beings. God can be related, through personal relationships : He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. His does not say anything about the nature of God, but it does say that this God is always associated to someone, and is not a unit, a single person that can be isolated. He always resides within a personal relationship. This is elementary for the Christian notion of God, and although it is found in the biblical faith in God, the Hebrews who didnt accept Christianity did not develop it into its full potential. Further down, we shall see the importance of this fact. For the time being, we shall keep in mind that in the Hebrew idea of God, He is always a God of associations, and not an isolated person. Another element of this personal character of God is that the Old Testament God the God of the Bible is not only in a constant personal association; He also calls on man to indulge in a liberal personal association, in a mode of existence such as His. He is therefore a God of personal associations. A fourth element after transcendence, freedom and a personal character of God, is that which we could call the historical character of Gods revelation. This analyzed, means first of all that God reveals Himself and is recognized by His involvement during the course of history; this does not I repeat mean the observation of the nature or the aesthetics of the cosmos. Hence, the place in which God can be referred to and where one could say that He can be found, is in History and not in nature. We will of course notice that, although the Hellenes had embraced Christianity during the Patristic years, it was nevertheless difficult to expel the importance of observing the cosmos, hence the Fathers and predominantly at the height of that era with Saint Maximus the Confessor would frequently introduce this element of observing the cosmos, but it was mainly in reference to God; it was their approach to God. In referring to the biblical roots of the Christian idea of God, we must seriously stress the following: that the observation of the cosmos does not lead us towards God, except only

in one way, as is expressed in the Psalm the heavens narrate the glory of God, and the works of His hands are made evident by the firmament.. In other words, God is not to be somehow found within the cosmos; instead, the cosmos itself testifies that Someone Else this God exists, but beyond the cosmos, and consequently this transcendence of God with respect to the world once again, plays a definitive role and thus the observation of the cosmos in relation to God if we observe this Psalms expressions is more like a historical kind of observation, and not cosmology per se. The works of His hands are made evident by the firmament. : to the Hebrews, the world is a creation, a project; someone made it. It is not a nature, which has certain principles, certain laws the laws of harmony, the laws of goodness, of justice, and all those things that the ancient Hellenes had. Consequently, the world itself is treated as history, and not as nature or as the world. Another element of the biblical meaning of God, under that which we named the historical character of the revelation of God, is that the biblical God reveals Himself mainly through His commandments and mans observance of these commandments. For the Hebrew, the truth in general but more specifically the faith in God, is not a theory and neither does it originate theoretically as we said from the examination of the cosmos. It originates from the examination of history; from Gods interaction with the people of Israel during the course of History, and from the experience of a Being that sets down a Law that is to be obeyed. The response to this Law, the obedience to this Law, comprises the encountering with God. These all belong to the biblical perception of God; the Old Testament perception of God. Now, as I said, Jesus introduced certain new elements that did not negate the Hebrew perception of God, nor were they introduced for this purpose. Christ never suggested that the Hebrews of His time did not believe in the true God. Christ Himself believes in the same God that they believe in. The difference lies in a) the stance that one should take towards the Hebrews in this case and b) the stance that one should take towards idolaters. In the case of idolaters, the gods are false. They do not exist; they are not real. Here, we have the true God of the same Fathers that they believe in, the same ones that the Judeans of His time accepted. Despite all this, there are certain claims that Christ makes with regard to His person, which automatically lead to a revision of the idea that the Hebrews had of God. This also explains the conflict with the Hebrews of His time. However, from a Christian point of view, Christs claims with regard to His person are wholly accepted. Our issue is not to discuss whether they should or should not be accepted; they were accepted by certain people, by His disciples, by the communities that also wrote the New Testament and then by the Church, which formulated the Christians Dogma on God. Consequently, our problem is not whether these claims were rightly or wrongly accepted; our problem, our issue, is that they were accepted, and that from the moment they were accepted, the question What does God look like? arose. Is it still the same concept of God, or do we have a radical change? I repeat that even Christ Himself had no intention of introducing radical changes. It is in fact the fulfillment of the Old Testament notion of God, in the format that Christ presented, as regards His own person. But we have to examine these claims closer. A first claim is that Christ projects a particular - and moreso an exclusive, Filial relationship with God. He addresses God as His Father, and not just father, in the way that anyone would say it; it carries a unique meaning. Bible scholars today have especially stressed the meaning of the word abba, abba the Father. It is an Aramaic word that Christ used in His conversations with God, with the Father. This word, according to the interpreters, bears a special meaning of a close personal nature, a particular personal relationship. Therefore, with this claim, Christ brings Himself into a relationship with God that is different to the relationship that people have with God, or that the other Hebrews had. This is the first element that He introduces, which, as we shall see, leads to the modification of the biblical idea of God. The second one is His claim that He is the incarnation of Gods final act in history. I mentioned before, that, to the Hebrew, God revealed Himself in His historical acts and not in

any physical acts. Take note that the acts of God - as distinguished from the nature of God are later unfolded, in the theology of the Fathers, where the Hellenic interest in cosmology is already taken into consideration, an interest that the Hebrew doesnt have. We are compelled to make these subtle distinctions as scientists. Because it is simpler and easier to say that we learn Dogmatics by putting all the information into a bag and pulling out whatever we require from therein. To the Hebrew, the acts of God were historical acts and not physical acts. A Hebrew would have immediately suspected idolatry, if one spoke to him of physical acts. At any rate, I have mentioned this in order to arrive at the crucial point that for the Hebrews of His time, Christ projects the claim that He is the son of man, where, as you know from the Apocalyptics of that era which both the audience and Christ Himself shared, the son of man is the one who will bring on the end of history, the final crisis of history, which for the Hebrew could only be God; only God can make the final, irrevocable judgment in the due course of time. And this judgment of God is given to the son of man (this is expounded in the book of Daniel, then in Enoch, and all of this is found in the Gospel: when the son of man comes, and is seated on His throne of glory). The son of man is the one who will pass judgment. In view of the fact that to the Hebrew, this final judgment can only be passed by God, this son of man is the incarnation of the divine presence of God in history. Man cannot pass judgment on history; in the end, only God can. But the Hebrew does not expect to see God; it is impossible to see Him, on account of Gods transcendental element. God appears in the form known as son of man, bearing the act of final judgment on history, when Christ identifies Himself as the son of man. (Many interpreters today have doubts as to whether Christ actually identified Himself as the son of man, or if the Church did this, later on.) I believe that Christ clearly identified Himself as the Son of Man, but that is not the issue here. The important thing is that He had already identified Himself earlier on, basically with the Resurrection; with faith in the Resurrection. From that moment, a special kind of relationship is created, between the person of Christ and God; one that urges us to reexamine the meaning of God in the light of these events. In other words, in a person such as Christ, who maintains that He will be the One to judge history. It was on this information that the first Church inevitably proceeded to modify the Hebrew perception of God. And we must keep these subtle distinctions in mind, in order to understand how the Dogma on God arrived at the point it did, with the Fathers. Take note of these subtle distinctions, these delicate steps. The preaching of Christs Resurrection automatically signifies that in the conscience of the first faithful, Jesus Christ is identified to the eschatological son of man, that is, with God Himself acting irrevocably upon history. At this juncture, we have the additional fact that this eschatological son of man, who is now the resurrected Christ, is expected to return soon in order to effect this final judgment of history. So far, the problem is not so acute, with regard to the meaning of God. It becomes acute, when Christs Second Coming lingers; the New Testament is a faithful mirror of this situation. One has to be blind, not to see the first Christians troubled minds with regard to their expectation of the Second Coming. This immediately poses the question: where is Christ in the meantime, until His return for the final judgment? What is His place now, and what is His relation to God? The answer is found in the Christology of Christs Ascension, where He is thenceforth found to reside at Gods right. The words of the 110th Psalm the Lord sayeth to my Lord, be seated on my right is where Christology first developed and placed Christ to the right of the Father, up until the day of the Final Judgment. However, this was the cause of the following existential situation. This Christ, Who is presently seated at the right of the Father according to the 110th Psalm enjoys certain privileges that for the Hebrew belong exclusively to God,. Observe two such privileges. Firstly, worship: everything on earth and in heaven shall kneel. No Hebrew can kneel before a creation, a creature; it is out of the question. Now here comes another Person, which seats itself next to the person of the only Father, the Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the unique God, and expects - or receives both adoration and worship.

A second existential element is that this person expects and receives such devotion, that it demands the sacrificing of ones very life under torture. Only God can make such demands. Hence, the question of what is this Christ, immediately raises the question of what happens with the idea of God. How is God Himself any more, the One we believed in, when there is also this other person who has these demands that are so absolute and befitting only to God? This lingering of Christs Second Coming now adds a third basic element. It not only poses the question where is Christ now?, but also the question what is our relationship in the meantime with God, until Christ returns? In other words, how does man see his relationship with God, now that Christ is seated at Gods right, in heaven? The answer to this timely, existential question comes from the other Paraclete, as analyzed in the Gospel of St. John ..I shall not leave you orphaned.. . I am departing, I am not here, Christ had said; I am presently at Gods right, however, the Father shall send forth another Paraclete (cletos=summoned, para=by), the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father... Therefore, an experience of a new relationship with God begins, after Christs Ascension, with the arrival of a third person on the scene. A person which, like Christ, verifies the presence of God Himself; It does things that only God can do. The miracles, the charismas, all these things are realized, thanks to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the first faithful are compelled within the meaning of God to somehow find a place for this existential, this empirical reality. Because now, God acts as a communion of the Holy Spirit. Subsequently, Christ appears as that communion, which includes the Church community and all the charismas that the community contains, given that all these things cannot be attributed to a creation. To Hebrew thinking, the question is therefore raised, as to whether, after all the above, we can now refer to God, to this Being, to the One that the Hebrews called God, without simultaneously and automatically referring to the other two Persons: of Christ, who named Himself the Son of God in a particular way, and of the Holy Spirit, who replaces or verifies Christs presence in this special way the communion in the Spirit during the course of history. Thus, the church is led with the aid of these existential experiences to the Triadic definition of faith; in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, simultaneously. This Triadic form eventually becomes the inevitable form of reference to God for the Christians, for the reasons I just gave you. These processes that take place in the course of history are basically empirical; they are not intellectual. You must deal with certain persons, such as Christ, who give rise to existential situations, therefore, you either reject Christs claims you have that right and thenceforth remain as a Hebrew with one God (who, as we shall see later on poses certain problems, and who is not the Triadic God), or, you embrace this Triadic formula out of necessity now, since you have accepted Christs claims. Well, this Triadic formula that springs up in history under the circumstances that I described, appears obviously in the New Testament, and it has three forms. Two of them are clearly existential. One form is the Baptismal form. The faith in God that is required for baptism involves a faith or a reference to God not as a single person, but as a Holy Trinity. At the end of St. Matthews Gospel, we have a definite reference to Christs instruction to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit . You may know from history or from the New Testament, that this reference to the Holy Trinity at the end of Matthews Gospel is not accepted as genuine, but is considered to be a later addition, based on certain arguments that, according to the Acts of the Apostles and the witness accounts therein, the Baptism was performed in the name of Christ and not the Holy Trinity. The first positive account that we have of baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity is in Justin. But the importance does not lie in whether baptism was performed in the name of the Holy Trinity; the importance lies in the fact that this form is present in all the Books of the New Testament and especially in Pauls Epistles, and that it reached from being a baptismal experience to being included within the baptismal reference to God.

The other form by which it appears, is the Eucharist form. This is also very basic, and we encounter it clearly, at the end of Pauls epistles, especially at the end of the 2nd Epistle to Corinthians 13, in the familiar form may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. As proven by research, this form with which Pauls epistles ended, comprised the opening of the Eucharist Liturgy in the first Churches, in the ancient Church, and so we must consider it a Eucharist formula. In other words, the Divine Eucharist was associated with the Triadic formula from the start. The third form is the theological form in the broader sense, which we observe in St. Johns Gospel and in Apostle Paul. We wont quote any verses. The simultaneous reference to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is prevalent in both Paul and St. Johns Gospel. Consequently, a theology surrounding these three persons now commences. The theology of the three persons does not, however, become a problem, up until the Patristic period in particular. And although the Patristic era commences with the Apostolic Fathers from the point of view of Ecclesiastic Philology, from the point of view however of theological Dogmatics it essentially begins with the Apologists of the 2nd century, because it was during that period that Hellenic queries were raised; Hellenic-type queries regarding faith in God. And the Hellenic-type question that was predominant from the 2nd century onwards, was: If we are baptized now in the same way that all Christians were baptized then, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, what happens to our faith in the One God, which is accepted by the Bible? This is a serious question, which I call a Greek question, given that a Hebrew would never have thought of making it, whereas a Greek would want to know if the nature of these persons (because that is the Hellenic question: regarding the nature of beings) relates to the nature of God, or if it is something different. And that is when tremendous dilemmas appear, from which the Church with its theology for centuries now is struggling to escape. Up until the 4th century with the Cappadocians it was difficult to give an answer to this question, which I will repeat: If we believe in One god, how is it possible to refer to the three persons as if they too were ontologically related to that One God? The dilemma is that, if we say that the three persons are ontologically associated with the One God, the question that immediately arises is: Dont we then have three Gods? If we say that the three or the two persons are not ontologically associated with the One God, then the existentially pressing question that arises is: then how is it that we adore and worship these persons , and how can we attribute acts that according to biblical perceptions belong only to God for instance, the eschatological judgment of history and the miracles that are performed by the Holy Spirit? The dilemma evidently is not easily overcome. The problem is, how can one accept the Holy Trinity without doubting Monotheism. Unless one admits it is a mystery. And this, is an outlet. You will permit me not to use this outlet, because we could then say that everything is a mystery, and that settles everything. That is not theology. Of course these are mysteries, but they are mysteries that invite us to ponder. They do not obstruct our thoughts. At any rate, the Fathers would have given up theology if they had said this is a mystery. On the contrary, they went to great lengths especially the Cappadocian Fathers to find a way to say that there is no conflict between monotheism and the Triadic God. There is no conflict. And that is the main problem that we are also looking into, based on the Fathers: Why is there no conflict? This problem preoccupied the Patristic era. In order to give a reply to this question, many generations of theologians had to pass. In the 2nd and 3rd century although this is familiar from the history of Dogmatics various answers were given. Let us arrange them in one or two categories, so that we may assist our thoughts. One category of answers related the Logos and the Spirit to the acts of God in association with Creation and with Providence in

general; i.e., God is One, but, in order to create the cosmos, He acts as a Logos and a Spirit. The great difficulty with this kind of answer was that the Triadic existence of God presupposes the existence of the cosmos. We would therefore lose Gods transcendence with regard to the three persons . In numerous personages of the 2nd century, I would say even in Justinian, things are still not very clear; and generally in the Apologetics of the 2nd century it is still unclear as to whether the Logos and the Spirit belong to the sphere of God or of Creation. At any rate, they act and they appear always in association with Creation, something that is very dangerous even to the transcendence of the persons . As you know from history, this is what led to Arianism, and subsequently obliged the Church to clear matters at least with regard to the Son, the Logos, and to say that the Logos does not belong in the sphere of Creation, but in the sphere of God. In this way, the Church gave a negative reply to this form of answers that had been attempted. It is not because God is a Creator that He is Triadic; He is Himself Triadic, independently of His Creation. This was cleared up at least with regard to the Son in the 1st Ecumenical Synod. The other category of answers was the one that was called Modalist, Mannerist. There, the Son and the Holy Spirit and even the Father, were perceived as the manners with which God acted throughout history, and not as Beings or as self-existent persons . This kind of theory was promoted mostly by Savellius, who, as you know, caused an immense problem to the Church, resulting in the rejection of this theory and this explanation. Because the Church insisted that these Three persons are entities, they are Beings, which are in a personal association between themselves, each one of them being something different to the other. The Father speaks to the Son, and the Son prays to the Father; in short, we have two Entities. The Church therefore rejected these mannerist theories, it rejected the Providence theory, and so the question remained: if they are three Entities, how come they arent three gods? If it had accepted the mannerist monarchic theory, the Savellius theory, it would have had no problem. But it preferred to have the problem, rather than to deny that the three persons of the Holy Trinity are three Entities; exactly because the Church did not want to distance itself from this principle and give an answer, rather than to say its a mystery therefore we do not talk about it. That is why the theology of the Cappadocian Fathers came into being, and has become the basis for the Christian dogma and theology. We must delve into this theology very carefully, with a sincere passion to learn. The problem surrounding the Holy Trinity is a difficult one. But this dark-age tendency that is observed in many today, in the name of a simplified faith and piety that keeps them at a distance from any intellectual labours, I consider to be something dangerous. Theology is not pietys enemy, and if these problems preoccupy us vigorously, we shall see that God becomes existentially more familiar to us, than if we didnt bother at all with these problems.

II. Basic principles of Patristic teaching 1. The period prior to the Cappadocian Fathers

The inherited Triadic definition Interpretation and content of the definition The projection of the Logos Savellianism Philon's monotheism The response of the Fathers Tertullian's terminology

Hypostasis and Person

In this lesson we shall examine the historical framework in which the Dogma on God evolved during the Patristic era. I would like to remind you that the Patristic era inherited the Triadic formula Faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit from the biblical era. And because this formula, or rather, this belief, had to be accepted by every Christian during baptism it was not possible for one to become a Christian without passing through this confession of faith it is quite understandable, how it was impossible for one to flatly reject the Holy Trinity in retrospect. Differences did arise with regard to the interpretation of this formula, however, as the formula itself had been accepted, any discussion on the topic of the Holy Trinity always maintained this restricting factor. In other words, whenever anyone placed any doubts on the Holy Trinity with their positions, the discussion would automatically be terminated. It was something that nobody could deny. In my previous lesson, I had outlined how the Church reached this point and why. The reasons are deep-seated. It was impossible for it to be any other way, from the moment that this special relationship between Christ and God and the role of the Holy Spirit had been accepted in the life of the Church. Now, because the Patristic era inherited this Triadic formula, it had to ensure two things: that it be interpreted it in such a way as to exclude interpretations that would lead to idolatry; that is, interpretations of this Triadic formula that would distance the meaning of God according to the Old Testament principles on the God of the Hebrews, as defined in the previous lesson. Therefore, in their interpretation, this had to be taken into account. The second thing that had to be done was to give this formula a content that would interpret this belief in such a way that would signify something to the cultural environment of the Patristic era. Take special note here, as it also applies today, i.e., that Theology and Dogmatics could not be an internal interest for only a few people; that is, we say something that we alone understand, and we are not concerned if these things seem like nonsense to anyone else beyond us. That was not the spirit of the Fathers. The spirit of the Fathers was assuredly to address their times, and to say things that bore a certain meaning to the people of their times. This required an interpretation, an attempt to interpret the Dogma, always within the philosophical categories of contemporary thought that were also familiar beyond Christendom. This pertained to the educated of those times. But it also contained a lifestyle such that would make the simpler folks embrace this faith, this idea of God, with a particular kind of personal acceptance. We must now examine this interpretation, first of all historically, then from our point of understanding of this Dogma. During the 2nd century, an attempt to interpret this Triadic Dogma was made chiefly by the Apologetes and it was the following: They preoccupied themselves with the Logos, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Whom they considered to be a projection of God outside His Person, for the purpose of creating the cosmos. In this way, there was a certain vagueness as to whether the Logos belonged to the sphere of the Uncreated God, or in the sphere of the cosmos. It was unclear, because when we say that God becomes Triadic, or, that He acquires the Logos in order to externalize Himself and create the cosmos, then we are associating the existence of the Logos with the existence of the cosmos. This was the problem, and it made itself very apparent during the 4th century, with Arianism. There, the problem had reached its limits, when Arios followed up this Theology of the Logos, to arrive at the conclusion that the Logos belonged to the sphere of the created world and not to the sphere of the uncreated God. Thus, in the 2nd century, this meaning and this interpretation brought about certain problems.

One of the Apologetes who gave a better direction, but not an entirely satisfactory one, was Theophilos of Antioch during the 2nd century, who made the distinction between the inner logos and the expressed logos. With this definition, he tried to say (as Justin said, and as was customary during the 2nd century with the Apologetes) that while the Logos may be a projection of God outside Himself for the purpose of creating the cosmos, nevertheless it pre-existed within God, as an inner Logos. Just as we have an inner expression inside us before we speak, and we afterwards make this expression a verbal one, in the same way, God always had the Logos, but when He decided to create the cosmos, He made this inner Logos an external expression. It was His way of safeguarding Himself from the world. But this interpretation was not sufficient, as it again left the unanswered question of whether the inner logos can exist without having its verbal expression, as it would thus cease to be the Logos.

This was one attempted interpretation. Another one was the kind we called mannerist; that is, to perceive the three Persons of the Holy Trinity as three roles, three manners in which God appears. Three roles that God played: the Father in the Old Testament, the Son in the New Testament, and after the New Testament in our time as the Holy Spirit. This theory was mainly developed by Savellius at the beginning of the 3rd century, and it became especially widespread in the West. He was of North African origin, but his activities were mainly in Rome and his teachings spread rapidly to the East as well. Savellianism naturally caused a serious disturbance, nevertheless, his views were rejected, namely, that God - the Holy Trinity is equivalent to three roles, three facades that God put on in order to play a certain role in history, even if it was only for our sakes. The Church reacted so intensely to Savellianism, that any form of crypto-Savellianism gave rise to the most acute reactions, especially in the East. And it is characteristic, that the East always looked upon the West with suspicion in regard to Savellianism, during this period, the 4th century. The Westerners were always willing to embrace any form of Savellianism, while the Easterners insisted that we must definitely keep these three Persons separate. In the 2nd century with the Apologetes, the issue was set out clearly, as follows: The three Persons of the Holy Trinity are Three in Number, in the sense of a numeric three; we do not refer to a One, to a unit, which either broadens as Savellius claimed and becomes (or takes on) three forms, or which takes in any other external element within the One God; this number of three is located within the very meaning of God. In other words, God never existed alone. Thus, the Fathers took that important step in distinguishing between the meaning of One and the meaning of Only; this was done, because in ancient Hellenism and the ancient Greek religion, God was understood as a Unit. I am referring to the Hellenic philosophical religion. There was always the secular religion the secular polytheism but polytheism was of a lower standard. The ancient Hellenes true religion was in fact monotheistic ( and very monotheistic at that ); so much so, that God was the Absolute One. And as you know, Neo-Platonism likewise identifies God as the One. When the question of God, of the One God, is posed within a Christian framework, this question is raised: whether God is an Absolute Unit, and what being a Unit means. Philon in the 1st century interprets monotheism (albeit a Hebrew, in this matter he was intensely influenced by Greek thought); he interprets the One God as indeed the only One. His comment on that certain part of the Old Testament that speaks of the creation of woman is characteristic: it is not good for man to be one only; let us make for him a helper in his likeness (Genesis 2,18). Commenting on this verse, Philon says that man cannot be alone; he cannot be allowed to be on his own, because only God can be the Only One. That is, God as One is the Only One. It is obvious to you here, that this conflicts with or rather, brings up the huge

problem of the Holy Trinity, to which the Apologetes responded immediately. They reacted vehemently to this Philonian perception and said that God is One, but not Only. From a philosophical and existential perspective, one can see that this opens up entirely new paths in ontology; later on, we shall see its significance. For the time being, take note that the Church decided at an early stage to accept a monotheism that did not associate the One God with the Only God. God is not loneliness, or solitude. He was never Alone. The number three was always representative of actual entities that associated with one another, and not a unit that took on various appearances or played various roles. Subsequently, this sensitivity as to the entity of each Person posed a grave interpretational problem, at least in the sphere of philosophical interpretation and understanding. Therefore, whenever Christians spoke of these things, were they actually saying something, about what they meant, or were they just talking nonsense and understanding it only between themselves? The Fathers could not allow the matter to drift about, in this clouded and confused state. So they made certain attempts. The story behind this whole affair is very complicated ( These things are well known, from the History of Dogmatics. ) We shall refer to the main phases of these attempts, and will persevere on the outcome of these attempts of interpretation. First of all, on the matter of terminology: serious problems arose as to how they should interpret, how they should say, what words should they use, when stating that God is Triadic; that He is One and three Persons, three entities at the same time, and not three different facades. At the end of the 2nd century, Tertullian uses a Latin expression - within the framework of terminology which later proved to be the determining expression : this expression was UNA SUBSTANTIA, TRES PERSONS. With the term substantia he wished to define the One God, and the unity. With the term persons, he wanted to indicate Triplicity. This wording by Tertullian passed through to the East, to the Hellenic-speaking Christians, mainly through Hippolytus who was influenced by Tertullian and who as you know was born in Rome but was well versed in the Greek language and who translated this wording. Translated how? Here lies the immense problem. The word sub-stantia in Greek is translated as hypo-stasis. The persons have been translated as individuals (persons). Now, they faced other difficulties. To say that God is a hypostasis, means that we give an ontological content to the term hypostasis (besides, the word hypostasis always had an ontological content it denoted the stable being; or, that which supported a being; every being is supported on a base this base is its hypostasis. This term in Greek passed through many adventures throughout the centuries, but it basically bore the same meaning. When we say that a rainbow does not have a hypostasis, we are saying that although it is a phenomenon, it lacks hypostasis. On the other hand, a table does have a hypostasis, because it has an ontological basis.) Therefore, generally speaking, the term hypostasis denotes that God is indeed One, one hypostasis, but then the persons immediately create a problem. Because the word person in ancient Hellenism had exactly the same meaning as the word faade. The word person in ancient Greece () was derived originally from its anatomical aspect, to indicate the surface of the head which was the face. But very soon it became a technical term, to be used in theatres in a ritualistic manner, inasmuch as the actor would wear a mask, as was the custom for actors at the time. It is easy to understand the imminent danger when transferring this term in Greek, with reference to the Holy Trinity : Savellianism. How was it possible for this Tertullian term to be accepted in the East, without any detailed explanations? From the time of Origen onwards, the term hypostasis had replaced the term person in the East, and therefore it was said that God had three hypostases. However, in translating the term hypostasis into Latin, it immediately created tres substantiae, therefore, the Latin-speaking people faced the problem where they had the expression una substantia; now, it would not be fitting, to say UNA SUBSTANTIA, TRES SUBSTANTIAE; it was not possible. There was in fact an immense problem caused by this confusing terminology. And the problem was not simply a linguistic one, it was a matter of what content these terms had, and how they could become accepted without basically leading

anyone towards Savellianism; and for the East, this was a very important issue. Well, what was to be done? An entire story ensued.

II. Basic principles of Patristic teaching 2. The contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers

Relating the person and the hypostasis Splitting the essence The non-existence of bare essence Adam as the cause of existence The Father as the caue of existence Triadity as Love

The vent, the timely solution to this problem, was given by the Cappadocian Fathers during the 4th century, through a radical innovation, the innovating of names as they called it. Names had to be innovated, be given a new meaning. What the Cappadocian Fathers did, was the following: Whereas up to that day the term hypostasis related to the term essence (Athanasios the Great clearly states that the two are the same thing), the Cappadocians took a further step (you see how they dared during those times) and said that here, we shall discern between these two meanings. The meaning of the word essence and the meaning of the word hypostasis do not signify the same thing, hence a very serious problem arose. The first Ecumenical Synod placed an anathema on those who accepted, who confessed that God is one essence or Hypostasis. Amendments followed The Cappadocians now said the following: that the term essence is identical to the term nature and is used to denote the unity, the Oneness of God. God is therefore one essence, one nature. The Latin term substantia is henceforth translated into Greek, no longer as hypostasis, but as essence, or nature. On the other hand however, the term hypostasis is transposed (note this revolution in terminology), to now become equal to, to relate to the term person. Thus, the term person in this light, now ceases to bear the meaning that Savellius had given it. Because now, three persons no longer implies three facades, since the person, which is now related to the hypostasis, signifies three entities. So, from the historical aspect of philosophy, it is both a timely and a revolutionary move, even though it has not been given any special mention in the history of philosophy, significant as it may be. A term such as hypostasis which is an ontological term, is now related to a term such as the person, which was never an ontological term but had always existed, and had always denoted an association that appended to an entity. We are thus relating the being: I am, lets say, who I am; my being is not dependent on the role that I play, or on my person. My person and I, are not the same thing. Just like an actor, who plays a role: he has a person, but that is not his actual being. In the same way, the Savellian view was that God is One Being, but He plays these roles. Therefore, Savellius was quite happy with this use of the person, but as we said, it did not appeal to orthodox Christians. And it was for this reason that Basil the Great insisted on saying that this expression God has three faces is unacceptable to us, unless the term hypostasis is included, to denote that the person is a hypostasis. What happens in this case : By saying that I am a person, it now means that I have an entity of my own, different to anothers entity. In this way, the person acquires an ontological meaning. But we shall look into these matters in detail, when we interpret the dogma of the Trinity existentially. Now you can understand how, historically, this revolution in terminology was not entirely arbitrary; It was because the term hypostasis bore several nuances which allowed this development. But here, we are mainly interested in the outcome, and the outcome of the Cappadocian Fathers theology was that: God is One as regards His essence, His nature

and He is also Three as regards His Persons, His Hypostases. And this, as far as terminology is concerned; this is how we arrived at the formulation of the dogma of the Holy Trinity which we have to this day. And now for the meaning. What they meant by it. When we say that God is one Essence and three Persons, with the term Essence we always refer to something general, something that implies the existence of more than one being. For instance, when we say human essence or human nature, this denotes that while all of us are of one essence, one nature human nature we are each individually a complete human being; that is, this one nature has many in number. These many in number we call hypostases, or persons. This analogy, this picture, was used by the Fathers. The Cappadocian Fathers say: Look here, what we theologians are saying about God is not so unreasonable, because if in fact we observe humanity, we can see that mention is made of one essence, one nature and simultaneously of two, three, four etc. hypostases of this same nature; they are the numerous ways, in which this nature appears. But, this now immediately brings on the danger of three gods, because we many humans are many people, therefore dont we similarly have many gods? If we espouse this example, how do we avoid multi-deities? This is where the Cappadocians extremely difficult task begins. They pose the question: Why are we humans many and are consequently able to speak of a number of people, whereas in the case of God, we cannot speak of a number of gods? The answer is that because we humans have been created, and our given nature human nature is divisible; for example, me and my father are two separate human beings. Between him and me, time has intervened (or distance, in other cases, while he is still alive), and this factor of time or space allows each one of us to be perceived as a self-existent person ( i.e. my father does not exist now, but I do). In other words, time has permitted individuality. It has permitted me to be perceived independently of my father, and it is in this manner that nature is segmented, just as when man is born entirely individually, nature is segmented; because each person can be perceived individually, on his own, as a separate person. This is why we have many people and the unity of the human race cannot be ensured, or, rather, why it conflicts with the multiplicity of those individual persons. In order to simplify this difficult issue, I will promptly apply the example to the case of God, as the Cappadocians did. Supposing that, in order to comprehend this example, there is no intervening time or space between us, and nature is not segmented during our birth, what would happen existentially? What would happen, is that me and my father would never be apart; it would be inconceivable to have any void whatsoever between him and me.. But what does that mean? It means that in essence, we would be two persons, two persons that are different to each other, and, because we could never be apart, we would always be one. Subsequently, how can unity be ensured? By an incessant communion relationship between us. Thus, that which breaks up the communion the association between my father and me, is time and distance. Time and space are attributes of the created world. They appear precisely during Creation; it is impossible to refer to time and space with regard to God, and not inevitably face the matter of Gods origin, i.e., that once upon a time, God did not exist. In order to preserve Gods eternity, which is a contiguous and inherent factor of the concept of God that sets Him apart from the created world, we must necessarily exclude any admission of space and time within Gods existence. Therefore, in the instance of God, we have this as a certain reality. And what does that mean? That here, multiplicity does not conflict with unity. That is the mystery of the Holy Trinity; a mystery with regard to our experience, because for us, multiplicity always conflicts with unity. It is a mystery as regards our experience, however, from the moment that you accept God as an uncreated God Who is not subject to time and space, it ceases to be a mystery. What happens? One assumes an inevitable stance towards God. It is a stance, which, if not taken, one loses the meaning of God; one looks upon God as a creation. I repeat, all these things presuppose that you have decided from the start to accept the mystery of the Holy Trinity. You will not prove why God is Threefold. You will try to prove how this can be so; how you can perceive this mystery. But with what kind of speculation, what kind of thought? We shall see how it is not simply a matter of speculation or thinking that is directed at satisfying a

certain curiosity of the mind, but something that has immediate consequences. Our entire life changes, if God is not Triadic. If God is not triadic, mans life is a totally different thing. If God is Triadic, if this mystery is indeed real, and this comparison that I made, between our own experience (where singularity and multiplicity conflict with one another) and the experience (or rather the existence) of God, where this conflict does not occur; and if there is no unity wherein multiplicity is not a conflicting factor, then, a number of things in our existence are jeopardized. The Dogma on the Holy Trinity is the most bountiful existential message that any religion or a philosophy could possess. Now, let us focus on the historic outcome. The Cappadocian Fathers had said that the aforementioned example of one human nature with a multitude of people could be applied to God, provided that we do not include time and space in the equation - this being a self-evident condition anyway, with regard to the existence of God, thus, we automatically cease to have the problem of three Gods within the Holy Trinity. When they express this unity, the one essence, i.e. the association of God with the term essence, they immediately give rise to the following problem: whether this essence preexists, and somehow becomes a Trinity at a later stage which is something that occurs in us humans; something that the Greek philosophers had already pinpointed when they said that all us people come into existence as separate beings and diverse, from one, pre-existing essence, a pre-existing nature. I would say that nature pre-exists in us, and it is followed by the person. When I came into this world, it wasnt me that brought the essence of humanity human nature into existence. Human nature existed before me, and it is this point that the ancient Greek philosophers had expanded in a general manner, to say that this essence, this general thing in which many participate, is pre-existent and is followed by the more specific thing the person. Hence, the Platonic philosophers spoke of a predominating kind and the Aristotelians of a subjective kind implying that, no matter what each one of us is individually, as an individual human being, we are but sequels of an existence. For the Platonians, we are sequels of the ideal human being in which we all participate, while for the Aristotelians, we are sequels of human nature, of the human species which we all spring from. The human species precedes the human being, and that is why - according to Aristotle in death the particular beings may disappear, but the species itself survives. Consequently, for us, the essence precedes the person. You will see the existential importance of this, later on. The Cappadocian Fathers here are carving new paths in philosophy, on account of the Dogma of the Holy Trinity. Basil makes the following statement as a basis, as an axiom of his entire subsequent argument: There is no bare essence as he called it. With this, he meant that there could not be any essence without a hypostasis; an essence that does not have actual and specific hypostases. Therefore, it is impossible to presuppose a human nature, out of which specific beings can spring from. One must consider that all specific beings are equally primeval in ontology, along with the essence of humanity. Therefore, given that bare essence cannot exist, one cannot accept essence without any specific hypostases. Now, if this is applied to the human species, what does it mean? That the origin and the unity that which ensures the continuum of the human species does not lie in the essence of humanity, because bare essence never existed on its own. For example, Aristotle discerns between a human being in general (this is the essence) and Kallias or Socrates who are persons, hypostases. According to the Cappadocian line of thought, it is impossible to mention the term human essence without automatically implying Kallias or Socrates or George or Costa or someone. It is impossible to refer to the essence alone, without implying the specific persons; in other words, this primary, general humanity does not exist. Even today, frequent mention is made, especially of humanity; Humanity means specific persons. And no matter how strange it may seem to you, all these things have sprung from the Dogma of the Holy Trinity, with a profound impact on anthropology. Since there is no bare essence, and we cannot subsequently

presume that the origin of the human species is a human essence or Platos ideal human, or nature, as Aristotles definition, then what is the origin and the cause that makes man singular, if it isnt his essence? This issue is discussed in one of Basil Epistles, in his dialogue with Amphilochios. These Epistles had been considered questionable, but they are very probably genuine and there is no serious reason for anyone to doubt them. At any rate, the topic is found in Basil epistles. In one of these epistles, the problem is thoroughly analyzed, and Basil totally agrees with the viewpoint that since a bare human essence cannot be the origin of humankind, the chief ontological predicate of a human being cannot be his essence; it must definitely be a specific being, and that being is Adam. Thus, while the ancient Greeks said that we draw our descent, our existence as particular beings, from a common, human nature, we must as Christians say that we each draw our existence from one person, Adam. The cause of our being is not our nature; it is a person. By applying this to God, observe the consequences: The Cappadocians for the first time in theology introduce the meaning of agent that the one God is not just one Essence, but that He is the Father, and that He as a Person makes manifest the unity of the Trinity, and not He as an essence. Naturally the term one essence continues to exist, but not in the sense of a causative essence. It is not essence that causes God to have hypostases. Essence functions differently now. The ultimate and the foremost point of reference for the existence of God is not the Essence, it is the Father. This means that you cannot proceed from the essence of God in order to subsequently reach the Father. You start from the Father, and, because He claims to be a Person and not an essence, He bears the characteristic of not being only; whereas essence can be understood as something on its own, and essence is of course one. In this way, we bypass the principial status of the unit, by introducing multiplicity as something primeval in ontology, in Gods being; obviously, the meaning of the term Father has no ground on its own, without the existence at least of a Son. Whose Father would He be, if a Son didnt exist? We would then have to concede that He wasnt always Father. However, if He was always the Father, then the Son must also have existed always. Thus, this multiplicity, this interdependence of the persons, becomes a chief ontological predicate; in other words, you cannot go past it, or behind it, in order to discover something that precedes it and leads us to it. The one Essence is not a precedent, and it is not the cause of Gods being. Precedent is the Father, as the agent, but because by definition He is automatically in a communion, He cannot be acknowledged as a single unit. This is how we must comprehend the expression God is Love. Because it is directly related to the triadic dogma, this point underwent many clarifications by the Cappadocian Fathers. That God is love, is a statement that was not first made by Christianity; Plato had already said the same thing. On the other hand, Gregory Nazianzene rejects the idea that God is love, in the sense that divine nature overflows with goodness, like an overflowing vessel; i.e., love is no longer an emotion. That is not the meaning of love. God is love means that God is constituted as an existence; He exists, within personal associations. Communion is a prime component of Gods existence; it is not something that God acquires in retrospect. Just as we can say I exist and additionally I love someone, we must try to imagine an instance where we cannot say I exist, only if I am in communion with someone else otherwise I lose my identity, I disappear. This is the reason that God is primarily the Father, inasmuch as He loses His identity altogether if He does not have the Son. And subsequently, love that communion which causes us to exist is not an emotion. Love is not an emotion; it is a relationship that causes us to exist. Love actually proves to be love, when the existential thread is cut, and you begin to float in a void. For example, death will cut this thread, and you realize that you no longer exist, if this thread is not reconnected. Because it is the other person, it is the communion with the other person that comprises the basis of your entire being.

Well, God is love essentially means that God is a Holy Trinity. It is nothing else. His essence is communion. And what do we mean by is communion? It means that we cannot imagine Him, not even as a fabrication, as an Only; Just as you cannot ever imagine yourself alone, in love. Not unless you love yourself, in which case, it is not true love. So, therefore, if you take away the Trinity and make God a unit, then you automatically create the problem of whom God loves. There is none other besides God, because that is the notion of God : He is without a beginning, and He comes before the world. Many people have this nave thought, that God is love because He loves the world; but then, the world didnt always exist. By definition, we cannot imply that the world is something eternal, and God likewise eternal, or co-eternal. If therefore God loves the world and thus exists as love, then He wasnt always love: He becomes love. He is not love; he becomes love, when the world comes into existence ( unless you follow the same steps as Origen and several others, who transferred the cosmos into eternity; in other words, to accept the world as being eternal and that the world somehow always existed in Gods mind. ) But then, God would be deprived of His freedom, because He would be obliged to possess this world and He could not exist without this world. If God this is a biblical demand is absolutely transcendental, if God is imaginable (and He should be imaginable without the existence of the world), then, necessarily, (a) He either is not love or (b) He loves Himself who is not love or (c) He must be a Trinity. The expression I love myself Implies the prerequisites of a subject and a verb: the Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, the Father loves the Spirit, the Spirit loves the Father, the Son they each love more than one. In this way, God does not love Himself, i.e. selfishly; He loves a certain person; He loves as a person, because God is a Father, a person. The essence does not love; the person loves. With Augustine, all of what I told you up to now is cancelled. Because from there onwards, an entirely new position is taken, on which many things will depend, such as the Filioque and many other things. But, compared to the essence of the problem, the Filioque issue is minute in size. The problem is summarized in the following: Does the essence of God precede the person? Augustine couldnt grasp the Cappadocians thoughts on this issue, and thus made the mistake of considering the Essence of God the one Essence as being the One God; hence the beginning of tremendous problems. In our next lesson, before closing our historical overview, we shall examine Augustines theory. Then we shall go on to an existential interpretation, i.e., to see if all these things are of any significance, or if they are simply things that we theologians say, in order to preserve traditions. Anyway, can anyone say things without explaining them? The Fathers exhausted themselves in their attempt to explain these issues, because they could see the huge existential consequences that the Dogma on the Holy Trinity would have.

II. Basic principles of Patristic teaching 3. Augustine' s views

Person, hypostasis and essence Augustine's differences Mind, memory, knowledge Positive hypostatic qualities Impersonal divinity

In the previous lesson, we expanded on the Cappadocian Fathers theology, and mainly

that of the Holy Trinity; we saw exactly how they promoted the dogma as compared to their predecessors. May I remind you of the main points: a) they clarified terminology, by making the significant step of relating the term hypostasis to the term person. b) they disengaged the term hypostasis from the term essence; Even at the time of Athanasios the Great and his contemporaries and up to the time of the Synod of 362, these two terms were linked. They therefore made this distinction between essence and hypostasis, by transferring the term hypostasis from the realm of the essence to the realm of the person. The terms person and essence are now related, and the reason they did this, was to give the person an ontological content, in order to say that the three persons are not three facades (which was what the term formerly implied), but three persons. The term person normally signified a faade and a mask, thus always giving rise to suspicions of Savellianism. So, after the Cappadocians, we were able to say that God is one essence, three persons, without the risk of Savellianism, because persons now signify hypostases, and hypostases are complete beings. c) they introduced the notion of cause within Gods being. That is, they posed the question of who is the cause of Gods existence, of God existing, and the fact that He is God and exists as a Trinity. The reply that they gave to this question, was that the cause is only the Father; and when we say only the Father, we are chiefly pointing out that the essence is not the cause (keep this in mind, because we shall see that it is of great importance) and secondly, we are denoting that neither of the other two persons are the cause. So, the cause is the Father; and from this cause, the Son is primarily evident, while the Holy Spirit proceeds from the cause (who is the Father), through Him that is from the cause (the Son). This may not be entirely clear, but we shall talk about it later on. What interests us at this point, is to clarify the meaning of the term cause; to see how the existence of God is not simply a given reality. It is a reality that is owed to something, and that something is the Father; it is a person. It is not the essence of God that broadens, expands or divides; and that is why only the Father can primarily be called God. The Father is God, in the sense that He does not owe His existence to anyone else; He is the very cause of existence, whereas in the case of the Son and the Holy Spirit, the fact is that their coming into being is owed to someone else the Father and subsequently, in God we have a narrowing down to one person, one hypostasis and therefore an unshackled cause, not a compulsory projection or expansion of Gods single essence. We shall see what significant existential consequences this has. Having set down these guidelines, the Cappadocians created a kind of theology (at least for the East, who followed them) where the person the hypostasis played a primary ontological role. Whereas in ancient philosophy the leading ontological role always belonged to the essence (each human was in essence a person, since human nature preceded him; man does not bring human nature into being, hence the priority of essence or nature, with the person in a secondary role), with the Cappadocians this logic was overturned. In God, essence does not come first; first comes the person of the Father, Who causes essence to exist. The Greek verb exist is the root from which the word hypostasis is derived; thus we say he exists. Therefore, to exist means that you are you, and not someone else; that you are an individual. Well, God exists, as hypostases. And Gods essence exists, only as hypostases. And that which makes it exist as hypostases is again a hypostasis and not any attribute that the essence itself may have. This means God exists independently, and not due to a given essence, or a given reality. And the essence, which as the Cappadocians and Vasileios said cannot be bare, cannot be devoid of a hypostasis, acquires hypostasis, it exists, it comes into existence thanks to a person, and in the form of these three Persons. Therefore in this context, the Holy Trinity is a primary ontological meaning; it is not something that we add to Gods being, instead, it is that which makes God be. In other words, if the Trinity were removed, God would not exist. Because the only way that God can

exist, is as a Trinity; and this is attributed to the Father a person and not an essence. Therefore the essence albeit important and necessary does not have that primary significance of causing God to exist. That which causes God to exist, is the person of the Father. I have insisted on these details, because I wanted you to see what happens in the West with Augustinee, who moves in an entirely different way in theology, by not bearing in mind the Cappadocians theology. It is important to stress that the West never assimilated the Cappadocian Fathers theology, to this day. The FILIOQUE has also something to do with this problem, as we shall see. And not only the FILIOQUE, but a number of other problems related to East-West differences are attributed to the fact that the Cappadocian theology was not assimilated historically by the West. Augustinees theology had interposed, and especially during the Franks era, it became the Wests theological flag, in contradiction to eastern theology, from whence, tremendous problems ensued. But the roots of these problems are found in the fact that the Cappadocian theology was not assimilated by the West; instead, Augustinees theology was sanctioned. What, therefore, is Augustinees theology? Augustinee mainly concerns himself with the dogma on God, in his writings On the Holy Trinity ( DE TRINITATAE ). In it, he is not as concerned with documenting the dogma on the Holy Trinity, as he is in finding ways to make this dogma comprehensible, to find analogies in human existence, and to somehow assist the thinking person not to reject the theory on the Holy Trinity, which at first glance is so difficult for the human mind to accept. So, while searching for these analogies in human existence, he makes a serious mistake from the very beginning, which will henceforth leave its mark on the theology of the Holy Trinity. The mistake is that he searches for an analogy or a model in one single person, whereas the Cappadocian Fathers could never see the analogy of the Trinity through the observation of a single person. They always needed three persons to draw the analogy. In other words, for the Cappadocians each divine person was a complete entity, a complete being: thus, in terms of our human experience, an exact correspondence to a trinity would be a Peter, a Kostas and a John, whereas with Augustine this is exactly the mistake he made, in that he believed the Trinity to be found only in Kostas, i.e., by observing only the one person. Notice his train of thought: By observing only one person, he perceived under the neoPlatonic influence that he carried that the essential thing in a person is the mind. This was the Platonic viewpoint: what is that which makes me be me? my mind. And this is what later led to Augustinees theory, to be subsequently developed by Cartesian and western thought in general, which has all those introvert thoughts on seeking ones conscience, of discovering myself on my own, without the need to observe anyone else nearby. The ability to think, to be conscious of ones self, is, for the West, the key to understanding ones existence. COGITO ERGO SUM I comprehend, therefore I exist. Therefore it is enough for you to say that you exist; it is enough to be on our own, in order to study your existence; that is why it is not necessary to look around you. So, by looking at one person, we strive to find therein the analogies that will lead us to the existence of a trinity. We find the following elements that Augustinee has isolated, and on which he builds his theology: a) b) springs. The basic element is the mind The basic element of this mind is memory, from which its entire existence

Observe, why memory is of such importance. It is the Platonic idea of remembrance. Everything we understand, think about and know of is stored inside us. Each one of us has a soul, in which eternally exists a storeroom of lets say - the truth. To Platonic thought, knowledge is nothing more than a recollection of this truth. The derivative of the Greek word truth is un-forgettable. When you cease to forget, that is when you find the truth; in other words, knowledge and reality emerge from oblivion. This meant that memory is the source of

existence. Mans mind has a source memory from which our existence springs. If we now take from Athanasios and the Cappadocian Fathers the traditional expression source of divinity, we will observe that the Cappadocian Fathers did not dwell on the meaning of source, because source implies something that gushes perforce. This traditional image of a source is what Augustinee embraced; he translated it from the Greek text and thenceforth related the source to the Father. There is also the term beginning the Source and the Beginning. This is also used by Athanasios and the Cappadocians, but not overly stressed by the latter. They state that the Father is the source, or that He is the beginning, but they use it in the context of a cause. The differences between these terms are very subtle. Anyway, the source and the beginning, all these are the Father, and all these are memory. To human psychology, memory is the source from which primarily knowledge springs forth. Knowledge is a basic characteristic of the mind and of the human being. God is the Mind; the mind has a source of knowledge, and the knowledge that is produced is the Logos, the second person of the Holy Trinity. In order to prove that God as an intellectual being - and especially as a supreme Mind - is not without knowledge, he believed that precisely the Logos of God was the means by which God knows. But, knowledge is always drawn from memory, and this he analyzes in great detail: I would never know this table, if the notion of a table were not already stored in my memory bank. It is the basic Platonic concept, that the ideas of all things are stored within us. Therefore, when I recognize this table, it is from within the source that is my memory, that the knowledge of the table springs from. If I know nothing, then it would mean that I am not an active mind. In order to be an active mind, I must express it, and God is an active mind; He has a Logos. And Logos signifies knowledge. So, from the source that is the Father comes knowledge that is the Logos Gods knowledge. But then, knowledge of what? (given that there is nothing else except God). Naturally, He has knowledge of Himself this is selfawareness. The Logos knows the Father the object of His knowledge is the Father consequently we have a circular reference, a self-knowledge of God. But again in accordance with another basic Platonic theory, God is not only the Mind, He is also the absolute Good. The absolute good cannot be just the Mind; it must be the Mind of absolute Goodness. According to Plato, good always attracts love and Eros, and also beauty. Just as beauty arouses Eros, likewise goodness arouses Eros, love. Now, if God is goodness and if there is no other goodness except for Him, whose love would He arouse? The Logos has a separateness towards the Father and He recognizes Him, so, by recognizing Him, He recognizes Him as the Good, and that is when Eros is born, which is the love towards the Good, who is the Father. This love between the Son and the Father is the Spirit. The Spirit is a third form of existence, by which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father; it is as Augustine called it the NEXUS AMORIS, the bond, the bond of love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit has this let us say hypostatic attribute. However, this generates the following problem. As you can see, by accepting the Father as memory, the Son as knowledge and the Spirit as love, you will have three separate definitions and descriptions of the contents of each person. Each person has its own positive function; it has hypostatic attributes. The Son has the attribute and the content of knowledge; the spirit has the content of love. Therefore, there is a way here to positively describe the hypostatic attributes of the three Persons. If you compare this with the Cappadocian Fathers and the eastern Fathers in general, you will see that for them, something like this is impossible; they avoid giving any positive content whatsoever to hypostatic attributes. When they are called upon to give their reply on what the hypostatic attribute is of the Son, or of the Spirit, and more important the difference between being born of and proceeding from, they avoid defining the difference between being born and proceeding from. Why? Because they do not want to give any positive content to the Hypostases. The Son differs from the Father, simply because He is not the Father; and the Spirit likewise is not the Son, etc. etc. Thus, we say that the hypostatic attributes are noncommuning ones, as opposed to Augustine, who gives a positive content to each Divine Attribute. Straight away, the danger of anthropomorphism arises which is exactly what the

eastern Fathers strove to avoid. However, with Augustine, anthropomorphism became a part of western theology. They subsequently used other methods to circumvent it, by means of various innovations that they inserted in their theology; however, when we say that the Son is Knowledge or the Spirit is Love, what we are actually doing is projecting through God the psychological attributes and experiences that belong to humans. In this way, the Trinity becomes a psychological conglomeration, a complex of psychological relations; obviously, this is not the Trinity that the Cappadocians wanted to speak of. However, the problem is not only there; in giving an anthropomorphic content, a psychological content, one must find a way of referring to God, above and beyond the anthropomorphic, psychological experience. This is why Augustine doesnt see the Holy Trinity as the primary classification of Gods existence. Whereas for the Cappadocians it was imperative for one to begin from the Trinity, because it begins with the Father and it is not possible to escape the Trinity, exactly because it begins with the Fathers person. Augustine does not place the person in a primary place because he does not begin with the Father. With regard to the triadic existence, he considers the Father a source, a beginning etc., but with regard to what we call God, he does not relate this to the Father, as did the Cappadocians and the eastern Fathers in general. In Augustines theology, God is related to the essence of God; i.e., there is that which the easterners call godhood. There is a difference between the word god and the word godhood. Godhood has the same meaning as the essence: God is the Father (God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ). Well, this godhood is translated in the sense of DIVINITAS, which bears the meaning of essence. With Augustine, it is clear that godhood is the impersonal, single, divine essence; thus, the one God the essence - comes first, and logically the Trinity follows, as the means by which that one God, that one essence, exists. In other words, even the notion of the Father becomes secondary, with respect to God. This is a very large mistake: Who is the one God? Are the Fathers monotheists? If so, then who is the One God in Whom they believe, when they say I believe in one God.? If we say that the one God is the essence (which is what Augustine did), then the three Hypostases the Father, the Son and the Spirit are all the same, from the point of view of ontological existence. The Father is no longer the cause, in the strict ontological sense. He is a source, but only a source in the sense of godhood, meaning that godhood pre-exists before Him. He is not the One who causes essence to exist. Therefore, the one God is an essence. This is also heard from many orthodox that God is a single essence. He is not an essence. To us, God is the Father. Now, where is the significance in placing the one God in the essence, and prioritizing the essence? The significance is this: We lose the meaning of cause and we lose the meaning of independence in the existence of God. When the essence is isolated and impersonal, it generates the existence of God out of necessity, because essence contains the element of necessity. Essence is that which exists; we do not ask why and how it exists. When we do ask why or how, then we are turning away from the essence and are moving towards the hypostases. When you say essence, you do not ask how. The how is a question placed by a person or a hypostasis. With the essence, you simply make an ontological observation: that God exists. And with this, you are also implying that He is not another essence; that He is not a man, but God. As for how this essence exists, it is a problem of the hypostasis. For the Cappadocians, the how cannot be a sequel to the fact that it exists. Without the how, nothing existing exists. This is what they mean by bare essence. We cannot consequently give priority to the essence. In Augustine however, priority is given to the essence. First we say that God exists, then we ask how He exists. Hence what occurred in the West. Two things happened in the West: the one unfortunately also applies to us . Mediaeval theology in the West divided Dogmatics - under the influence of Augustines teachings - into a separate chapter on the one God and another chapter on the Holy Trinity. How can you speak of one God, if you dont mention the Holy Trinity, given that you have accepted the equation: one God = the Father? For Augustine, this is not a problem, since he

does not accept the equation. To him, the equation is : one God = one essence. Well, according to him, we shall first talk about the one God as an essence about His attributes; and this is where he lists all of Gods attributes. (Unfortunately, the same thing is done in our contemporary Dogmatics). This is the first mistake, and it touches on the methodology of Dogmatics. However, there is another serious mistake with regard to monotheism, which continues to plague us orthodox. We say that there are monotheist religions that accept the one God, while there are polytheist religions that acknowledge a number of gods. Even today, attempts are being made on a common basis by all monotheist religions, to relate to one another. This is happening, on account of the distinction that Augustine made, which allowed for the mention of godhood or religiosity. This perception is so deeply rooted, that it is extremely difficult to remove from our mind; the fact is, the how God exists is equally primeval as the if He exists, and the if He is one. Consequently, to us orthodox, the Trinity is a prerequisite for every discussion on monotheism, when discussing it with other religions. There are other ways for one to approach the subject of monotheism, but we havent elaborated on them as yet. What is important, is that between Augustine and the East, lies the chasm of the priority of the essence, which essence relates to the one God, whereas for us, the one God is the Father. From these ideas have sprung the immense differences that we have, also with regard to a special point the FILIOQUE which we shall examine later on.

II. Basic principles of Patristic teaching 4. Discerning between Theology and Providence (oikonomia)

The kind of participation in God Negation The seminal word Compulsory 'Providence (oikonomia)' Augustine and Necessity The freedom of 'Providence (oikonomia)' The unison of action The through and the in

The question of the Provident Trinitys affiliation to the eternal Trinity was also related to the Filioque issue. The following observations on this point are basic ones. First of all, the Fathers had stressed that the essence of God is altogether inconceivable, unthinkable and incomprehensible, and, for the Fathers of the East, it is also without participation, that is, one cannot participate in the essence of God. According to the West, the Scholastics and Aquinatus, it is possible to participate in the essence of God. Therefore, from this aspect, we can discern the difference between theology and Providence (oikonomia). If theology were to concern itself only with the essence of God, then there would have been no problem, because, the essence of God is something incomprehensible and as such, we would have no theology on the essence of God. But theology, as a field of reference to God as He is throughout eternity, is juxtaposed to Providence (oikonomia), which preoccupied itself with the Trinity - the Triadic form of Gods existence. Therefore, we cannot say that here we have an absolute opposition, and that we have nothing to say; We can speak of the persons of the Holy Trinity, and not only can we

speak of them, but more importantly we can participate in the life of the three Persons. It is the life that God has precisely invited us to participate in, through our theosis: our participation in the life of the Trinity, by partaking of the filial, loving association between the Father and the Son. And that is what Christ did: he brought to this world, to us, this relationship between the Father and the Son. And He said to us now you are also a part of this relationship, and my Father shall acknowledge you as His sons. This is the ultimate gift of adoption. It is thus, that we enter the Triadic life of God. Here, there is no room for negation. One must be careful here, because lately, we have begun to flirt somewhat excessively with Negation, as Lossky for example did. There are very many dangers in this theory of Negation. With regard to the essence of God, there is no doubt whatsoever that we have Negation. Nobody can talk about the essence of God. But to confess our faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is not Negation; we know that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. With regard to the persons, we have affirmation; and it is not only a logical and intellectual affirmation because we have confessed it as such; it is a participation, an existential participation, in which we partake of these personal associations of God. With the Holy Trinity, there is no room for negation, except perhaps during the use of analogies, none of which are befitting the Holy Trinity. When we wish to describe the Trinity with human analogies, the analogies will inevitably stop somewhere, as in the analogy of the three (separate) persons etc. Since we can, therefore, make mention of God per se with regard to His Triadic existence and not His essence, then the question is posed as to whether our reference to the Trinity in Gods eternal existence is supported by, or rather reveals, the same relations and the same attributes that are revealed in Providence (oikonomia). Let us take Augustine for example. When he gives a definite hypostatic attribute to the Logos by naming Him Gods Knowledge, then whenever the Logos reveals Himself within the providing Trinity, within Providence (oikonomia), He must, above all, reveal Himself with this hypostatic attribute of His, namely Knowledge. In other words, this will be the revelation or the cognitive means by which we may reach God. And in fact, during the 2nd and moreso in the 3rd century, the meaning of Logos was conveyed in this sense. The Sons relating to the Logos in the Gospel of John, gave rise to Justin and a number of other contemporary writers to see in the Person of Christ the cognitive means by which we could reach God. That is why he placed all philosophers within this seminal logos as he named it: They are all participants of expression, therefore the attribute of the Son is a revelatory means for the cognizance of God. At the same time, the Holy Spirit manifests itself with other attributes, such as the attribute of communion, hence the Holy Spirit presents God as a communion. Now, whether the Holy Spirit and the Logos have these attributes in Their hypostases eternally, or they take them on for our sake during Providence (oikonomia), is a delicate and very significant issue. The Greek Fathers avoided giving definite hypostatic attributes to the Persons of the Holy Trinity, because if they did what Augustine did by giving hypostatic attributes, we would then have to say that whatever God is in His eternal existence (for example that He is the Logos), this would also apply during Providence (oikonomia). In this way, we would arrive at a compulsory Providence (oikonomia), because if the Son were the Logos of God, or the cognizance of God, then this cognizance must also permeate Providence (oikonomia), in order for God to be recognized. He would perforce have to be carried over to Providence (oikonomia), through the Son. In Mediaeval times, the question had been posed as to whether any other of the Persons of the Holy Trinity could become incarnate. The answer given by some was that this was possible; there was no logical necessity for the Son alone to become incarnate. Other contemporaries (and more recently Rahner and other western theologians) claimed that only the Son could have become incarnate, because He alone is the Logos Who makes God known. Within God Himself eternally, God recognizes Himself through the Son the Logos. Therefore if God wants to make Himself known to us as well, in Providence, He must again use this instrument of knowledge that He has, i.e., the Logos. This choice is subsequently a compulsory one that

incarnates the Logos. It is not free. On the other hand, if we avoid giving a definite content to the attributes of the Persons, and of course do not relate the Logos as Gods cognitive instrument, then why should only the Son become incarnate? We have no logical answer, no compulsory logical argument that could convince anyone that only the Son could become incarnate, simply because He alone has that attribute. Instead, we attribute it to freedom, inasmuch as the Son said, yes to the Father freely, and that He took on this mission ( Providence (oikonomia) ) upon Himself. We are thus moving within a realm of freedom and not in an atmosphere of logical necessity. Otherwise, if we were to give a positive content to the hypostatic attributes, we would necessarily be moving along the lines of logical need with regard to Providence (oikonomia). When the issue of the Filioque is expanded on, you shall see how both Augustine and Aquinatus indeed supported the argument that if the Son and Logos are the cognizance of God, and the Spirit is the Love of God (note Augustines argument which Thomas repeats), then the Spirits origin must be eternally dependent on the Son also, because (as stressed by Augustine) cognizance precedes Love; you cannot love something that you do not recognize. This is a gross mistake, as analyzed in the relative chapter; at any rate it gives rise to a logical argument, a logical requisite. If you cannot love something that you do not know, then God cannot love Himself, without prior cognizance of Himself through the Son, and this can be so, only if based on the association between memory and cognizance, which enables, specifies and realizes the Minds cognitive ability, which is God. It is only on this basis that Love the Spirit - can be constructed. You can understand how, in this way, we are dealing only with logical necessities when we give a positive content or positive attributes to the hypostases. And, by avoiding to give this definitive content, the Greek Fathers are simultaneously introducing an air of freedom to all the important questions such as why does the Son become incarnate, and not the Spirit? However, this means we cannot fully relate the Trinity of Providence (oikonomia) with the eternal Trinity of Theology. There is a certain difficulty here. If we do not associate it, we risk claiming that in Providence (oikonomia), God did not give nor did He show His true Self, but that He was somehow hiding something from us; that He did not tell us who He actually is. Hence, we cannot say that the Theological Trinity is one thing and the Providing Trinity is another. We must state that the Trinity is one and the same. Then where is the difference? The difference is that for the Theological Trinity we cannot say anything definitive as regards the content of the personaes attributes. We have an element of negation here. For the Providing Trinity we have positive things to say about the attributes of the Persons, but this is only because these Persons have freely undertaken these kinds of attributes within Providence. That is, if the Son appears as the revelation of the Father (he that has seen me has seen the Father), this does not mean that in the eternal Trinity the Son necessarily has this function and attribute. If the Spirit appears as love and communion to us, and as that which creates the bond of love within the Church, which builds the church etc., it doesnt mean that within the Theological Trinity the Holy Spirit has the same function. Because by the same reasoning, we could say that the Crucifixion of the Logos is similarly a part of the eternal, Theological Trinity. Just as the Son undertakes a ministration, an attribute, a relationship that He did not previously have eternally, thus the Spirit and all the other attributes of Christ that we see in Providence are not extensions of the Theological, eternal Trinity. These are attributes taken on by the Persons freely, for our sake. At this point we must make another important observation, i.e., it is precisely because these attributes have to do with Providence (oikonomia) and not theology, the differentiation of these attributes must be limited to Providence (oikonomia) only, and that when we refer to theology, we cannot make such differentiations, i.e., to say that the One is Love and the Other is Knowledge. None of these can be said with regard to theology. So, what does this mean? It means that at the level of theology, all actions - because they are in fact actions are

uniform, and simultaneous. They diversify, at the level of Providence. Let us take the Love of God. We cannot say that Love is a characteristic of only One person. We must say that Love is the common characteristic of all Persons. Like every other action, it springs from the Father. The Love of God and our Father. It participates in this action, just as the Son and the Spirit participate in the one essence and the one action. And the action is common. Every action coming from God is common to all three Persons. It is only when we reach the level of Providence (oikonomia) that the differentiation begins, and the distribution of attributes and responsibilities. In Theology, we cannot do this at the level of the eternal God. This is equally important with regard the to the unison of God; not from the aspect of essence for which we can say nothing, but from the aspect of action. Because as you know, it is by the action of God that He communicates with us and we with Him. Saint Gregory Palamas made this distinction between essence and action. It is of course an older one, it dates back to the Cappadocians, but it was systematized and exploited further, and the purpose of this distinction was to keep the essence of God unaffected by Providence (oikonomia). That is, God was to maintain His transcendence, during His actions within Providence. Of course the action of God is not something that He acquires in order to enact Providence (oikonomia); it is something that already exists. But in Theology, whih comes before Providence (oikonomia), this action is uniform. During Providence (oikonomia), it is expressed in different ways, without creating any division or distance or separation of the three Persons. The three Persons in Providence always act in unison, but not all three do the same thing. The action of God becomes differentiated in the sphere of Providence (oikonomia), without inducing a separation of the Persons. Where the Father is, there the Son and the Spirit are; where the Son is, there the Father and the Spirit are. They cannot part. But, whatever the Father does, is not what the Son does, etc. All these differentiated actions of God in Providence (oikonomia) do not comprise extensions of differentiation within he eternal Trinity. Western theology reached the point of relating provisional differentiations to differentiations within the eternal Trinity, that is, with ontological differentiations. And this is one of the reasons that it has become theologically trapped in the FILIOQUE as well. The position of the Hellenic Fathers automatically creates a radical distinction between theology and Providence (oikonomia), which was assuredly pointed out by Basil the Great (who by the way was the one who introduced this, as we have no similar formulation before him), and we shall briefly outline the history of this case. In his work On the Holy Spirit, Basil the Great introduces a glorification text or rather, defends a glorification text which he had introduced in the Liturgy in his province, which differed to the glorification that was common at the time, and was of Alexandrian origin. The Alexandrian form was Glory to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Saint Gregorys glorification for which he was obviously criticized and had to account for, by claiming that it was a very ancient form was the following: Glory to the Father, also to the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He replaced the through (through the Son) and the in (in the Holy Spirit) with also and and. There is a theological expedience in this replacement, which he expands on, in his work on the Holy Spirit. The expedience is that with the former glorification the Alexandrian one with its use of through and in, there is an underlying innuendo of God on the basis of Providence (oikonomia). Because it is precisely in Providence (oikonomia) that God appears

to us, or, that we recognize Him in this way: through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. This way also contains the element of hierarchy, of classification; i.e. the Son precedes and the Spirit follows. Basil the Great wrote, for the reason that the Spirit-militants whom he wished to thwart used this in (in the Holy Spirit) as a denoting of space, so that when they said in Spirit in the glorification, and given that in presupposes space, the Spirit is therefore understood as being within creation, inside space, and therefore not within Divinity. This was a pretext, but essentially, Basil wanted to say something more. He made this distinction that I mentioned, between the way in which we refer to God on the basis of Providence (oikonomia), and the way in which we refer to God, not on the basis of Providence (oikonomia), but more on the basis of the Eucharist experience, during Worship. Thus, this form of though the Son, in the Holy Spirit is not necessary when we wish to express the relations between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Take special note of this detail, as it is very delicate. In this way, Basil the Great creates a kind of negation, as the prepositions through and in have something definite to say about the three Persons, while the also and and do not say anything positive. They simply tell us that the one is alongside the other. In this way, Theology (in the true sense of the term) is stripped by Basil the Great, of the associations between the three Persons that is observed in Providence (oikonomia). And this is important, because as we shall see when we discuss the FILIOQUE later on, the Alexandrian Fathers and especially Saint Cyril of Alexandria, because they were based on this glorification, had already reached the point of somehow transferring the FILIOQUE to the eternal existence of God; i.e. the dependence of the Spirit from the Son, as if the Spirit proceeded eternally through the Son. We shall see, when we discuss the FILIOQUE, how this had a certain basis and had been partially accepted, that the Spirit proceeded through the Son, but it will require extremely lengthy explanations. Our topic here is to stress that, according to Basil the Great, the subject of God on the basis of Providence (oikonomia) includes associations of the Persons that are not necessarily associations that exist at the level of Theology. That was why he made these changes to the prepositions in the glorification. He replaced them with also and and, as a means of declaring that while we can say through and in with regard to Providence, in Theology there is another way, without the use of through and in. Thus, he introduced a deep incision between the Providing Trinity and the Theological Trinity, without implying any other Trinity. The conclusion therefore from the all the above is that the Holy Trinity that we see in Providence (oikonomia) allows us to give a definitive content to the hypostatic attributes. However, it is a definitive content that we cannot extend into the eternal Trinity.

5. Existential Interpretation

The freedom of Existence The hypostasis inside freedom God's yes

Bearing all the above in mind, we shall proceed to make certain observations as regards their significance, not just for us theologians who speak a language of our own, but for every human being. What is the meaning of this Dogma on God? Does our existence change, if God wasnt this or that? And what is the meaning of all these details? First of all, lets take the question of whether the essence expresses the unison of God or not. If, in other words, we were to follow Augustines theology, where would it lead us? ( I Am Referring to our existence in general ). When a teenager asks who asked me if I wanted to come into this life?, he is elevating his freedom above his existence. He does not

take his existence as something given. He would like to have been asked. He wasnt asked. Hence, he sees his existence as something restrictive to his freedom. And indeed, there are no greater shackles, than those of existence itself. Dont think of this as something strange. We have become accustomed to the moral concept of freedom; we believe that we are happy if we can choose between two, three pieces and then vote (this is what we call political freedom, or , in the moral sphere we understand freedom as being the ability to say yes or no). But a bigger challenge for freedom is that I cannot say no to my existence. And should I wish to say no to my existence, then I cease to exist and my freedom is also retracted. My freedom becomes self-annulled. But what is this attributed to? It is attributed to the fact that my person does not precede my essence; that my essence comes before my person. Should you apply this to God, and create a theology in which the essence precedes the person of God, you would have ontologically - the most un-free being of all. God would then also be shackled by His existence. Dont let it surprise you that something like this would preoccupy us. It should preoccupy us, because if God were not free to exist, then what could we expect? Why do we seek this freedom? Or is this perhaps an impermissible thing to do? No, it is not impermissible. It is within the notion of freedom. That is why we express it by creating new identities (as we mentioned in a previous chapter ), which we freely choose. And it is significant, that at the exact moment that the teenager asks who asked me if I wanted to come into this life?, he is going through the crisis of abandoning his given identities which are his family members, as well as his tendency to create his own identity, his own identities, that will be based on the unfettered relationships that he wants to define; these are defined by nature and given by the family. Consequently, freedom with regard to identity, to identifying with something and for something to exist for us - is a basic element of our having been created free by God and that we are in Gods image, therefore if God Himself isnt free according to this aspect, then we too cannot hope or expect that we shall become - or shall be free, hence freedom is a totally groundless thing. We must know whether the God in Whom we believe, and Whose images we want to be, is shackled to His existence or not; also, whether He exists because He has to exist; because He exists and cannot do otherwise. This very important subject is hidden behind the persons priority. If that which makes God exist is not His essence, but the Person of the Father, then we definitely have freedom. God does not exist because He cant do otherwise. He exists, means: He is. He is hypostasized freely. A Person is that which hypostatizes Him. Just as I can freely say to someone: To me, you dont exist. To us, this ability to say: you exist or you dont exist, is paradoxical. If you have read the Theatre of the Absurd, you will see in there how intense this speculation is. You will see in there that tendency to ignore and to say that: to me, that person doesnt exist; I ignore him. That is the absurd (of course) yet so natural element of existence: you cannot ignore it. To us it is absurd, because existence precedes essence, as an obligatory reality. And the person comes after that, because it is reacting to that obligatory reality; it wants to independently create its own identities. It ignores the objective essence and reality, but creates something absurd, because it cant actually do it. This absurdness is the logic of Triadic Theology. Logic is now the illogical ! Because in there, it is no longer illogical. It is the reasoning within Gods Being. It is because the essence does not precede, nor does it define, existence. If we think in an unorthodox way of God in this area, and we say that the essence precedes existence, then all these existential consequences appear. And God? Well, we must then either introduce the absurd element into God, or we ignore the personal speculation, and the speculation on freedom that the absurd element creates within us. Of course, to a certain point this can be done, and we do, in general terms, put aside this absurd element. But I dont think it is possible unless we deprive mankind of freedom altogether to deprive it of its protest towards the phenomenon of the obligatory fact of his existence, which implies, as I said, the precedence of the essence to the person.

So, if God exists because the Father exists, and not because the essence exists, then we too have the hope that this absurd thing that we seek, may quite possibly be logical in reality; it may become logical. The logic of Theology therefore, is the reversal or the denial of this absurd element. This absolute freedom of God is expressed in the specific way of the Triadic relationship, and here we have another existential consequence, which is the continuation of the previous one. Because for us existence is a given thing and therefore obligatory, our freedom is exercised in a double way; either by our unshackled acceptance of our freedom, or the denial of our existence, i.e. to not be able to deny my existence, to commit suicide, just as Dostoevsky analyzes it in his book The Possessed. In this way, you will be fully proving your freedom. It is only then that you prove your freedom fully: when you deny your existence. Well, for us there is the possibility to exercise freedom, at any rate there is the temptation to exercise our freedom in a negative manner, because our existence is a given thing, by someone else, hence our reaction to this existence. In the case of God, how can God be free? How can God exercise His freedom, if His existence is not a given thing? He has only one way to exercise it: affirmatively, positively. For God, freedom is a one-way street; it is always affirmation. God cannot say no. What would He say no to? His freedom is only affirmative, and thats why Gods freedom is expressed with His Triadic existence. The Fathers freedom is expressed by saying yes to the Son, the Son saying yes to the Father. It is the yes yes that Paul says was brought to us by Christ (Corinthians II, 1:19). You cannot say no within the framework of the freedom that is not provoked by given existence, nor is it given from without (that framework). With God, nothing can be given from without. Even His own self, His own existence, is not the result of His essence. Consequently, not even His existence is obligatory. He wouldnt have been free otherwise. On the other hand, if we were deprived of the ability to say no, we would cease to be free. Seeing how existence for us is a given fact, we must have the option of being able to say no to anything that is given to us from without. But to God, there is no such option of choice; freedom is not exercised by God as a choice; it is exercised voluntarily, and only as Love, in its affirmative sense. Now, if you apply this to the human existence as a fulfillment by the image of God, or as that which was revealed by Christ, or as it will be fulfilled eschatologically in the state of theosis you will see that even then, freedom is forever a one-way street (as expounded by Saint Maximus extensively). It is forever affirmative. Freedom is not the yes and the no. It is only the yes. The relative verse in Corinthians II is very revealing. Paul says there: Jesus Christ who is amongst you and is preached by you, did not become yes and no, but within Him was the yes (Corinthians II, 1:19). Gods yes and Christs yes is now the freedom of affirmation. It is from the Triadic dogma that this aspect of existence called freedom springs from or rather, is illuminated by. And how is it illuminated? By what conclusion? The conclusion is that there is only one way to exercise freedom to prove that you are free, and that is LOVE. The positive kind; the affirmation towards another being, other than yourself. To freely say that I acknowledge that this exists for me, and that it becomes a part of my existence. This is how the Trinity exists. The Father freely consents that He wants to have a Son, and He has that Son, freely. God exercises His freedom when the Father begets the Son, also when He sends forth the Holy Spirit. And he exercises it in one form alone: as LOVE, as an affirmative action, and not a negative one. His negative freedom would have been His saying that He doesnt exist; He would deny Himself. But He would be saying that, only if the essence preceded - and therefore defined His existence. Thus, a way of existence is created for man also, which is comprised of expressing, of exercising our freedom affirmatively, as love, and not negatively. This is the likeness of God. The image of God is fulfilled, precisely this self-government of man, which has the ability to say no, but when it says yes, it is exercising freedom in a divine manner. This is how one also reaches those great connoisseurs of God and mankind as well, who are none

other than the monks, whose existence begins and is supported by their eradication of their personal wills, and by their yes to the other person, and their Elder. All the above are revelations of Triadic Theology from the aspect of experience which we spoke of in the first lessons. You see now, that God - whom we theologians speak of dogmatically and have difficulty in making sense out of all this to a saint, it is just a very simple experience. He most probably wont be able to put everything in words, the way that we do, but if you observe what I just told you, when I analyzed the existential consequences of the Triadic dogma, you will immediately see that a saint comprehends them automatically; he experiences them.

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D. SUPPLEMENT 1. The Cappadocians perceptions of Gods being a. The that He is, the what He is and the how He is of God

The The The The

distinctions in the what is of God that He is of God what He is of God how He is of God

There are certain delicate distinctions in the what is God, which did not exist, prior to the Cappadocian Fathers. For example, before the Cappadocians, we do not see, nor do we have, the distinction between the essence on the one hand and the hypostasis on the other. With Saint Athanasios, the essence and the hypostasis are the same thing. We also note that, in the Council (Synod) of Alexandria (360 A.D.) these terms of essence and hypostasis are likewise alternated. Subsequently, patristic theology has its own history; it is not monolithic, we do not place all of the Fathers into the same well, and draw from within that well, at random, whatever is to our benefit. To formulate a dogmatic stance, we need to observe history and historical developments; and again I repeat that, prior to the Cappadocians, we do not have any of these delicate distinctions, which have proven to be essential for Dogmatics. Especially the distinction between nature or essence- on the one hand and hypostasis or person- on the other. So, what do these terms mean? To examine this somewhat difficult and complex issue, we shall make two basic observations; two kinds of distinction in ontology, which again- were introduced by the Cappadocians. These distinctions pertain to the way in which we refer to Gods being, Gods existence, and they are distinctions that were not arbitrarily reached, but are found reflected in philosophy. In the first group of distinctions are the ways that we refer to being in general, and thence apply it to Gods being. Firstly, there is that which the Cappadocians call that He is. That He is God, is a position that merely states that God exists. It is the way that we affirm Gods existence, and rule out His non-existence.

Secondly, the way that we refer to Gods being (and being in general) could be called the what is. In the case of God, this also refers to the essence of God; for example, when referring to any existent object to this table, for example- it is one thing to say that this table exists, that it is (thus ruling out the possibility that the table doesnt exist), and it is another thing to say what this table is. According to the standard perception Greek Philosophy, the what is pertains to the essence of the table. Thus, the what is is the essence. There is also a third way of referring to beings, and that is according to the Cappadocian fathers- as it is, which can be said more simply, as the way it is, thus stating what the Cappadocian fathers called the way of being; i.e., the way that this being exists. We shall examine this analytically straight away, and especially in the context of God. Distinguishing between the what it is and the how or as it is was stressed by the Cappadocian fathers and was introduced into patristic Theology. It became the object so to speak- of exploitation in a positive manner, by the creative mind of Saint Maximus the Confessor; according to whom, the term what it is corresponds to the reason it is and the how or as it is corresponds to the way it is. Here, Saint Maximus follows up on the Cappadocian Fathers who had originally introduced these clear distinctions; he delves even deeper and with his creative mind, he promotes this topic of ontology even more. What is of interest to us, is to see what these three distinctions represent, and how they are applied in the case of God. First, lets examine the that it is. The that it is states as I said- the undeniable fact that God exists. It should be noted that in patristic Theology, we do not have the problem of whether God exists or doesnt exist, as we do today especially with the advent of atheismbecause even in Hellenic philosophy (which was the chief opponent of patristic Theology), there was no such issue, in the guise of whether God exists or doesnt exist. The Epicureans may have somehow placed Gods existence in doubt, but they were rather a marginal group, and so the main bulk of Hellenic Philosophy considered the existence of God a given fact. So, the that it is was not for discussion, or for doubting. What is important is that in patristic Theology and subsequently in Dogmatics we can use the verb to be when referring to God. Why is this important? First of all, it is important historically, because at the time of the Fathers, in the presence of Neo-Platonism, an extreme negativity towards ontology had been introduced, and the position of the Neo-Platonists and Plautinus is probably already familiar to you, which appeared in the phrase beyond the essence. The One that represents the equivalent of God in Neo-Platonism, was believed to be beyond the essence. We cannot relate it to the being; we cannot use the term being, when referring to the One. We can apply it, only to the lower stage - the stage that is below the One - thus, one could say, that we are unable to use ontology when speaking of the One. This placement of negativist Theology which, as I said, is Neo-Platonic, can also be seen elsewhere; not necessarily in its Neo-Platonic form, but nevertheless, the trend is apparent. These writings bear the name of Dionysios the Areopagite. In them are found expressions such as hyper-ousios (=above the essence) etc., expressly for the purpose of stating that Gods being that God Himself is above; that He stands above every ontological category that we can use. Why is that? It is because now, the expression of beyond the essence is interpreted in the sense that all the categories that we use, and all the names that we use, are taken from our experience of created things; from the reality of created things. Indeed, in order to apply the above to God, one must surpass the common nature of things. Consequently, one could say that this means we cannot use ontology when dealing with Gods being. But this would be wrong. Because in Patristic tradition (and we see this clearly in the Cappadocian Fathers), negation does not surpass ontology; it does not surpass the

being. There is an important passage of Saint Vasileios in his work On the Holy Spirit, which says that, when examining phrases such as was within it and was the logos etc., no matter how one tries to retrograde ones intellect, the word was is such that one cannot surpass the being. One cannot go beyond the was, beyond being. Therefore, the verb is that God is that He is is not only permissible when it pertains to God in theology, in ontology, but it applies literally, and only for the being of God. And the proof that being (ontology) applies literally in the case of God is the fact that the Fathers use the expression God is the One Who truly Is. God is not beyond, or above the concept of being. He is the genuine, the true is. Already, by the second century in Justinian, this use is clearly evident. Later on, based on the expression I Am The One Who Is of the Holy Bible in the Old Testament, the term is again used, to denote that God is literally The One Who Is; the One Who has an actual existence, which filters through to the heart of the Church, and the heart in collaboration with the mind expresses itself chiefly in the Liturgy of the Church. The Liturgy, the Holy Eucharist, is what joins the mind and the heart. And this referral to God is by no means philosophical; it embodies the elements of worship, personal association and prayer. God as being, as The One Who Is is the One Whom we can address, Whom we can talk to during our prayer and moreso during the Divine Eucharist. In a part of the prayer of reference at its very beginning there is the following declaration, the official declaration of the Church, that God is the real, the true being : It is only deserving and fair, to praise You, to benedict You, to thank You, to worship You, in every place of Your Domain. For You are the inexpressible, the inconceivable, the invisible, the incomprehensible God, Who forever Is, and thus Is. The expression thus Is was familiar even in Platos time. It is a definition of being, of thus being; it states precisely the element of immutability, of non-change. Hence, the term being must imply something stable, because to the ancient Greeks, deterioration was always a problem. As it is to everyone. Deterioration and death turn being into non-being; to something false, deceptive; .you cannot cross the same river twice, even though the river has been named Axios and must surely be Axios. But what is the essence of Axios? What is its stable element, if it constantly changes? And what is each one of us, if he believes in deterioration and eventually in death? Even non-being can penetrate beings, and consequently render them unreal. Therefore, in ontology, in the being, we seek a stability a forever thus and a thus it is and we do find it, but only in God. And we confess it, during the Divine Eucharist and the Liturgy, at the moment of mention of Vasileios the Greats liturgy ritual: In the prayer that is said after the incantation: It is only deserving and fair, to praise You, to benedict You. It is the prayer that begins with the expression The One Who Is.Lord God and Lord Almighty. It is therefore not only unrelated to the Theology of the Church, but also to the very life of the Church, for one to assert that we do not have ontology in our referral to God. On the contrary, it is not possible to refer to God without this inference of being of true being, of an existing being, a being that actually Is; and that is precisely what is meant by that He Is. So, the that He Is cannot be doubted. It is not an issue of negativist Theology. We know it. In fact, Saint Gregory the Theologian, who very clearly in his second theological speech refers to the that He Is and says that this cannot be doubted by anyone. It is evident, even in the study of nature. So, while in the case of that He Is there is no issue of ignorance or negativism in the ontological sense, things are different in the case of what is. The what is pertains to the essence, as we have already said. And there, in discerning between the what is and the that He Is, Saint Gregory stresses that we cannot know what is the essence of God. We are totally ignorant of what is God. In fact, he tries to show us how difficult it is to know the what is, or the nature or the essence of any being whatsoever. And in his second Theological speech, he shows how difficult it is to know the mysteries of nature, the

mysteries of man, the mysteries of the human organism. Every single thing that pertains to the what is surpasses the human minds conception. How much more so, is it impossible he says- to perceive the what is, or the nature, or the essence of God. There, nobody can ever know the essence. But what about the angels, who are also spiritual beings? Neither can they perceive it. And the saints, who have been cleansed of their sins? They neither. Nobody has knowledge of the essence of God. Nevertheless, it is the essence that denotes (as we shall see and analyse it, further along) that stable and unchanging factor in any being whatsoever. That is why Saint Maximus as we said before- uses the concept of the logos of nature in order to denote the unalterable and stable factor in every being, i.e. that which makes it real, which renders it existent. Because otherwise, if you were to remove that stability factor, you are at risk of removing its actual existence. Always remember what I told you, about how deterioration constitutes a mocking, a falsifying of the status of being. It turns it into something delusive and false. That is why ontology always leans towards the stability of beings. And that is why Saint Maximus uses the concept of the logos of nature, to state that which in every being is stable and unchanging. The third category, the third means of reference is the as He is or how He is. It is perhaps the most significant of all for Theology, because here, we can speak of the how is God. This is what is referred to by the Cappadocian Fathers as the way of existence of God and they discern three ways of existence that correspond to the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit do not denote what is God given that what = Gods essence and we cannot therefore say anything about it- but it denotes the how or the as He is.

1. The Cappadocians perceptions of Gods being b. Essence, Energy and Person

The per se status of the distinctions The person and the others The inconceivable status of the essence Hypostatized essence The meaning of causality in Godhood

We have seen three basic distinctions in terminology, which are analyzed even further by three other distinctions, which we encounter in the Cappadocian Fathers and especially in Saint Gregory the Theologian. These distinctions are made, for the following reason. The Arians -and in fact the Eunomians - brought up the following issue with the Orthodox: Does the Son denote the essence, or the energy of God? If the Orthodox had replied that He denotes the essence, then they could not discern between the Son and the Father. If they had said that He is the name of an energy, then they were at risk of accepting the Son as a creation. Faced with this pressure, Saint Gregory stressed in his third homily that the Son is neither the name of an essence, nor of an energy; He is the name of a relationship. But it is interesting to see how these are discerned; how these three names are defined. Saint Gregory the Theologian on this same point and these three distinctions gives us his own definition of each of these names. They are subtle philosophical meanings, however, these distinctions are very important.

He says that essence is that which is self-subsistent inside every single thing. It is that thing, which one can refer to uniquely, with regard to its own, unique existence. Gods essence can be understood in this sense, regarding His uniqueness. That is what is meant by that which is self-subsistent in every single thing. He says that energy is that which is perceivable in other things; it is something that is understood and is found inside something else. One could also say that this thing that is observed in others (or, the event as we call it as known in Hellenic Philosophy) leads us into the concept of relationship or association. Despite all these things that refer to the person or the hypostasis, which he calls association, he clearly distinguishes them from the essence and from the energy. The person or the hypostasis is neither an essence, nor an energy. What is it then? In order to see what it is, we must see what it is NOT, with respect to the other two. We must see whether the essence is something self-existent and self-subsistent, in order to speak of the essence per se of a being. God is a divine essence. It is not compulsory, to relate the Divine essence in our minds- with any other essence, in order for us to refer to the essence. Since the person is not an essence, it must therefore be something that cannot be understood as existing on is own; it is not self-subsistent. If it was self-subsistent, it would have been an essence. Thus, since it is not an essence, it cannot be understood on its own. We cannot isolate it. When you want to speak of a person, you need to simultaneously refer to another being. You cannot refer to it alone. Whereas with the essence, you can refer to one, single essence, on its own. With a person or a hypostasis, you cannot. On the other hand though, it is not an energy either. And why isnt it an energy? Because it is not in communion with other beings, so that we can find it elsewhere. Lets take a look at this mysterious fabrication. On' the one hand, the person cannot exist without any communion with other beings, without an association. On the other hand, that which is a person cannot be found in another person, whereas an energy can. And an energy can be common to both. Nature and essence are both common; however, the essence can also logically be defined on its own. This is what denotes the essence. Thus, the person the hypostasis- denotes an identity, a being, which, albeit unable to exist on its own, cannot be perceived on its own, yet at the same time cannot be found elsewhere. While it cannot exist on its own, at the same time, it cannot be found elsewhere, except in its self. In other words, its self is so unique, so unprecedented, so much itself, that nobody else can be what it is. The Father cannot be the Son, or the Spirit. The Son cannot be the Father, or the Spirit. The terms: Father, Son and Spirit denote different hypostases or persons; they are so unique and unprecedented, that the paradox and most significant thing about them is that they cannot be found in those entities with which they have no association: they simply do not exist. Because, if the Father is not in a relationship with the Son, He ceases to exist. And even so, He still is not the Son. That is the person, i.e., it is the identity that is born of a relationship - of a communion with another entity - which results in non-communing, entities, in the sense that the one entity cannot be found within the other; neither can it be found, if not in any association with the other, because if that relationship is interrupted, then the existence of that person is also interrupted. So, if the person or the hypostasis is neither an essence nor an energy, then it must not be self-subsistent either; in other words, one cannot refer to the person singly, without relating it to something else, nor refer to it as an energy, in the sense that it can be found inside something else. For example, the energy of God. Lets examine one of His energies: His power. His power as an energy can be found in all three Persons, and it is indeed found in all three Persons. It can

also be found outside of God; it can act outside of God. This is called an event, i.e., that which we can also find outside of the essence (which essence possesses the energy), while the essence is distinguished from the energy, in that we cannot find it outside of the essence. We cannot find Gods essence inside creation. We can however find Gods energy inside creation. The energy is that which can be communed, even outside the essence. The essence cannot be communed; it denotes self-subsistence; it cannot be categorized outside itself, because it will cease to be the essence of that being. So, can the person be communed? Well, yes and no. The person cannot exist, if there is no communion and relationship in other words, if it doesnt associate with other persons. One person equals no person. One essence, yes. And one energy, yes (when referring to its results). But one person, one hypostasis, equals no person. Hence, there needs to be a communion of more than one, in order to have persons. But in this communion, each person does have its so-called hypostatic features (its personal characteristics), which cannot be communed. The Father cannot impart His paternity to the Son, nor His features. These hypostatic features - of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, or, non-birth, birth and procedure from - none of them can be communed, or imparted. Why? Because each one of the Persons is a unique and singular identity. If it is substituted by something else, then it ceases to be that unique identity. That is why, in regard to this association, which denotes the hypostasis or the person, the Fathers or the Cappadocians used the expression selfsame. At first glance, this selfsame appears to conflict with association. If we are defining the person with respect to an association, how can we define it as selfsame at the same time? And yet, the selfsame springs from an association. The notion of association is such that it creates a selfsame, a uniqueness, a sameness, something that is non-communable, which cannot be communed. Therefore, without communing with the other persons - without any association this selfsame cannot exist. Thus, each person of the Holy Trinity is unique, singular, irreplaceable, precisely because it is in an incessant communion and association with the other persons. Thus, if you sever that communion, you lose the hypostasis. Communion, therefore, is a prerequisite of the hypostasis. On the other hand, this communion creates particularity - selfsame beings - which, when communing with them, when imparting the characteristics of the one to the other, you lose them. These are the basic items, and this is the way that these terms are used in Patristic Theology. We shall see what these basic principles are, during the utilization of these terms in Triadology. Because all the things we just said are fine, and a philosopher will find them palpable to a certain point. But when we apply them to Triadology, that is when the continuity of Hellenic Philosophy is broken. So, what are the basic principles that the Fathers introduced, when utilizing these terms, which we analyze during their implementation in Dogmatics and especially in the Dogma regarding God? The first principle as we already mentioned earlier is that the what is (i.e., the essence or the nature) of God cannot be known, it cannot be conceived or comprehended by the mind. This was naturally accepted by Neo-Platonism to an extent, but, it was a basic principle of Hellenic Philosophy, of Hellenic thought, that one can come to know the essence of beings; that it can be accomplished with the mind, which, having conceived the idea, is led to the essence of beings. In other words, in order to know the essence of this table, to know what it is, then, according to Hellenic Philosophy if I am Platonically predisposed I will look for the idea of table within that very table. The table itself, no matter how much it surpasses the actual table, nevertheless with my mind which mind can surpass the being: the objective, the

revelatory being(- I can perceive the imaginary table. The more that my mind is pure, and cleansed of material things, the more I can reach and perceive the imaginary, the mental images. If I am predisposed by Aristotle, then I will look for the essence of the table in its material hypostasis. Within this material, this specific table, there are certain natural laws that supposedly cause it to be a table. The conceiving of these laws can be halted, by the mind. But, by elaborating the natural and the objective laws (and not the imaginary ones), it is possible to conceive the essence in this other way. According to the Hellenic Fathers (if we go to the Western Fathers it is a different situation, where we will examine in our future lessons how Western Theology placed itself on this issue, whereas the Eastern Fathers are very clear), the what is, (the essence) of God cannot be conceived, cannot be comprehended with the mind. the Divine is infinite and unintelligible, and only one thing about it is intelligible: its infinity and its unintelligibility. ( ) (John the Damascene). We cannot comprehend something by means of the mind. Because comprehending presupposes precisely an energy of the mind. A second principle introduced by the Cappadocians and first underlined by Saint Basil the Great, is that the essence (the what is) - does not exist without the how is or the as is (the hypostasis). An essence without hypostasis does not exist; it cannot be understood, as Basil the Great says. Bare essence cannot exist. This is very important, because in ontology, the as is has a primary position, along with the what is (the essence). Hellenic philosophy always bestowed primacy to the what is (the essence). The Cappadocian Fathers used this one could call it Aristotelian- concept, because Aristotle was actually more useful to the Fathers than Plato. By using the Aristotelian concept, they provided the distinction between the first essence and the second essence. By first essence, Aristotle denoted the specialized, the specific, while second denoted the more general. For example, first essence denotes George, Kostas, John the specific persons. The second essence denotes the general : i.e. mankind, human nature, the essence of humanity which exists both in Kostas and George and John. However, divine essence cannot come before the hypostases (persons), because bare essence cannot exist. It is likewise impossible to speak of a general humankind with regard to the human essence i.e. with people without also implying individual, specific people. The same applies with God; one cannot speak of Gods essence, without simultaneously implying the how He is, or the Persons or the Hypostases of God. Thus, the divine essence cannot logically precede its hypostases; simply because the essence cannot exist bare, without any hypostasis. Third principle: While the essence and the hypostasis (the what and the how) cannot be separated, cannot be parted from each other, or the one understood without the other, consequently, neither the hypostases can exist without essence, nor the essence without a hypostasis, in the case of God. Nevertheless, there is something that provides a kind of hierarchy. This hierarchy is derived from the concept of causality. While there cannot be an essence without a hypostasis, or a hypostasis without an essence, nevertheless, the existence of both the essence and the hypostases in they way that they are, together, is not automatic. There is a cause involved. The concept of cause, of causality in the existence of God is I insist one of the most important areas of Dogmatics and one of the most unrecognized; it was introduced by the Cappadocian Fathers, and it was introduced for the following reasons:

First of all, it was a counter-position to the Neo-Platonics, who believed that the procession from one to another (all this system of effluences of Plautinus) was a necessity and a natural evolvement of the one. A downwards evolvement naturally. To them, the fact that the one being becomes multiple (and is thus considered evil, because by becoming multiple other things, the being is degraded) occurred as a kind of necessity, without the volition of the one. On the other hand, the Cappadocian Fathers had to confront the Eunomians, who had created a principle, a philosophical Theological principle, on which they based their extreme Arianism, according to which the Son is a creation. What was that principle? It was that the essence of God and the Father are one and the same. That the Father and the Essence are the same thing. Given that the Father is per the general acceptance of the Orthodox the only One Who is Unborn, then everything that falls outside of the area of the Father (as for example the Son, Who is Born and not Unborn) automatically falls outside of the area of the essence, because the essence of God is exhausted within the Father; because it relates only to Him. It was therefore necessary to make this distinction between the essence (the what He is) on the one hand and the how He is of the Father on the other hand, in this instance. The Father is one thing, and the essence is another. The question is posed, if the Son is born of the essence of the Father, or of the Father. Naturally, the Father cannot exist without an essence. And the 1st Ecumenical Council on the basis of the Theology of Saint Athanasius stresses that the Son is born of the essence of the Father. If that is the case, then the essence as stated by Saint Athanasius is fruitbearing; it produces life. If we rest here, we must then say that the cause of this fruitfulness is observed in the life, in the existence of God. This cause which explains this fruitfulness is that very same essence. Since the essence is fruit-bearing, it therefore gives birth, just like any other fruit-bearing nature gives birth. When the Cappadocian Fathers introduced the concept of causality, of the cause, they did this in order to simultaneously defeat the idea that the cause of this fertility can be something else other than the Father. The Father is the cause. When they say that the Father is the cause, they are clearly contradistinguishing between the Father and the essence. If they were not contradistinguishing between the two, they would be falling into the same trap as the Eunomians. The Father cannot be identified with the essence. Thus, when they say that the only cause is the Father (and as we know, the eventual theological heresy related to the Filioque was based on this), then we are not ruling out that we have (in the case of the Filioque) the Son as the cause; we are also rebutting the essence as the cause. The cause is the Father. Consequently, this fertile essence the divine essence- does not automatically and naturally produce the Triadic Life as a natural consequence. It produces it via the Father via a person thus, it is in this context of causality, that we place the Father as the principal Person as compared to the other two Persons (whose hypostases are within the Father and are drawn from the Father). They do not have them by nature; nature itself is also hypostatized through the Father, and it is for this reason that all of Triadic life takes place in a state of freedom. It is not a result of a natural need. Athanasios the Great, who was the first to introduce the idea of the essence of the Father and also introduced the image of a fertile essence, was also the one who said the following, very important things. When pressured by the Arians into this dilemma: So, you say that the Son is of Gods Essence and not of Gods will? Then the Son must therefore be the Son out of necessity, he responded: Of course He is not the Son by necessity. Even though He is not of the will, He is also not the Son by necessity. And why is He not by necessity? Because it is eternally willed by the Father and is forever the will of the Father. And the important thing is that not only is the Son willed by the Father, but, as Athanasios says in his third homily against Arians: the Father also wills His own hypostasis. If we keep in mind that according

to Athanasios- the hypostasis continues to signify the essence (rather, it is the same thing), we have a double meaning simultaneously: that the existence of Gods essence, but also the essence of the Father Himself from which springs the Son, even that is willed by the Father, and that is why it exists. The existence of the essence is not compulsory. the Father also wills His own hypostasis. I shall read the entire related passage, because it is of great significance. 66. , , ; , , , . , . , , . , , , . , , , . . , , , . , , . . , . . , , . , , . , , . , . , , . . , . , . , , , , , , . , . , , , . , , .

Rendition of the above text: 66. So, because He is the Son by nature and not by choice, is He then also unwanted by the Father? And, is the Son also not willed by the Father? Indeed no; the Son is indeed desired by the Father, and, as it is said: The Father loves the Son, and everything points to this. For, just as His benevolence albeit not a product of His will- was neither against His will nor unwanted by Him implies that it was desirable to Him; thus it is with the Son, Who, albeit did not originate from Gods will, nevertheless, He was not unwanted, nor was He against the opinion of the Father. For, just as the Father willed His own hypostasis, likewise the hypostasis of the Son - who is of the selfsame essence as the Father is not unwilled by the Son. The Son is therefore wanted and loved by the Father, and it is thus, that one should consider Gods voluntary and

not unwilled status. For the Son is also willingly wanted by the Father, and He likewise loves, wants and honors the Father, and the will of the Father in the Son is one and the same, so that, it is in this, that we consider the Son as being in the Father, and the Father as being in the Son. One should not introduce the Valentinian view of a precedent will, nor should anyone be persuaded that the only means that the Father has towards the Son, is on the pretext of His will. For they would be insane, to interpose any wanting and thinking between the Father and the Son. For it is another thing to say that it occurred by His volition and another thing that it is of Gods selfsame nature to love His Son and to want Him. Because, when saying that it occurred by His volition, first of all, it could imply that the Son may not have existed before this volition; furthermore, it could imply the existence of a reciprocal tendency, inasmuch as one could anticipate the potential of (the Father) not wanting the Son. When saying about the Son It is also possible that He may not have always existed, it would be disrespectful and would also be reaching the point of daring to touch on the essence of the Father, inasmuch as that selfsame essence could ever possibly have not existed at some time. For it would be the same as saying the Father is not benevolent. Thus, just as the Father is perpetually benevolent by nature, likewise is He perpetually birth-giving by nature; When saying that the Father wants the Son and the Son wants the Father, it does not indicate the ones preceding will to want the other; it is in fact a veridicality of His nature and a feature of His essence, and a acknowledgement of the likeness. Just as when one similarly speaks of the brilliance of light (inasmuch as the brilliance does not have any precedent will, inside the light), that by nature it is a birth, willed by the light which gave birth to it, and not through any thought of volition, but only by nature and veracity, likewise, when speaking of the Father and the Son, it is correct for one to say that the Father loves and wants the Son, and the Son loves and wants the Father.

That the Son of God is of the essence of the Father does not mean that He is the Son by necessity. Based on this principle that already existed since Athanasios the Great, the Cappadocians proceeded to make the following, delicate distinctions: The distinction of causality, i.e., that the cause of the Son is the Father, since the Father Himself willed His own hypostasis, therefore He must have equally willed the Sons hypostasis. We are heading towards the limits of ontology; we cannot go any deeper. We are asking if God exists because He wants to exist, or because He cannot but exist. When we say that He willed His own hypostasis, we are saying that He exists because He wants to exist, and not because He cannot do otherwise but exist. It was on the basis of this principle of Athanasios that the Cappadocians named the Father the cause: It is His fault that God exists; He is the cause. However, the Father is not the essence; the name Father does not denote essence; it is not the name of the essence. It is the name of a person. Therefore, the cause of being lies in the freedom of the person, and in God, and is in no way automatic and compulsory. That the Cappadocians are concerned with stressing precisely this the freedom of the Father and the freedom of God is apparent in the words of Saint Gregory the Theologian in his third theological homily. In this Neo-Platonic passage he attacks both the Eunomians as well as the Greek, Neo-Platonic philosophers. He is most probably addressing the Neo-Platonics, although the concept of a crater (drinking vessel) and the overflowing of benevolence, inasmuch as God is benevolent and resembles a crater that overflows with goodness, is a concept that also existed during Plato; however, here specifically, it is with reference to the first and the second cause. The reference is therefore to Plautinus, who believed that the first and the second cause, i.e., the one that becomes many, is an unwilled, natural result. This is where Gregory responded: This, to us, is unacceptable. Why is it unacceptable? Because we would thus be introducing an involuntary birth?

To us, says Gregory, the birth of the Son cannot be involuntary. If it takes place involuntarily, then we are introducing this Platonic concept of first and second cause; of the natural overflowing, of a fertile nature, which consequently gives birth. This is a naturalistic, physiocratic perception. It contains the element of necessity. The only reason that Gregory is annoyed by this Platonic idea, is none other than because it contained the element of involuntariness (we would thus be introducing an involuntary birth). He is obviously trying to stress the voluntary status of the birth of the Son, otherwise, we would eventually end up saying that the entire Holy Trinity exists out of necessity, as a natural consequence of the essence. The 2nd Ecumenical Synod brought about an alteration to the Creed of the 1st Ecumenical Synod, and also brought about a few other minor changes. Whether it contributed, is one of the darkest and most talked about problems. Does the Creed as we know it today belong to the 2nd Ecumenical Synod or not? Regardless, the 2nd Ecumenical Synod is historically linked to the Creed that we use today, which says that the Son is born of the Father. At this point, the Nicene Creed, which is the basis of the Creed of Constantinople, had said: born of the Father. That is, of the essence of the Father What happened to the words That is, of the essence of the Father? Why were they removed? Why did all these problems arise between the years 325 and 381 A.D., which would have made evident the serious possibility that the birth of the Son would be perceived as compulsory, if we said of the essence? It would not have meant that the 2nd Ecumenical Synod refuted the 1st. It simply meant that it was being correctly interpreted; that it had to be thus interpreted, and not in any other way, because the Arians and the Eunomians were presenting interpretations containing involuntariness in the birth of the Son. In order therefore to avoid this compulsoriness, it made allowances for this change. One could say many more things, to show that for the Fathers, the basic principle was that while essence cannot be without a hypostasis, the cause of a being is the Person of the Father, the hypostasis of the Father. And the purpose of this statement is to oust the idea of compulsoriness in the existence of God. It introduces the concept of FREEDOM within the existence of the Holy Trinity.

2. The transferal of the terms essence, energy and person into Theology. (The problem of freedom) a. The prerequisites of the Patristic Synthesis

On that God is and what God is The nonexistence of bare essence and hypostasis without essence The gradation of causality and its prioritizing Causality and the freedom of existence The mutuality of the Triadic Personaes volition The seeming contradiction regarding the volition of the Father The meaning of volition Free will without the choice of data The difference in the free will of the created and of the Uncreated Freedom as a one-way street The common will of Godhood

In the previous lesson we spoke of the significance of the terms essence, energy and person as perceived by the Cappadocian Fathers and we afterwards spoke of the principles

they applied for the transferal of those terms into the realm of Theology. These were the principles: 1st With regard to the that He is of God, in other words, the simple affirmation of His existence: There should be no doubt, no question that He exists, and that this is imperative. 2nd With regard to the what He is of God: This corresponds to the essence of God, of which there is a total ignorance and incapability for one speak of it. Regardless of how close one may approach or reach God whether as an angel or as a saint there will always be something that shields the essence of God, as in the case of Isaiah who saw God on His throne, but saw Him mantled by angels. With their wings, they had somehow shrouded the essence of God the essence that cannot be seen by anyone, or be perceived, or be known with the mind. 3rd There can be no bare essence. Saint Basil the Great had said this; in other words, there cannot be any essence without a hypostasis an essence that does not have any hypostases within it. This means that when we speak of the one God, or, when we speak of the one essence of God, we must immediately also imply the persons His three Persons. The one does not precede the other, because quite simply, the one cannot exist without any hypostasis, and the hypostatic form of Gods essence is triadic. That is why we do not have essence without hypostasis. At this point, we need to add the opposite observation that there cannot be a hypostasis without essence; in other words, it is not correct for one to suppose that the hypostases are precedent to the essence, as though they can be perceived on their own, without essence. Essences without hypostases do not exist, nor hypostases without essences. This is the third principle, which places all three Persons at the same level. The persons appear simultaneously (not meant in the sense of time), as the hypostases of the essence. Nevertheless, this togetherness, this simultaneousness of the one and the many in God, bears the implication that inside this simultaneousness, there is a certain gradation. This gradation is the other principle that the Cappadocians mainly introduced. It is the gradation of causality; in other words, this appearance of the three Persons is not without a cause. Someone, something, causes this hypostatizing of the essence. God is not hypostases; the essence does not comprise hypostases without a cause. It is precisely this cause which differentiates the Father (one of the three Persons, of the three hypostases). It differentiates Him, with regard to the other two hypostases. The Cappadocian Fathers had to confront that precarious tract from the Gospel of Saint John, which was used exhaustively by the Arians against the orthodox. The familiar statement My Father is greater than me was used precisely in the context of the above meaning of causality. The Father is indeed greater than the Son, not in nature, not in essence, but only from the aspect of causality, because the Father is the cause. It is in this way that we have a prioritizing of the hypostases, on the basis of causality. According to the Cappadocian Fathers, it is this meaning of causality that is absolutely related to the meaning of freedom. When we say that the cause is the Father, we firstly mean that the birth of the Son and the sending forth of the Holy Spirit were not an effluence of the essence (which would imply that we have a precedence of the essence), nor were they compulsory, in the sense that the persons the hypostases are not antecedent to the essence, but in another, more positive sense, i.e., that they reflect freedom. And that is precisely the idea, the belief, i.e., that the hypostases the persons and consequently the very existence of God, by having the Father as the cause, and with the volition of the Father, they were neither unwanted nor unwilled by

the Father, as Saint Athanasius had said. In wanting therefore (and for one to want, one must be a person), the essence possesses the will, but the essence per se does not possess the wanter. It possesses the wanter, only in the person of a hypostasis, and not as the essence. The meaning of causality is linked to the freedom of Gods being to the extent that the wanting Father is not only the wanter of the Sons and the Holy Spirits existence, but He is also the wanter of His own hypostasis, and His own existence. As Saint Athanasius said: the Father is the wanter of His very hypostasis; and this is because it would be inconceivable, as Gregory the Theologian stressed, when responding to the question how is the Father hypostatized? as it was something that one would never even dare to consider. Because when the Arians said so, the Son is out of necessity, and not willed, Gregory had replied by saying consider the Father also: If you say that the Father exists out of necessity, then it is as though you are saying the most terrible, the most inconceivable thing, because if the Father exists without His wanting it, how can He be God, if He is compelled? And this means nothing else, except one thing that He is God ( , , . ). In other words, you may say that God is not free - just like you can say many other things but to say that He is not free to exist, is inconceivable. This means that the freedom to be the freedom to exist is a basic thing for God. Gods existence His way of existence is exactly His triadic hypostasis of Father-Son-Holy Spirit, and this freedom as to their existence applies to all three of His Persons, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. What is the cause of this freedom? It is not a freedom that originates from the essence; it is the freedom of the causer the Father. The Father is the One who wants, and this can be seen in Saint Athanasius words: for the Son also, with the wanting that the Father wants Him, by that same wanting He also loves and honors and wants the Father; and one is the will of the Father in the Son, so that thus, one can consider the Father to be within the Son and the Son within the Father ( , , ). Consequently, with the Father being the cause, He is not only the cause of the Sons birth, and the coming forth of the Holy Spirit in other words the existence of the Trinity or His own existence also but He is also the cause of voluntary (free) existence; that is, He exists voluntarily and not compulsorily. Consequently, the issue is that the free will of the Father is whence the triadic hypostasis of God springs from; from whence the essence is hypostatized into a triadic God. From the moment that we say this (that the free will of the Father hypostatizes itself, that it hypostatizes the essence as Father, Son and Holy Spirit) we are risking the issue that the Arians had identified and immediately counter-proposed i.e., that if such is the case, the Son must have therefore been born following a volition-will. So, how can we reconcile the refuting of Athanasius and the Cappadocians that the Son is born, not unwilled and unwanted, but by the wanting of the Father Who wanted Him ( , )? At first glance we seem to have here a contradiction, which may create some confusion. We need to stress that there is no contradiction, but we do need to first make a delicate distinction, which arises from the study once again of the writings of Athanasius and the Cappadocians. When Athanasius opposed the Arian position that the Son is born pursuant to the volition of the Father, he explains the reason he has done this and he clearly defines the meaning of volition that is implied in this instance: He therefore says: as for saying that it (=the birth of the Son) occurred after a volition, it first of all implies that it might have never been, and furthermore, it also has an inference of

uncertainty, inasmuch as one could assume that the Son could also not have been wanted. ( , , , ). That which bothered Athanasius, making him oppose the idea of Paternal volition, was that the meaning of volition there had the inference which he had stressed elsewhere, as that which has a proclivity towards something other, and is also indicative of something opposite, inasmuch as, with the former, one must show preference, and with the latter, one cannot show support ( , , ). The meaning of volition has precisely the meaning of choice. If I am for example- free to attend or not attend the lesson (although that is not absolute), if I decide to do it, then thats fine. But, by deciding, and by being free to choose to do it or not, I am implying that I could just as equally choose to not do it. By being truly free, I am able to choose to do or not do the lesson. Therefore the term of His volition contains that inference of something other that proclivity towards something other, which is also indicative of something opposite, so that with the former, one must show preference, and with the latter, one cannot show support. And that is exactly what he means, if we apply the idea of volition to the birth of the Son, i.e.: we would be implying that the Son could equally not have been born. But we must be careful, that he does not mean it only in this way. That which bothered him and this is most revealing- is not so much that the Son could equally not have been born, but that one could assume that the Son could also not have been wanted, in other words, that the Father could possibly not have freely wanted the Son. The paradox here is the following: Athanasius wants a volition that is free, eternal and never-ending, but it must not be a volition that requires a choice between two possibilities. Athanasius is not opposed to free volition per se; he is however against volition which implies a choice between two possibilities, because that would imply that the Son might not have been a volition of the Father; according to Athanasius, the Son is eternally wanted by the Father and he does not wish this to signify necessity. He sees volition as wanting, thus making a proper usage of words. Many of us would say that we cant use the word volition, wanting in that sense, and we thus deny free will. But then we would be in a literal conflict with Athanasius. So, how can we understand him in the essence? How can we reconcile matters? An eternal wanting, which does not contain the option of something opposite and contrary? How can these two things be reconciled? We need to delve very deeply into Patristic thinking here Because that is where the supreme mystery of freedom and existence is hidden in the way that the Fathers expounded it. Let us examine this very delicate point carefully: The fact that I could attend or not attend this lesson that I possess this choice is attributed to the fact that I am faced with two given situations. They are given. I do not create them; they are given. We make choices, when we have before us two possibilities. We do not create those possibilities; they are given, and that is the characteristic definition of the created. Because the created is precisely confronted by a preexisting reality. Because it is created, i.e. it is someone elses creation, that someone else the creator obviously precedes the creation. The creation-created therefore is presented with the challenge - if given the freedom to either accept or to not accept that which is precedent to it, as Adam was. Adam found himself in front of this choice-selection, i.e., whether to say yes to God, or no. Because God had preceded Adam, and whatever is precedent whatever we find ready is a challenge to our freedom. For instance, you have this table in front of you; you are free to either kick it, or to do whatever you want with it. It is a challenge to my freedom, to take a stance opposite that table. It is a characteristic of the

creation-created, to be faced with already existing situations, amongst which it will make its choices. Let us try to apply this meaning of freedom to God the Uncreated and in fact apply it before the existence of the world. So, how do we apply it to the eternal, never-ending existence of God? What choices can someone make, when there is nothing else around them except their self? The dilemma would then be : either they will exist compulsorily and be subservient to their self, their essence, their nature, or, they will exercise freedom in only one way: affirmatively, positively, with a yes. Because, who would they say no to ? You say no, when you reject something near you. But what can you reject, when there is nothing around you to reject? Do you reject yourself? This is a schizophrenic kind of situation, which again originates from the option for choice that we the created have. When we reject our self, it is because our self is to us- a given existence. We ourselves did not decide to be born; our freedom was not operative during our birth. The fact that we are (previously) created is what gives us the option to commit suicide to reject our self. So, if we remove the element of creation, we naturally cannot consider God committing suicide, or His exercising freedom in a negative way, with a no by Him. Because no signifies a rejection, and there would be nothing for Him to reject. So, God is left with this: Either He is compulsorily existent, or, for Him to be free, He must exercise His freedom by responding affirmatively, by saying yes to His existence, because the option to say no does not exist; because there is nothing else beyond Him. God, within His own existence, is not alone. His very existence is an ontological yes. Subsequently, His freedom coincides with His very existence. The yes of His existence is the yes of His freedom, and the yes of His existence contains the yes of His triadic existence. When the Father consents to His own existence and the existence of the Son and the Holy Spirit, He is exercising freedom. And He is exercising His freedom, as an affirmative will. This affirmative will allows no margin for a negative will - as that would be something inconceivable for the Uncreated and this is precisely what is known as the love of God. It is not by chance that Saint Athanasius in this crucial excerpt relates the will of God to the love of God. He says: Just as He the Father- is the wanter of His own hypostasis, likewise is the Son, being of the same essence, is not unwanted by Him-the Father. Therefore the Son is wanted and loved by the Father; and thus, one must respectfully consider that which is wanted and not unwilled by God ( , , . ) . Thus, we see that there is a way that we can have an orthodox approach to the wanting and not unwilled by God, and there is a way that we can have a wanting and not wanting by God. It is a perception of cacodoxy, when the will of God is perceived as a decision of choosing between options. However, this is not the only interpretation of will that exists. There is also the pious meaning of will, the orthodox concept of will. It is the Son being wanted and loved by the Father; and thus, one must respectfully consider that which is wanted and not unwilled by God ( ). When, therefore, (as Saint Cyril of Alexandria explains Saint Athanasius) the will of God goes along with His nature, then Gods freedom coincides with His existence, and it is not an issue of the freedom of yes or no. It is the freedom of yes only. It should be noted that Maximus the Confessor proposed the concept of freedom as a one-way street and not two streets, which we must choose between. This is precisely the concept of freedom that prevails in theosis. Eschatologically, we will not have the option of choice. Even with death, choices are not an option (there is no repenting in Hades), but with the Second Coming, when I

choose freely to say no to killing someone (and death has been abolished in the meantime), then what is the significance of my freedom? Eschatologically, my freedom becomes a oneway street. It becomes the yes. That is why it is characteristic in theosis. Yes is Gods way of existence, as Paul says in his Epistle II to Corinthians: Christ is not a yes and no to us, but everything is become yes in Him ( , ). The yes does not imply compulsoriness and non-freedom. God is the God of yes in His existence. He is an eternal yes towards the Son and the Spirit, which yes is reciprocated by the Son and the Spirit, towards the Father. Consequently, there is a respectful way of referring to the wanting and not unwilled by the eternal God. This is the respectful way. The Father therefore freely and out of love gives birth to the Son and sends forth the Spirit. Freely and out of love. Because this wanting and loving by the Son, and the Sons being wanted and loved by the Father ( , ), is precisely equivalent to the existence of the Son; to the Sons being. Thus, by the wanting that the Son is wanted by the Father, by the same wanting He likewise wants and loves the Father; and the wanting is mutual. ( ). When a creation makes a choice, we can have a variety of wills/wants. The freedom of a creation allows for various wills/wants, whereas here, freedom entails only one will. Gods will is only one, and that is why it is linked to His one nature, to His one essence: and one is the will, of the Father in the Son ( , ). It may be only one will, but it is not characteristic of the essence. It could be characteristic of the essence, but it does not originate from the essence. When we say of the Father, we mean that the will originates from Him; that He wills/wants to exist as God, and that is why the Father par excellence is God. In the Bible, God=Father and according to the Greek Fathers, God=Father. Only to the Westerners is He is an essence. From Augustine onwards Therefore the Father as the cause- is the One Who freely wills His very hypostasis the hypostasis of the Trinity, and it is with this, that we should confront the problem that arises with the Arians, when Athanasius rejects volition without rejecting wanting and not unwilled. The contradiction therefore which at first glance this concept presents, is lifted and is solved in this manner. The subject is very, very difficult.

b. The contribution of the Cappadocian fathers The Patristic concept of the person

Relating hypostasis and person The Father as the cause of existence Savellius positions The three suns of the Cappadocians The inter-embracing (perihoresis) of the persons The individuality of the persons The essence in the person The one person of Augustine Augustines Platonic influences The differences between the Cappadocians and Augustine The person according to Augustine The hypostatic qualities The person and the community Negation and pitfalls Western Personalism

The basic elements that the Cappadocian fathers contributed to the dogma on God are the following: First of all, they contributed towards terminology. They shifted the term hypostasis away from its original connection to the term essence (which it had until that time, and even had almost the same meaning) and they moved it towards the person. They related the term hypostasis to the term person. The theological significance of this shift is that by their relating the person (which was a suspect term for Savellianism, because in the ancient Greek language and usage, the word person implied the faade or the mask worn by an actor on stage) to the term hypostasis, the term of person now acquired an ontological content. The word hypostasis implies that something or someone actually exists; that they indeed and truly have an actual hypostasis. Whatever is regarded as non-hypostatic is that which has no true existence, no actual hypostasis. We still acknowledge this inference today, when we (Greeks) use expressions like These rumors are non-hypostatic, when we want to stress that something is devoid of truth; that it does not have a comprehensive, ontological content. The hypostasis is that which provides a comprehensive, ontological content to someone or something. And that was precisely the contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers. By acknowledging, by naming the three persons of the Holy Trinity hypostases, they attributed to each of the three persons a full ontological hypostasis, thus avoiding Savellianism, which did not acknowledge a full ontological hypostasis to each person, but instead attributed to each of them the notion of individual roles that are enacted by the one and the same person. The third element that the Cappadocian Fathers contributed was that they not only endowed a complete hypostasis to each of the three persons, they in fact attributed the cause of Gods existence to the person of the Father. In other words, they attributed the beginning of Gods existence to the person of the Father to a person. In view of the fact that they introduced these new elements (note: in the terminology, not in the dogma), the Cappadocian Fathers utilized images and analogies when referring to the Holy Trinity, which always had the characteristic of comprising complete beings. In the 1st Ecumenical Council, with the theology of Saint Athanasius it was stressed very much that the Son is born of the nature -or of the essence- of the Father. That could have been misconstrued as an extension of the Fathers essence, and not as a birth of a complete and independent entity. If we have three extensions of Gods essence, then we are dangerously close to Savellianism. That is why such a huge reaction against the homoousion had been raised, by those who were concerned that the homoousion -as defined in Nice- might contain in it the danger of Savellianism. Savellius viewed God as a unit that extended itself; a unit that expanded and took on these three separate roles, and that in the end, this group would again contract unto itself, and become once again the original one unit. He saw God as a being that extended itself and acquired three offshoots which had the same essence. The Cappadocians wanted to eliminate this interpretation, hence their insistence that these three persons are not extensions of the one essence, but three independent, complete entities, and that is the reason for their stressing the meaning of hypostasis. The images they used for this purpose are characteristic. In both the 1st Ecumenical Council as well as the Symbol of Faith (the Creed), we note the image of light, which was used to

portray the unity between the Father and the Son. There is the image and the expression of: light out of light. Just as light emanates rays that cannot be distinguished from their source, nor the source from the rays, this proved itself to be a useful portrayal, to indicate that the Son is united with the Father inseparably, as light out of light. The Cappadocian Fathers found this depiction inadequate, as it (the rays) could be construed, as the extension of a body, also, the Son could be construed as an energy of God. So, instead of saying: light out of light, they preferred the concept of three suns. Not just a light that originates from a light, but three individual suns, three lit torches. These are the favored depictions, by which it is illustrated that we have three self-existent, complete persons, which, together with this depiction, are simultaneously presented as united. But here is the critical point: What is that common thing that unites those three suns? It is the common essence, the common energy which they possess, because all three suns emanate the same heat and the same light. Consequently, the energy is common to all three, and the Essence which goes along with the energy- is also common to all three. It is in this manner that the presence of their hypostasis and the fullness of each person and their unity are simultaneously depicted. In the analogy used for man, they used three persons in order to denote the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Just as Basil, George and John are three persons, three people joined by a common nature, a common essence, which is their human nature, so can the three persons of the Holy Trinity be denoted by the image of three people. In the instance of God, an adjustment of this depiction is necessary, because it is different to the instance of three people. What needs to be stressed as an introduction to what will follow, is that the Cappadocian Fathers insisted that each person of the Holy Trinity comprises a complete entity, and that the depictions we use should be depictions of complete entities and not extensions of a body. Three suns, three torches, three people. This is the way to denote the full hypostasis of each person. This led the Fathers to a special way of referring to the association between the three persons, in order to denote the unity and at the same time the individuality and fullness of each one. This was named the inter-embracing (perihoresis) of the persons. The three persons are inter-embraced. The one is found entirely within the other. In this way, each person retains his self-existence and fullness, but at the same time they maintain their unity. In the 38th epistle of Saint Basil, we note the following that was written by the saint, regarding the subject of inter-embracing: Whatever the Father is, is also found in the Son. And whatever the Son is, is also found in the Father. The Son is found in His entirety within the Father and He respectively has the Father in His entirety within Him. Thus, the hypostasis of the Son is the image and the likeness by which the Father is recognized. And the hypostasis of the Father is recognized in the image of the Son. This is where the phrase of the fourth Gospel relates to : Whomsoever has seen me, has seen the Father, for I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Whomsoever sees the Son, also sees the Father. The Father is fully present, and the Son is fully present within the Father. In this way, each hypostasis, each person becomes the bearer of the entire Essence. Godhood cannot be partitioned or fragmented; each Person possesses godhood, undivided and complete. This is precisely what allows each person to exist inside the other persons. Saint Gregory the Nazianzene says: Godhood is unpartitioned, among its parts. Godhood, nature, essence cannot be partitioned. It is however found in full, in the individual persons, in other words, in the persons that are different to each other. Here we have a mysterious, paradoxical concept, which of course one could call a mystery (like the whole mystery of the Holy Trinity) and not attempt to comprehend at all. But, as we attempted to do so with the other aspects of this great mystery of the Holy Trinity, we shall

likewise attempt to shed light on this mystery also. How is it possible, for one person to be the bearer of the entire Essence, and how is it possible for a person to exist inside another person, without losing its identity? Because, if we place two persons inside each other, there is the risk that they may relate to each other so much, that their individuality may be lost. On the contrary, here, the existence of the one person inside the others actually creates an individuality, a selfsameness, an anotherness. In our experience this is not possible, and the Fathers attribute this to the fact that our nature the essence of humanity- is partitioned when the person comes into being. No single person is the bearer of the entire human essence, because if he were the bearer of the entire human essence, then at the death of one person, all people would have to die all of the essence of humanity. The entirety of human nature would be eliminated, with the death of one man alone. But in the case of mankind, we have a partitioning of the essence and of the nature, with the birth of every single person. This is attributed to the fact that the created being is composite, it has a beginning, and it moves within the limits of space and time, where space and time divide, and not unite. This is why the created are also mortal/perishable. These conditions cannot apply to God, as God has no beginning, and He has no mortality. Subsequently, He has no partitioning of the essence. With the three persons, the Essence is not partitioned into three parts, so that each person has a part; instead, each person takes all of the essence, it has all of the essence. In our experience, if we examine the biological hypostasis of man, we can see that this does not apply, because we are all born with this partitioning nature. Hence the existence of death. Apart from the above, in our experience when we refer to personal relations, we can observe the phenomenon whereby a specific person has been regarded as the bearer of the entire human essence, of human existence. For example, in an announcement regarding the victims of a battle, the Ministry of Defence will say that there were ten fatalities. To a person who has no personal relations with those ten dead people, they are ten different people, whose individual deaths did not affect human nature in its entirety. Other people continue to exist, who continue to live and therefore human nature will continue to perpetuate itself. But for the mother of each of those deceased, or for someone who had a personal relationship with them, that one deceased person is a bearer of the entire human essence. He cannot be counted as one of the ten. He is the one, the person, the entire person. All of human nature is at risk of vanishing, when one person vanishes. This is our experience within a personal association. Outside of a personal association, we cannot have this kind of experience. And why is this? Because this unity is so close, between two people, that the one actually considers the other to be the bearer of human essence, of human existence in its fullness, With these precise types of categorizing in the back of our mind, we can explain why this paradoxical and no less mysterious phenomenon occurs, as applied to the Holy Trinity. For example, when considering how the murder of one person is equivalent to a crime against all of mankind. Or, when we say after all, only one man was killed, the world isnt lost Why is this? Where do all these ideas of generalizing, of absolutizing a single person to such an extent spring from? Well, all these ideas spring from our experience of personal relations, from our experience of the person. The more we regard someone a person, the more we regard him the bearer of humanity overall. We have taken this from the concept that we have of God, because this is what God, the Holy Trinity means: that a single person is not a portion of the essence; it is the entire essence. Thus, we can observe in our own experience also, indications of such a Triadic existence the same manner of existence as the Holy Trinity. And that is what makes us human beings the images of God. When we say that man is made in the image of God, we need to look for the analogies between God and man, based on the triadic association. This is why the dogma on the Holy Trinity is so important. Because it sheds light on mans very existence.

Continuing on with this historical retrospect, we saw what the Cappadocian Fathers contributed. With the Cappadocians, the dogma was completed in the East; practically nothing else was added, nothing was further elucidated afterwards. If we were to divide the Fathers after the Cappadocians (like Maximus and John the Damascene, who did not contribute essentially towards any topic but were able expressers of Patristic thought), then, on the subject especially of the dogma of the Holy Trinity, we could say that no-one had contributed essentially, after the Cappadocian Fathers. They did, however contribute essentially; they had actually made huge steps in completing the formulation of the dogma on the Holy Trinity. Thus, in the East, the Greek Fathers came to a halt at the Cappadocians, with regard to the dogma on the Holy Trinity. Whoever is not acquainted with the Cappadocians, is not acquainted with the dogma of the Holy Trinity. One cannot learn about it from anyone else, only from the Cappadocians. Prior to the Cappadocians, many ideas had been expressed, which, however, needed to be supplemented by the Cappadocians. With the Cappadocian Fathers, the East possessed the dogma on God in its completed form. We shall now take a look at the West, to see what was going on there. The first thing we observe, is that the Cappadocians were not well known in the West, nor did they influence the Western theologians and writers in essence. And when we say the West, we are chiefly referring to personalities such as Saint Ambrose of the 4th century. Before that, we have Tertullian, and Hippolyte who was a Hellenic Westerner, not just a Westerner. All of them comprised the antechamber of the Cappadocian Fathers theology. In the West, the one who placed his seal on Western thought and Theology with regard to the Holy Trinity was Augustine. And even Augustine did not appear to know of the Cappadocians, nor was he influenced by them. For a very long time, Augustine was unknown, even to the West. However, with the rising of the Franks, Augustine became the banner of (initially) Frankish only theology, but eventually of the entire Theology of the West and the source from which westerners drew all of their theology, and especially their Triadic theology. This is why it is important to see how Augustine contributed to -and expressed- the dogma on the Holy Trinity. The first thing we must observe is that Augustine did not apply the concept of three individual persons, three different entities, when denoting the persons of the Holy Trinity. He presented us the basis of one single person. He believed that by observing one person, one can be led to the analogies required to speak of the Holy Trinity. We have here a radical difference to the Cappadocians. By taking one person as the basis, Augustine attempted through the observation of that one single person- to formulate images that would assist in expressing the Holy Trinity. In this detail, Augustine was obviously influenced by neo-Platonism; so, in order to find a way to somehow shed light on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, he utilized Platonic anthropology in the belief that in there, he would find all the elements that were required for these analogies. Platonic thought located the humans essence by observing a human being; it was that, which supposedly made the human a human : it was the element they called the Nous (mind). The Nous of man was supposed to be his main characteristic. It was the Nous that caused man to exist, in a manner that was not merely biological, but also metaphysical. Now, if that concept is transferred into the dogma on God (and Augustine did this), then the corresponding metaphysical concept would be to likewise call God in His entirety, in His essence, Nous. This image was not used for the first time by Augustine, i.e., that God is Nous. It was something that Plato had also said, and numerous other Christian theologians such as Saint Augustine had said, and many others also. Later on, this concept was adopted

by Origen and Evagrios, who pursued and expanded on Origen. All of them spoke of God with this concept of Nous: God is a Nous; He is the supreme Nous. And because man is also a nous by nature, he is related to God, through the nous. So, we have here an analogy. When we look at a human, we will supposedly see that in essence, he is a Nous. And this precise fact that God is Nous in essence is what denotes the unity. The one God is seen as one, big, metaphysical Nous. Moving on from this basis, and observing human psychology, we notice that the nous of man consists of three basic elements. The one, supreme element is the element of Memory. Plato had slightly related the Nous to the notions of Benevolent (Agathos) and Good (Calos). The term Good also denoted the fair, the beautiful (i.e., in composite words beginning with cali-). With this as his basis, Augustine attempted to elucidate the mystery of the Holy Trinity, by presenting God as the Good, who, being a Nous, has Knowledge. But, what does He have knowledge of, if there is nothing else beyond God? He must have knowledge of Himself. Therefore, knowledge must imply a knowledge of His Self. Given that the Good and the Benevolent exert an attraction and this is also a Platonic idea- it is not possible for the Good not to attract someone who will love it. That is supposedly why the Good and the Benevolent love each other. And love in this instance- is supposedly the love of Gods Nous for His Self. God loves Himself; He is attracted by His Self. These are the three elements on which Augustine rested the analogies for the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Thus, he puts the Father in the place of Memory; he puts the Son in the place of Knowledge and the Holy Spirit in the place of Love. Thus, God is supposedly something analogous to these three psychological characteristics which we find in man, i.e., Memory, Knowledge and Love. That is why the Spirit is referred to as the Nexus Amatis (the bond of love) between the Father and the Son. We shall see later on how significant these points are, especially with regard to the Filioque problem. What we should stress is that we are now in an entirely different theological cosmos to that of the Cappadocians and the Greek Fathers in general. We will now highlight the differences. The first difference is that according to the Cappadocians- we require three persons in order to denote the Holy Trinity; three individual persons. One is not adequate. We cannot envisage the Holy Trinity through introversion, through an observation of ones self. Man is not man because he possesses nous, memory, logos, or love. These are not the elements that comprise the term in the mage of , i.e., mans image; but according to Augustine, one could say that these are precisely the elements that compose the image, i.e. mans being in the image of God. Many Orthodox also have this same impression of the logos, of logic (you see, this theory of in the image of is not exclusively Augustinian), and they too place the concept of in the image of there, i.e., in the logic of man. If we observe closely, we will see that, in order to obtain an image of the Holy Trinity, we need to have a communion of more than one persons. One person is not sufficient. One person equals no person. But Augustine (and this is important) portrayed the person as a thinking object., and in this way, he opened up a path which continues to be walked by the West and by some of us, as we are also influenced by Western thought. To Western thought, the person is no longer what it was to the Cappadocians; instead, for someone to be a person, one must possess the faculties of logic, of self-awareness, of cognizance and in fact, a cognizance of ones self. This self-awareness was subsequently pursued by western philosophy in general, and chiefly by Cartesian. Others followed him, such as Kant, Hegel, the Illuminists Thus, when in the West as well as here- one says: he is a person, it is implied that he is someone with a developed awareness, of himself as well as of others. In this context, the main characteristic of a person according to western thought

is his awareness, his conscience. This psychological approach of the person gave rise to the problem of: what happens to those people who do not have a developed faculty of awareness: are those people considered deficient, as persons? Nowadays psychology fervently contemplates this point, and the tendency is to admit that these people are indeed deficient. In fact, it is striving to pinpoint that time in mans life, during which he actually becomes a person. So, they ask themselves: When does man become a person? Of course it cant be during the fetal stage, before birth, nor when one is still a young child (which has no awareness of itself), but only when one is grown up and has acquired an awareness, a conscience of ones self, only then does one become a person. This is a hazy perception, which is attributed to Augustine, and more specifically, it is attributed to his triadology. To the Eastern Fathers, to Eastern thought, perceptions such as these regarding the person are non-existent. We shall now make our comparisons on this point, in more detail. To the Fathers of the East, it is not possible to express the three persons on the basis of their characteristics, and especially psychological characteristics such as memory, cognizance, volition or love. Cognizance, volition, love, all of these are associated according to the Greek Fathers- with the one essence of God. They do not denote three different persons. So, which are the three different persons, and in what manner are the three persons denoted? They are denoted by their hypostatic characteristics, which are of an ontological nature. In other words, the Father has the hypostatic characteristic, the hypostatic quality, that He is unborn the only unborn One (as a negative aspect), and (as a positive aspect), that He is a Father, inasmuch as He has a Son. The Son is denoted negatively, inasmuch as He is not a Father, and positively, inasmuch as He is born. The Holy Spirit : negatively inasmuch as it is neither a Father or a Son, and positively, inasmuch as it proceeds from somewhere, and to proceed from somewhere signifies something different to being born of someone; but what that difference is exactly, we cannot say. It merely denotes that the Holy Spirit is not the Son, because if the Spirit were also born of the Father, we would have two Sons. The Son is one, therefore the one person is born of someone. So, how do we denote the other person, who comes from the Father, but is not born of the Father? We denote it, with the concept of proceeding from the Father. These three characteristics, Paternity, Filiality and Procession, denote an ontological association. And what do we mean by ontological association? We mean that these are the ways these three entities exist. These characteristics do not denote how these entities feel or how they think; nor do they denote love, cognizance, etc. They simply denote a manner of existence. This is what the Cappadocians meant about the person : they implied the manner of existence, the manner in which each person of the Holy Trinity exists; how they are each subject to existence. The Father does not come into being; He simply exists, but He exists as the Father. And that is something ontological, because the term Father signifies one who brings the Son and the Spirit into existence. Thus, for the Greek Fathers the names of the Holy Trinity denote their ontological differences, their ontological peculiarities, and not their psychological experiences. There is a positive and a negative side to these hypostatic characteristics. Saint Cyril of Alexandria (and before him, Saint Athanasios and the Cappadocians) continuously stressed that there is a difference between the terms unborn and Father. They both pertain to the same person of course, but they have different meanings. This is because the Eunomians tended to relate the notion of unborn to the notion of Father. The Father (says Saint Cyril of Alexandria) is a term which denotes that God has a Son. God cannot be Father if He doesnt have a Son. This is not the same as saying the Father is unborn, because unborn merely signifies that the Father was not born of anyone. This served the Arians and the Eunomians purposes to simply declare that He is unborn. But not so, when we name God

Father, because that way, we are giving a positive aspect to Him, inasmuch as He has a Son. Consequently, He could not be a Father without having a Son, nor could He become a Father some day, since He has been the Father eternally. Consequently, the Son has also existed eternally. This was precisely the Orthodox argument that confronted the Arians theory. In the term Father we also have the unborn element, however; the term Father itself is the positive aspect. In the concept of Son, the Son is the positive aspect, i.e., it denotes the way in which He came into being; it is His manner of coming into existence through birth, which is not merely an ontological dependence, but a special manner, which we cannot define how it is thus, but only that it is special. He differs from the Spirit, because the Spirit also originates from the Father; there is also an ontological dependence, but with a different manner of existence; a different manner by which the Spirit came into existence. Thus, according to the Greek Fathers, no psychological categories are utilized in order to denote the persons of the Holy Trinity, whereas according to Augustine, there are psychological categories which lead us to a perception of God; categories that permit the images of God (man) to be considered a person, even when there is only one. But, as a consequence of the Cappadocians Theology, a person cannot be a person in that manner. It must be in communion with other persons. According to Western Theology, it is possible to refer to one person, and thus, the person is related to the person. Here, we not only have a literal relating of the two terms, of the two words; we have an essential relating of the person to the person. In other words, the person which is also used by the Greek Fathers, but as an alternative word for person (we find this alternating usage in John the Damascene) in no way has the same meaning as it does in Western thought, Western Theology. In Western Theology, the term person signifies an isolated person/being, which does not need to be perceived in communion with others, with a reference to others; whereas for the Greek Fathers, the term person bears an inference to association and cannot therefore be perceived as an isolated being/person. There are even broader consequences for the perception of man, within the triadic Theology of Augustine. Before examining these consequences with regard to human existence, we must firstly examine them in depth, with regard to the dogma on God. To the Greek Fathers, memory, cognizance, volition and love are common to all three Persons (of the Holy Trinity). They are either energies, or, they are associated with the nature the essence- of God. In this way, (although we have here a very delicate issue, which is misconstrued when we speak of the person) the Greek Fathers refer to the persons of the Holy Trinity, without bestowing upon God any anthropological-psychological experiences such as these (memory, cognizance and love). That would have meant the risk of anthropomorphism; we would have projected onto God the psychological experiences of man. This projection of psychological experiences does not exist in the Greek Fathers, and it is for this reason that so many have spoken so much on negation and negativity, with regard to the persons. Lossky was the first to make such an observation and many Orthodox also follow him today; they want to state that, when referring to the persons of the Holy Trinity, we have a concept of person that does not correspond to the concept of mans person. They too have based themselves on the assumption that the only possible notion of person is the psychological one. It is the western idea of Personalism, which does not see man in any other way, except as that object which has a conscience and psychological faculties. So, given that this Personalistic perception of the person developed in the West, many Orthodox today likewise consider it a bad thing for one to speak of a person when referring to the Holy Trinity. Of course, it is something they cannot avoid, because it exists in their terminology, but they find it dangerous, for one to notice corresponding points in human

existence. The error here is located in the fact that they base their view on the presupposition that the only way to speak of a human person is through Personalism, i.e. self-awareness. But a faithful Theology, instead of taking vrious anthropomorphic, human experiences and transferring them to God, should take from Triadic Theology the meaning of the term person and transfer it to the human person. This is imperative; otherwise, we cannot speak of man according to the image and the likeness of God. Here, Augustine has shaped God in the image and the likeness of Man, and that is why he has attributed psychological experiences to God, and that is also why western Personalism -quite correctly- cannot relate to Triadic Theology. And from this viewpoint, they are also correct, who say that it is futile for many people to speak of person, if they do not utilize the Patristic notion of person. The mistake is in the contemporary stance that: Since we have western Personalism, it is therefore inappropriate to embrace the concept of the person, which is found in the Theology of the Greek Fathers ! And this, precisely, is Orthodox Theologys contribution: To put aside that western Personalism, and to draw from Triadic Theology especially of the Cappadocian Fathers- the meaning of person. This way, man can become in the image and the likeness of God, instead of God becoming in the image and the likeness of man. The dogma on God is of great importance, for the meaning behind mans person. In theosis, man becomes nothing else, except a person that is in the image and the likeness of the Holy Trinity. We cannot attain theosis through our nature. Our human nature cannot become God. My divine nature and my human nature cannot become God; it cannot become divine nature. Created nature cannot turn into Divine nature. However, Man can become a person; he can become a child of God and recognize God as his Father. All of the above imply personal relationships, which cannot be comprehended by means of western Personalism, nor can they be comprehended with the help of Augustine. We need to comprehend them by means of the Cappadocian Fathers Theology, and Theology here has a very serious workload.

C. Augustines theology and the problem of the Filioque

Augustines Platonic basis for understanding God Memory in Augustines concept Truth derived from Memory Socrates obstetrics method The Logos derived from Memory The Holy Spirit perceived as Love Augustines differentiation from the Cappadocians The Savellian danger of the Augustinian example The danger in Hypostatic Characteristics and Anthropomorphism The Augustinian God-Essence Paternal Monarchy and Holy Spirit Praying to God, or to the Essence of God? Praying to the Persons of Godhood The two aspects of the Filioque The historical aspect of the Filioque Charlemagnes ploy

On examining Augustines triadic theology, we noted the following: Just like the Cappadocian Fathers and the other Fathers, Augustine also sought ways of expressing that supreme mystery of the Holy Trinity. In his search for those images that would at least somehow express the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Augustine resorted to the notion of the metaphysical, perfect Being who is God; which perfect, metaphysical Being Augustine had depicted on the basis of Platonic belief regarding the perfect metaphysical Being. According to Platonism, the perfect metaphysical Being (which relates to God Himself) is the Nous (mind, intellect). Consequently, the Nous relates to God. God equals that perfect Being, which in essence is the Nous. However, according to Platonism, that perfect metaphysical Being who is God, as the Nous, also possesses three other characteristic elements. One of them is Memory. The perfect Nous, the perfect eing who is the Nous, possesses the characteristic of emory. To Platonism, Memory is of special significance, because Platonism commences from the notion that the entire truth is accumulated, stored, in the past. In other words, mans soul is eternal its origin is eternal therefore, given its eternal origin, the soul is endowed with the full truth, as though it is somehow stored within it. Memory therefore is a very important thing for Platonism. It is the source, from which truth unfolds and manifests itself. God therefore, as a perfect metaphysical Being, possesses this source, this storage tank that contains the entire truth. God therefore possesses Memory; and that which is Memory in the case of God (and as we have already said, it is the source of life, thought, and energy of this supreme Being, this Nous, this God) is -in Augustines dogmatic language on the Holy Trinity- referred to as the Father, because the Father according to standard Christian belief- is the source of all life in the Holy Trinity. Thus, in using this correlation (the element of Memory), Augustine proposed a very clever means of expressing the Father. But in this perfect metaphysical Being, Memory is not inactive. It does not remain inert. It is Memory, because it is the storage tank the source- from which Knowledge proceeds, and from which the Truth proceeds. The (Greek) word for Truth is - (pronounced Alethea), which is a composite word, made up of the privative and the ending (lethe, oblivion). In other words, (Alethea) means that which is remembered, or that which does not fall into oblivion, but rises up to the surface of Memory. Thus, the Truth comes forth from within Memory. But Truth becomes characterized when it sees the light, through the realization of things. And that is what is called Knowledge, i.e. when Truth comes into the light. When a tutor implements the Socratic idea - the obstetrics method of acquiring knowledge - he too is drawing from within the pupils soul those things that the pupil supposedly always knew, because according to Platonic perception, nothing is new. The tutor gives nothing new to the pupil that the pupil didnt already know beforehand. The pupil knows everything; every kind of knowledge is apparently already stored away, inside his soul. Because knowledge is supposedly borne by the soul, and because each persons soul is eternal, it therefore carries knowledge inside it. Consequently, what the tutor does, is to deliver knowledge by means of the dialectic practice (dialogue). He delivers (like an obstetrician) and extracts. He extracts, until he succeeds in bringing the pupil to the stage of acknowledging: Yes, it is just as you say. The moment in their dialogue that the pupil says It is just as you say, master, that is supposedly the moment that the child is born, so to speak. (This is the obstetrics method, in other words). That is the moment when the perennial Memory of a Truth is extracted from its storage tank, and becomes Knowledge. So, it is from this source of Memory that Knowledge comes from, and it is in this depiction that Augustine finds a useful correlation, given that the Son is also characterized in classical and Christian terminology as the Logos. The term Logos is a concept that contains the

element of Knowledge, of reason. It is a Knowledge that is born of Memory. But this perfect metaphysical Being again according to Platonic perception- not only has Memory and Knowledge; it also has Love, because it is attracted by the Benevolent, the Good and the Beautiful, and therefore God Who is the perfect Being, the perfect Nous- cannot lack this element of Love. Augustine finds a correlation to the Spirit here. So, the Spirit is the Will or the Love- that this supreme Nous has Thus, in his work on the Holy Trinity, Augustine succeeded with the help of Platonism to somehow formulate an Apologetics of his own; i.e., to translate the dogma on the Holy Trinity into a language form that was familiar and acceptable to the intellectuals in his environment. But in attempting this, Augustine was digressing from the basic principles that the Cappadocian Fathers had outlined in the East principles which he may not have been aware of. Here we have a classical example of differentiation. What does that differentiation consist of? Well, one basic differentiation is that we can relate all the above analogically, to only one person; which means, we can theoretically refer to the dogma of the Holy Trinity by looking at only one person, who has all those elements (depending on the degree of perfection that he has attained). According to the Cappadocian Fathers however, we cannot find a depiction of the Holy Trinity within one person. We need to use three persons. Because the characteristic of the Cappadocian Fathers theology is that: The three Persons of the Holy Trinity are not the energies of the one God, but are three complete hypostases. Subsequently, in order to present the fullness of those hypostases, the analogies must be likewise in full. If we are to use correlations based on people, it must be of three people and not one person (or three suns, or three lit torches). We must have three, fulfilled, complete beings; thus, we have here a basic differentiation. Augustines perception can lead to individualism, i.e., that God is like an individual with various energies and abilities and qualities, all of which can supposedly be understood as persons. But, in this way, the persons are again at risk of becoming (as they did in Savellianism, and in ancient Hellenism) merely guises; of becoming the characteristics of a one, selfsame being, and not individual, complete and fulfilled beings. We have, therefore, in this instance, a huge differentiation. The Greek Fathers did not confuse, or separate, the Persons of the Holy Trinity as characteristics and in fact psychological characteristics such as Memory, Knowledge and Love- which the Greek Fathers had associated with the Nature -the one Nature- of God, and not with the three Persons. In other words, God has one Knowledge, one Will, one Love, and not three. Nor is the one Person equivalent to Knowledge and the other Persons are nothing, or, Love is one of the three Persons who expresses Love, while the other two Persons dont. All three Persons express it, because it is common to all three of them. But, this is not what we refer to as hypostatic characteristics. These are not the characteristics of the hypostases. The characteristics of the hypostases are something else, and we have already clarified what they are. We therefore have a differentiation here. With Augustine, we can see the risk of projecting onto God the psychological attributes of man; in other words, we are faced with the risk of anthropomorphism.

Other facets of Augustinian Theology

Augustine associated God with the Nous. Thus, when asked Who is the one God?, he was unable to reply with reference to the Persons of the Holy Trinity to any of the Persons of the Holy Trinity because to him, those Persons are only attributes of the Nous the one Nous and are not persons per se. This is the way he interpreted and applied the formula the phrasing- which had prevailed, i.e., that God is one essence, three persons, i.e., by taking the term essence and linking it to God. Thus, God the one God- is the essence, and the Persons are merely the attributes that we mentioned previously: they are the attributes of that one Nous. In doing this, Augustine gave priority to the essence; priority to the God-Nous, from whence the Persons supposedly sprang as secondary elements. So, in answer to the question Who is the one God? Augustines reply was : The one essence. With the Greek Fathers, we have a different situation. To the question Who is the one God?, or, when we simply say God, the answer is The Father. The element of Monarchy (=sovereignty) does not reside within the essence and the nature of God; it resides within the Person of the Father. When therefore associating God with the Father, we are looking at the Biblical way of referring to God also, i.e., the God, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the -par excellence- God is acknowledged as the Father, then we are led to realize why the Holy Trinity is embodied in the concept of one God: On the premise that the one God is the Father, and that the term father is a term that presupposes a relationship, a father can therefore not exist, if there is no son. And naturally- the Father is not only Father to the Son, but is also Father to the Spirit, only in a different way. Thus, both the Son and the Spirit are -from the very first moment- automatically included in the concept of the one God. This is extremely important, because the dogma of the Holy Trinity becomes a primary issue. You cannot speak of one God first, and then go on to speak of the Holy Trinity, as a secondary issue. I wish to stress this, because, on account of Augustine, Western Theology was led to this division in Dogmatics, which appeared during the scholastics age, and which, unfortunately, was also emulated by Orthodox Theologians, i.e., to first examine a chapter on the one God, to examine that one God Himself, His attributes, and whatever else you can imagine. And then, to examine another chapter, which refers to the Holy Trinity, as if it were ever possible for one to refer to the one God without simultaneously referring to the Holy Trinity. But, as Augustine asserted, in order for someone to refer to the one God primarily and exclusively, one must relate God to the essence and give priority to the essence; one must say that the essence comes first, then come the Persons. The subject is very serious, whether priority should be given to the essence or the person. Western Theology gave priority to the essence (and there are many Orthodox who do the same). To us Orthodox, the one God is the Father and not the one essence, and that is why the Holy Trinity is the first thing that we say about God. The first thing that we say about God is that God is the Father. Since this is the first thing that we say, we cannot avoid acknowledging the Trinity, because the term Father is a meaning that necessarily involves the Holy Trinity. We have here a very serious difference between East and West. Can one speak of the one God, independently of the Holy Trinity? According to Augustine in the West, this was possible. And it is indeed being done, in all the dialogues that take place nowadays, with monotheistic religions. You can see, that this is actually being done, in the West. Lets first come to an agreement they say- with those who believe in one God, those who are the same as us, and exclude the atheists. The next step is to isolate the monotheists from the polytheists. Nowadays, we dont have many polytheists of course; almost none. Polytheism has eclipsed. The other religions are all monotheistic. But what happens in such dialogues, is that we must presuppose that it is possible for us Christians to speak of God the one God- without any reference to the Holy Trinity to begin with. This is precisely where we are led -in a natural

way- by Augustine and by the priority of the essence as opposed to the person. And because Dogmatics is not an Academic subject, (i.e., something to be comprehended with the mind); Dogmatics is not only for those who study Theology in order to acquire a diploma, but it is something that concerns everyone, it must, therefore, have direct consequences existential consequences for the entire world. And there is in fact a serious consequence here, which is: All those who pray, what/who are they praying to? It may be possible to pray to God per se, but: is it possible for one to pray to the essence of God? This is the perception of Augustine and of many Orthodox, who have not thought things out very well, and have related God to that which the Greek Fathers had named Divinity (or God, in this, abstract sense). When I say: I am praying to God, to which God am I praying? Can I pray to the one God, as the one Divinity, or, could it be, that when we say: I am praying to God we are clearly praying to one of the three Persons or to all three Persons simultaneously? You cannot pray, you cannot personally address the essence of God, but you can pray to the one God. So, if the one God is not the essence, then to whom are you praying? You are of course praying to the Person of the Father. We actually have prayers in Orthodox worship that are addressed only to the Father, as the par excellence- God. Naturally, the Holy Trinity cannot be divided; where the Father is, there the Son is and there the Spirit is. But as for us who are addressing God (where the Persons are united and inter-embraced yet are hypostatically different), we are each what we are: individuals. That is what allows us to pray to a specific Person: we can even pray to the Holy Spirit separately, as in the prayer Thou heavenly King, the Paraclete which is addressed to the Holy Spirit. We of course have very many prayers that are addressed to Christ, and we also have prayers addressed to the Father, which are basically all the prayers of the Divine Eucharist they are the eucharist prayers, the prayers of thanks. The Divine Eucharist is addressed to the Father. And if one studies the prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the first centuries and sees how they developed and arrived at the form they have in the Liturgies of the Chrysostom and Basil that we have nowadays, it will become obvious that the supplication prayer in the Divine Liturgy is a supplication that was originally addressed to the Father. This has been preserved, in the Liturgy of Basil the Great. That prayer is addressed to the Father. It is evident that we are addressing only the Father, however without this precluding the presence of the Son and the Spirit. Nonetheless, we are addressing a person, just as the Son (while in the flesh) addressed and prayed to the person of the Father, even though He Himself continued to be within the Father, through their inter-embracing. Therefore, the fact of His being within the Father clearly did not deter the Son from addressing the Father. This is what characterizes the hypostases. But in this case that we are studying, things appear extremely vague; we have Knowledge praying to Love, and Love praying to Memory. This cannot be applied to any existential experience, and even more so, to the Churchs experience of worship. That is why in the West, in the matter of prayer, the Holy Trinity was put aside. One can see that in the West, one prays to God generally and vaguely; it is either to the essence of God, or usually- to Christ. That is where Westerners piety and spirituality resides. Bearing in mind that Christ is a man, it is possible for one to sense Him better; it is possible to sense Him more hypostatically, as a person. Augustines theology not only made it possible to speak of one God prior to the Holy Trinity; he also made it possible to pray to the one God without necessarily praying to one specific person. To us, the one God is undoubtedly the Father, at least from the aspect of worship (which is what determines Theology), because it is a Person to whom we are praying. The one God is therefore the Father, in the sense that He is the One from Whom the Persons of the Holy Trinity originate. The Father is the par excellence God; He is not the essence, He is the Person of Father. This is how Orthodoxy is contradistinguished, opposite Augustine.

With these Augustinian principles of the Holy Trinity in mind, we shall attempt to examine a thorny issue that had arisen between the East and the West, with regard to Triadic Theology. It is an issue that continues to preoccupy us, i.e., the famous Filioque. The Filioque has two aspects. The one aspect is the canonical one, which is linked to the historical problem behind the appearance of the Filioque, and the other aspect is the theological one, which is linked to the justification of the Filioque by the Westerners or its rejection by the Orthodox. In order to comprehend the theological aspect, we must definitely be well acquainted with the following two things: Augustines theology, and the Cappadocians theology. This is because the Westerners theologized the Filioque on the basis of Augustines theology, while the Eastern Orthodox rejected it, on the basis of the Cappadocians theology. Before arriving at the theological justification or rejection of the Filioque, we should mention a few things regarding the canonical aspect, the historical aspect that the Filioque problem presents. Filioque is the Latin expression inserted in the Creed, which means and from the Son. In other words, that the Holy Spirit not only proceeds from the Father, but also from the Son. This concept, this Filioque procession, existed in the West, even during the 4th century. We find it in Ambrose mostly, but in a form that didnt create any theological problems, and also during the age of Saint Maximus, when a minor disturbance had begun to appear. Maximus, who kept in touch with Rome, was asked about it. There is an epistle by Maximus addressed to Marinus, in which it appears that Maximus had been asked: Whats going on in Rome? They say that the Filioque exists there; to which Maximus had replied: Yes. It is a fact that this exists in the West, but the way in which they present it, is absolutely Orthodox and correct. Therefore, it was not a theological issue during Maximus time. We are now in the 7th century. Up until that time, we have a theologically neutral situation. In a certain strange way, the Filioque entered the everyday scene, and became the epicenter of scandal, for purely political reasons. It was first of all inserted by the West in the Creed (the Symbol of Faith), in Spain, in the 6th century, during the 3rd Synod of Toledo. King Requarerdos, who had converted from Arianism, was like every new convert- likewise fanatically supportive of the new faith. He was positively adamant about reinforcing the anti-Arian position that the Son is God, and he found the means of doing this in the Filioque idea which, albeit existent in the West, had not yet been officially inserted in the Creed. He thenceforth proceeded to persuade that Synod to insert the Filioque in the Creed, so that it could be triumphantly confessed that the Son is equal to the Father. So far, things were more or less innocuous. But that which ensued, was the cause that opened up an entirely new age. It was the appearance of the Franks, and the appearance of Charlemagne as the Byzantiums opposition (in the sense that he wanted to establish the genuine Roman state, as the successor of the former Roman state, whereas the Byzantine Emperor regarded himself as the successor, and the Byzantine Empire the natural continuation of the Roman Empire). In his designs to wage war against Byzantium, Charlemagne activated the Filioque, because in those times (unlike today, where nobody pays attention to a religious definition), you could start a war with a single dogmatic word. Charlemagne therefore rallied all of his troops around the Filioque theory, claiming that the Byzantines were the heretics, who didnt acknowledge it. This entire quarrel with Byzantium was consequently an issue of faith. But at the time, the pope had expressed his disagreement with Charlemagne. He regarded Charlemagne as a risk to his own authority as well; thus, the pope found himself supporting the side of Byzantium, and opposed to the introduction of the Filioque in the Creed. In order to triumphantly prove this, pope Leo III instructed the inscribing of the Creed, without the Filioque, onto two plaques, which he placed visibly inside the basilica of Saint Peter. In fact,

in one of the recent conventions that took place in Rome regarding the 2nd Ecumenical Council, a Roman Catholic theologian had proposed that it would be a good move on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, to put those plaques (which had been hidden out of sight) back in their place; those plaques of pope Leo III, which have the original Symbol of Faith inscribed on them, without the Filioque. Up until that time, the defending of the Filioque had remained a Frankish matter. Rome did not agree with it. Rome introduced the Filioque for the first time officially, only in the 11th century. In the year 1014, and on the insistence of Frederick IV -a Frankish emperor of German descent- his coronation ceremony in Rome by the Pope was agreed upon, on the condition that the Creed would be introduced, with the inclusion of the Filioque. For reasons of expediency, Rome agreed to this (expediency was usually Romes priority). The time was ripe; there had also been a dispute with Photios because Rome had insisted on imposing its policy in Bulgaria, and the matter of the Filioque had soon entered the dispute. An atmosphere of opposition between Rome and Constantinople had been created, in which dispute the Filioque had also played a certain role. So, the time was ripe in the 11th century; the Filioque was officially inserted in Romes Creed, and ever since that moment, Rome itself, together with the Franks, undertook the defence of the Filioque, to the point that in 1054 (the year of the schism between Rome and Constantinople), the Popes anathema -which Umberto had deposited on the Holy Altar of the Church of Hagia Sophia- contained the accusation that the Easterners had eliminated the Filioque from the Creed!! Now this is very interesting, because, for centuries, the West has believed that the Easterners had eliminated the Filioque, and not that Westerners had inserted it!! Ever since then, an entire industry of theological arguments has sprung up, on both sides. The fight for the justification or the rejection of the Filioque was now under way, with the West drawing its arguments from Augustines theory, and cultivating and further developing them with the aid of scholastic theology by Thomas Aquinatus. We even discovered the slogan that whoever doesnt believe in the Filioque is a heretic. On the other side, an anti-Filioque theology had developed, with the argument that whoever accepts the Filioque is a heretic. These polemics lasted for centuries. And now that we are in the present time, the theological problem has resurfaced even more acutely, mainly because of its implementation by the Slavophiles of Russia during the previous century. They were the ones who eventually headed the theology of the migrs (the Russian emigrants who arrived after the communist revolution in Europe), amongst whom was the protagonist who reintroduced the Filioque into the dispute between East and West, and in fact in the form of a heresy (and even worse); he was Lossky. So, Lossky did not simply bring the Filioque back into the limelight; it was re-introduced even more exacerbated than it was during the Middle Ages. Of course todays psychological climate does not allow for exacerbations, but if you were to ask a Westerner or an Orthodox what is that which basically differentiates us, they will say it is the Filioque. And this gave a new look to the theological problematics of the Filioque. However, the canonical aspect remains as is. It remains as a problem, which has the following form: Does a church such as the Western one have the right to unilaterally insert a new expression in the Symbol of Faith? That is where the issue is canonical: Can there be a onesided alteration of the Creed, when this Symbol of Faith was the product of an Ecumenical Synod? How can one party change it, without the consent of the others? Observation by OODE: We need to point out here, that there have been some very important Synods related to the above matter such as the 8th, with Photios the Great (879-880); also the Hesychast Synods of 1341, 1347, 1451 (9th Ecumenical); the more recent Synods of

Constantinople (1722, 1727, 1838 and others)- but also the divinely inspired saints such as Mark of Ephesus, Athanasios of Paros, Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, Nektarios of Pentapolis, who, with their evangelical, patristic and holy-synodical theological argument, outrightly condemned the Latins or pro-Latins as heretics. Actually, as a general rule, all Synods and Patriarchal Circulars in their poemantic obligation to safeguard the people from the Franco-Latin propagandas, use intensely trenchant albeit not untrue or malevolentcharacterizations. This is also observed in the Synodical of Orthodoxy, which was included in the Triodion and is read in Monasteries. On the basis of such Orthodox Synodic and Patristic criteria, the Rev. father Hierotheos of Nafpaktos in one of his articles stresses that there is no apostolic succession (in the bestowing of Grace and the Truth); that there are no Sacraments, nor is there any literal notion of a Church in Papism. Otherwise, if simple historical succession constituted a guarantee of genuine Apostolicity (Orthodox Apostolic tradition), then we would have to acknowledge it in all the other heretics and heresy leaders, which is out of the question. For example, Saint Mark of Ephesus observes: , , , . : , ; , ; . ... . English rendition: For it was they who provided the cause of the schism, by outrightly expressing the addition (of the Filioque), which (schism) they had previously propagated through their teeth (verbally), by saying that we (Orthodox) had deviated first, when it was we who had cut them off and had removed them from the common body of the Church. Because, tell me, which of the two applies: that the existing belief is correct, or that the addition was correctly proposed? And who, if saying they desire the addition unless they are seriously mentally deranged- would not admit the addition to be something unfitting and irreverent and preposterous? It was therefore not because we repulsed them as heretics and for this reason departed from them; but it was because they are in fact heretics, and as such, we excised them.

D. The theological problem of the Filioque

The Augustinian placement of Knowledge before Love Precedence of the Essence and pairs of relations The historical approach to Protestantism Procession from and sending forth The inadmissible precedence of the Essence and ditheism The problem of anthropomorphism The erroneous precedence of Knowledge Causality and Eternality The mediation of the Son in the procession of the Spirit The problem of procession from the Essence

So far, we have examined the historical side of the Filioque (how it came into being), which involved its canonical aspect; in other words, how the Westerners had unilaterally introduced the Filioque into the Symbol of Faith (the Creed), without asking the Eastern Church, or

asking for it to be accepted. This is the canonical side of the issue, which Westerners today are beginning to acknowledge and they appear to be somewhat predisposed towards rectifying what they had done, by officially removing the Filioque from the Symbol of Faith. Perhaps some day soon, this will finally happen. For us, in Dogmatics, the problem is not the canonical one. There is the theological aspect that is related to the Filioque, and that is what we shall now focus on. We shall examine the theological side of the problem, by separating the whole issue into two parts. On the one part, we shall examine the arguments that the Westerners presented in favor of the Filioque, and then we shall see what the Orthodox arguments were, against the Filioque. We shall see how serious these problems were, and if they could be solved. The theological justification of the Filioque in the West began basically with the Franks, who had relied on Augustines theology to support the Filioque. This is the theology that we analyzed, which contained the following elements that were implemented, in favor of the Filioque. The first element is Augustines position that in the Holy Trinity, the Son is also named the Logos of God, therefore, He represents the Knowledge of God, while the Spirit represents the Love of God. On the basis of this assumption, Augustine gave precedence to the Son and not to the Spirit, thus making the Son a Source of the Spirit also, adjacent to the Father. And this was the concept of the Filioque. This was justified by the argument that, since the Son is Knowledge and the Spirit is Love, Knowledge supposedly precedes Love, so the Son must therefore precede the Spirit. Given that Love is supposedly dependent on Knowledge in order to exist, so the Spirit is dependent on the Father and the Son. A second Augustinian position that was used to theologically justify the Filioque was that according to Augustinian theology- in God, the Essence has precedence. The one God equals the one Essence of God. The Persons are pursuant to the Essence. Thus, for Augustine, the Persons are merely relationships that stem from -and reside in- the one Essence. In other words, God is a Being, He is an Essence, He is the one God, in Whom three relationships exist: the Father (Who is also Memory), the Son (Who is Knowledge) and the Spirit (Who is Love). Thus, the Spirit is also a form of relationship. But, in order to have a proper and complete form of relationship, we must necessarily have pairs of relationships. This idea was developed by the scholastics, mainly Thomas Aquinas. Pairs of relationships are what the scholastics called relationships between contrasts or contrasting relationships. In other words, in order to have something that originates from a relationship like the Spirit- it must originate from a relationship of two others, and not one. That is precisely why we need a pair. The Spirit must originate, not from one person (because one person is like no person); it must come from a relationship between others. So, it does come from a relationship. Given that there is no other Person -except for the Son- from which the Spirit can originate, we can thus appreciate the need for the Filioque, inasmuch as the Spirit has to originate from a relationship, and not from one single person. With the Reform, Protestants inaugurated an entirely different approach. They cast out all this theology that speaks of the Essence of God, or of God as a metaphysical Being. In their place, they introduced the principle that we recognize God through His works in Providence, in History. In this way, we always commence from History, i.e., what God did throughout

History. That is our basis; We cannot have a metaphysical theology on God. The interesting thing is that, with this approach, the Protestants supported the Filioque in another way. They claimed that since the Holy Trinity appears in Providence, in History, in this manner, i.e., that the Father sends forth the Son, and the Son gives the Spirit, the Spirit is therefore given to us by the Son. Given that everything we know and can say about God is dependent on what we see in Providence, in History, we must therefore say that the Spirit is dependent on the Son, and not just the Father. In this way, Protestants returned to the confusion that the Westerners had introduced, back in the 4th century, between the two meanings that are expressed by two different verbs in the Holy Bible: the verb (travelling/proceeding out of) and (sent by). The Spirit proceeds from the Father, but it is sent -or is given to Providence- by the Son or through the Son. Therefore, the Son apparently has something to do with the appearance of the Holy Spirit. In the West, both these two verbs had been translated into Latin -from the very beginningwith the one verb: to proceed. This caused confusion. When saying that the Spirit originates from the Father and the Son, what are we referring to? Are we referring to the eternal existence of God, or of Providence, where the Spirit is given through the Son? For the Protestants, there can be no talk of an eternal Trinity, except only with regard to Providence. Consequently, procedure expressed both the travelling out of and the sent by; in other words, both the eternal relationship of God in His eternal existence, and His eternal Providence. This was the situation in the West, and these were the arguments used, to theologically found the Filioque. Now lets see what the arguments against the Filioque were in the East, when the politics on this problem became more exacerbated between the East and the West. First: The East found it difficult to give precedence to the Essence and not the Persons; i.e., that primarily, the one God is the Essence; that God is expressed by an essence and that the three Persons are relationships within that one Essence. It was difficult for the East, because for Eastern Theology the Theology of the Cappadocian Fathers the one God is the Father; the one God is not a faceless Essence. It is the Person of the Father. Now lets see how this made things difficult for the East. If the one God is the Father, then, by making the Son equally the Source of the Holy Spirit, it would be like acknowledging two Gods, two ontological principalities in the Holy Trinity. Monotheism would be at risk. In the West, this problem does not exist, because for them, monotheism is secure, with the essence. The essence expresses the one God. Thus we have here a discontinuation in the discussion, because the argument posed by the one side was not a valid argument for the other side For the East, this was a very powerful point, i.e., that with the Filioque, ditheism is being introduced. Because for the East, that which secures the one God, the unity of God, is that the Person of the Father is the Source, the only Source, the only Causer. That which secures monotheism in Patristic thought is monarchy (sovereignty). In God there is monarchy, from which stems Gods entire Life. This one principality is not the one Essence, which the Persons spring from; the one principality is the one Person the Father- Who gives birth to the Son, and sends forth the Spirit. If we try to parallel monotheism to monarchy, the following question is posed: Where do we place monarchy? If we place it inside the Essence, we dont have a problem with the Filioque monarchy is preserved. But if we place monarchy inside the Person of the Father, then we

cannot have the Filioque, because that would signify an acknowledgement of two principalities in God; in other words, we would be annulling monarchy (sovereignty). The Father would no longer express monarchy. And if monarchy is annulled, so is monotheism, because here is the sensitive point in the Holy Trinity. How can we have three Persons, without having three separate Gods? That which allows us to escape this danger of not having three Gods, is that in these three Gods, the two of the three come from the one Source. The one God is now understood from the aspect of principality, since it is One, who provides existence to the whole Holy Trinity; God is one. Given that these three Gods are Uncreated and are naturally in perpetual Communion between each other, we do not have a case of three separate Gods. So, that which secures the one God is the monarchy (sovereignty) of the Father. Consequently, if we annul the monarchy of the Father and introduce the Son as a new principality, then we are annulling the monarchy and we no longer have any means of supporting monotheism; not unless we support monarchy in the essence, as they did in the West. This was one of the serious arguments, one of the greater difficulties that the East had to confront opposite the West. The second difficulty lies in the similes used by Augustine, when resorting to psychological characteristics to describe the Holy Trinity. He asserted that the Father is Memory, the Son is Knowledge, and the Spirit is Love. For the Eastern Greek Fathers, these created a serious problem of anthropomorphism in God, because it was the projection of human experiences onto God. The Greek Fathers view is that we cannot resort to such arguments (that the Son is Knowledge and the Spirit is Love) and use them to support the Filioque. According to the Greek Fathers, the only thing we can say about the Father, the Son and the Spirit is that: the Father is Unborn and that He is the Father; the Son is Born and that He is the Son; and the Spirit proceeds from and that He is the Spirit. All of these characteristics are what we call hypostatic characteristics, which have to do with their being; with the how these three Persons came into being. We cannot say what psychological characteristics each of the three Persons might have, because that would inevitably entail anthropomorphism. So, we have here a kind of negation, which however is not agnosticism; i.e., we arent saying that we dont know anything; we are simply saying that what we do know about God, about the Father, are not things that we have taken from human experience; they merely denote Gods manner of existence they denote how God exists. We have a similar problem, when giving precedence to Knowledge instead of Love. To the Easterners, Knowledge does not precede Love. We need to remember what we said about the cognizance of persons and the cognizance of things. In order to recognize something as a person, I need to simultaneously love it. I cannot firstly attain cognizance and then love. Therefore, if the Spirit is Love, it cannot be something that is pursuant to the Son, if we uphold that the Son is Knowledge. For the Easterners, Augustines argument that Knowledge precedes Love is unfounded. Love is linked to Knowledge; we know persons, only to the degree that we love them. Under what conditions can Orthodoxy therefore accept the Filioque? The Filioque can be understood Orthodoxically, and it can become accepted by Orthodoxy, under certain conditions. The first condition is to uphold the discernment between the eternal and the providential

Trinity. Confusion however exists in the West, between proceeding from and sent forth. The proceeding from pertains to the eternal existence of God, while the sent forth pertains to providence. These two terms are clearly distinguished in the East, because it is one thing to say that the Spirit is equally dependent on the Son with regard to Providence; in other words, that the Spirit is given to us in History because Providence is chiefly the Sons; that the Son is incarnated, and that the He gives us the Spirit, through Providence. And it is another thing, to say that this dependency between the Son and the Spirit somehow also pertains to the proceeding from, i.e., to the eternal, never-ending existence of God. In Eastern tradition, these two must be clearly discerned. As far as the eternal Trinity is concerned: The Eternal Existence of God does not allow us to speak of the Filioque, because the Causer is only one the Father. We cannot have the Son as the co-Causer. Despite all the above, the Greek Fathers do make a certain distinction. They allow a particular role to the Son, during the procession of the Holy Spirit. In one of the passages by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, which is a key passage for this subject, he says: We do not deny the difference between Him (the Father), who exists as the Causer, and Him, Who is of the Causer. In this way, we can comprehend how the one Person is distinguished from the other Person; i.e., by realizing that the cause is one thing, and that of the cause is another thing. In other words, if we ask what the difference is between the Father and the Son (or the Father and the Spirit), then, according to the above passage, the difference is that the Father is the Cause, while the Son and the Spirit are of the Cause. Therefore, the distinction between the Causer and of the Causer is extremely significant. Gregory continues his key passage, by saying: as for that which is of the causer (=the Son), we acknowledge a further difference (that for both the Son and the Spirit, the Causer is the Father, while the Son and the Spirit are both of the Causer). One difference is that the Son originates immediately, directly from the First, from the Cause, whereas the other, the Spirit, originates via the One who originates directly from the First; through the intervention, the mediation of the Son. And why is this? Because, in this way, the mediation of the Son in divine life preserves His characteristic as the Only-born, while the natural, the essential relationship of the Spirit towards the Father is not annulled. In other words, the problem is that we must somehow move away from the notion of two Sons; to concede that the Son is the only-born son, and that there is no second Son. According to Gregory, this compels us to attribute to the Son a characteristic, an intermediary role a mediation in the procedure of the Spirit. This mediation preserves the essential relationship of the Spirit with the Father. This is what led many to the idea that there is an orthodox Filioque and that the Filioque is admissible, provided it doesnt refer to the Persons; in other words, that the Spirit does not proceed from the (Person of the) Son also, but that it proceeds from the Essence of the Father, which is common between Father and Son.. As for the status of the Essence, well, it could be considered a dependency by the SonThis is in a certain way correct, but it also creates various difficulties, because neither the Son nor the Spirit proceeds from the Essence directly; because the Son is born of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds out of the Father, i.e., out of the Person of the Father. It is difficult for one to discern these two statuses of essence and hypostasis- given that it is the hypostasis that provides existence. In the passage we just mentioned, there is a certain truth in the fact that the Filioque can somehow become acceptable, except in the way it discerns between Providence and eternal Godhood, where the issue is very clear.

But even here, it can become acceptable. In what way? If we dont accept the discerning of those two statuses between essence and person. What matters in the Cappadocian Fathers Theology is that we are not allowed to attribute the role of Causer to the Son. Since we do not recognize the role of Causer in the Son, one could say that any other role of the Son in the procedure of the Spirit is permissible. In conclusion, the Filioque would be acceptable, under the condition that the Son does not become the Causer of the Spirit, and that the Cause is only one: the Father. That is where Maximus the Confessor and Photios the Great later on- rested their entire line of arguments against the Filioque. Because according to them, the Westerners were bestowing the role of Causer on the Son also. The reason why it is so important not to attribute such a role to the Son is because it is only in that way, that we preserve monotheism, monarchy. Because the question was posed in recent years, and because it had also been posed during the 15th century at the synod of Florence, whether the Filioque can be theologized or if it is a heresy, the answer is that it depends on one thing only, and that is: if with the Filioque- we acknowledge the Son as ontologically the co-Causer of the Existence of the Spirit, together with the Father. If we interpret the Filioque in a way that does not make the Son the Cause, but reserves the role of Causer exclusively for the Father, then the Filioque can be taken into consideration for theologizing and become accepted.

D. The Filioque in Theology and in Providence

The Orthodox stance towards the Filioque, with regard to Providence The confusion of terms in the West The historical follow-up of the Filioque by the Fathers The Wests correct perception during the 7th century Discerning between proceeding from and manifesting Causality within the Trinity The rejection of the expression through the Son in Florence A Russian theologians unacceptable idea

We shall summarize the Orthodox position in theology, as regards the Filioque, by making the following, basic observations: Firstly, with regard to Providence. Providence implies the actions and the acts of God, within History and Creation. We too accept that the Holy Spirit is given, is sent forth by the Son. So far, at this level, the Filioque is acceptable. However, we cannot accept it from the aspect of the eternal, the never-ending status of the Holy Trinity, where the relations between the Persons are not relations that pertain to any energies. As far as the eternal and never-ending Trinity is concerned, we cannot accept that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son, because inside the Trinity, we have ontological relations only, and inevitably, the Cause can only be one: the Father. Because, by introducing two Causes, we will inevitably have two Gods. In Providence, one could say it is acceptable to admit that the Spirit is also dependent on the

Son; that it is a gift, given to us by the Son. In this context, one can speak in the same way that the Apostle Paul spoke, with regard to the Spirit of Christ, i.e., that the Spirit does indeed proceed from the Father, but, It is sent forth, into Providence, via the Son. The term proceeding from () strictly pertains to the Spirits ontological dependence on the Father, within the eternal Trinity, therefore, the term proceeding from pertains only to the eternal status of the Trinity. The association here is strictly ontological, and the Causer is only one: the Father. When dealing with Providence however, we do not touch on ontological associations, but only those associations that pertain to energies/actions, hence the Sons action of sending forth the Spirit. In this way, we have a sort of Filioque, but only in regard to Providence. In light of the above, significant confusion arose in the West, with regard to these two terms. The (Greek) words ( proceeding from/out of ) and ( sent forth by ) were translated in Latin, as both meaning procedure, right from the very start, in the 4th century. This is what gave rise to the confusion. They could not discern between these two notions, whereas in the (Greek-speaking) East they were discernable, hence the term proceeding from () was duly confined to the eternal, ontological aspect of the Trinity, and was not used in reference to Providence. From the very beginning, the Filioque was applied by the West, to both aspects (ontological and Providential). This is how the confusion began, and the Filioque appeared as the offspring of precisely this confusion. For the East, this distinction is imperative; if one does make this distinction, then he can accept the Filioque, but only in regard to Providence. But the Filioque, in its true dimensions as defined by the West, is not only linked to Providence, but also to the eternal Trinity. And that is where we have a problem. Can one apply the Filioque to the eternal Trinity? Lets observe the problems that Patristic Theology encountered here. In the 7th century, Saint Maximus was asked (because word was getting around that the Filioque was being used in the West), what his opinion was on this matter. He replied that he had examined the matter, and that the situation was as follows: The Latin-speaking Romans did not have respective words for expressing these two notions ( and ). They used only one word. This consequently gave rise to a confusion. We Greeks, who speak the language, must therefore show some understanding in this regard and not automatically declare the Filioque a heresy of the Westerners, because, as analytically explained in the epistle to Marinus, the Filioque was the product of this confusion. In the same epistle, Saint Maximus says that during his talks with the Romans themselves about this issue, he had noticed that they also referred to Saint Cyril of Alexandria in order to support the Filioque. Saint Cyril had indeed written certain things that could have provided a basis for the Filioque. We also have one testimony that something which was written by Saint Cyril on the subject had generated an intense reaction. It was the reaction of Theodoretus of Cyrus who was quite strident in his manner, and who commented that if Cyril was referring to the Filioque in regard to Providence, then all is well; but if he was relating it to the eternal Trinity, then he was mistaken, and this could not be accepted. It was obvious that Cyril did not mean it, simply and strictly within the confines of Providence, as he had also allowed inferences to the eternal Trinity. He did not say proceeds from (); he did not use this word. He used the expression that the Spirit is manifested; that it essentially originates (i.e., with regard to the Essence) from the Son also. Given that the Essence is common to all three Persons, then the Son must necessarily precede the Spirit, from the aspect of the Essence. But, as for the Person of the Spirit in connection to the other two Persons, we cannot have the Filioque, because only the Father as a Person- can be the Cause. At first glance, this appears somewhat vague.

A passage by Saint Gregory of Nyssa clarifies this vague point somewhat satisfactorily. In his work That there are not three Gods ( ), he says: We do not disregard the difference between that which exists as the Cause, and that which is OF the Cause. We therefore have the Cause as one thing, and secondarily, that which is OF the Cause. In other words, the existence of God is not a simple thing; one cannot say that God simply exists. Gods existence includes activity, movement. Even within Gods Being within His ontological associations activity exists. God is not devoid of cause; He does not exist without cause. The cause is naturally inside His very Self, but, there is a distinction inside God: it is the distinction between the Cause and whatever originates from the cause. We support the difference between the One Who exists as the Cause and the One who is OF the Cause. It is in this way -and only in this way- that we can perceive how the one Person is discerned from the other; i.e., in the belief that the Cause is one, and the other is OF the Cause. He further says that the distinction between the Persons inside the Holy Trinity cannot be made in any other way, except only in regard to this causality. With regard to the nature, with regard to the energy, we cannot make such a distinction; however we can make it, on the basis of this principle of causality. This is a principle that was introduced by the Cappadocians. Before them, we do not find it clearly specified. We therefore have the ability to discern the Persons, precisely because we make the distinction between the Causer and that which is OF the Causer. And he continues: With regard to that which is OF the Cause, we have in there another distinction, whereas with regard to the Cause, it is clear that it is only the Father. When referring to OF the cause, we can acknowledge a further difference: That only the one of the two originates immediately from the First. He uses the word immediately, which implies directly, or, without any intermediation. The one originates immediately from the Cause, while the other originates through (=with the intermediation of) the one who originates directly from the First. The difference between the Son and the Spirit in regard to the appearance, the existence and the origin of the two- is that the Son comes forth directly from the Father (the Cause), while the Spirit comes forth through the intermediation of the one who originates directly from the Cause, i.e., via the Son. But why does Gregory make this distinction and observation? He goes on to explain, that Thus, it is in this way, with this intermediation, this intercession of the Son in the life of divinity, in divine existence, that His characteristic of Only-born is preserved So, in order for the Son to remain the Only-Born Son, we must attribute this immediacy to Him, otherwise we will somehow end up with two Sons, albeit the natural, the essential association of the Spirit with the Father is not abolished, because all of divine nature also exists within the Son, and consequently, in everything essential (as regards the nature), the Spirit likewise communes with the Father, even though it comes into existence through the intermediation of the Son. This could be interpreted as a kind of Filioque from the aspect of Gods eternal existence; however, neither the Son nor the Spirit can be regarded as Causes. In other words, while the Son may in some way intercede for the Holy Spirit to come into existence, this does not make the Son the Causer of the Spirit. The Causer is always the Father. In summarizing what we have said, we need to reach a conclusion, because we have before us some very delicate nuances. We need to maintain the principle -the faith- that only the Father can be the Cause, and that the Son on account of the Filioque- can by no means be perceived as a co-Causer of the Spirits existence. Therefore, from the aspect of Providence, there is no problem. From the aspect of the eternality of the Trinity however, we have the problem whether the intercession of the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit somehow makes the Son the Cause of the Spirit, or not.

In his epistle To Marinus, Saint Maximus stressed that he had discussed the issue with the Romans of his time, and had concluded that they did not imply that the Son is the Causer. Thus, Maximus acquitted the Westerners of the accusation of heresy. Of course, all of this had taken place during the 7th century. Later on, when the Filioque was used by the West as a banner against the Orthodox, things changed, and they took a different turn. In the discussions that took place, the Westerners were no longer predisposed to revoking that the Son is co-Causer along with the Father in the procession of the Holy Spirit, thus reducing the Filioque theory to a heresy, because it was not possible to orthodoxically embrace it. In the Council of Florence, an attempt was made to unify the division. It was through the use of the term through the Son. If this had been accepted by both sides, then instead of saying from the Son, we would have said through the Son in other words, it would have connoted the intercession of the Son that Gregory of Nyssa had mentioned. But even this attempt failed, because neither side was willing to take a clear stance on the issue, and the West had already stabilized its own position with the expression from the Father AND the Son, and was not willing in any way to retract it, and replace it with the expression THROUGH the Son Nowadays, fresh attempts are being made, and it will prove very interesting for one to observe where they will lead. As Orthodox theologians, we must bear in mind that every attempt whatever it may involve, wherever it may lead- should not lead us into the obscuring of the basic premise that, within the Holy Trinity, ONLY THE FATHER is the Cause. An idea has been proposed (mainly by a Russian theologian, Bolotov, who has studied this subject especially) that the Filioque should be regarded as something that can be theologized. There is the distinction, which he basically introduced, that there are many ideas which do not constitute dogmas that affect mans salvation. Some of them that are regarded as topics for discussion, have been considered items for theologizing, as opposed to dogmas that are not items for theologizing, that should not be subject to discussion. So, there is a proposal for the Filioque to be regarded as an item to be theologized, but this is a proposal which was not accepted, both by the Westerners and the East. Because even the Westerners continue to maintain (although nowadays they are tending to distance themselves from this stance, whereas in the Middle Ages they clearly supported it) that it is heresy for someone to NOT believe in the Filioque, and that belief in the Filioque comprises a dogma. Consequently, the idea of the Filioque becoming an item to be theologized was not accepted, and from time to time, it is brought up in discussions of our time, along with Bolotovs positions, but there seems to be no progress in this direction. Our position should be that: provided the conditions we mentioned above are applied, the Filioque can be considered an item for theologizing. We in the East have no need to introduce this, but, in the West they can use it, provided that they mean it in the appropriate sense, as they did in the 7th century. If they regard it in a manner that makes the Son a co-Causer together with the Father, then we cannot see this as an item for theologizing, but as a heresy, because it jeopardizes monarchy. That the Father alone is the Causer, is linked to the fact that in God, we have only one principality, and that this principality is understood ontologically here. We do NOT have two causes; we do NOT have two principalities. Since we have a monarchy (=one principal), we have only one cause, and that cause coincides with the Father. Thus, literally, God is the Father. If we introduce a second Causer (the Son), then we are at risk of acknowledging two Gods. The West does not feel that it has this problem, because monarchy to them is not the one Father, but the one Essence. The one God for the Westerners is the one Essence, and not the Person of the Father. Consequently, they believe they are not risking the loss of monotheism when they say AND by the Son. For the West, monotheism is dependent on the

one essence of God, and not the Person of the Father. And since this is the case, the Filioque does not threaten their monotheism, because their monotheism is not dependent on the notion of the one Cause. We have covered the topic of the Filioque, having seen how it was generated historically, under what premise it could have become accepted, at what point it became a heresy, and at which points it could constitute an item for theologizing.

OODE observation: Obviously, the fact that the official Papist view does not comprehend the issue of polytheism that springs from the Filioque theory, does not mean that the problem does not exist. On the contrary, because of this differentiation, another, more serious problem is apparent: That the Papists have in fact been worshipping A DIFFERENT GOD than the one the Orthodox Christians believe in. While the Orthodox view is that God is the Father, the Papist view is clearly that God is an IMPERSONAL ESSENCE. Because, when the Person of the Father is not regarded as the primary Cause, the impersonal element of an alleged Triadic Essence is acknowledged in His place. This not only undeniably ushers Papism into idolatry, but also, as we have outlined in previous chapters, it has other, serious implications in the matter of inter-Triadic relations between the Persons, and even in what each Person is! The entire content of Theology is distorted, and becomes totally unrecognizable. Furthermore, by regarding the Essence as God, we no longer have a subservience of the Essence to the person, instead, the Person is subservient to the Essence. In other words, the Father is no longer what He is because He thus wills it, but because He is compelled, by the Essence! The magnitude of blasphemy that the Papist theory introduces with regard to God, is clearly obvious here. We are shown a God who is dependent on His essence; a SUBJUGATED GOD, who functions on the basis of necessity and not on freedom and free volition, exactly like the idolaters gods who are restricted within the confines of the material universe, who are governed by fate and not by the free will that they supposedly possess. Secondary consequences of the above (so that we have a better idea of the depth and the gravity of the issue) are : Freedom as a necessary ingredient for ones becoming in the likeness of God- is abrogated, and the entire Christian dogma on salvation thereafter collapses altogether, dragging down with it the element of Love (since the persons of Divinity are defined by the Essence and not by voluntary love). We thus end up with the god-judgepunisher of the West, whom one can only fear and hate! For all the aforementioned reasons (and many more, which we do not need to expound here, because much has already been outlined), which are all derived from the heretical view on the Essence God of Augustine, it becomes evident that not only should one not agree to any union with the Papism that insists on embracing the Filioque, but we should also demand from them to relinquish altogether the Augustinian perception of an Essence God, if they truly wish to be re-incorporated in the Church of Christ.

F. The Dogma on Creation The The The The problem of Gods love problem of theodicy according to the Gnostics coincidence of the terms Father and Creator immediacy of creation

The role of the Son in Creation

a. The problem of Gnosticism We mentioned -from our very first lessons- that we would be tracking the Symbol of Faith (Creed) in the structuring of Dogmatics. Up to now, we have covered the first few words of the Creed: I believe in one God, the Father Continuing on, we encounter the words the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. And this is where we find the problem regarding Creation - the dogma on creation. God is not only the Father of His Son; He is not only Triadic; He does not have existence only unto Himself; we do not simply confess that He exists eternally. We confess that this God embarked on an act, an energy outside of Himself, which brought into existence something else, other than Himself. And this, precisely, is the dogma on Creation. We need to point out from the very start that this act of God, of creating something else outside of Himself, did not constitute a necessity for God. When we say necessity, we do not imply any form of psychological necessity (as many contemporary dogmaticians do), such as loneliness, or the desire to have someone else, other than Himself, etc. We must never apply the concept of psychology when referring to the existence of God, even though the Holy Bible and our Theology may sometimes resort to referring to God with the aid of psychological terms (e.g., God is angry, or the wrath of God, etc.; even the fact that He loves us is often perceived from a psychological point of view). All such terms when they do not have an ontological basis- are anthropomorphic and should not be applied to Gods being. We cannot apply psychology to God. Augustine (as we saw) did apply it, and eventually created the problems that we pointed out. Consequently, when we say that God created the world (i.e., a thing outside of Himself) out of love, or motivated by love, we should not attribute any sentimental meaning to this word love. This is where the problem arises, as to how we should perceive Gods motives in the creation of the world. At this point, in accordance with the principle that we follow in our lessons, we should firstly take a look at the history of the dogma on Creation, to see under what historical prerequisites it appeared, and afterwards see what this could entail for us. This way, we will also be able to give a reply to the question posed before, regarding the motives of Creation; in other words: Why was the world created by God? During this stage of the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible the Creed has -as a prerequisite- certain concepts regarding the creation of the world, or the world; notions, which the Fathers and the Church deemed heretic and unacceptable. At first, the Creed was simply a confession of faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The addition of these phrases was the result of a historical necessity. We need to therefore examine what sorts of ideas regarding Creation are exempt from the Creed first of all. Then, we shall examine what sorts of ideas are hidden behind these expressions. Historically, the first thing that brought about this extension to the Creed was the idea that Gnosticism had, regarding Creation. Gnosticism put great emphasis on the transcendental status of God, in order to resolve the problem of theodicy, in other words, the problem of why there is so much evil in the world and how we can explain the existence of evil in the world; that is, how it originated. Naturally, if we say that God is responsible for evil, we immediately endanger the concept of God. God must not be held responsible for evil. Then what should we do, to ensure that God is not held responsible for the evil that exists in the world? Gnosticisms reply to this question was its theory that this world was not created by God -

this God the Father. God the Father is apparently so transcendental and unapproachable, so foreign to what is going on in the world, that He can even be considered altogether alien to the world. This is the stranger-God of Marcion. Thus, by alienating God from the world, they have acquitted Him of the responsibility for the existence of evil; however, they then needed to explain why and how this world exists. The answer that Gnosticism gave to this question was that this world was the creation of another, inferior being whom they called Creator, thus distinguishing between Father and Creator. God the Father was one thing, and a god-Creator was another. This Creator of theirs is found among the series of aeons - beings that link the world to God. There, towards the end, near the world, is the place of this Creator who created the world and who is therefore also responsible for the evil that exists in the world. Because, a prerequisite of Gnosticism is that this world is by definition evil. In other words, evil resides within matter, within the structure of matter, within all of creation, within everything that exists in this world. Subsequently, this world cannot even be repaired. To be saved, you must therefore get out of this world. And a Gnostic is supposedly the one who is asked to abandon space and time, through the knowledge that he possesses. The Patristic response and chiefly Saint Ireneos, who confronted Gnosticism with his significant treatise Against Heresies was comprised of the following points, which are also the prerequisites in the Symbol of Faith (Creed) : THE FIRST POSITION maintained by Saint Ireneos is that God the Father and God the Creator is one and the same person. We do not make any distinction between the Father and the Creator. This is why in the Creed, these words are so close to each other, that many interpret the notion of Father as pertaining to Creation and not to His eternal state of existence. And indeed, in the 2nd century, this anti-Gnostic position of relating the Father with the Creator was so intensely stressed, that the impression was given when reading the Patristic texts of that period that the words I believe in one God, the Father.. implied the Creator more than it did the eternal God, that is, the Father of the Son. This was clarified at a later stage, mainly during the 4th century following Arianism, when the problem became more pressing and acute and the answer was given, that God is indeed the Father - not as a Creator, but as the Father of one Son, Who always existed, Who pre-existed, Who always existed, within the Essence of God. This, therefore, was the first position. THE SECOND POSITION is that this God/Father/Creator is directly involved in the act of Creation: He is not a Creator through any intermediaries. The theory of aeons - of all those intermediaries between God and the world according to Gnosticism is rejected, and is replaced by the insertion of the idea of the immediacy of Gods involvement in the act of Creation. This is a direct relating of God to the world. Here of course, is where the other point is brought up, which appears later on in the other clause of the Creed (through Whom everything came into being.) but we shall discuss this in the future and states that it was through the Logos, the Son, that God created the world. And this is where an impasse appeared somehow, on the issue of Gods transcendental status. This was such a delicate and difficult point, that it created much confusion, both in the 2nd and the 3rd and even the 4th century. This role of the Son in Creation (as the One through Whom God created the world) was responsible for the notion that the Father is so transcendental, that God as the Father was not the One who directly created the world, but Who used the Son to do it; thus, the Father remained the One that we could say nothing about; (we see here, how Gnosticism even took on a Christian form) He remained the Complete Stranger. The Son was the One who effected the work of Creation, but, because this had not been clarified (during the 2nd and 3rd

centuries), whether the Son belonged within the sphere of the Uncreated God, or if the Logos of God had somehow appeared for the first time when God the Father was effecting the work of Creation; in other words, it was because of the prevailing confusion on this point, that we arrived at Arianism, which had posed the question as to whether the Logos belonged within the sphere of the created, or of the Uncreated. Naturally, the Church -through its 1st Ecumenical Council- decided that the Logos belonged in the sphere of the Uncreated, even though it espoused Ireneos position in this case, whereby, albeit the Father uses the Son in Creation, He is nevertheless acting in a direct manner. In other words, by saying that God created the world through His Son, we should not imply that the Father remains so transcendental that He has no direct involvement Himself in Creation. The creation of the world is a work of the Fathers love. It is executed by the Son, but the Father is also ever-present in the work of Creation, and, as elucidated in the 4th century, the Father and the Son are inseparable. At any rate, it is imperative that we stress, chiefly with the theology of Saint Ireneos, this immediacy of the Fathers involvement, even though He uses the Son in the work of Creation. We therefore have an immediacy and a coincidence, between the terms Creator and Father. The Son does not become Creator, just because the world is created through the Son. The Father is the Creator, according to the 4th centurys theology. This changes slightly during the Patristic period; however, I would like to remind you at this point, that we should not perceive the Patristic period as a monolithic period. Unfortunately, during recent years, a very unscholarly perception of patristic theology has become prevalent in orthodox theology. Patristic theology has a history of its own; we cannot say Fathers in one breath, and in this word include everyone, from Saint Ireneos through to Saint Gregory Palamas, as though no fermentations whatsoever had occurred during this entire historical period. That which ensures the unity of Patristic thought, is that in basic issues (such as this one, of immediacy), all of Patristic theology is consistently in agreement. Thus, even if the Son does appear later on as the Creator, this does not negate the immediacy of the Fathers involvement. This is why the Creed insists: .in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

F. The Dogma on Creation The Platonic ideas The fruitless attempt by Origen Creation from nil according to Theophilos of Antioch Albinus and Philon Saint Maximus final solution Freedom, Logos, and the logos (reason for existence) of beings

b. The correction of Platonic ideas by the Christian faith The second historical element that the Church had reacted to, by means of the Symbol of Faith (the Creed), was the idea concerning creation; an idea that the philosophy of that era indulged in, which had its beginning in Platonism and continued through to neo-Platonism, which in turn had wrought other changes to the original Platonic theory. I might remind you at this point of the basic positions of Platonism, which the Church had reacted to, through the Symbol.

The pure form of Platonism appears in the work Timaeus by Plato. In it, God is actually referred to as Creator and Father but also as the Nous (=mind, intellect). Consequently, we have there in relation to Gnosticism a certain kinship between Christian thought and Platonism, but not with Gnosticism. However, there are other basic points, where Patristic thought had disagreed with Platonism, and they are the following: First of all, it was the notion that God created the world out of pre-existing matter and preexisting ideas. In other words, Platonism had accepted a creator-God out of necessity, because it was impossible for it to not give form to ideas that pre-existed, and to matter. It was forced to give chaos a certain form. It was obliged to create the world. It was a compulsory thing. This perception, which introduced the notion of necessity in creation, was replaced by the Christian perception of creation, whose position was that the world was created out of the free volition/will of God, and not out of any necessity. Furthermore, in order to confront the Platonic ideas regarding creation, the Church and Patristic theology needed to clarify the notion of the world being created from nil. In other words, it needed to stress that matter was not pre-existent; even with Plautinus later on, who presented the world as an extension, an effluence of the thoughts of the Ones Nous (mind); a Nous that diffused into many things, and that the world was created from this diffusion of Gods thoughts. This perception of creation could not be accepted by the Church, because it again signified that the world was somehow a necessary extension of Gods existence. In other words, God somehow extended His very self or His thoughts to create the world, and in this way, God and the world become eternally and inseparably bound together, and the world thus somehow became eternal also, just like God. In Origen, we note an attempt to express both of the previous concepts together, in his assertion that the world was created from nil, but, that creation itself was an eternalperpetual act of God. In other words, he introduced the eternality of creation, by arguing that God could not be almighty unless He had objects, upon which He could impose His almightiness. Therefore, this meant that a form of creation must have existed eternally. But this view caused problems; therefore it too had to be rejected. So, we are left with the perception that the world was created out of absolutely nothing; that it was not pre-existent in Gods thoughts, but was the result of Gods absolute free volition, hence the expression " ", (there was a time that it was not) - an expression that should be taken literally, in its absolute sense: The world did not previously exist, not even in Gods mind. This point needs a lot of clarification, because a difficulty arises in the idea that the creation of the world through Gods Logos was a pre-eternal volition, intended for the salvation of the world. Does this pre-eternal will of God presuppose an eternality of the world? Well? Does it? Yes, or no? This is a very complicated problem. God did not want this world to somehow appear abruptly, but He also did not resort to any pre-existing ideas when creating the world. The first one to develop this idea of the world being created from nil was Theophilos of Antioch, who had deeply influenced Ireneos. Ireneos had based his theology to a large extent on Theophilos of Antioch. In his Epistle to Autolykos 2,4, he said that God created from nil whatever He wanted and however He wanted. The idea therefore of Gods volition, of Gods freedom, was linked to the notion of creation from nil. Ireneos developed this idea more extensively, and eventually, it became a part of Patristic theology; it was also developed by Tertullian, Athanasius, e.a., thus consolidating the concept that the world was created from nil. We shall see, when interpreting the dogma on creation, what this means. Now that we are examining it historically, we need to point out that this idea of from nil must be taken in an absolute, literal context. Because, historically speaking once again, during the time that the Symbol of Faith was being formulated, Platonism had undergone several changes, which at first glance gave the impression that God did not create the world out of pre-existing matter and pre-existing ideas. But this did not automatically denote that He created out of nothing. Out of nothing, that is, in the absolute sense.

Specifically, middle Platonism with Albinus and Philon had rejected the concept that we encountered in Platos Timaeus, where God created out of pre-existing matter and preexisting ideas. They realized that this concept could not be reconciled with the Bible, so they entertained the idea that matter was created by God (which Christians agreed with), but there still remained a problem with the ideas, since they continued to be Platonists and could not admit that the ideas were also created by God. They found an outlet for this, by asserting that ideas were thoughts that resided in the Nous (mind/intellect) of God. Eternal thoughts. It was from these eternal thoughts inside the mind of God, as expounded by Albinus and moreso by Philon, that Neo-Platonism originated. Thus, we can now also say that the world always existed, as an eternal thought in the mind of God. To this, only Saint Maximus gave a comprehensive reply, by stressing that God (to Whom the notions of before and after do not have any relevance, within His eternal status) had eternally willed the existence of the world. But, to have willed it eternally does not mean that He instantly brought it into existence. In other words, Maximus provides us with this distinction between volition and existence. God may have willed the existence of the world pre-eternally, but when the world was eventually created, it was created without this act (of creation) constituting a necessary extension of Gods pre-eternal volition; furthermore, the Logos through Whom and in Whom God created the world is that same Logos with Whom God has an eternal loving relationship of Father and Son, and the existence of the world did not constitute a necessary consequence of this loving, Father-Son relationship, even if the will to create the world was pre-eternal. What is important in Saint Maximus, is the distinction between Gods will and the realization of Gods will. If we do not discern between these two things, then we are obliged to say that the world is eternal, because Gods will was pre-eternal. (see To Thalassios, 60, Apora). So, we have now discerned between a) the thoughts of God, b) His will and c) the realization of Gods will. The Neo-Platonics regarded the thoughts of God as something eternal, thus, by linking the world with Gods thoughts, they inevitably made the world eternal. Maximus contribution was that he introduced the will of God. The will to create the world is eternal. But he discerned between the will and the realization of that will, thus denying the eternality of the world. God has His thoughts, and the world has all the various beings, all of which have a logos (reason) for being. The logos (reason) for the existence of beings is linked to the sum of Gods thoughts (which is the single Logos of God). But He has these logos (reasons) for the existence of beings inside Him, in the form of His thoughts. These are basically uncreated logos (reasons). This of course is an anachronism, to say that the logos are uncreated, (in the eras of Arianism and the Cappadocians), as these matters were cleared up after the 2nd Ecumenical Synod. According to Arius, the Logos was situated at the lowest level, because it belonged to the world. For the years leading up to Arius, the Logos was placed between God and the world, depending on how each case perceived matters. Anyway, somewhere between God and the world. It was the Council (Synod) of Nicaea that irrevocably transferred the Logos into the realm of the Uncreated. What remains now, is to see how the logos (reason) for the existence of beings is linked to God. This is why we do not encounter the meaning of Logos until the time of Maximus. The Fathers avoided it, because it was a dangerous area. Maximus dared to make this bold theological move of utilizing the meaning of the term Logos. But for now, he just makes this distinction. God has His Logos; there is a loving relationship between the Father and the Logos, between God and the Logos. The world is created, in the Logos, through the Logos. But, now that he is utilizing the notion of Gods will for the existence of the world and not any direct, gnostic extension of Gods thoughts into the world, he refrains from stating that this connection is a compulsory connection; it has become a willed connection, in other words it

is a freely decided connection. There does exist a pre-eternal will of God, but, this preeternal will of God is realized, in the Logos, through the Logos. In other words, it is a volition, it is a will, and not a compulsory extension of Gods thoughts. God wills to create the world at a given time. This eternal will of His does not mean that His thought is instantly extended. The world is no longer regarded as a thought inside Gods Nous (mind). Thoughts are perceived as the logos (reasons) for the existence of beings; he now associates the logos of beings to the wills of God, and not the thoughts of God. Wills, logos and predestinations now relate to each other. Obviously, this is a revolution (when compared to what was said earlier), which facilitates us in eliminating that extension of Gods thoughts into the world. Because wills presuppose the freedom to be realized or not be realized (and this is precisely where the distinction lies, in the realization and the non-realization of wills). This is the basic difference between a thought (which, one way or another, is realized, must be realized, in order to be fulfilled) and on the other hand, a will (which, precisely because it is a will, does not mean it is a necessary consequence of a thought). Therefore a will, even if realized, does not connect or relate its realization with foresight/providence, in the sense of a thought. To think of something and to realize something, are not two, related things, precisely because they are wills. By relating wills with the logos (reasons), Maximus managed to avoid the necessity of creation. In other words, he avoided associating the logos (reasons) for the existence of beings to the thoughts in the Nous of God. After this, we veer away from Platonism, away from Philon and Neo-Platonism (where the logos of beings are associated with the thoughts of God). This is where the basic difference is, where the crucial point is: when associating the logos of beings with the wills of God and not the thoughts of God, they make the world the result of Gods will and not Gods thought. And because it is a result of will and not of thought, it is a result of free decision and not a necessity. In recapitulating the basic points, we need to mention that the concept of creation began as a reaction to Gnosticism and Platonism. In Gnosticism, the Church reacted by stressing the coincidence of the terms Creator and Father as well as the direct involvement of God in Creation. As for Platonism, the Church reacted on one hand to the pure Platonism of Plato, by stressing that the expression creation from nil means: creation, from no pre-existing material, and no pre-existing ideas; on the other hand, the Church reacted to middle Platonism and neo-Platonism, by responding that the world did not eternally exist in the Nous of God, not even as a thought, but -as now clarified through Maximus- as wills of God. And because these wills were linked to the Logos of God, the Son of God, it was through their loving relationship that they acquired an ontological basis, and the world became a real entity, without ever constituting a necessity for God. In other words, what Maximus did was to philosophically evolve the views of Saint Athanasius, i.e., that the Son exists due to the essence of the Father, while the world exists due to the will/volition of the Father. To that which was a mere design up until that time, Maximus strove to give a philosophical explanation, and in any case, the result of that effort was to demonstrate that the logos (reasons) for the existence of beings are the wills of God (and therefore freely decided by Him), and not the thoughts of God (with a compulsory nature). [*].

* OODE observation: How could one dare to attribute thoughts to an Omniscient and timeless God? Thoughts are the time-governed processes of a NON omniscient brain! A thinker is one who does not know. If he did know, he would not think, he would simply will.

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E. ON CREATION, SALVATION, CHRISTOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY 1. The dogma on Creation The reasons for the first part of the Creed The positions of Gnosticism Platos concepts Philons intervention Positions and problems by Origen

The dogma on Creation is stated in the Symbol of Faith (Creed) from the very beginning. The first article states: I believe in one God, Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, of all things visible and invisible.... This reference to Creation is - historically an addition to the Symbol of Faith. The Symbol originally was a confession of faith in the three Persons the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When this reference to Creation was added, it was because a variety of views on Creation had already begun to circulate, which needed to be addressed. This is why the Church proceeded to formulate this dogma. It was adding something that was relative to that period of time. In order therefore to comprehend the Symbol of Faith, we need to do two things (as we always do, during the interpretation of dogmas) : 1. Examine the significance of the dogma, for the period of time that it pertained to. 2. Examine the significance of the dogma for our time. This is the proper, fulfilled way to interpret a dogma. To examine the significance of the dogma at that time, we need to take into account the theories regarding Creation that were in circulation during that period, whether outside of the Church or inside it, as the Fathers took both these factors into consideration. They did not want to confine the Church to a ghetto. What were those miscellaneous ideas on Creation that were floating around, which the Fathers and the Church (by means of the Creed) had desired to clarify, and express the Christian position on the subject? The first theory that was in broad circulation and had provoked the reaction of the Church was Gnosticism. The Gnostics had a very specific dogma regarding Creation, and it was imperative that it be clarified, because Gnosticism had also infiltrated the Church. Gnosticism began with the premise that this world - as we know it and experience it - is fraught with evil. Evil has permeated this world. This is a very pessimistic perception of the world, but it was a reflection of the pessimism that was prevalent at the time. People would pose the question: since the world is so evil, how can it be related to God? How can God have created it? Gnosticism reply to this question was that God did NOT create this world. Gnosticisms concern was to preserve Gods transcendental status; to retain the purity, the innocence of God, away from all of the evil that exists in the world. This is how it reached the point of asserting that this world was not created by God, but that it was the creation of another being, which it called Creator, as opposed to God the Father. This Creator is one of the inferior aeons as they were called- in the hierarchy that links the world to God, seeing that God is so transcendental and so far away from this world. God is linked to the world, through this hierarchy of aeons, the last of which was the Creator, who had supposedly

created this world. Thus, the creator of this world was NOT God Himself, not God the Father. Gnosticism was confronted by the Church, and especially by the leading theologian of that period, Ireneos, who maintained the exact opposite view that God Himself had created the world, that God the Father had created the world. With this statement, he put the world in an immediate relationship with God, because the Symbol of Faith clearly states that I believe in one God, Father Almighty, creator of ......all things visible and invisible... . The Father is the Creator. Not just God, but the very Father Himself. This immediate involvement of God the Father in the creation of the world was the response given to Gnosticism. The motives that led the Church to embrace this position of Gods immediacy are basically the following: If the Church had conceded that God had no involvement in the creation of the world, it would firstly have placed doubt on Gods omnipotence, i.e., that God was not in a position to create the world. But it would not only have diminished His omnipotence, it would also have had repercussions on His love, because it would mean that God has no personal associations with the world. And finally, there would be the issue of whether this world would be able to rid itself of evil, if evil was indeed ingrained in its nature. But evil is an acquired thing, and not an element of nature. Since the Church upheld the view that God Himself created the world, it automatically upheld the view that the world was not evil by nature. But, with Gnosticisms concern and agony to explain evil, as well as its attempts to not attribute evil to God, the question was raised as to how evil appeared. The answer to this question of course was that evil originated from mans freedom the free will of the created, of Gods creatures. It was because this freedom was given to them, that evil appeared. The world therefore is not evil. God has a personal relationship with the world, and He is powerful, He is omnipotent. He is also Almighty, as the Symbol of Faith states; in other words, He is the One Who is Mighty Above All Things, Who has domination over all things, or, according to another rendition of the (Greek) word Pantokrator (the Almighty), He is the One Who Holds Everything In His Hands. (In Greek: Panta = everything, krator = holder) We have a God who associates with the world; a God Who creates something outside Himself. But, apart from the fact that this may involve the risk of attributing evil to God (a risk that is avoided, with mans free will), it also carries the risk that the world can be perceived as an extension of God; in other words, the world can be regarded as something that God had inside Him, which He brought to the surface. This was the idea that was equally in circulation with Gnosticism, within the cultural climate of that period, and the Church, when formulating the dogma on Creation, took this idea also into account, which was the opposite to Gnosticisms theory. Gnosticism had isolated God from the world, while the other theory had linked God to the world to such a degree, that God could not be imagined without the world. This theory had sprung from Plato and the ideas that Plato had formed about creation, and was fully developed during the time that the Symbol of Faith appeared. It was formulated under the influence of a major Platonist of that time, Philon the Judean. We must therefore examine these views on creation, and opposite them, we should examine the Christian viewpoint. Plato had dedicated one of his works, Timaeus, on the matter of the creation of the world. What seems to have caused Plato to write extensively on this subject of creation was the views that existed during that time and were being cultivated by the philosophers of that era, according to which, the world was not created by anyone. It was a random occurrence. When we say random, we can either interpret it as perchance as the Epicurians perceived it, or, that the laws of nature are identified with God. It was impossible to speak of God, beyond anything that nature contained within itself as a logical and cohesive force. The so-called physiologists, who commenced from Parmenides and Heracletus and all their kind, we could say were the opponents of Plato. Plato believed that the world was created by someone whom he had likewise named Father. In fact, in his work The

Republic, he had foreseen severe penalties for atheists. So, we see here, that he had accepted that the world was created by God. This is why he was subsequently looked upon (and many Christians were indeed charmed by Plato) as antiquitys theologian and believer. If one were to read Timaeus and his views on creation, one would notice that it was not exactly what Christians wanted to call creation. Because, although Plato did claim that the world was created by God, what he actually meant was that God the Father (or the Nous, as Plato called Him) did what an artist does, or a craftsman, who takes the materials, who has ideas in his mind, who takes a piece of canvas and on it, places the object that he wants to create. And the way that he described the creation of the world in Timaeus, was that he portrayed God as taking matter and ideas that pre-existed in the void that acted as a kind of canvas, and then positioned the world on it, giving it the beauty and harmony that it has. Thus, God is presented as creating out of pre-existing elements, which explains why according to Plato in Timaeus the world that God created is the best one that we could have, but it is not the perfect world. It could not be perfect, because apparently both space and matter, with the laws that they possessed, resisted the Creators efforts to perfect it, on the basis of the ideas. God therefore had done whatever He could; He had given us the best that He could; this world was the best conceivable world, but it was not the ideal world, the perfect world. The ideal world was only in the realm of ideas, which is not the one that we are looking at, but it is the absolutely perfect one. Plato and the ancient Greeks were very fortunate to be living in this world. There was however a tendency to attribute evil to matter and the laws of matter, the laws of space, the limitations of space (which were the opponents of ideas), and this is apparently why this world is at a level below the ideal world. The more that we descend towards matter, the more we distance ourselves from the wonderful world that God wanted to create but didnt manage to, because of the problems that were mentioned previously. When Timaeus (which was avidly read during the time of the Fathers, especially in the first centuries) reached the hands of Philon, who wanted to compromise, to combine Plato with his Biblical faith (because he was a Jew), he realized that there were problems. The first one that he noted was that: the way Plato presented God, He appeared to be subjected to the necessity of matter; i.e., matter pre-exists, and God finds it, ready-made. Of course this brought on the issue of who created matter. Plato did not regard matter as a creation of God therefore Philon took one step further and declared matter to be a creation of God. He said that God created matter, and with this, he secured Gods independence towards matter. But this was not the only problem with Plato, as we have noted. There was also the problem of ideas, because for Plato, ideas were likewise pre-existent, and God found them ready-made also. This meant that Philon had to solve yet another problem. The solution that he gave was that ideas were the thoughts of God. They were not above God; they were within God. You must note here, that ideas are of great importance for creation, because ideas are the fixed basis on which the world depended. Phenomena are variable. Whatever we see in this world, changes constantly. The ancient Hellene constantly pondered; he longed to transcend the state of deterioration, and that is why he found an outlet for this, in the realm of ideas. Ideas were definitely the truth of this world. If a table was real and not bogus (and it was bogus, because it would eventually change and no longer be present), there must be an eternal/ ideal table. If the idea of a table doesnt exist, then the table itself cannot be a truth/fact. Consequently, the idea of a table was imperative. Every being had its corresponding idea, its logos (its reason for being), and these logos (reasons for being), these ideas that were the beings supports, were items of reassurance and security for the ancient Greeks. These ideas of beings were according to Plato independent of God. God supposedly found them ready-made, and utilized them. There are many who identify the idea of benevolent and the idea of good (the beautiful) with God, in Plato. But this a subject for debate by specialists.

The Creator God in the text of Timaeus clearly isnt found above these ideas, but under them; He is subjected to these ideas of things; He does whatever those ideas direct Him to do. For example, God gave the world a spherical shape, (apparently) because He couldnt NOT make it spherical, as the spherical shape -for Plato- was the ideal shape. God could have given it a triangular or quadrangular form, but those corners would have created problems in regard to the (idea of the) perfect form. A sphere was the ideal shape, therefore God couldnt do otherwise, except utilize that perfect shape, because He was creating an ideal world. Ideas, therefore, had forced God to act in a specific way during creation, just as matter on the other hand had hindered Him from being able to finalize the creation of that ideal world. Philon realized that somehow, these theories were not suited to the freedom of God, so he modified Platonism by essentially transferring these ideas into the mind of God and saying that the entire world with all of its ideas, with all the logos (reasons for existence) of beings has its being, its security, inside the Nous (mind) of God. In this way, Philon believed that he had solved the problem of Gods freedom in regard to ideas, but the fact is, that he had created another problem. Before going on to the problem that he created, we need to say that Philons ideas had influenced the entire philosophy of that era, and had led it towards Neo-Platonism, which upheld that the world was like an effluence from the One God; in other words, like an extension of Gods thoughts, the thoughts of the One in the multiplicity of the world. But the problems that this theory raised also had an effect on Christianity, mainly in the person of Origen. These problems can be seen, especially if we examine Origen carefully, because there is that close link between the logos (reasons for the existence) of beings and the world of beings that are within God, and the world of beings that were created. There is that close link. The ancient Greeks always believed that the world was eternal and that the logos (reasons for existence) of beings, the ideas on which the world depended, were likewise eternal. Thus, in its ideal form, the world was believed as being eternal. Having espoused Philons view, Origen spoke of two forms of creation. One form was eternal creation, where God eternally thought of this world, along with the logos of those beings, which logos come together in the one Logos the Son-Logos. Thus, by having within that One Logos the logos of all the beings, God created this world, and this world was in an eternal, linear present. Over time, this world as we see it today in its material form basically took on a hypostasis and came into existence, but that was a secondary stage. It was a stage that was most probably a falling away from the first. Within this eternal creation, Origen had also envisaged the creation of souls. In a certain Platonic way, souls were eternal and the noblest and most significant things in creation. For Origen also, souls were eternal; within this eternal creation, they were linked to the world of ideas, along with the incorporeal spirits the angels. But when this incorporeal, ideal creation (Origens world of souls) acquired flesh, when it took on a material form the one we have today that was when the world fell into decline. The Fall is almost interwoven with the creation of this world, this material world. This material world was supposedly a stage of creation, and inferior to the spiritual world. The spiritual world of angels and souls is eternal, whereas the material world is perishable. Thus, when speaking of creation according to Origen, we appear to be developing an entire area of spirituality, as we are now referring to this special creation as something that needed to be purged of its material side. The (material) body is referred to as the prison of the soul. Therefore, the release, the salvation of mankind meant that he must be rid of the material element, the body. It meant a regaining of the initial state, where souls and spirits were devoid of corruption and of matter. This also entailed the belief that the incorporeal world (the angels) are superior to the corporeal beings, consequently, it is only when man manages to resemble the angels that he can approach God. For man to resemble the angels, he must rid himself of everything material. The more he rids himself of material things, the closer he will move towards God, and the less he will be shackled by material things. In this way, Origen took one step further away from Plato towards Christianity, but essentially he remained bound to his Platonic theories.

Why does he cause problems? The main problem that this theory caused had its roots in Philon; it was that despite appearing to have freed God, he had essentially confined Him! This is because Philon made the world compulsorily ever-present in Gods thoughts. The notion that the world is ever-present inside Gods thoughts in the form of those logos, and the notion that God creates eternally, imply that next to God, inside God, there is something else another self of God, the not Myself which is a determining factor in Gods existence. In other words, God cannot be imagined without the world! This way, we end up saying that it is impossible to speak of God without speaking of the world at the same time; that it is impossible for God to exist, without the world existing along with Him, in a form like the one of the ideal world of the eternal creation theory! That is what confined Gods freedom. It confined it ontologically. And that was the serious problem that Philon and Origen had caused. It was imperative to find a way of presenting the ties between God and the world as positives ones (as we noted in Ireneos) and not present them like a compulsory relationship for God. In other words, the existence of the world should not be a product of compulsory factors (because God had them eternally inside Him), but a freely willed decision to create it. This was what the Fathers expressed in their opposition to these Platonic ideas, when dealing with the term creation from nil. It is not enough, to only state that the world is a creation of God for opposing Gnostics; it is imperative that we also state that the world is a creation from nil, for opposing Platonics and Neo-Platonics.

2. Creation from nil The consequence of non-eternicity The consequence of the trend towards nil Avoiding the trend towards nil Mans role as a priest of Creation The need for Freedom

No dogma has ever been formulated without there being certain prior causes. The cause for formulating the dogma on Creation from nil was chiefly the Platonics influence with their concept of Creation; a concept that the Church did not accept. Subsequently, the Churchs dogma on Creation differs in its essence from the Platonic perceptions on Creation. Platonism and Christianity parted ways very opportunely on the issue of Creation, and it is very important that we remember that this took place as early as the first two centuries, although it did become even clearer in the 3rd century with the Fathers. So, let us see what the term from nil implies: The first thing that it signifies is that the world is not eternal, because, if it was not created from nil, then the opposite would be implied; i.e., that the world was created from something that already existed before it. Thus, if that something already existed (from which the world originated), then, logically, it must have pre-existed, and in fact must have existed prior to the creation of the world. Consequently, that something cannot be within the limits of Time; it cannot have anything to do with Time or Creation, unless that something is from nil; instead, it would have to be an eternal creation -as Origen asserted- and the world would necessarily be eternal also, the way that the ancient Hellenes had perceived it. These ideas are all rejected. The world is not eternal. " ", (=there was a time that it was not). The world was not. Then what was there? There was God. There was

nothing else but God, because everything outside of God is a creation. Therefore, we must infer that there was a time that God was on His own, without anything else co-existing. This is the first consequence of the term from nil. The second consequence is that if the world was created from nil, it would be subject to a return to nil. Why is this necessary? Well, it is necessary, simply because if something is not eternal, then it cannot remain eternal. The characteristic of the world is not eternicity, but its continuous dependence on nil. Consequently, the world can return to nil, and furthermore, it is in the nature of Creation to be constantly threatened by the return to nil. Athanasios the Great wrote in his work On Incarnation that Creation has nil and death within its nature. Therefore, death, in the sense of elimination of Creation is something that is embedded in Creation. When we say creation we definitely imply something mortal, as nothing immortal can be created. This is the second consequence of from nil. Now the third consequence. The following question arises: If the world is from nil and is threatened by nil, i.e., the world is destined to return to nil, then how can it possess a true existence, and how can it avoid its return to nil? Because, if God created a world from nil so that it would return to nil, then that world is condemned not only by nature, but also on account of Gods intention for it to die. But God did not make the world so that it should die; He made it so that it should live. We have already eliminated the nature of the world as its means of survival. In other words, when God made the world so that it could live, so that it would be able to transcend nil, He did not implant in its nature any kind of force that would ensure its immortality, because that would have automatically rendered the world eternal, and it would no longer be a creation; it would have become an immortal god. If God had placed such laws within the nature of Creation, which would have -once and for all- ensured the survival of the world, then that world albeit with a beginning from nil, as something non-eternal would have ended up eternal by nature. This means that God would have created another, eternal, god. Therefore, this would not have been the way for the world to transcend nil and continue to live, and be in a perpetual relationship with God. We have God on the one hand, Who is eternal, Who lives eternally within His nature, and on the other hand, we have a world that began from nil and within its nature cannot live eternally. This world cannot live eternally and not die, since it doesnt have anything inside it inside its nature that can draw from any powers for its eternal survival. All the laws of life, of nature, are simultaneously laws of death, and that is why we die. We begin to die, from the moment of our birth. Death begins from the very first moment of life. Death is not the last moment of life. Consequently, the laws that bring us into life are the same laws that bring us into death. The only way that something created can transcend death and deterioration is to remain in constant communion with the eternal God. God and the world should be in communion with each other. This communion was given to Creation as a mission to be accomplished by mankind. Thus, we have here a different kind of cosmology than the one we saw in Origen. Take note of these significant differences. Man was created at the end of all Creation, precisely so that he might unite the created with the Uncreated God and bring them into a permanent relationship, so that this created world by having a relationship only with the Uncreated, eternal God will not die, but live on. This is the only way that Creation can transcend nil. Therefore, the purpose of creating man was this precise communion with God. Why did God use man and not any other beings, such as angels for example? It is because man by nature

has a natural bond with the rest of nature, and because of natures bond with man, all of nature, all of the created world, by means of mans body, can enter into a communion with God and live. If God had chosen angels, i.e. the incorporeal powers, whichever ones and as many as they might be, the material world would never have been able to live on. In other words, an angel would not have been able to offer the material world the things necessary for it to live, which is the union with God; the union of created and Uncreated. The creation of man was a necessary element that would give the term Creation its full meaning, because without man, Creation would have been condemned to die. This was precisely the train of thought followed by Athanasios the Great in his On the incarnation of the Logos; he showed that it was not by chance that God chose this form of incarnation for the Logos in His plan to save the world, because what the world needed to be saved was no less- the transcending of nil and the ability to live on. And for the material world this would have been impossible, if the union with God was not arranged in such a way as to also include the material world. No other being in nature has this potential to transcend the material world and become joined to God, except mankind. Angels may be superior in quality and more spiritual, but they have a disadvantage: they do not possess a material body; they have no ties with matter, whereas we humans even partake of creations death. We die, because birds and trees die; because all animals die. Consequently, we know, we carry in our flesh the death of the created world. An angel does not partake of it. An angel does not share the fate of material death. Thus, the material part of creation cannot commune with God through angelic beings. When man was created, he was created precisely for that destination: to unite all of nature with God, thus enabling the transcendence of nil and death. And since this was mans supreme destiny, one would naturally have expected God to do things the way He did, so that this destiny would eventually be fulfilled. However, this destiny, this plan of Gods, encountered a stumbling-block, i.e., mans refusal to go along with the plan. Man said to himself: I dont want to follow this plan; I have my own plan I myself will become a god, and he fooled himself. Adam believed that by his becoming God, the world would be able to transcend nil, it would live on, and he too would live on. That is how he became entangled in the adventure we know as the Fall. Adams option to say no is attributed to the fact that God had given him the potential to say no in other words, Adam was bestowed with freedom. Thus, with regard to the dogma on Creation, the question is posed: Why does freedom exist in man? Why didnt God make things in such a way, that His plan wouldnt have stumbled over mans freedom? Of course we cannot ask God why He did things this way and not that way... But, we need to be aware of what would have happened, if God had done things in another way. What is evident is that if man had been created without the freedom to choose -or not choose- to follow that plan, then any union of God with the world and of the world with God would have been a compulsory union. The world would not have been able to escape so to speak- from this union, and that is precisely what God did not want, when He made the world from nil. He made it into something outside Himself, which, however, would not merely function like a machine that was joined to Him, but would function in the same manner that God functions, i.e., of his own free will. God did not want a world that did not want to exist. Can you create someone out of love, who would not want to exist? God preferred to make a world that would want to exist, and this is precisely why he bestowed on man the freedom to say yes or no to His plan. The fact that man chose the negative reply and man did choose it, and continues to choose it, even when he is fully aware of the fact that it will lead him to certain death and nil is indicative of the fact that God, when creating the world, did not want a world that existed without wanting to. In other words, the world had the God-given potential, during creation, to choose selfdestruction. By the looks of things, Adams choice existentially- was indeed the choice for self-destruction.

It was thus, that the world was let be, without any further intervention by God. Take special note of this, because this point completes the dogma on creation: If Creation had been abandoned free, the way that Adam had chosen to direct it, it is certain that it would have already reached the point of self-destruction - the point of annihilating itself. This choice was indeed respected by God; nevertheless, He never ceased His efforts to help the world to live. And this is where Providence enters the picture; the history of salvation, which is the means through which God tries to mend Adams choice, so that it will not harm the world. The idea behind salvation was for the world to survive, and to transcend death.

3. Existential consequences of the dogma on Creation General points on the created and the Uncreated The The The The The two constituents of the term "existent" Christian perception of Creation differences between created and Uncreated matter of existing freely threat of annihilation and dependence on the Uncreated

The "other god" and the use of words Material and incorporeal free beings Free beings for the perpetuating of Creation Summary up to this point The place of man in Creation The augmentative and decremental quality of Creation "In the image and in the likeness", and self-government What Mans freedom consists of The basic difference between Man and animals Radical expressions through Art: Proof of creativity The threat of a personal stamp on Creation Gods affirmative freedom Law as an option for exercising freedom

We have already examined Gnosticisms perception of Creation (which isolated God from the world), as well as the opposite view to that of Gnosticism, which asserted that this world was the result of a creation by God, but in such a manner that made the world seem like an eternal creation of God, thus presenting God as a compulsory Creator in other words, the world was presented as some sort of effluence from the very existence of God. In contrast to this view, the Church took the stance that the world was created from nil; in other words, the world is NOT an extension of God Himself, nor was it created from matter that pre-existed, or from ideas that pre-existed, or from ideas residing in the thoughts of God (as Philon and the middle Platonics had believed), which thoughts were eventually realized. When we say that the world was created from nil, we mean that it did not pre-exist, not even as a thought in Gods mind (ie, an eternal thought of God). Thus, we not only have a rejecting of the preexistence of matter, but also a rejecting of the pre-existence of ideas and thoughts regarding the world, inside Gods mind. So, when we say that the world was created from nil, we are also implying that the world could just as equally NOT have come into being; that it may NOT have come into existence at all. The fact that the world does exist, is the result of Gods free will. This has very serious existential consequences which we must examine, and which constitute what we have named interpretation of the dogma in our lessons.

What does the statement: the world may NOT have come into existence at all signify? This was a concept that the ancient Greeks would simply not accept. For the ancient Greeks, the world is eternal; one couldnt even consider entertaining the thought that the world was once nonexistent. So, on the premise that the world did not pre-exist, then something else must have existed before it; well, that whatever else relates to God. Thus, Creation is divided into two kinds of existence. The one kind is the existence that must have already existed, no matter what; and the other kind is the kind of existence that could, potentially, not exist. The kind that could potentially not exist, would logically owe its existence to the free will of the one that already existed, no matter what. In Patristic terms, the one that already existed, no matter what (i.e., the one that does NOT owe its existence to someone elses free will), is called the UNcreated. The one that exists because someone else willed it to exist (and could very possibly NOT have come into existence), is, in Patristic terms, called the created. It is in this way that existence is comprised of these two poles. Everything that exists, everything that we claim exists, anything that goes with the verb to be, must be either created or uncreated. There are no other categories. In other words, it will either be something that exists because someone else willed it to exist (and it can equally be something that was NOT willed and subsequently nonexistent), or, it can be something that exists, not because someone else willed it, but because it alone willed itself to exist. Pay special attention here, to a detail that is very, very difficult, but also very, very important. What we have named uncreated (i.e., that which exists, but not because someone else willed it to exist), for us (the created) it means that whereas we exist thanks to someone elses free will, that same someone else does NOT exist because another someone else willed it, hence making its existence compulsory. Its existence is compulsory, only for us. Some people are mistaken in this detail, when they assume that: since its existence is compulsory for us, then it must be compulsory for itself also. No. The one cannot be derived from the other. It is compulsory for us, because it simply came before us. As for its own self, it exists freely, simply because nothing else came before it. This certainly cant imply that its own self exists compulsorily. Consequently, the created and the uncreated are the two categories that we utilize, when working on the dogma of Creation. I repeat: the created is something that exists because someone else willed it to exist and as such, it could equally NOT exist, if that someone else did not will it to exist; the Uncreated is that which exists, NOT because someone else willed it to exist, but because it alone willed it. How have we deduced this differentiation in existence? As already mentioned, the ancient Greeks believed that the world is eternal. They therefore didnt accept this distinction between created and uncreated. When they referred to something created, it was in the sense that it did not previously exist, in the form that it has today, but in some other form; in other words, this table did have a beginning someone made it. When saying that something originates from nil, it means that it did never existed previously, in any form whatsoever. That is what a created thing is. But an ancient Greek would have said: Yes, I accept that this table had a beginning, that someone made it. (He would thus far be accepting a dogma on creation.) But, before this table was made into the form we see it in today, it used to exist in another form. There was the timber, and before the piece of timber, there was the tree, etc.,etc.. In other words, he discerned an eternal transmutation of the elements, which essentially had no beginning. It was just an eternal condition. This concept of Creation is not Christian. The Christian concept of Creation is to use the previous example that we must presuppose that this table once didnt exist at all; subsequently that it was also equally possible for it not to exist, in the absolute sense of not having ever existed, in any form whatsoever, i.e., prior to this table, there existed nothing, absolutely nil; not nil in the sense that it wasnt previously a table, but it was in the form of

wood. Even the wood did not exist. Not even the basic elements comprising this table existed; there was absolutely nothing before. Obviously, you understand that this view comes up against our logic; it conflicts with human intellect, because science truly finds itself in a difficult spot, when confronted by this kind of logic. How can something that now actually exists, previously have been non-existent, in any form? And yet, in physical science today, the most recent theories on the genesis of the universe, clearly refer to a creation to an appearance of the universe from nil. The predominant theory on the genesis of the universe is an explosion (The Big Bang), which is attributed to an initial stage that is equivalent to nil. We shall not go into this matter in detail; however, I would like to point out that it really isnt that unthinkable for one to suppose that there was absolutely nothing, out of which this world was created. At any rate, the universe must not in any way be viewed as an extension of God Himself, whether in the form of matter, or in the form of ideas. Our world is a created thing. It began from nil (as opposed to God Who is Uncreated, Whose existence has many differences - as opposed to the existence of the Uncreated God). What are the major differences between created existence and uncreated existence? The first major difference, as we mentioned earlier, is that the created exists, because someone else willed it to exist, and not because it willed its own existence. Created existence is therefore not a free existence. On the other hand, uncreated existence exists, not because someone else willed it to exist (since there is no someone else beyond God who by definition would have willed God to exist); if there was a someone else who could have created God, then God would also be a creation and we would then need to seek the one who created the one who created...etc..etc... We would definitely have to stop somewhere. The point at which we stop is where the uncreated is. Therefore, the uncreated is NOT the result of someone elses will, hence it exists freely. It does NOT exist because someone else wanted it to exist. It must exist, because it alone wanted to exist. That is the major difference between the Creator and the creation; the uncreateds freedom to exist, versus the createds compulsory existence. The compulsory status of existence of course pertains to the actual event of existence to the fact that something exists at this moment. The second major difference and consequence is that, since the created came from nil, it will always have nil lurking behind its back, like a permanent threat to its existence. If the created world could also NOT have existed, then what could hinder the possibility of its ceasing to exist? The only thing that could hinder the possibility of its ceasing to exist, is that which caused it to exist in the first place in other words, the will of the Uncreated. The free will of the Uncreated can maintain the created in existence, for as long as it desires, for any length of time. But, it is ONLY this free will and NOT the created by itself that can ensure its existence its survival. Therefore, for the created to exist, it must be perpetually dependent on the will of the one who brought it into existence. Thus, we observe in the created a dependent existence, whereas in the Uncreated we observe a non-dependent existence. The created must be in a perpetual relationship with the Uncreated, in order to survive. If this relationship with the Uncreated is severed, the consequence is none other than a cessation of its existence a return to nil. Consequently, by not having inside itself the potentials necessary for existing without any dependence (because if it did, it would be an uncreated being), the created perpetually experiences the threat of its return to nil. This is the threat of death. The created existentially lives under the stress of death, and the only way to rid itself of this stress the stress of returning to nil is, as we said, its relationship with the Uncreated and the maintaining of that relationship. When the created severs this bond with the Uncreated, turns towards itself and seeks to draw its powers of survival from its own self, it lapses into a deception which does not lead anywhere, except to its annihilation and death to death as a form of annihilation. Consequently, everything to do with the existence of a creation hangs in the balance; and this is the essence of the dogma on Creation its existential interpretation, i.e., its association with the Uncreated. If the bond with the Uncreated is severed, the creation ceases to exist. One could of course imagine a situation that involves a bond between the created and the Uncreated that cannot be severed

in any way: in other words, God could have created a world that neither wants to live forever, nor wants to have any association with God, which would imply a compulsory relationship with God. It would more or less mean that God created another god a god that would live eternally because it would be in an eternal, compulsory relationship with the Uncreated. It would live eternally, despite having begun from nil. This is entirely inconceivable. It is out of the question, for God to create another god: a god with an eternal outcome, without being a god to begin with; in other words, a god that has been created from nil but ends up eternal. It is inconceivable, because it would mean that the word God has a very strange inference: that is, it would apply both to a being that exists without having being created by someone else, as well as to a being that has been created by someone else. The word God is used extremely arbitrarily. Of course we can use words any way we want nobody is stopping us. But we cant act arbitrarily, because we need to discern things, so, if we use this word here, we will need to find another word to describe that being who is God, without having been created by someone else.. From the moment that we accept that this was created by someone else and that someone else in fact exists, and was not created by anyone else, from that moment, we need to find two different words to describe these two things. It is therefore not possible to refer to the created being as god, and the Uncreated also god. This consequently precludes our regarding the created as a thing that is made eternal by God. The created, therefore, is something that does not have eternicity within it. If it is cut off from God, it cannot live, it cannot exist, it will lapse into nil. It is precisely this condition that gives rise to the following question: How then, can this world live? How can it exist? How can it avoid nil? Because it has to avoid it (as we have already said) and be in a perpetual association with God. Therefore, there must reside within the created a freedom of choice, with regard to this association with God. And this leads us to the major issue of Creation, not only of the world, but also of Man within the world. Before focusing on Man specifically, we need to discuss more generally the existence of free beings within creation. I must repeat the position that was outlined earlier, that it is impossible for a creation to live, to avoid its return to nil, if it is not in a perpetual association with the Uncreated. A second position: This association with the Uncreated God cannot possibly be a compulsory one, because if it were, then we would have a second god within Creation. Hence, it must be a voluntary, freely-wanted association. In order for it to be voluntary, there must be free beings existing in Creation; consequently, it is precisely this need of the created world to live on, to survive in such an association with God, that leads to the creation of free beings. The dogma on Creation mentions two kinds of free beings within Creation. Free beings with a material hypostasis and free beings which dont have a material hypostasis. The ones that dont have a material hypostasis are known as angels - incorporeal beings. The free beings that possess a material hypostasis are known as mankind. There is nothing else in Creation that we can call a free being; only the incorporeal ones (the angels) and Man. According to what we have said so far, the role that free beings play in Creation, i.e. their calling, or, the purpose for which free beings were brought into existence, was to freely unite the created with the Uncreated. In other words, to be able to become willingly united, because, as I have proven, the created cannot be forcefully united to the Uncreated. Thus, if this union does not take place, the creation is condemned to return to nil, as it has no other means for survival. Therefore, the free beings in Creation have a major destination; they do not merely have a major destination, they have an ontological destination. Creation literally hinges on their exercising their freedom. If they exercise their freedom in the manner that will lead to the union of the created with the Uncreated, then Creation the created will remain alive. If they exercise their freedom in a reverse manner, then the created is

threatened by catastrophe, by annihilation. Of these free beings, angels the incorporeal beings fall short of the requirements of the role that we just mentioned, i.e., the uniting of the created to the Uncreated. They fall short when compared to mankind, because they do not have the same corporeal potential, the same material status, and therefore cannot within themselves unite the material world, material Creation, with the uncreated God. Man, on the other hand, because of his material hypostasis, partakes of the material world/Creation; he was from the very beginning pre-ordained by God as the par excellence instrument by which this union of the created and the Uncreated was to be realized, and the subsequent survival of the created. It should be clear now, why, as the Apostle says in his Epistle to Romans, "all of Creation also sighs and suffers"; why all of Creation falls when Man falls. Why all of Creation anticipates to be saved, why it looks forward to surviving when Man becomes united to the Uncreated. Man therefore has this immense mission, and that is why the exercising of Mans freedom affects Creation as we have already mentioned; not only Creations well-being, but also its very existence. Creation can, in other words, end up a nonentity. I shall repeat the points that we touched on earlier. Creation includes beings that can freely turn towards God and freely hinge their existence on this association with God - with the Uncreated. These free beings are two kinds. There are those beings which, when voluntarily turning towards God bring the rest of Creation along with them, because they are in an organic relationship with the rest of Creation. These beings are Mankind. The other kind of free beings are those that do not have this organic relationship with the rest of material Creation and so, when turning towards God and hinging their created existence on the uncreated God, do not bring material Creation along with them; they merely exist in a state of bliss, in a blessed condition, because they are limited to merely experiencing that relationship. These incorporeal beings, the angels, are not cut off or unrelated to the rest of Creation. They are likewise creations; they are likewise created beings. They are not eternal, and they too are subject to the same conditions that material bodies are subject to. Therefore, to be subjected to the condition called death and obliteration is not a consequence of ones material status. Pay special attention to this point: death is not attributed to the fact that the being is a material one, but because it is a created one. There is a difference between the two. The created Creation does not consist only of material creations. Matter is not evil; it is not the cause of death and obliteration, or the threat of annihilation. Evil the threat of annihilation stems from the beings created status, from the fact that these beings had a certain beginning; that they had originated from nil. These were the points that we highlighted. Now let us examine Creation and Mans place in Creation, in more detail. Man appears towards the end of Creation. Here, we have a basic difference between Christianity, the Bible, and the philosophical chiefly the Gnostic systems during the time that the dogma on Creation was being formulated. The Gnostic systems begin with the creation of Man and end up with the creation of matter and other inferior beings, because they begin with the premise that Creation commenced with whatever was superior, by comparison to how it ended, and therefore, the more that one descends towards the more inferior beings, the more one heads towards the Fall of Creation, and its subsequent downgrading. The Gnostics had a very negative opinion of matter, thus, perfection was to be found only in the beginning and Man was regarded as the perfect being, while all inferior beings came later. This explained the degrading of the material world, as found in these systems. In the Biblical perception, we do not find any downgrading of the material world. On the contrary, we could say using the prevalent terminology of our time- that there is an

upgrading of the material world. The Bible regards the material world worthy of the best kind of fortune possible, and that is why the appearance of Man towards the end of Creation indicates that God intended the material world for the best there is, which was Man; because, as we said, this human being was to bring along with it the entire material world into communion with the uncreated God. The creating therefore of Mankind towards the end of Creation has this specific meaning: the upgrading of the material world. However it also has another meaning, which is the exercising of freedom on the part of mankind towards the material world as well. In other words, Man is created with the element of freedom, which will allow him to take a positive or a negative stance, good or bad, towards the rest of the world. Man is the crowning glory of Creation; he is the king of all Creation (as described by many Fathers); he is the one who can rule over the entire material world and use it in any way he desires. Why? Because, as opposed to the rest of the world, he is endowed with freedom something that no other material being possesses in Creation. Consequently, Man is created towards the end, in order to vouchsafe and to fulfill the mission of the material world, and will do this, by means of his freedom, having being given the potential to use this world freely (...and have dominion over the earth...). And this is the exact point where one locates Mans huge responsibility within the material world. We have spoken therefore of the importance or, more correctly, the mission that Man has within Creation, and we have highlighted the difference between Man and the rest of material Creation. The difference is that Man has freedom, which the rest of material Creation does not. At this point we need to make a certain analysis and we shall do so, presently. Before proceeding to this analysis, I would like to relate this freedom with the term in the image of, as mentioned in the Holy Bible and the Fathers. Man was created in the image of and in the likeness of God. This Biblical expression has been interpreted in numerous ways, and even during the Patristic period, we can see different views as to the meaning of: in the image of. In very general lines, Patristic writings have different opinions on this topic. One opinion is that the expression in the image of differs from in the likeness of, inasmuch as the first expression implies the perfect state of Man at the beginning of Creation, the way he was created by God, while the second expression is the state that Man will achieve at the end of Time, when he finally looks upon God face to face, thus fulfilling the communion between the created and the Uncreated. That is when the likeness will have been achieved; when Man will become god-like - this being an eschatological perception. For others, it is already a reality, and the likeness can also be considered a reality prior to the end of Time. For other Fathers, the content of the term image is the logic of Man; for others, such as Gregory of Nyssa, who stresses this point persistently, it is the element of self-government. The difference is not an essential one, because even with the Fathers who relate the image to Mans logic, Mans logos, the concept that is understood there is that the logos the logic- of Man is nothing more than his freedom, his self-government. It is for this reason that I believe one resonates the Patristic tradition overall, when denoting (as we did here) that the difference between Man and the rest of Creation is the element of freedom, of self-government. We must therefore see what constitutes this freedom of Man, and how it could contribute towards the purpose of Creation. Freedom is the potential that the created has (because we are referring to the freedom of a created being here) to simulate God with regard to creation. Thus, as we have said, our existence the createds existence is a given fact for the created and consequently, the created is not a free existence. We exist, because someone else willed it, and not because we have freely willed to exist. This is therefore the supreme challenge that the created is faced with. It has a compulsory existence, whereas contrarily, the uncreated (God), by not having been created by someone else, does not have a compulsory existence, but a free one. So, the image (as related to Mans freedom) consists precisely of the fact

that he can have or has the tendency to prefer to have- not a compulsory existence, but a free one. Consequently, Mans freedom is exercised in two ways; the one way is negative, i.e., it is the potential that man has in his freedom to disregard or to reject the given existence of Creation and reject the Creator, by saying I do not acknowledge You as Creator, or I do not consider this Creation to be of any concern to me, and furthermore, because I did not create this Creation, I can reject it. This is the negative approach. But there is also the positive option: I cannot want to reject it, however, I can (and I desire to) create my own world; I also want to create to create freely from nil, the way that God creates. This tendency is found in Man, and it is the only determinant difference between man and animal. We need to insert a large parenthesis at this point, because one cannot speak of the dogma on the Creation of the world and Man, without referring to modern Biology and especially to the Evolution Theory Darwins theory (*) which, whether we like it or not, is the one that currently prevails in Biology. When the Evolution Theory made its appearance, Darwin caused panic in prevalent Theology. Darwins theory (*) created this panic, because up until that time and even to this day for many people the characteristic that discerned Man from the animals was considered to be the logical element, thought, conscience, and self-awareness most of all, and Darwin in his Origin of the Species (*) demonstrated very convincingly that all these characteristics are also found in animals, except that animals possess them to a lesser degree and consequently, the difference between man and the animal with regard to these characteristics- is not, as he stated, a difference in kind, but a degree of difference. He demonstrated that animals can also think, have a conscience, create a civilization, possess technology; furthermore, many things of which Man boasts are not lacking in animals; they too organize their lives etc., and, just like that, in a moment of time, we found ourselves in a dilemma as to whether or not to accept that Man is also an animal, or to review the entire issue of how Man differs from the animals. Contemporary anthropology has now located the difference elsewhere. I repeat, that many people still persist on the idea that the difference is found in the characteristics that we mentioned and that they naturally consider Man to be an advanced animal species. To locate a radical difference that will be a difference in kind as Darwin said- and not a difference in degree, we must not resort to logic or conscience; not even to self-awareness, science and technology, perhaps not even to something that is very popular nowadays especially in Britain i.e. communication, because things are not quite clear there either, as to whether animals have languages not languages in the sense of uttering cries to communicate, but in the sense of structured sentences, of composing meanings etc.. All of these are characteristics of Man; however, not everyone is convinced of this. Thus, the single characteristic that anthropology today is inclined to accept as a difference, I believe now renders Darwins (*) theory entirely innocuous for Theology, provided Theology takes the appropriate stance. This characteristic is, as we mentioned earlier, freedom. An animal, any animal, even the more advanced kind, possesses the ability to adapt to the environment, to the existing world, to Creation; however, it will never consider denying its environment, annihilating it and then creating its own world. An animal cannot create a world of its own; only Man has this tendency. You notice a tree. The same tree that you are beholding is also beheld by a cat. As a scientist, you can analyse that tree, you can become a perfect botanist, create an entire science and will, in this manner, be one step above that animal, but you will not be of a different kind. During the course of evolution, you may have once possessed less knowledge as a biological being and acquired more knowledge with the passing of Time; this is understandable and it creates no problem. Consequently, as regards the knowledge of that tree, you do not differ as a species from the animal. But when you say I will draw this tree; I will make my own tree, I will make a world with trees which are not these, but my own trees, from that moment on, you have proved you do not belong to the animal category. An animal can never consider making its own world. It adjusts itself to the present world, but does not create its own. Therefore the animal cannot develop artistically. One could say that to a

certain elementary degree, it can create science. Quite often however, it is more than an elementary degree; quite often, we discover things that have already been discovered by animals. Science therefore is possible for an animal or for Man (as a superior kind of animal), but it cannot create art. The fact that it cannot draw is not simply a matter of not being able to pick up a paintbrush and draw. It can be taught to do this. But to reject the existing world and create a world of its own, which will bear its personal stamp, is a characteristic of Man, and this characteristic is observed as modern psychology has indicated- from Mans very first steps. Psychology today especially with Freud- has observed that when a child, an infant, takes any raw material into its hands, it will shape it, thus imposing its own personal stamp on it. This reflects mans tendency to create his own world; it is his way of showing he is unwilling to admit that the world that was provided for him is something that he has to adjust to, whether he likes it or not. He wants his own world. Art, therefore, as a creation of a new world, is an exercising of Mans freedom, which however conflicts with its created status. Why? Because Man cannot create anything from nil. No matter what he does, he is forced to rely on given images, given materials, in order to create it. How can he create? That is where he stumbles. That is why genuinely creative Art like the Art of our time, which developed under the influence of ones conscience, in a climate that basically existentialism and the modern philosophies in general have nurtured why modern Art has this tendency (which many find annoying) to fragment given forms. Michaelangelo constantly complained that the greatest impediment in his art was the marble, and the need to be rid of the marble in order to create something. Picasso and many other contemporary artists also fragmented their forms. Why? Because they too felt that given forms hindered their freedom. When this table here has a given form, it is not a work of creative Art to represent it the way it is. This was the olden concept of Art, which was more reminiscent of photography. You take this object, and produce an exact replica of it. Art is not about copying the given world. Nor is it what the Romantic Era held it to be: i.e., Art means to extract from the given creation from Nature its spirit, its meaning, its beauty, etc. But these do not have any freedom, nor any creativity. Art bears inside it that restlessness regarding freedom, hence its desire to fragment the given forms and freely create whatever the artist desires. However, you can see that what the artist wants is something so arbitrarily personal, that no-one else can recognize it. He creates something and calls it a table, but it doesnt have the appearance of a table, so that I too can recognize it as a table. This is why this kind of art form is so difficult to comprehend and why it is rejected by us; why we call it weird, surrealistic, etc. Or, lets take a poem for example: even in poetry today, words are also fragmented; i.e., traditional words, with their traditional meaning, are now an impediment in expression, in creation. I mentioned all the above, so that you might see how much Dogmatics is linked to Mans existential quests, and how consequently - the dogma on the creation of Man as a free being points in this direction. It points towards a being, which, inside Gods given world, does not desire to accept it and preserve it the way it was delivered to him; instead, he desires to place his own personal stamp on it, and this commences from a denial, through to a stance. In other words, he can either destroy it in order to prove his freedom, or, he can accept it and then vouchsafe it again, of his own free will. Of course there are various in-between stages; however, the being that we call Man moves within that region. From the moment that we ask Man to forsake his freedom, we demote him to the status of an animal. And here lies the big problem: If Mans freedom is exercised, if it is respected and preserved, there lurks a danger for Creation, and in our day and age, in this very generation, it is imperative to mention this. Man has indeed reached the point of being a veritable threat to Creation. That expression of go forth and conquer the earth... - the exercising of his freedom - has led him to use Nature thoughtlessly, to use it as he wishes. I read a very interesting book recently, by an American historian on the problem of ecology, where, in an amazing analysis, she demonstrates how the roots of the ecological problem are in Christianity, in Western Christianity, and especially in the comprehension of that Biblical

expression of conquer the earth where Man can supposedly do what he likes with Creation. Creation, therefore, is not endangered ecologically by the animals. Why? Because animals adapt themselves to Creation, to the given environment; it will never cross their mind to exercise their freedom to the detriment of Creation. In his freedom however, Man can destroy Creation. Then why did God cede it to him? We need to re-iterate, to the previous lesson: Freedom was the only means through which Creation could live on. Unfortunately, freedom by definition- could not be only the affirmative kind. From the moment that freedom was bestowed so that the world would be able to live, at the same time, freedom was given for the world to be able to be destroyed. Why? Because we do not possess the affirmative kind of freedom only; Only in God do we have affirmative freedom only. Is there any chance, is it at all feasible, that God would want the destruction of the world? Of course not. Why? Well, the whole problem begins with the reality of being created, and the difference between the created and the Uncreated. When creating, God did not have to deal with a given Creation, a given situation. Whatever He made was the result of His will. This is Gods affirmation; it is a Yes. No as an exercising of freedom, or the choice between Yes and No does not exist for God, because for Him, nothing is a given, to which He might say No. No will appear suddenly, from the moment that a possibility exists, which one is able to reject. To be able to reject something, it must have previously been given to you by someone else. Here lies the problem that the created has as a free being, because, given that the created is a created being, it confronts given situations; even its own existence is something given by someone else, and that for the created, the someone else is also a given. Consequently, it is not able to exercise its freedom only with Yes, because there exist things to which it can say No. God cannot exercise His freedom as a No, because He doesnt have anything given by another someone, to which He might say No. Consequently, when God bestows freedom to a created being, He unavoidably bestows it in the form of a choice between Yes and No. The created beings freedom is comprised of the potential to say Yes or No in a given situation. This is why the Law that was given from the very first moment of Mans Creation in Paradise, by means of the tree of knowledge and the indication from these you may eat, but from this tree you may not eat; these were all means by which Man could exercise his freedom. God did not provide the Law in order to deprive Man of his freedom; He gave the Law, in order to give Man the opportunity to exercise this freedom, because Mans freedom as a created being- can only be exercised through this choice between Yes and No. This will be the topic of our next lesson, which will pertain to the meaning and the consequences of the first Mans choice, which was his choice of No towards the (given) God and the (given) world. This is the dogma so to speak- of Mans Fall. What it consists of, and what consequences it had, will be our next lesson.

(*) OODE Note: Differing views are held by the Orthodox Church on this topic; however, it is an issue that Orthodoxy has not yet dogmatized on officially (through an Ecumenical Council). For other views on this subject, apart from those presented by the author of this article, you may visit the following sites: OrthodoxWiki: Evolution Super Correctness Genesis and Early Man

4. The consequences of Mans Fall Linking to the previous lesson on evil and freedom Mans self-deification as a negative expression of freedom The deification of Creation = an idolatrous distortion The distorted view of life and death as the consequence of idolatry The transcendence of death in Christ Space and Time as unifying and splitting factors The impersonal view of the being and the Christian, personal view

Up. to this point, we have seen how Mans Fall became possible. His Fall became possible, on account of his freedom. Evil, therefore, entered the world on account of freedom. If freedom didnt exist, there would be no evil, no sin. Animals do not sin. They may perform the same acts that are characterized as sins by Man, but they are not sins for an animal. This is because it is not the act -per se- that renders something sinful; it is the exercising of freedom. An animal does not have freedom. Consequently, when Man exercises his freedom, he either sins, or he doesnt. We mentioned that freedom is necessary for a created being. We also mentioned that Man has this freedom exclusively within his created hypostasis - in the form of a link between the material world and the Uncreated God (and not just the immaterial world) and that because it is a freedom that was bestowed on the created and not the Uncreated, it is exercised in the form of acceptance or rejection of a given event, a given situation. Because the created being is precisely this: it is that which confronts given situations. The difference between the created and the uncreated is that the uncreated naturally- has nothing given about it; everything that exists originates from its volition, it was not made by someone else, otherwise, it would not have been an uncreated being. A created being would not have been a creation, if its existence was a given fact and subsequently the existence of the one who gave it its existence. This, therefore, causes it to need to exercise its freedom through Yes or No through the admission or the rejection of given situations. Now, remember what we said earlier: that it is necessary for the created to survive, to escape from nil, and to be in a union with the Uncreated; that it cannot survive otherwise. Remember also, that Man was created precisely for the purpose of materializing this union of the created with the Uncreated. Now, let us come to the matter that we touched on previously, i.e., that Man, when addressing this calling from God, decided to exercise his freedom in a negative manner, saying No, I will not unite the created to the Uncreated. I will unite the created to myself. This was the deeper meaning of the Scriptural passage in which Adam succumbs to the temptation to state that he will become god. He thus transferred the focal point of reference of that union, from the Uncreated God to his own, created self. He deified himself. In other words, he rejected God; he said No to the given God: No, You are not a given God for me, so, I shall create my own god, i.e., my own self. Everything shall therefore have me as a point of reference, instead of You. This is the way that we portray the Fall of Man. All of Creation fell. Why? Here is the analysis that we must now make, on the event of the Fall. We mentioned that Creation can be saved, only if united with God, and that this could only be achieved through Man. We also explained why. Now that Man had decided to divert all of Creation towards his person and make himself a god the ultimate point of reference the following consequences were generated: The first consequence was that Man came to believe

that he can dominate over all of Creation as though it were his own creation, subsequently causing a conflict, an opposition between Man and Nature a veritable enmity. This enmity rendered Nature a place of misery for Man, because he was no longer in harmony with it. This disharmony between Man and Nature was the disharmony the contrast between the person and nature, between freedom and necessity, and consequently, man could no longer survive in this world, except only through combat - by fighting against nature. On. the other hand, one could say that Nature also took on personal dimensions; in other words, it took on divine dimensions for Man. Seeing how, during this battle with Nature, Man came to realize how much weaker he was by comparison to Nature, he immediately formed an impression of Natures superiority over him. When Man suffered defeat during this battle, when Nature overwhelmed him, Man automatically felt its supremacy, and, having ousted God as the ultimate point of reference, he began to make to absolutize the forces of nature, as his ultimate point of reference. Thus, the next consequence of Mans Fall was idolatry; his fight with Nature finally led to the deification of Nature. When a lightning bolt -for exampleappeared threateningly and he realized it could not be controlled by his own power, Man deified it. And that is how the Scriptural observation of they exchanged the Creator, with the creations is comprehended; this is how Creation became deified...... Now you can understand how we arrived at the deification of Creation; which path led to the consequences (which are truly tragic for mankind, but also for Nature itself). In view of the fact that Man was created and Nature expects Man to make God its point of reference in order for it to survive, and given that Man has now taken Gods place and the only point of reference that Nature now has is Man, all of Creation has thus become subjected to deception as regards life and existence. In other words, Man and all of Creation both became confined to a life that is dictated and directed by the laws of Nature, by the biological life that gives the impression of an actual life, of a transcendence of death, when in fact it leads to death. Thus, Mans fall had, as its outcome, Mans loss; Nature overall lost the meaning of truth, the meaning of true life, and was deceived into an impression that the thing called life is actually life, when in fact it is death. Thus, death enters the scene as synonymous to life. Note here, that this could well be the most tragic consequence of the Fall, i.e., that death enters the scene as a synonym of life. What do I mean with this? Well, we are under the nave impression that death is a point located at the end of Mans life. We say that someone died at the age of 90, as though death suddenly made its appearance during his 90th year. In reality however, this man began to die from the moment he was born. Biology sees death as a process that begins simultaneously with birth. Moreso modern Biology and the latest theories on ageing, link ageing to reproduction. At least in beings with organs especially mammals the ageing cycle begins from the moment that the organism reaches the point of reproductive maturity. And this is characteristic, precisely because it is linked to the mystery, the phenomenon of life. The phenomenon of life bears inside it the phenomenon of death. The deception, the clouding of the truth here, is that we are under the impression that we are actually living (and when I say impression, I mean the existential, the experiential kind; an impression that we are all influenced by). We shield our eyes from the truth of death; We are speaking here of biological, existential categories. When we go to the psychological categories, things are even more evident. We dont even want to think of death, or, we are unable to, psychologically. But the psychological aspect is not the most important aspect; the biological, the existential one is. These are fermentations that already exist inside the organism. The fermentations of deterioration exist, but we cannot see them. Biological existence is structured in such a manner, that it cannot see the truth; and even if it does see it, it will see it only psychologically it cannot see it ontologically. It is not possible; this is the way that things are: out of our control. We have therefore entered into a circle that is a fake life, which is why the Gospel speaks of the real life. Why was this distinction necessary here? We say real life. What is real life? We seem to have de-spiritualized the term. These modern perceptions are not Biblical. When

one speaks of the real life, he is not implying another life the kind that we call spiritual. He is implying a life that does not die; a life that is not subject to this deception of the socalled life that leads to death. Consequently, real life is the life that is not proven false, because it is not defeated by death. Real life springs from the Resurrection of Christ, from Christ Himself, precisely because that is where biological death was actually transcended. This is not a matter of ignoring biological death in favor of another life. No. The everyday expression of other life which we use is the extension of this life it is the real side of this life. Thus, death (i.e., this deceptive life that carries death inside it), is the outcome of the Fall and it is a bad, unacceptable thing. The Christian view can never regard death as something good. The transcending of death, therefore, is par excellence- the Gospel, which the Church offers us. With His Resurrection (which signifies the transcendence of biological death), Christ provides us with the conviction, the hope, that it is possible for this admixture of the real life with the false that we are subject to can be cleared, so that the element of death may be removed, leaving only the element of life. This is the real and eternal life, because a real life is also an eternal life. As for the word eternal in the New Testament, it has no other inference, except that it is an extension of this life. It is only in Platonism that the term eternal is juxtaposed to the term current, i.e., an entirely different level of thought. We do not find this kind of level in the Biblical perception. In the biblical perception, we have straight lines. Time, and consequently History, the corpus and the course of matter- of the material world - is a blessed part of Creation. In Platonism however, this is a negative point of reference, since one must escape from Time in order to be released and move on to another level; i.e., to fly beyond Time. Unfortunately, many Christians interpret things in this Platonic manner, when they say: Did he die? Consider him blessed. He has departed from this fake world. He has slipped away from Time. He has gone to eternity, where Time doesnt exist. These ideas are not Christian. The expectation therefore of the Resurrection is precisely an expectation of the transcendence of death and the catharsis of existence, so that the false and the deceptive element is taken out of the way. I shall revert therefore to the manner in which the deceptive and the false element appeared, which is directly related to the nil from which Creation began. Imagine that we have a world that originates from nil; a world that did not previously exist. We therefore have an entity A, which has nothing behind it as support; i.e., it has no pre-existence. This entity constitutes a multiplicity in Creation, because Creation is not one thing God didnt create one being; He created many. Creation began with multiplicity, therefore nil had infiltrated everything; it exists between A and B because B is also a creation, just like every single creation that has been created, thus, there exists a dimension between beings. The dimension between beings in Creation is expressed by two elements: space and time. Between A and B or B and C there definitely is space and time. Between them is space and time, which is what gives them their hypostasis; it connects them between each other, but it also keeps them separate. In other words, time and space act (this is yet another deception that is created) simultaneously as a connective element and as a differentiating factor. Take for example the space that we have between us; it is the element that unites me with you. If space didnt exist, I couldnt be united with you we couldnt communicate between us. This same space, with the same, uniting energy, also acts differently and divisively upon us, because, thanks to this space, I am able to separate myself from you and be divided from you. Time does the same thing. The time between my father and myself is that which unites me to my father, but, the fact that my father used to exist at one time, whereas I exist now this space of time that intervened, is what separated me from my father. This intervention of space and time - as a unifying and simultaneously dividing element - is what renders every created being (and they all began from the original nil) perishable. What do we mean by perishable? We mean divisible and subject to deterioration. Time and space therefore compose beings, and decompose them simultaneously; and in this way, what we said earlier about the deception we call life is verified. A life is created, which is imbued with death on account of a division; because, what is death? It is a separation; it is deterioration, the decomposition of

existence. We have here a composite world, which breaks up with death. A and B no longer communicate with each other and B doesnt communicate with C. However, B itself is also composite, because it is composed of smaller elements; thus, just as in the death of a person for example- we have two sides to the separation, i.e., one separation is the separation between A and B (the personal separation), and the other separation is when the whole the person we call A disintegrates into his composite elements; these disintegrate, and thenceforth, we have the dissolution of a unity that had originally been secured by time and space. In other words, all of these beings are subject to the influence of nil, from which they originated. This whole, therefore, which is called world and which originates from nil, must unite itself to the whole that doesnt have these kinds of processes. Since God didnt have a beginning from nil, and by not living within space and time, He is not subject to this fate. And that is where the real life is: where death doesnt exist. I would like to draw as a conclusion that, upon severing his bond, Man was left to this fate. He was therefore deceived - and continues to be deceived - by believing that he lives when in fact he is dying, and by believing that with time and space, he can accomplish something. This is how deception appears in History, i.e., that within time - during the progress of History - eternicity can be secured. But, this cannot be achieved, unless one shuts his eyes to the problem of death, and shows disinterest in whether all beings become deteriorated and destroyed; when he shows concern whether humanity will survive, but not whether certain specific people will survive. Christian Dogmatics however must seriously consider the issue of deterioration, the issue of death of each single person, each single being, and believe that the world is indeed subject to deterioration, and thereafter, the solution that can be provided is another matter.

5. Christology Creation, Man and incorruptibility Death as punishment, according to Augustine The Augustinian Platonic immortality of the soul The mistaken reference of Creation Disobedience and true therapy The need for unity The inevitability of the Incarnation The Incarnation by a Virgin, in freedom

We have seen so far that Creation - as something that came from nil contains both deterioration and death within it. We clarified the Why and the How. The fact that it originated from nil inevitably meant that it was subject to death, because death is the disintegration and the division of beings. We also saw how the only way to avert death, to transcend it, is for the created to be in constant communion and association with the Uncreated. Man was therefore created for this precise role, and this is why he was created towards the end of Creation, when everything else was completed: so that he might become precisely the link between the material world and God. We examined the privilege given to Man, as compared to the other logical and free beings, such as the Angels. The privilege was that Man also partakes of the material world and as such, he has the potential to unite the created to the uncreated, and to also unite the material world. Consequently, death, of all Creation, could only be overcome through Man alone. Because, I will repeat, the very important point that we tend to forget is that death is not something that concerns Mankind only. Man does not die alone. He dies, because death permeates all of Creation. Therefore, for Man to overcome death, it is imperative that all of Creation overcome death. A Creation that undergoes death in all of its material beings with......the exception of Man, is inconceivable. Unless Creation as a whole is transformed so that nothing dies, Mans

immortality cannot be realized. Two mistakes must be noted here, which began from the West with Augustine and gradually infiltrated us Orthodox. The one mistake is to believe that death entered the scene as a punishment for Mans Fall; as something that God imposed, in order to punish Man for his Fall, without death previously existing in Creation. This is wrong. God did NOT introduce death as a punishment. Death was a natural condition for a created being. Because, as we already clarified this extremely difficult topic, a creation from Nil entails the infiltration of Nil amongst beings. Thus, even prior to the arrival and the Fall of Man, death was already a reality for Creation. Death WAS NOT introduced upon the Fall of Mankind; that which was introduced, was Mans incapacity to thereafter TRANSCEND death, i.e., Creation was eventually rendered incapable of averting death. This is why death became a permanent characteristic of Creation. This was the one mistake. And this mistaken concept was introduced by Augustine in one of his interpretations of the Old Testament (which of course allows us to interpret it, however, the Old Testament was never interpreted in such a way at this point, by any of the Hellenic Fathers). The other mistake is that Augustine (once again), being influenced by Platonism, had accepted immortality (which is bestowed as the salvation of Creation and Mankind) as a matter that relates to Mans soul. In other words, at the End of Time, when death will be abolished altogether, it will mean that the peoples souls will live on, and that the peoples bodies may possibly live on, but as for the rest of the world, Nature will be subjected to death. This too is wrong. We need to see death as we have already said as a uniform phenomenon, throughout all of Creation. In this way, Theology can converse with Biology, otherwise, Theology would be turning Biology into Mythology, given that Biology also sees death as a uniform phenomenon; just as a cat dies, so does a person. Both of them die for the same reasons. And as we said, the process called death is inherent with birth. So, we see that death is a general, biological phenomenon and in order for it to be transcended, it must be transcended by all of Creation; Creation must be transformed in general. Well, Mans Fall rendered this transformation of Creation impossible, for the reasons that we already mentioned and will briefly outline once again. Man, as the link between God and Creation, would have united all of Creation to God, and since Creation would thenceforth be in a communion with God, the world would have acquired eternal life. Man rejected this mission. Instead of relating Creation to the Creator in order to unite it with God, he made himself a god, and thus related Creation to his own person. But, being himself a creation, he in effect related Creation to a created being. Death, therefore, was inevitable for Creation. Death could not be overcome, because it is inherent in everything created. Thus, with the Fall of Man, the incapability to overcome death was brought on, as well as a fake life; in other words, this biological life was created, which, from its very first cell contains death. If we bear in mind all this pathology of Creation that brings on death - this sickness of Creation - we come to realize that the cure for this condition must be analogous to the sickness. You cannot give medicine to a sick person, without previously making a diagnosis of his ailment. Diagnosis, therefore, is very important; it must be performed correctly. I am hoping that from our last lessons, the diagnosis will have been adequate, so that we may proceed to the matter of therapy. Therapy is, precisely, the salvation of the world. A few general observations here first. When dealing with a sick person who has a problem, according to our diagnosis we shall not focus on anything else except the curing of his problem. In this case, the problem is, as we mentioned, death: the par excellence issue. Salvation, therefore, cannot be referring to anything else, except the transcendence of death. I am stressing this, because there is quite some confusion as to what salvation is, and what we are being saved from. The confusion arose from the fact that we did not observe this diagnosis; instead, we focused on moral and juridical presuppositions. In other words, we saw the Fall of Man as a delinquency, a disobedience (and when I say we saw, again these things began with Augustine) and we

were given the impression that the cause of evil the root of evil was this delinquency, this disobedience, when in fact this was not the cause or the root of evil. This evil (death) existed as a possibility even before. What Mans disobedience accomplished, was to render impossible the curing of the evil, the transcending of the evil that already existed. Nevertheless, the problem cannot automatically be solved with obedience. The Hellenic Fathers were especially sensitive in this area. Athanasius the Great clearly stresses that if the problem of Adams delinquency was a problem of absolving sins, God could have forgiven him. Adam could have repented and wept, as indeed he wept - he departed from Paradise and wept bitterly: he regretted what he had done. And God could have forgiven him, and all would have been well. But Athanasius wrote an entire book, to show that the problem did not lie there. It wasnt enough. What was necessary was for the Logos to come - to become incarnate - in order for the created to become re-united with the Uncreated. In other words, the problem was not obedience, nor was it disobedience; the problem was not a moral one it was an ontological one. This union of the created with the Uncreated had to take place, in order for death to be overcome. Consequently, Salvation is not a moral issue. It is not a matter of doing or not doing something. Salvation has to do with a relationship, a personal union, and as we said man alone was given the privilege of a bodily, material union. It is imperative that the body (=matter) also partake of this union (i.e., the entire psycho-somatic being) and naturally through this, all of Creation, because we are linked psycho-somatically to all of Creation. (I would like to insert a parenthesis here, to reiterate on a topic that we have already touched on. We have isolated Science, into Botanical and Zoological, inasmuch as declaring that Botany deals with flowers and Zoology with the bees. That was a mistake, and it is only recently that Science has begun to acknowledge this mistake, because a bee visits a flower and obtains its nourishment from the pollen, therefore between the bee and the flower there exists an organic bond; if this factor is not taken into account, then you will not comprehend any of the things that take place: you will not comprehend the bee, if you dont comprehend the flower, nor the flower, if you dont comprehend the bee. In other words, Botany and Zoology comprise a unity. We need to abandon this segregated view of beings. We have lost the unity of beings, with this scientific method that we have been pursuing.) I mentioned this, in order for you to understand that a Man (and not an Angel) was the one who would unite all of Creation. Why? Because it is Man who has a psycho-somatic union with God and who, thanks to this union, can ensure that all of Nature will be saved. I will therefore repeat that the issue is neither a juridical one, nor a moral one. Salvation is not a salvation from the sins and the trespasses of Adam of every Adam but a salvation from this sickness called death; a salvation that is achieved through the union of the created with the Uncreated. A union that will include all of material creation and all material, somatic energies. The conclusion from all the above is: Firstly, in order for the world to be saved, Man definitely had to mediate. No other being could save the world. Not even God on His own. There was no way for God to say from afar: Be saved! For God to forgive Man from afar, it would have to be a moral or a juridical issue; an issue of trespassing. Nor could an Angel save the world, as angels are not corporeal entities; they could not interface with material Creation. Thus, the need for God to become a Man for the requirements of salvation, and the fact that things could not be otherwise, is the result of logic such as the one we have expounded. And it is not simply a matter whereby Man fell and he must be saved through Man, and even if Man didnt fall, again the transcendence of death would be achieved through him. On this point, Saint Maximus for example is very clear, when he states that the incarnation would have taken place, even if Man hadnt fallen. It was inconceivable for this world to overcome the (inherent to its nature) elements of death and deterioration - the inherent deterioration that was not attributed to the Fall of Man. This element would have been impossible to overcome, if Man in his person did not unite material Creation with the

Uncreated God. Therefore, the first basic conclusion or observation is that Man is the key point, upon which salvation is consummated. Thus, the first prerequisite, the first element necessary for salvation, is Mans mediation. The second element is the fact that with his Fall and even before his Fall Man was incapable of transcending death on his own, on account of his being a creation. The transcendence of death could not be accomplished by a creation; especially when Man fell and thereafter became a prisoner of this false life (given that this biological life as we mentioned earlieris a false life permeated by death). From the moment therefore that Man became trapped in this cycle of life-death, it was impossible for him to free himself; hence, an initiative had to be taken an intervention by the Uncreated, Who is not entangled in this whole process of false life. Two, therefore, are the elements that lead us to the mystery of Christ, or the incarnation of the Logos: the initiative taken by the Uncreated, and the need for a union (not a mere submission or forgiveness) between the created and the Uncreated. That the salvation of the created, of the world the salvation from death can be attained only through Christ, is attributed to the fact that only in Him do the aforementioned prerequisites exist. Christ is a human. He did not become an Angel. He did not become anything else; only a human. Christ is God, and He must be God in His hypostasis, so that He doesnt have to be entangled in this vicious circle of life and death from the start. Given these prerequisites, there could be no other solution to the createds problem, than the incarnation of the Logos. The incarnation of the Logos, or Christology as we call it, must also comply with these prerequisites. One prerequisite is that it must be an incarnation into a human, who must not have the personal hypostasis of a creation, but must have the hypostasis of an uncreated. The second prerequisite as a consequence of the first one- is for this Saviour not to be born in the manner that a created man is born. Thus, the dogma on Christs conception in a nonbiological manner as described in the Gospel, i.e.: by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary is an essential element in this faith, because if Christ had been born in the biological manner that we are born, then He would have likewise been confined by this recycling this false life which has engulfed death and He would have been unable to provide the solution to the problem. The conception therefore of Christ by a Virgin is an essential element in Dogmatics; we cannot disregard it. Having this in mind, the question that is now posed is why the Lords conception by a Virgin occurred in the manner that it did, i.e., by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. The reason is that not only was it imperative for the Uncreated to take the initiative (and Christ was uncreated in His hypostasis), but also that it was necessary for this procedure to take place freely. Freely on the part of the Logos, Who became incarnate, and freely on the part of created humanity (the Virgin). Because it would have been unthinkable, at the stage where God wished to mend the situation (given that God had given Adam the freedom to materialize the plan for salvation and he freely denied to materialize it), to withdraw Mans freedom and to personally intervene in an illiberal manner Himself. In other words, for God to say Adam doesnt want to save it, Man does and doesnt want to save it, therefore I shall intervene and save the world Myself. We can see how the rule the condition of freedom was respected, by the manner in which the Incarnation was effected, and moreso by the role that the Holy Virgin undertook. We need to persist here; we need to stress the significance of the Virgins role; a significance comprised of a voluntary Yes with which She responded to Gods calling for the realization of this mystery of Christ. The Virgins Yes was Mans expression of freedom: the freedom of Mans acceptance, of his consenting to this initiative by God. This is of extreme importance, because the Virgin Mary could have responded with a No. This invitation on Gods part for Mary to offer Herself for such a plan naturally conflicts with human logic to such a degree, that one would have expected the normal, the logical response by the Virgin to have been a No, as it would not have been logical, without a transcendence of logic, without faith as we defined it earlier, for the Virgin to have assented to this calling by God.

In this way, Adam in his free state survives, in the case of Christ. Christ has now become Man an Adam whose very biological composition is not a compulsory one; who labours if the need arises but is nevertheless a free being; a being that has sprung from a freely willed consent by Man. That Christ is born in this manner is consequently another prerequisite, in order for everything that we have said in Dogmatics so far to apply; in other words, a personal relationship between God and the world. Christs incarnation is consequently different to the various other incarnations that we observe in other religions and different to the various births and rebirths of gods through natural phenomena, as all of those births, every Theogony and whichever other births in religions are compulsory births are births that are not based on a free, personal consent on the part of Man. They are all dependent on natural laws. Christ is born in this manner, without the intervention of natural laws, not only to demonstrate His power, that He is indeed God (because many people interpret His birth in this way), but because a non-miraculous birth of Christ would have signified a conforming to the compulsory biological laws of Nature. The birth of Christ would not have been a product of freedom, nor would the Person of Christ. We would thus have deviated from that initial condition, in which God had left everything in freedom, to the point that Adam overthrew all of His plans. Everything that God had thought of was overthrown, because of Adams freedom. This freedom of the Virgin giving Her consent is a freedom which continues to permeate the entire mystery of Christ; the entire mystery of salvation. And we shall now observe it, in close association with what is accomplished by the incarnation of Christ, after His conception, after His birth His biological birth- through to His Resurrection, as well as what happens in this mystery of Salvation, even after the Resurrection of Christ. We shall see that the factor freedom is strictly respected, in all the major phases of the mystery of Salvation.

6. Salvation

The alternative plan for Salvation Primary Christology according to Saint Maximus The secondary plan for salvation The connection between the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation The role of the Holy Spirit in the Incarnation of Christ Triadic relations in salvation The consequences of the Incarnation on Creation Christ actually suffered during His passion The unity of Christs two Natures The problem of the one person Determining the person by its associations

Where Christs unified hypostasis is drawn from

So far,. we have examined Christology as related to the overall dogma on Creation, because, as Athanasius the Great had likewise done in his work On the Incarnation of the Logos, the whole logic behind the incarnation of the Logos stems from the fact that God created the world in order to render it a participant of His own blissful state. Therefore, in order for the world to be able to be in a personal relationship with Him, and within the framework of such an intention, this purpose of Gods, He created Man as a link (by freely giving him selfgovernment like God has) between God and the material world -or animal world in generalwhich has no self-government, no liberty. In this way, Man would have been that point through which all of Nature would have been able to participate in Gods life The fact that in his liberty, Man chose to relate the world to himself instead of to God, thus overthrowing Gods original plan, did not induce God to say I will leave things the way they are; instead, it made Him adhere to His original plan - His original objective except now the course of this plan had to be slightly changed, by taking into account all the new facts and the new situations that had appeared. The new situations that had appeared were that with this choice that Man had made freely (i.e., to focus Nature on himself and not on God), he caused Nature and himself to thenceforth be subject to the laws and the servitude of the laws that govern created beings, and to be unable to overcome the consequences that the status of a created being has. These consequences are summarized mainly as death and deterioration, given that this status of being created originates from nil and therefore nil permeates everything created. Thus, nil dissolves the unity of a created being; which is called deterioration, and it is that which renders the created being susceptible to nil or in other words, death. This was therefore the new reality that Man i.e., Adam, with his liberal choice - had introduced. God could not ignore this reality. Gods original plan did not include this reality. God had not scheduled (so to speak) this entire situation, which Man had wrought on His original plan, with the Fall. This was the earth-shaking mystery of liberty: that Man, while possessing this God-given liberty of his, was able to overturn Gods entire plan as far as the method was concerned. As for the final objective however, he was not able to alter it, as God did not allow this to happen. Christology took on a form different to the one it would have taken if Adam hadnt fallen. If Adam hadnt fallen, we would again have spoken of Christology, only it would have been in the following form, the way that Saint Maximus had envisaged it: Having been placed within time and space, and having exercised his liberty in an affirmative manner i.e., by willingly uniting the created with the Uncreated - Adam would have eventually led all of Creation into this union via his person; a union that would have ensured the transcending of the boundaries of a created being, i.e. of death. Christology would then have taken on the form of Adam transformed into a Christ. The Christ as Saint Maximus tells us- would still have existed; Christ would have been a reality, even if Adam had not fallen. He would have had the form that we just mentioned, i.e., one that would have existed in time and space; however, by Mans exercising his liberty affirmatively, the world would have been transformed into an existence that would not have been subject to the consequences of a created entity (i.e., deterioration and death), as it would have been united to the Uncreated. This was Gods initial plan, and this is what would have transpired, and this would have been the Christology that we would have spoken of, if Adam hadnt fallen. The fact that he fell created a new reality, which obliged God to alter His original plan because, as we said, it was no longer possible for this union between the created and the Uncreated to be attained through Man, without it passing through Mans fallen state, that is, through deterioration and

death. Consequently, Christology in this form is the entrance of God, the realization of the matter of Christ, from within the fallen state of Man; from within deterioration and death, because human liberty no longer exists in the affirmative way as originally foreseen by God; it now exists in a negative way. And in this situation, which all of Creation found itself on account of its severing its communication with God with the Uncreated Christology now took on the form of a tragic event that was not pleasing to God but was nevertheless unavoidable. In this new situation this Christology which is replete with Adams fall, God still acts in a manner that shows His continuing respect for Mans liberty. It was Gods desire that this union of created and Uncreated again be undertaken by Man freely; and this is the reason that He chose the Virgin Mary (as we mentioned in the previous lesson) as a human being who had the option to say No, but, in the event that She would say Yes, She would be helping to make Gods plan a reality through Her free consent. And indeed, Marys Yes facilitated matters. However, from the very first moment from the first moment that Gods entering mankind was materialized through this Yes it was accompanied by the experience of deterioration and of death, into which God Himself had now fallen. Before analyzing this unpleasant experience that the Incarnation entailed, we need to clear up a very important detail: This plan, this entrance of Gods into the world, into Creation this penetration of the Uncreated into the created state for the purpose of uniting the two is performed only by the one Person of the Holy Trinity; this is an entry in the form of a union; an undertaking to act as a bridge. However, given that the Persons of the Holy Trinity are never separated between themselves, nor are the other two Persons ever absent from this action of the one person, it means that every Person of the Holy Trinity participates in this event of Christology. You should note here, that Christology is not something that pertains to only one Person of the Holy Trinity, but to all three of them, the only difference being that each Person undertakes a particular role, which is not undertaken by the other two Persons; the role undertaken by the Son being precisely His identifying Himself with the fallen reality of the created. In other words, He took unto Himself the elements of deterioration and of death and all the other consequences such as pain, sorrow, etc.. But the Son would not have done this, if the Father had not condescended; consequently, Christology does not have its beginning in the Son, but in the Father. The Father desires. He is the one who desires first. Everything springs from the Father. Just as He is the cause of the Holy Trinity Persons existence, and everything springs from the free will of the Father Gods very existence it is in the exact same way in Providence that the plan of Christology springs from the free will of the Father. The Father therefore condescends. He wants this plan to materialize. The Son concurs; He says Yes to the Fathers will and so it is He who enters the reality of the fallen creature, not the Father. Therefore, although the Father participates in this Christological event with His condescension, He does participate in the same way that the Son participates. The difference is, that it is the Son only Who becomes incarnate; in other words, only the Son takes it upon Himself only the Son undertakes to amend the fate of fallen Mankind. The Father condescends, the Son concurs and undertakes this fate of mankinds upon Himself. The Father does not undertake this fate upon Himself. The Holy Spirit also collaborates in this entire plan, without undertaking the fate of the created upon Himself, and without becoming incarnate, as only the Son becomes incarnate. What does the Spirit do? The Spirit stands in support of the Son during this painful experience that He is undergoing (during the interfacing union, the undertaking of the creations fate, the fallen state of the created, deterioration and death). The Holy Spirit contributes as the Person of the Holy Trinity that liberates the Son from the consequences of His self-evacuation and His undertaking the fate of the fallen creation. The Spirit is the Person that stands alongside the major decisions that Christ takes while

exercising His liberty; it is the Spirit of freedom, Who ensures that every major event in Christology is a free choice and not a natural necessity. We cannot therefore look upon Christology without any reference to the Father, or without any reference to the Spirit. And it was a mistake of Dogmatics in the past, to have separated Christology from the other two Triadology (the study of the Trinity) and Pneumatology (the study of the Spirit). The Spirit is the Spirit of freedom, therefore, wherever it moves to, all restrictions and necessities of nature are withdrawn, and the being is liberated from those necessities. However, the being is also liberated as a person, so that it can free itself of necessities, of its on free will, i.e., with its consent, and not because it was imposed upon it. Thus, the Spirit is present at all the critical points that determine the entire course of Christology the event of Christ: During the birth and the Yes of Mary, which led to the conception of the Son the Logos by the Most Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary. The Spirit is ever present. The Holy Virgin conceives through the Holy Spirit. The Logos could have inhabited the Holy Virgin on His own. If it were merely a matter of divine intervention, there was no need for the conception to have occurred the way it did. What was the need for the Spirit? Well, that was not the issue. All these details are very significant. The Spirit was present, and the Holy Virgin conceived in the Holy Spirit, which means that whatever took place at that moment, took place in liberty. It was not an intrusion into the created by the Uncreated, because if every intrusion by God inside the created does not take place freely, it will necessarily signify the crushing of the created, given that if we have two forces, where one of them is infinitely greater than the other, the greater one will crush the smaller one. We should not see Christology in the context of an Uncreated that merely permeates a created being with His power alone. A miracle is not that which takes place as a show of power on the part of God; the fact that the Spirit is present that all of this story becomes a reality in the Spirit implies that we have an incident of freedom. The contribution therefore of the Holy Spirit is of great importance. And if we continue to the pursuant events of Christology, we will again see that the Spirit is present during those critical moments of liberty. The Spirit accompanies Christ into the desert, in view of His testing by Satan. This incident is not a coincidence, because it puts us inside Christology because the Spirit enters during such critical moments. Because, at the moment of his testing, Christ as a human will freely say Yes to God, and it will be done in the Spirit. Jesus, as the Christ and as the name implies, is anointed by he Spirit in other words, He has the Spirit with Him forever. We could not have a Christology without Pneumatology. Even the word Christology contains an inference to the Spirit, because the name Christ means anointed by the Spirit. So, Christ has the Spirit with Him throughout His entire existence, but it is characteristic, that during the important moments, where the progress of this plan of Gods for the salvation of the world is determined freely, the Spirit is present. The Spirit is also present at Gethsemane, where another decision had to be made: to drink of the cup which, as a human, He did not want to drink. Even at that moment as the Evangelists tell us the Spirit accompanied Christ, and the Spirit assuredly played some role; He is not a mere supporter. Christs tremendous decision to be nailed to a cross is also made in the Spirit. And when we examine the Resurrection, which is indeed the transcending of deterioration and death, again we shouldnt forget (what we unfortunately do forget and are not told by Dogmatics but by the Holy Bible in the New Testament), that God raised Christ from the dead, by the Spirit. The miracle however of the Resurrection, just like the miracle of the conception, the birth, the incarnation, are not miracles that were realized without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Christ could have risen from the dead, on the fact alone that He was God; His nature was, after all, divine. So, why the need for a reference to the Holy Spirit? Why is Christ resurrected through the Holy Spirit? This is a detail that one could almost assert as being suppressed. Who of the faithful, who of us has paid attention to this truth? To us, the Resurrection is a miracle, which took place because Christ was God and because He had divine powers and was

thus able to conquer death. Then as Paul said- there would have been no significance to the words in the Spirit, through the Spirit. Christology cannot be understood as lacking any reference to the role of the Father and to the role of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit therefore not only resides within Christ and renders him Christ (the One anointed by the Spirit), but also, by passing through those crucial points in the course of Christology which are the major decisions, the major steps that were taken, i.e., the conception, the testing by Satan, the Cross, the Resurrection all render Christology an expression of liberty, in which Man now participates freely because Christ as a human and not only as God makes all these decisions freely, in order to implement Gods plan with all the consequences that it entailed. The result of this, was that the Spirit, Who liberates the created from trials and temptations such as deterioration and death, has hereafter passed into human nature, through Christ. And since deterioration and death are transcended in the Person of Christ, through the energy of the Holy Spirit since these things are happening to Christ the Person of Christ is thereafter rendered a Body, on which all of mankind becomes a partaker of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Christ ceases to be an individual; He becomes a universal existence, which took upon it the fate of fallen Creation and is now taking upon it the fate of redeemed Creation of Creation which is now liberated from its limits (because that is what liberation implies: a liberation from its former boundaries). This redemption, this liberation from the boundaries of the created status, is the work of the Holy Spirit, which manifested itself firstly in the Person of Christ because the Spirit resurrected Christ- and thereafter passed on, into mankind, again as a gift and an energy of the Holy Spirit. This is why Christ that universal being in Whom the boundaries of the created are transcended this Christ is the One who imparts or realizes the transcending of the createds boundaries for all of mankind, not as the person Christ alone, but through the Holy Spirit, by imparting the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is the Holy Spirit Who makes Christ the Christ (=the One anointed by the Holy Spirit). It is the Spirit Who liberates Him from the boundaries of the created through the Resurrection; however, the Spirit also renders Christ the source of the gift of the Holy Spirit and for all of mankind, so that all of mankind might acquire the potentials that were manifested in the person of Christ. Thus, Christology is not solely about the person of Christ, Who receives the Holy Spirit; it is also about the person of Christ Who imparts the Holy Spirit. This, finally, leads to the meaning of Ecclesiology. Christology cannot be imagined without Triadology. Triadology begins with the consent of the Father; it continues with the Sons undertaking of the fate of fallen Creation and ends in a Christ who embraces all of us, all of Creation, in the form which exudes the Holy Spirit as a gift imparted by Christ. Therefore, while the Holy Spirit acts (in a manner of speaking) upon Christ and with Christ, (without acting through Christ after His Resurrection and His Ascension), the Spirit always acts through Christ, because He is the point where all of mankind and all of Creation is assumed, and is united with the Uncreated. What I want to stress with all the above, is that we should not perceive salvation that union of created and Uncreated as a magical, mechanical union of natures. Christology is not about the union of two natures in the manner of a chemical synthesis (i.e., this much divine nature plus this much human nature produces salvation). Consequently, the role of the Holy Spirit, the role of the Father, are very significant; furthermore, we do not exhaust the role of the Father, because the mystery of Christology always begins with the Father and finishes with the Father, as that is where the Son and the Holy Spirit must bring all this reality of the union between the created and the Uncreated, i.e., to the Father. Thus Christology overall is a movement from the Father to the Father, with a permanent and perpetual presence and energy of the Holy Spirit. It is a case of freely-acting persons, and not natures that perform miracles by somehow becoming united in a mechanical manner. I have tried to place Christology in the framework of personal, not physical relations, because this is a detail with immense significance, and a point that is not discussed. They have accustomed us to a Christology of natures only. The consequences of Christ the Son of God

taking unto Himself the fallen nature of Man are very significant, because this fact in Christology poses a huge problem: How is it possible for the impassionate God to be subject to the consequences of the Fall (i.e., the passions that He underwent), in other words, for God to suffer, and how should we comprehend this entire aspect of Christology, which is not glorification, but humiliation, self-evacuation and death? So, one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity the Son evacuates Himself, i.e., He does not interrupt His personal association with the Father and the Holy Spirit (because that is inconceivable), but He alone undertakes the fate of the created as though it were His personal fate. The fact that He doesnt draw the other two Persons of the Holy Trinity into this act, this energy of His, is attributed to the fact that the Persons of the Holy Trinity are complete and free-acting Beings. Each Person has an entity; it has an ontological fullness, and that is why the things we stressed in the dogma on God are so important. The Cappadocians had stressed that the Persons of the Holy Trinity exist in freedom, because it is that precise freedom which makes possible the distinction of each Persons work. This is attributed to the fact that there exists a personal freedom in the Persons of the Holy Trinity, otherwise it would have been impossible for the Son not to draw the other two Persons along with Him, into His personal evacuation; indeed, He does not draw them along, He evacuates Himself only. This is attributed to these two things, which signify the same thing in the ontological self-inclusiveness and fullness of each of the Persons, and in the liberty of each person. The Son, as a complete person, a complete hypostasis, freely said: I will take upon Myself the fate of the created, in its fallen form, and in that way, I shall fulfil that (plan) which the Father consented to. Furthermore, the Spirit likewise freely consented to collaborate. Thus, while all three Persons participated each one in its own way the Son participated in a special way, through His self-evacuation, or, in other words, through His undertaking the fate of the fallen created upon Himself. Once this self-evacuation this entry of the Logos into the fallen reality of the worlds existence - was materialized, the Son freely took upon Himself all the consequences of this act. At this point, we should remember what those consequences were. The consequences were mainly deterioration and death, because the created had ceased to have any reference, unity and communion with the Uncreated; it became subjugated to its own boundaries, which included deterioration and death on account of nil. Thus, by the Logos becoming incarnate, becoming a human, He became subject to hunger and thirst; He could feel tired, He could feel suffering and He was susceptible to death. All of these facets were real and not apparent. Christology went through this crisis; through the temptation at first to consider all these things as apparent only. It would have been extremely painful for man (and especially for the devout man) to accept that God truly suffered all those things, as it was an established principle that God is impassionate; that God is not subject to pain, sorrow and death. Consequently, it was scandalous to say that the Son, being a God in full, underwent all those things, hence the reason that Christology passed through the temptation called Docetism. Docetism was a form of escape from this truth; in other words, it asserted that Christ suffered all those things apparently and not actually. The Church therefore reached the decision that all of those sufferings were real and not apparent. But from the moment that She made this decision, She created a problem. How could we reconcile Gods apathy (impassionate status) with the passion contained in Christology? More recent Christology, (which is inclined to impart to the eternal status of God the situations that we observe in Providence), reached the point of asserting that the passion was not unrelated to the nature of God, i.e., to God Himself; that it was not something contrary to God, but that God on account of the love that He has is eternally in suffering; that He is familiar with sorrow, and pain, and above all, that He is in suffering from the moment that He sees mankind suffering. Because of the love that He feels towards

mankind, He supposedly has the Cross within His eternal existence, hence the Cross of Christ is nothing new to God, nor does it supposedly conflict with Gods nature. This Christology has many followers nowadays. It has touched many people, chiefly Moltmann, but, we must state here that it cannot be reconciled with Orthodoxy and the Patristic view, which wants God the way that He is in His eternal existence, i.e., impassioned free of every limitation that the created has because that is what it means to be Uncreated. Consequently, this Christology wants whatever happened to Christ (from this aspect of being subjected to pain, sorrow and death) to be regarded as an extreme and incomprehensible humiliation and condescension. In other words, an Orthodox stands in awe before Christology, before this mystery, and he wonders, How is it possible for a God to suffer? as he is incapable of explaining how Christ can suffer. But this is not a simple awe of admiration; it is also an awe of gratitude, because it is translated into such a love and philanthropy on the part of God, that it renders us grateful towards Him. Consequently, it is extremely important for us to preserve this principle, i.e., that Christ does not suffer because it is in accordance with His nature, but that He suffers, despite His nature; He suffers, despite His divine nature, because He freely wished to undergo all those things for our sake. This therefore was the first basic point: In suffering all those things for our sake, Christ supposedly ceases to be God. When saying that He ceases to be God, we are basically implying if He has interrupted His personal association with the Father. His personal association with the Father is not interrupted. His nature, therefore, which joins Him to the Father and is a nature common to both, continues to exist. The fact that He suffered as a human is also attributed to the fact that He had assumed human nature, and therefore the consequences of human nature; thus, we arrive at the position where in Christ we have a complete God, i.e., nothing of Christs godhood had receded on account of the Incarnation; indeed, He was also complete as a human. We therefore have a mystery which we cannot explain logically; we can only explain it in light of the liberty of God, Who, being free, is not only free to display, to exercise His power, but is also free to exercise weakness. Thus, the Council of Chalcedon the 4th Ecumenical Council dogmatized that in Christ, we acknowledge a complete godhood and a complete human status; in other words, nothing was missing from either aspect of Christ. The Council clarified even further, adding the following: Firstly, that the union of these two aspects divinity and humanity is so complete, that it is indivisible; in other words, Christs divine and human natures are indivisibly united. The other clarification is that, despite this complete and indivisible union, the two natures did not become a synthesis to a degree that there would be a confusion between the two of them, so that the one could not be discerned from the other. This was defined as discernibly by the Council. So, we have two natures, joined indivisibly yet discernibly. The third point that was clarified, was that the union of these two natures took place in the person of the Son and Logos of God; there was no creation of a new, human person we do not have two persons and two hypostases, but one person and one hypostasis, which is that of the Logos of God and consequently, that which united the two natures and fused them into one, was the Person of the Son and Logos of God. We have here a personal union of the two natures. This is very important, because it signifies that we are dealing with persons and not with natures. The stressing of the one person instead of two, i.e., that we have only a divine person and not a human one, was presented as an opposition to Nestorius and the Nestorians position, who focused on the person of Christ; who wanted to preserve the person of Christ in full with its human attributes and were afraid that if one were to say that there is no human person in Christ, there would be a diminished presence of the human element. The Churchs position in this instance was that we are not dealing with a human person; there is only a divine person. How can we comprehend this, without underestimating, without demoting the presence of a complete humanity? We mentioned that Christ is a complete God and a complete human. Could He be a complete human, if He didnt have any person whatsoever?

Here we have a huge problem, on which very many dogmaticians in the West stumble. We must comprehend fully what a person is. A person is an identity that is formed through a relationship. We are all persons, on account of our relationships. We each have attained our personal identity through our various relationships, i.e., the biological ones from our parents, the natural ones from the environment, from the food we eat, from our social relations. All of these elements are necessary, in order for us to be called a person; however, it is the person that transubstantiates these relationships, and makes them its own. You breathe this air, so you have a relationship with it, just as I do, but this air becomes mine, yours it becomes personal - when it filters through each one of us as persons. Thus, the person can similarly assume natures; but, that which defines my personal identity is not the air that I assume. It is dependent on that which is the most significant, the most decisive, which will make me be me and not someone else. In the same way, it is up to our liberty to choose which of all our relationships is the most definitive for our personal identities. If, for example, I decide that my relationship with my parents is the definitive one, then all of my other natural, social relationships will be coupled to this relationship with my parents, thus proving that this is where I have drawn my personal identity from. In other words, the decisive relationship becomes the criterion that makes me be what I am. If I do not desire to make the personal relationship with my parents the decisive element for my personal identity, then I transpose the relationship. And this is something that indeed occurs. The young child has a personal relationship with its mother. Gradually, it transposes its decisive relationship to either its social relationships or, later on, to its biological relationships which will remove it from the others. Thus, its personal identity no longer relates to the parental relationship, but to the other relationships. This extends into our entire existence. If, for example, one were to imagine a person hinging his personal hypostasis on what he eats i.e., a relationship with food then indeed, if he persisted in this relationship, his entire personal identity would be dependent on this relationship. Our personal identity is a matter of relationships - whatever those relationships may be. Depending on how decisive a relationship is, that will eventually be one that will judge and subject all the other relationships, and will incorporate them therein. It is quite obvious, that when a person is in love with someone, that will be the prevalent relationship at that moment of time, as he will be seeing everything through that prism. The personal relationship, which gives us our identity, is always the one that makes us a person. To return to the issue of Christology : what makes Christ a person, in other words, the relationship through which all the other relationships pass and which finally determines His identity, is His relationship with the Father. With the Incarnation, Christ took on other relationships; He had a relationship with the Holy Virgin, with His disciples, with the natural environment; He partook of sustenance; He was Jewish He had relationships with the entire Jewish community. All of these are relationships that belong to His personal relationships. In other words, all of the humanity that He takes unto Himself, all of the created, is not foreign to His person. Mankind therefore is not lesser, by belonging in that relationship of His with the Father. When we say that Christ (and I am trying to interpret the dogma of Chalcedon here) has only one Person but also Has two natures, this implies that His divine and His human natures (and anything else that these natures might include) all fall under the one personal relationship that determines Christs identity, which is His Filial relationship with the Father. Thus, despite the new relationships that He embraces (as a Person) with His incarnation, He is, and He remains, the Son of the Father. This is a very important point, because He could for example- have taken on new relationships as I said before. When we embrace new relationships, we tend to shift the center of our identity. I will digress briefly at this point. In his work In search of lost time, Proust ponders very intensely over death, and he makes several very important observations such as : when a person whom we love dies, what

matters in the long run is that we will replace him with someone else. If we dont replace him, our identity is endangered because it is indeed impossible for us to connect, to relate to something that does not exist unless we transfer that person into an existent sphere; but death strikes the person at this point. As long as we maintain our relationship with that person, that person will be giving us with our identity. The I changes, when the you changes. So, when Christ says I, what does He mean? Where does He draw that consciousness of I? An entire discussion took place during our century chiefly in Roman Catholic theological circles - as to whether Christ had two kinds of consciousness; a divine one and a human one. Many theologians had reached the conclusion that He had two. The problem is, that in order to have a conscience of ones I, in order to be an I, to be your self, it is impossible without a relationship. Either I am me because I am not -for example- this table here (hence I am me when related to this table, but, if this table ceases to exist I can no longer be me), or, I am me when related to someone else. We always are what we are (as a personal identity), when related to someone else. You cannot say me, if there is no you. After many centuries, philosophy in our day and age has reached that simple truth: that the I without the you is a myth; it is incomprehensible. When Christ says I, where does He draw His consciousness of that I? He draws it inevitably from His relationship with the Father. This is why the Person of Christ is only one, i.e., that of the Son. If He drew His relationship from Mary also from the Holy Virgin, as a child from its mother then we would have had two persons, and Nestorius position would have been valid : we would have had one human with two persons : one relationship from here, and another relationship from there both of which would have given Him His identity. But, to be given two determining relationships for your identity is something that doesnt eventually stand to reason, because only one of the two relationships will be the determining one. This becomes evident in iconography also. In a Western icon of Christ and the Holy Mother, the person of Christ is portrayed as a beautiful baby with a maternal relationship, which, however, limits the identity of the depicted baby. If we take a Byzantine icon, we will notice that the hagiographer strives to give the impression that the One held in the Holy Virgins embrace is God, despite the maternal relationship between them. This maternal relationship is not the babys determining relationship for the babys identity. The child seems to be stating that yes, I may have a relationship with the mother, but My identity, my I, is governed by another relationship the relationship that I have with the Father. By what, therefore, are our personal identities judged? They are judged by how we place ourselves existentially. In other words, if the Father were to ask the Son to go on the Cross and the Holy Mother as a mother- were to say Dont go, my child, or, if the Son were to stop and consider His mother and decide that His relationship with the mother was the determinant of His identity, thus deciding He would not go on the Cross, then indeed His Person would not be defined by His relationship with the Father, but a relationship with another person, the Holy Mother. This is what we do all the time, when verifying our personal identity. The one who finally determines our personal identity is the one to whom we offer our existence. The Martyrs, the Saints, all verify this fact; Why does theosis exist? Why does the Martyr acquire theosis? What does theosis mean? This is not Platonic mysticism. These are existential, basic things. A Martyr acquires theosis, because at that moment (of his martyrdom), he relates himself as a person to Christ. He has put aside all other relationships. When a mother tosses her children into the lions mouths for them to become martyrs, what exactly happens at that moment? Her personal relationship is transposed, and consequently, that mother is judged by that specific moment. Those Martyrs had chosen the relationship with God, just as Christ had, to be the determining relationship of their identity. Thus, God saw in their persons the person of His Son. They had done as the Son had done, hence were acknowledged by God as sons,

and they had accordingly acknowledged God as Father, and with this relationship, they had sealed their lives forever, i.e., they had attained theosis. Christ, however, did not attain theosis by making this kind of a decision while being a human, i.e., while having previously chosen the human relationship as the definitive relationship and afterwards transposing it to His relationship with God. Because, in Christs case, the relationship with the Father was precedent. What Christ did, was to persist in acknowledging His relationship with the Father as being the determinant relationship, hence the reason we do not have theosis in the case of Christ; we do not have an embracing, a transposing of the existing relationship and the projection of a new person; what we have, is simply a confirmation of the identity that had always existed. Christ does not assume an identity from Himself, because there also exists that par excellence demonic-- relationship, where one places his own will and his own interests as the supreme criterion of his decisions, like Adam had done when he put himself in Gods place and determined his identity from his own self. Christ does not acquire an identity from a created being, despite the fact that the created element is embodied within His identity. He subsumes all of His other relationships in His predominant relationship with the Father, and, being thus engulfed in this relationship with the Father, all of those other relationships are liberated from the restrictions that they were subject to; they are set free and are engulfed in His Body, as a part of His identity. It is important to persist on that which the Council of Chalcedon decided; i.e., that the person is one, and that the said person is the Son and Logos of God. Besides, even the word Son is a word that implies a relationship - the filial relationship because it is only within this relationship that mankind is fulfilled; only then can we speak of the fulfilment of mankind. If mankind had a person of its own in the way that speculating Western theologians want it then it would not have been fulfilled, because it would eventually have been restricted; its identity would have been governed by the limitations of the created, which determine the boundaries of Man. Consequently, by accepting one person in Christology and that person is the Son we are actually allowing mankind infinite possibilities. This is an anthropological maximalism, and not a minimalism. We do not have here a demoting of mankind. The Chalcedon dogma is of major existential significance, provided we comprehend it with the significance that has been given to the meaning of person.

7. Ecclesiology

The person is not restricted to one nature The theosis of human nature The reciprocation of characteristics The assumption of persons of the Church in the notion of Christ The identity of the Church

Who is it that prays in Church and to Whom? The distinct participation of the Divine Persons in the Divine Liturgy The association and the dimension of the offering Bishop, and Christ The offerer and the recipients The ecclesiasticizing of those who are in the Divine Liturgy The Church as a community

We referred to the somewhat difficult subject that everyone stumbles on with the dogma of Chalcedon, i.e., how it can be possible for Christ to be perfect, without having a perfect person. This is what I tried to analyze in the previous lesson, by describing what a person is, and how the person can exist without being related to or be spent in one nature. In other words, if we were to state that because Christ possesses a perfect human nature, He must necessarily possess a human person, it would signify that we are subjugating the person to the nature and that we are also implying that it is not possible for a nature to exist, without it possessing a person of its own. But nature never does have a person of its own; Nature is hypostatized in a person; it is hypostatized by the person, hence the persons ability to hypostatize more than one nature. One could say that this also applies to the human person, inasmuch as the human person does not possess its human nature only. This may sound strange, but we do also partake of an animal nature to a large degree. We partake of nature, including non-living nature inanimate nature. Nature, therefore, is not that which determines the person. It is the person that assumes a nature. Consequently, the person of the Son of God which has divine nature eternally hypostatized now assumes and hypostatizes human nature also. In this way, human nature not only isnt demoted or diminished, but is in fact elevated to the personal degree that divine nature has. In other words, it is elevated to Gods state and subsequently becomes god-like. Thus human nature becomes god-like in the person of Christ; not for any other reason, but only because it has no hypostasis of its own. If it were not going to acquire a hypostasis of its own, it would have been unable to attain the god-like condition (theosis). We therefore have here an anthropological maximalism, not minimalism. We are not demoting Man. What makes it difficult for us in Christology to comprehend this mystery of two natures and one person, is the existence of certain presuppositions, such as: a) that a nature must have its own person, which, as I already mentioned, is not correct and b) the other presupposition that is supported is that Man human nature has an autonomy that cannot be overcome. This is the Western perception of the natural and the supernatural, which has separated these two statuses to such an extent, that we are unable to re-unite them. Of course the created and the Uncreated can never overstep their boundaries, (i.e. the uncreated cannot become created and the created cannot become uncreated), so, consequently, the attaining of theosis by Christs human nature does not mean that it somehow ceased to be human nature and became divine. (This is a very serious point.) Nor did divine nature suddenly become human nature, on account of the hypostatic union. Each of the two natures retained its natural characteristics, but, when both natures became united in the same person, without ceasing to be what they are, without undergoing any change as regards their natures, their essence, each nature assumed the characteristics of the other, and this is what is known as a reciprocation of characteristics. The reciprocation of characteristics is precisely that which takes place on account of the hypostatic union; on account of the fact that the person is one. Furthermore, it is always the

person that expresses these characteristics; they do not express themselves on their own. Given that we are dealing with only one person here, it is impossible to have individual characteristics that are not expressed as uniform ones. Thus, whatever Christ did and performed as God became a characteristic and a reality of His human nature also. Furthermore, everything that He did and performed as a human was also transposed into divine nature, but not as a nature. You must observe something here. It is transposed, on account of the hypostatic facet and consequently, it does not affect the other Persons of the Holy Trinity. That it is transposed thanks to the hypostatic union (on account of the person and not on account of the natures) is a consequence. Because, if natures in unison were to impart their particular characteristics to each other, then those characteristics that reciprocation of characteristics would also have to be observed in the other two Persons of the Holy Trinity - the Father and the Spirit - as they too have the same nature as the Son. If it were, in fact, the natures that united and reciprocated their characteristics, then, I repeat, we would not be able to make any distinction whatsoever; we could not claim for examplethat this is happening only to the Person of Christ, the Logos, the Son. If this were the case (the merging of natures), then the Son would always remain incarnate, even to this day and forever more. I must repeat this detail: It is not the Father Who was incarnated, nor the Spirit; and theosis of human nature is not theosis attributed to Mans union with God in general; it is because Man becomes united with the Son. In other words, it is theosis in Christ. There cannot be theosis without Christ. All these details are extremely important, because they contain consequences, which we must look into. The basic consequence is (a) that Christ Himself would cease to be an individual; He wouldnt have human nature and humanity with Him. In other words, the notion of Christ would be perceived as a summary; the one would have become many, and that would then have constituted the identity of the Son. It is not possible nor will it ever be possible to isolate Christ from His body, which is the communion of the Saints, of those who have attained theosis. Christ, therefore, is an inclusive concept; He is a head, together with a body. He cannot be imagined without the body; and that body is not a personal body it is the body of the Church, the body of Saints. Thus, we cannot tackle Christology without Ecclesiology. There can be no Christ without a Church. There is no Christ without a body. This is the one consequence. The other consequence (b) on the obverse side of the same coin is that the person who desires to attain theosis, who attains theosis, cannot relate to divinity, i.e., to divine nature, except only through the Person of the Son, of Christ. Thus, theosis without Christ does not exist. The third consequence (c) that arises from the first two, when combined, is that there cannot be theosis outside the Church, because there is no Church without Christ and there is no Christ without the Church. The Church is a part of Christs identity His personal identity. Thus, Christology, Ecclesiology and theosis of Man comprise a reality and consequently, the notion of Christ without the Church is, for us, inconceivable. On the other hand, the notion of Church is now affected by all the above, and it now denotes a Christ-centered, Christological reality; it denotes the very Body of Christ, which exists even after the Resurrection and will continue to exist, forever. Therefore, the Church is not an interim situation, between the Resurrection and the End of Time (as very many Westerners have perceived it). The Church actually continues, even after the Second Coming. The notion Church, therefore, is nothing other than that very Kingdom of God, which will prevail with the Second Coming. The consequences for Ecclesiology obviously become much more serious now. Just as Christ cannot exist without the Church, likewise the identity of the Church can be none other than the identity of Christ. Thus, the Church is not a community, which we can perceive in juxtaposition to Christ. Christ doesnt stand opposite the Church, or face-to-face; He is the very I of the Church. This is precisely the reason that the Church

is Holy: because: One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ.. Despite the sinfulness of the members of the Church, the Church Herself is Holy, because Her personal identity is none other than the personal identity of Christ. To perceive this in our own experience, in our existence, we need only to give some serious thought about what transpires during the Divine Eucharist, because it is during the Divine Eucharist that the body of Christ (as a Church) is realized, and the Church is likewise realized as the body of Christ. If one were to pose the question: There, during the Eucharist, who is actually praying? Is it the Church? The answer is No. It is Christ Who is in fact praying. Christ cannot of course be parted form the Church. He prays as a Church, therefore the Church prays as Christ. This is a special characteristic of the Divine Eucharist, i.e., that this eucharist referral is a par excellence- offering of Thanks. The prayer of the referral begins with the words Let us thank the Lord, then it continues... Well, this prayer of referral is addressed to the Father. In the Divine Liturgy of Basil the Great, it is clear that it is only the Father Who accepts the prayer of referral. The Chrysostoms Liturgy as Liturgiologists have observed underwent certain changes in its referral prayer after the 4th century, and the following words were added: Thou (=the Father), and Thy Only-begotten Son, and Thy Holy Spirit. All of the Holy Trinity is mentioned. Nevertheless, the original eucharist referral is a prayer addressed to the Father. This is why it is a huge mistake during the Divine Liturgy, for priests to turn towards the icon of Christ when uttering the words Let us thank the Lord. This is a huge dogmatic mistake. The words Let us thank the Lord merely signal the beginning of the Eucharist. When saying: Let us thank, we are not supposed to be extending a thank-you in the traditional sense; these words are intended as a prompt to begin at that moment the responding prayer that says: Worthy and just. It is from that point onwards, that the Eucharist begins, and, as we can see from the words of the referral prayer, it is clearly addressed to the Father. You might wonder: "why is this significant? This is not an issue of divinity! (Because in the long run, the distinguishing between the Persons supposedly should not matter.) But the distinction between the Persons is of such immense significance to Orthodox Theology, that the Cappadocians had struggled with all their might to preserve it. What the Son does in the Liturgy is not the same as what the Father does, nor is it the same as what the Spirit does. Each Person has a different role throughout Providence, and that same role is transferred into the Eucharist. Thus, it is the Father Who accepts; and, as Paul says, it is the Son Who finally presents everything to the Father. Why? Because it is from the Father that the entire plan of Providence began. The condescension was the Fathers, not the Sons. Each Person has its own significant and distinct role. Providence had its beginning in the Fathers condescension, and its conclusion must be with the Father. The Son executes that which the Father condescended to, with the synergy of the Holy Spirit, and thus returns to the Father all of Providence; all of us, everything that He included in Providence It is He Who brings, Who delivers His Body unto the Father. The Eucharist is precisely this delivery, this offering of the Body of Christ to the Father; the eschatological and final offering is that return to the Father. This therefore, is why during the Divine Eucharist (and especially during the moment of referral) the Church does not pray on its own. It is Christ Who prays, as the Head of the Church, and it is He Who delivers Providence to the Father. This movement which has begun to gradually fade during the Divine Liturgy (or in the conscience at any rate of the Orthodox and the clergy) is very significant for our topic, as it is indicative of the Church not having Her own I at that moment. When She speaks to the Father, She does not speak as a Church; She speaks as Christ. It is the Son Who speaks. Besides, He is the only One Who can be heard by the Father. That is why the Divine Eucharist differs from all other rituals and services; it is because during the Divine Eucharist, God sees His very Son, and He also sees all of us as sons, in the person of His Son. And that is why we must be baptized : in order to be members of the Eucharist. It is not for everyone to be embodied in this eucharist

relationship, as one must have acquired the status of adoption that Baptism provides. It is the adoption status acquired through Baptism that renders us sons in the One and the Onlybegotten Son of God. Consequently, it is the Son Who leads us before the throne of God, then God accepts us as members of His Son, and it is in this way that we become joined to God. We therefore unite ourselves in Christ, which means that the Church, during the peak moment of the referral, does not have a separate identity of Her own. And this is why, when the priest utters: the holy (gifts) to the holy (ones), the laitys response of: One is Holy is given without any hesitation, and it is not pronounced as though negating that those who are to partake (of Holy Communion) are holy, or are to become holy. It is not as though we are implying He the One is holy, whereas we are not. No. There is no negative inference to this expression. What is implied by this expression, this response by the laity of One is Holy, is: We acknowledge that One is Holy, just as the Son is one, however, it is through Him that we too become holy and we too become sons of God in Him. It is He therefore Who delivers us to the Father, and it is He Who addresses the Father and prays during the Eucharist Liturgy: the Son. Naturally, Christ Himself is invisible. His presence is not tangible during the Liturgy. This is why the one who does the offering during the Divine Eucharist (the Bishop in the ancient Church, and in his name, eventually, the presbyter also) is an image of Christ within that liturgical assembly, that liturgical context; It is he, who recapitulates, who embodies, who renders the entire Church into one body, and refers it to the Father. And in this way, another mystery, another paradox arises, i.e., even though the Divine Eucharist is being offered by the bishop or the presbyter, he, during the prayer of the Cherubim, states: Thou art the offerer, Christ. In other words, whereas in the eyes of the laity the offerer is the bishop, the bishop himself is aware that the One actually doing the offering is Christ. Thus, in this way, there is a relating of the officiator and Christ, however, this relating always permits distinction between the two, as the officiator is a human and consequently, while related liturgically to the Person of Christ, he does not cease to be fully aware that he is not Christ, hence his addressing Christ as the One Who actually offers as though he himself is not the offerer, when in fact he is physically enacting the offering. So, within the Liturgy, a dialectic so to speak- relationship is created, between the officiator and Christ, and it is this precise dialectic relationship that underlies the meaning of image. The image is a dialectic notion. It depicts something that is not present, as though it were present. Thus, Christ in the person of His image (who is the officiator at that moment)is present, but with a dialectic relationship which allows the officiator to discern between himself and Christ and this dialectic relationship is expressed by the prayer that the officiator offers to Christ. This is why the prayer of the Cherubim is a prayer addressed to Christ and in fact is the only prayer that is addressed to Christ. All of the other prayers are either addressed to the Holy Trinity or to the Father only, because they are prayers that presuppose that relationship between Christ and the Church; a relationship that generates a dialogue not between Church and Christ, as no such dialogue exists in the Eucharist but between the Church and Christ on the one hand and the Father on the other. During the 12th century, there was a huge argument on this matter, in which the main theological role was played by Nicholaos of Methoni. This argument was based on exactly this detail that we just mentioned, i.e., that Christ offers the Divine Eucharist and the Father accepts it. Is it therefore not accepted by the Son also? Doesnt the Son also accept the Eucharist? The answer given by Nicholaos of Methoni and the one that prevailed was that Christ also accepts the Divine Eucharist, and that He does not offer it only. This is a very serious statement, given that every perception that the Father can somehow act (ie, accept the eucharist) without the presence of the Son and the Spirit, would have meant a division within the Holy Trinity. (It is a basic Patristic tenet, that the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are inseparable, even though in Providence and in the Incarnation they are together, however, they do not all become incarnate.) This is where the major detail lies, inasmuch as the Son does indeed accept the Divine Eucharist together with the Father and the Spirit however, He accepts it distinctly differently from the Father and the Spirit, inasmuch as He is also the One Who simultaneously offers it. The distinction between the Persons is a very serious matter, which is why the words

Let us thank the Lord should not be offered in front of the icon of Christ. It is of great importance to note that Providence overall is summarized in the Person of Christ and that it is eventually concluded in the Person of the Father; that the Father is not the offerer (what is there for Him to offer? To whom should He offer?). If we relate these points to natures, they become tangled. We do not need to make such distinctions. However, you should note that the Divine Liturgy is most revealing at this point. It is extremely careful in its handling of the distinction of the Persons. Unfortunately, we are the ones who have created a liturgical piety in absentia of the discernment of the Persons. We pray to God. This is so dangerous, that it could easily lead to an obsolescence of Trinitarian Theology. Trinitarian Theology could become a dogma, which has nothing to do with the manner in which we live. No, we cannot omit the Triadic dogma during the Liturgy. If there is a distinction between the Persons, then it must be enforced wittingly: I must know that I am praying in the name of Christ; that Christ is praying with me; that the officiator is an image of Christ at that moment, and that he is not the offerer, but that Christ is the One performing the offering. Hence the formulation of the prayer: "Thou art the offerer and the offering, the One Who accepts and the One Who is propagated simultaneously. But this refers to Christ, and not the Father not the divine nature, definitely not that. It is the Son. It is the dialectic relationship between the Father and the Son, thanks to which we are saved, on account of the fact that we too become accepted by the Father, as sons. The Church, therefore, is that mystery of recapitulation, the embodiment of everyone, who, through Baptism have become sons, and through them through their nature, which they carry with them- we are enabled to enter into the relationship that exists between Father and Son. This is what theosis means, nothing more. And this is why theosis is offered par excellence- in the Divine Liturgy. Thus, Christ cannot be visualized without the Church, the Church cannot be visualized without Christ, and theosis cannot be visualized without the Church. The Father accepts the Body, which Christ offers during the Eucharist; the Son now both offers and accepts. He offers, according to the measure that He is joined to human nature, and He accepts, according to the measure that He is joined to the Father. We have outlined all the above, in order to declare clearly and firmly, that the Church does not have Her own I, Her own identity, as Her identity is Christ. This if course is linked to Christology and the whole story about the one Person and the two natures. We also deduce from all the above that whatever takes place or exists in the Church, becomes ecclesiasticized. It is rendered Church to the degree and the measure that it relates to the Father in Christ, especially during the moment of the Divine Eucharist. Thus, whatever a person brings along as an offering, whether it is his own nature which he bears in his physical presence he goes there, and he brings along that body, which is a participant of the overall created world. Consequently, he brings along the created world that he has within himself; he takes it there, either along with the gifts being offered (the bread and the wine), or any other form of offering, within the framework of the Divine Eucharist, and it all becomes the body of Christ. They are no longer human articles, nor can we examine them sociologically or financially or legally. They are no longer subject to the laws and the principles that govern created nature. They now have the characteristics of uncreated nature. They are accepted, they are sanctified, they become holy, and in that way, they can now partake of the Father-Son relationship. This is precisely what also makes the officiators and especially the bishop (who heads the entire assembly and the offering) holy, in the context of the expression One is Holy. Everything is sanctified within the Divine Eucharist, and moreso the one who is offering the Divine Eucharist, who is the image of the actual offerer Christ. Consequently, the life of the Church within the Eucharist, the structure of the Church within the Eucharist, the functions, the officiators, all of these cannot be viewed with criteria of the created; they cannot be judged by social, or sociological criteria. Of course the Church has a life that also extends outside the Divine Eucharist and it is possible for other elements to infiltrate it, which may not be in essence elements of that relationship which would have rendered them sacred and holy. Given that or, rather, if - these elements are related and

can in some way be linked to the Divine Eucharist, they cannot be used as, or constitute, an object of social or any other created reality. This is therefore the meaning that underlies the Christ-centeredness of the Church, as well as Her Bishop-centeredness. Given that the I of the church is Christ, and during the Eucharist the image of Christ is the bishop, it is for this reason that the Bishop was given this very critical position in the Church and was made the judge of the entire life of the Church including Her material aspect- which material aspect is related to its communion with the Divine Eucharist. Whatever man may offer so that it might become a Divine Eucharist, it must necessarily pass through the hands of the Bishop, given that all of the Divine Eucharist passes through the hands of the bishop. This is the only means that we have, to portray the presence of Christ. It is not possible to go as far as the Protestant perception, where this portrayal is not deemed necessary. The Protestant view regards the community like something that prays as a group of individuals, with each one praying to God separately. They assemble to pray, however each person prays on his own; he may be together with the others, but that prayer is not uttered by one, common mouth. The common mouth for us, for Ecclesiology that we are now analyzing, is not human. It is Christ, because God cannot hear any human voice. Or, at any rate, prayer during the Divine Eucharist differs from the prayers that a single human mouth might offer to God. During the Divine Eucharist, it is not the human mouth that offers prayer; it is the mouth of the Son that prays, and that is what makes the Divine Eucharist so acceptable, so significant to the Father. The Divine Eucharist differs from all the other kinds of prayers, and the laity is aware of this. The laity goes to perform the Liturgy; to offer the names of its loved ones to the Liturgy. The Liturgy is one thing; and whatever is outside the Liturgy is another. Whatever is outside the Liturgy does not have the same weight, the same value. Whatever is inside the Divine Eucharist, passes through that Father-Son relationship, where the Son is the One Who takes them all upon Himself; this is the meaning of Divine Eucharist. The Body of Christ is actualized. He undertakes all the requests, all the gifts of the laity, and He offers them to the Father. Therefore, everything that takes place at that moment during the Divine Eucharist, is taking place by Christ Himself. Consequently, the bishop is not an officiator that exists in parallel to Christ. It is Christ Himself who officiates. And all the raiments, all the chanting and the entire manner in which the laity sees the bishop and subsequently the presbyter all indicate that they regard him as an image of Christ. And those images of Christ attend the ritual in the same manner. This is where the authority of the bishop in every matter had its beginning.

============================================ F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1. Introduction

Ecclesiology in the West Orthodox Ecclesiology trapped by the views of Western confessions Orthodox Ecclesiology as an experiential outcome Divine Eucharist and Ascetic experience: The sources of Orthodox Ecclesiology Relating Church with Temple and the priority of the experience of worship Neo-Hellenic digression towards teaching Inadequate demarcation of the Church by the Symbol of Faith The competition between Monasticism and the Eucharist as Ecclesiological characteristics The affinity of Platonic ideas to the therapy of the soul The prevalence of therapeutics versus Liturgical Ecclesiology

The synthesis of Liturgy-Psychotherapy by Saint Maximus The Eucharist transformation of the world as the ultimate criterion of Ecclesiology The subsequent saints as continuers of Saint Maximus Ecclesiology Contemporary problems on the confusion surrounding the function of monasticism

QUESTIONS Gnosiology versus the lack of person The current of Orthodox self-awareness as a practical hope Indicative elements of self-awareness

In my opinion, the basic and topmost issue in Ecclesiology is to determine the particular identity of the Church, so that the knowledge thereof will be correct and secure. Unfortunately, however, the concept of Church in our conscience and our theological knowledge does not have a specific identity. Thus, if someone were to pose the question: What do we mean by Church? What is Her identity and Her characteristic? it is certain that one would hear many and varied replies, which, if examined extensively, can also be said of many other things. Thus, the unique and identifying difference of the Church is not as clear as it should be, in our minds. For many, the Church is linked to an organized historical community, whose main characteristics do not differ from those that also apply to other communities throughout the course of History. Nowadays (and chiefly in the West), the theological problem appears to be the discerning between Ecclesiology and Sociology. The Church naturally has its social elements also; a macroscopic sociological view of is history will divulge certain characteristics that one also finds outside the Church. Indeed, the way that Ecclesiology developed in the Roman Catholic and Protestant world does not differ very much from Sociology. The term Church was related to the term societas, which it should be noted- is not an accurate rendition of the broader, respective Greek term society. This perception, which required the Church to be an organized society with its own rules on morality, ideology and administration, while dominant for centuries in Roman Catholicism, is nowadays gradually receding. This of course is happening, because the very sociological concept of society as an organized whole, on the basis of an organized morality, ideology and administration, is tending to eclipse in modern times, for many and various reasons. It is not simply because societies differ from country to country; it is also because society itself has become splintered within the boundaries of a country what we would call the very fiber of society. Nowadays, the established morality, the ideology and even the state administration of society is being doubted, in a multitude of ways, while new trends and various other forms of organization of social life have appeared on stage. Bearing in mind these social developments, Roman Catholic Ecclesiology has been transposed from the concept of societas that it had until recently. While Roman Catholicism has undergone a different kind of organizing than the state or society, in Protestantism on the other hand, secularization has almost completely absorbed the element of ecclesiastic organization, to such an extent, that the latter has become vague and unstructured and in no way evidently different to the political structure of society. The Protestant element of rationalism has been profoundly influenced by changing social theories in such a way that - depending on the circumstance - one can actually diagnose a Marxist, a capitalist etc. influence in the various Protestant societies. Protestant churches tend to drift ideologically, depending on the social perceptions that prevail; in the area of morality, they fluctuate between what is commonly acceptable and an irrepressible liberty. One could say, without oversimplifying, that in Protestantism, Sociology and Ecclesiology have lost their defining boundaries and have merged into each other. Naturally, depending on the deviation of the individual confessions, there will be a corresponding gradation. However, mostly in traditional Protestantism such as Lutheranism and Calvinism, where the dogma is stressed more than anything else, we note a dependency of these churches on the

confession of their faith. In fact, it is from this last point that the name of the Lutheran or Calvinist Church was derived. Thus it was, that the Lutheran Church is the one that acknowledges its identity in the Augustinian Confession of faith etc.. This general outline pertains mainly to the ecclesiological orientations of the West, however it also directly concerns Orthodox theological thought, which has not yet formulated a comprehensive Ecclesiology. It is a fact, that the ecclesiological texts by contemporary Orthodox theologians that we have available, are nothing more than a selection of the aforementioned forms of Ecclesiology that I described. The prevalent, borrowed element that they acquired from the West is the confessional approach. If one were to ask how the Orthodox Church differs from the others, the answer (based on the ecclesiologies that we have) would be that we Orthodox have become entrapped historically by the Protestant -and generally by the Western- perception regarding the concept of Church. By the 17th century, when the Western confessions made their appearance, the Orthodox were challenged to declare which confessions they recognized and acknowledged. Thus began the formulation of confessions, for the purpose of defining Orthodoxys identity. In those points where we disagreed with the West, we would at times obtain arguments from the Roman Catholics in order to turn against the Protestants, and at other times would do the exact opposite. It was in this context, that the confessions of Peter Mogilas and Dositheus of Jerusalem displayed Latin influences, Cyril Loukareos displayed Protestant influences, while the path followed by Mitrophanes Kritopoulos was something in between. This fact is easily interpreted, as the nature of Orthodox Ecclesiology is entirely different and it is impossible for its identity to be determined on the basis of a confession of faith. Well, where do the Orthodox draw the identity of the Church? We too have an entire history behind us on this point. The Orthodox perception regarding the Church springs from the empirical relationship of Man and the world with God, the way it was experienced by the ecclesiastic community throughout the centuries. Consequently, just as Dogmatics as a whole is experiential, so is our Ecclesiology; it expresses the way of existence of the Church. Then we see theologians coming along and manufacturing perceptions and forms out of that experience, or, quite often, as it unfortunately appears to be happening nowadays, they completely overlook it, and concoct their own perceptions. Anyhow, regardless of the above, the permanent criterion for viewing Ecclesiology will always be the very experience of the Church. In generalizing and formulating matters somewhat, I would say that the basic experiences are two, from which we Orthodox draw the content of Ecclesiology: on the one hand it is the Divine Eucharist the liturgical experience that is accessible to all the faithful of the world and on the other hand, it is the ascetic experience and the monastic calling, which is the choice of certain faithful within the Church. Beyond these two, there do not appear to be any other experiences that have decisively influenced the Orthodox ecclesiological conscience. In the Roman Catholic and Protestant West however, it was the missionary experience that influenced their Ecclesiology, given that the identity of the Church included its being the instrument for the promotion of the missionary role. In Orthodox theological tradition and popular piety on the other hand, missionary activities did not play a primary role. When an Orthodox says that he is going to Church, he doesnt imply that he is going to preach the Gospel to the natives of another land, nor does he attend church only to hear the sermon (at least not until recently), but to participate in the service, to pray along with the community of the faithful and more especially, to participate in the Divine Eucharist. It was in this way, that in the Orthodox tradition the word Church identified with the word church (temple). Although the West had also inherited this identification from the ancient Church, the contemporary Western theologians, by rationally filtering things, arrived at the idea that one should not say: I am going to Church, but to the temple. H. Kng persisted intensely on this distinction, (which had also greatly enthused the late N. Nisiotes), saying that the use of the word temple was more appropriate. But no Orthodox says he is going to the temple; he always says: I am going to Church. This is by no means coincidental, because it is precisely

this popular piety and this manner that designates the identity of the Church. My reference to these differences is intended only to highlight the particular emphasis that the Orthodox Church places on the experience of worship, and not missionary deeds. In our times, we have all discerned the deviating turn that the neo-Hellenic ecclesiastic conscience has taken, under the influence of the religious fraternities and organizations, which have overstressed missionary work and sermon preaching. This pietistic trend has also infiltrated the Churchs liturgical functions, causing changes and upheaval in the Divine Eucharist. It is even more saddening to see these innovations firmly embedded. Why is the sermon preached during the Communion phase? The answer is usually the argument that an earlier time for the sermon is not recommended, due to the delayed arrival of the faithful. Is churchgoing then exclusively linked to the sermon? A sermon-based piety is therefore being cultivated by many preachers, to the detriment of the Eucharist function and experience, thus causing a fundamental change to the Orthodox idiosyncracy. Quite a few literate clergymen recite the Gospel passages during the Divine Liturgy without chanting them, in order to make them more palpable for the lait. Similarly, in other areas, the missionary zeal has diluted the feeling of mystery that envelops the Church. All of us can sense that these trends have deviated from Orthodox tradition and liturgical practice. In Orthodox theology, the main characteristic that expresses the identity of the Church is not the missionary practice, nor of course the various confessions of faith. In the Divine Eucharist we do not use any singled-out confession or some excerpt from an academic manual. All of these do of course exist, but only marginally in the Churchs life. At its epicenter which is the Eucharist worship- only the elementary and common to the other churches and confessions Symbol of Faith (Creed) has any place. Therefore, when identifying the Orthodox self-awareness only on the basis of the Symbol of Faith, it is not possible to differentiate ourselves from the heterodox Christian communities. It appears, therefore, that only the two elements that I mentioned previously, i.e., the Divine Eucharist and the monastic tradition, have decisively shaped the Orthodox conscience as regards the identity of the Church. When looking for it, we must definitely turn to these two ecclesiological constituents. With this approach, however, a serious theological problem is created, which involves an inbred competition between the liturgical and the ascetic element. I once again pose the issue schematically in order to provoke you to speculate, so that we can examine and re-think in depth certain important things. The competition between the Eucharist Worship approach of Ecclesiology and the corresponding Monastic - Ascetic approach has deep roots in History. We shall attempt o make a brief trip to the past, working up to our time, in order to determine how this statement is displayed, which could prove catastrophic. From my studies of History, I have formed the opinion that this competition did not exist initially, because the predominant element in Ecclesiology used to be the act of Worship, and in fact the Divine Eucharist. This is verified, by the New Testament and by the two first centuries at least- of the Church. In Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint Ireneos of Lyons, and even by the apologete martyr Justin (in other words, throughout the entire spectrum of the 2nd century), the identity of the Church had its foundations in the performing of the Divine Eucharist. The problem, and the other competitive factor, appeared during the Alexandrian theologians - mainly Clement and Origen and it developed in the East, in parallel to the institution of Monasticism which became deeply influenced by the spirit of the untiring Alexandrian teacher, thus shaping a new approach and basis for Ecclesiology. It must be stressed, that Origen and the Alexandrian theologians of that period were influenced by the ideological principles of Platonic philosophy. For Platonism, the identity of every being is found in the original idea of that being - the idea pre-existing before History and Time, which contribute towards the deterioration of tangible things. In accordance with the theory on eternal and self-existing ideas that comprise the archetypes of all beings, if something possessing a specific identity is true, then it is not

attributed to its present, material, corruptible and constantly changing state, but to the corresponding idea of that thing, which idea is the only thing that remains eternally unchanging. To the extent that a certain changeable being participates in the eternal archetype idea of that being, it will also acquire its true identity. According to the Platonizing Alexandrian theologians, the Church likewise acquires its identity from the beyond-Time and eternal world of Ideas, as well as its present hypostasis. Dominating this world of Ideas is the Logos of God, which unites within it all the logos of beings. Therefore, the Church itself refers its true identity, when its participants approach and partake of the universal Logos during their union. Thus, the question regarding the being of the Church is replied to by the Alexandrian teachers as the convergence and the union of the eternal souls with the eternal Logos. Even though Origens idea regarding the eternicity of souls (which was condemned by the 5th Ecumenical Synod) did not succeed in decisively entering the monastic conscience, nevertheless, the essential element of Alexandrian tradition the union of the soul with the Logos- played a significant role in the shaping of the ascetic spirit. But because the tangible elements and the corporeal aspect of the generative cause of sin within the flow of Time intercede during the harmonious union of the souls with the Logos, the Churchs primary mission is to provide man the opportunity for a catharsis from whatever obstructs his union with the Logos. Thus, the identity of the Church is seen as an infirmary for souls, whereas Monasticism constitutes precisely that charismatic method -within the Churchwhich is destined for the realization of the souls catharsis from its passions and its union with the Logos of God. It is clear how, in such a visualizing, great importance is placed on the human mind (Nous), which has to be cleansed of its tangible thoughts, because it is only through this cleansing that the minds thoughts can attain a proximity and a relating with the supreme Logos, with which they are also naturally related to. During the particular emphasis that is given here, in the method and the course of catharsis and expulsion of tangible thoughts, all the weight of Ecclesiology begins to be shifted towards this direction. Thus, the worship and the eucharist elements gradually lose their primary significance and are transformed into a means serving an end. The eucharist assembly of the Church, holy communion, is used simply in support of ones struggle to combat passions. The demotion of the liturgical factor by the Alexandrian approach, in conjunction with the development and the proliferation of Monasticism, had a broad response in the natural location and the surrounding atmosphere of Platonism, as was our East the Hellenic-speaking regions of Byzantium. Besides, during this same period, the idea that there is an intelligible world superior to the tangible and material one became more and more accepted. All this contributed towards giving precedence to the therapeutic so to speakperspective of Ecclesiology, and not to the Eucharist perspective. Nevertheless, once again, the one element had not eliminated the other, so that one could be sure that only one of the two now comprised the prominent element. Perhaps the easiest thing would be for one to say that both elements comprise the identity of the Church. But such a viewpoint does not satisfy a speculating mind, because in reality, the absolute and final identity cannot be located in these two approaches. Between the eucharist and the therapeutical image of the Church, what can be called final and absolute? What is relative, and what is it supportive of? This, in Orthodox Theology, is where the whole issue of Ecclesiology pivots in my opinion. In other words, is the Church tending to be transformed into a society of intelligent beings, into an angelic state? Is mans model - the model with which he wants the Church to be identified to be found in the world of immaterial and incorporeal angels or the materialized and incarnate Logos? What is more, is the incarnated Logos simply a road leading to the non-carnate Logos? When studying the texts of the Fathers, we can discern that they too present certain analogous differentiations. Many are those who, with a western perception of concessus patrum are scandalized by this observation. What is certain, however, is that such differing approaches do exist. Saint Ireneos or Saint Justins approach is not the same as Origens. The latter, albeit not a Father of the Church, nevertheless greatly influenced many Fathers. The Origenic element is quite prominent, up until the Cappadocians, without disappearing altogether in the centuries that

followed, even through to our time. At the same time, it has permeated ecclesiastic poetry and hymnology, where the model of sanctity is the blessed ascetic. In the divine Eucharist however, the model of man is the incarnate Logos the God-human Christ Who also assumed all of material nature with His human nature. This assumption, and this reference to Christ of the entire world, is the par excellence experience of the divine Eucharist. Thus, with the eucharist approach, the purpose and the identity of the Church, as well as who is Holy within the Church, is viewed through an entirely different perspective. The harmonious relationship between these two theories (therapeutic and the eucharist Ecclesiologoy) was achieved by Saint Maximus the Confessor, in a dynamic theological synthesis. The author of Mystagogia -as a monk- is well acquainted with the Origenian tradition, as well as Neo-Platonism which was the philosophy and the terminology of the time. The use of all these parameters by Saint Maximus made most researchers align him with Origen the so-called Platonizing Fathers. A characteristic example is that of H.V. von Balthazar, who first brought to light the theological thought of Saint Maximus in his book kosmische Liturgie (Secular Liturgy) in 1941. In this book, the Swiss theologian accomplished an excellent analysis of Saint Maximus thoughts, albeit locating certain Origenist elements throughout all the thoughts of the Confessor Saint. It was necessary for the American P. Sherwood to contribute, who, in a deeper analysis of the theology of the great Father, corrected the mistaken evaluations of Balthasar, proving that Saint Maximus had merely gone through an Origenic crisis as he called it; correcting and finally expelling Origenism from the theology. In his second edition of 1961, Balthasar was forced to rectify whatever Origenism he had asserted that existed in Saint Maximus work. Given that he had, on the one hand, a good knowledge of Origen and Neo-Platonism as most scholarly monks of the East did- and on the other hand, by living the experience of the Church fully, Saint Maximus was obliged to make changes, in order to be aligned with what I have named Eucharist Ecclesiology. With his richly endowed mind, Saint Maximus achieved a truly majestic synthesis of these two approaches. When placing the Divine Eucharist in its secular dimensions, he considers the eucharist reference to be the ultimate element that expresses the identity of the Church. For him, therapeutic Ecclesiology lies in the transformation and the presentation unto Christ of the entire tangible and intelligible world, as well as the relationships between people. In other words, catharsis and the riddance of the world of its negative element are necessary, but that is not what constitutes the final destination of the Church; it is the Eucharist transformation of entire Creation and its referral to God to the heavenly Liturgy of the Kingdom. The Church, therefore, is the workshop where catharsis is attained, not for the purpose of creating a community of incorporeal angels (as Origen would have wanted), but to salvage this material world, providing it with the dimension of eternicity by referring it to God. Saint Maximus synthesis therefore is most revealing, as regards the identity of the Church. We cannot overlook the therapeutic element, but we cannot make it the ultimate criterion of Ecclesiology without incorporating it in this eucharist view of the world as a transformation and not as a scorning and a rejection of the material and somatic element. The History of the Orthodox Church sails along this specific course; at times emphasis is placed on the one factor and at other times on the other factor, but always within the framework of the harmonious synthesis as formulated by Saint Maximus the Confessor. The problems commenced, when theologians began to conceive a point of view and then unilaterally exhausted the entire truth therein, while the psychology that leans toward fanaticism the recriminations that odium theologicum and easy heresiology are responsible for various morbid phenomena and situations. Misinterpretations and unilateral aspects of this kind appear in Saint Maximus also, who, by the way, is mentioned only for his eucharist perspective. For many, he is considered to be the expresser of therapeutic Ecclesiology. Greater damage was however caused by the pursuant Fathers, and in fact with Saint Gregory of Palamas, whose teaching was projected like a flag that defined Orthodoxy, as opposed to the Christian West. The researchers to date of Palamas theology unilaterally

regard that the hesychast saint was a classical representative of simply the therapeutic and not the eucharist theology. Furthermore, many researchers mainly westerners- maintained that there was a certain contradiction between the hesychasts and other, eucharist theologians of the 14th century, such as Saint Nicholas Kavasilas. I believe that we need to re-approach the theology of this archbishop of Thessaloniki, in the entirety of his treatises from his speeches of objections to his poemantic homilies in order to show that he does not deviate in the least, but rather develops even further Saint Maximus tradition, in which both Ecclesiologies are in a harmonious synthesis, with the ultimate criterion being as I believe the eucharist one However, beyond the purely theoretical symptoms of the competition that I described, there were certain practical extensions to it, which created poemantic and institutional problems in our contemporary ecclesiological situation. These problems are summarized, I believe, chiefly in the relations of the institution of bishop and that of the monks. On the one hand, the bishop as the chief officiator of the Divine Eucharist and the expresser of eucharist Ecclesiology is the one who judges exactly where the identity of the Church should be located. The monk, on the other hand, with his therapeutic ascetic living, provides the measure of sanctity on which the Church should recognize Her identity. Naturally, the problem of competition between these two institutions has always existed, which is why, in the 9th century, the synodic canons had made provisions for strict penances against those monks who claim any absoluteness within the Church, by subjecting them to the spiritual jurisdiction of the local bishop. In our day the problem of monasticism as an institution and a mentality infiltrating the Church in the world is especially obvious. Monasticism, which had begun as a departure from the world, is now inside the world. The trend is developing, where not only are monks circulating in society, but they are also often conveying into the lives of people and their families the criteria and the ascetic methods, the visions and the objectives of ascetic living, as applied in monastic living. For example, the notion of obedience as an ascetic ideal that a monk undertakes from the moment of his tonsure, before God and people, promising to uphold it, is also being transferred beyond the monastic institution, thus shaping a corresponding ecclesiastic life and act. This is why we observe on the one hand the phenomenon of certain lay people struggling to become monks without undergoing tonsure and the promise of obedience, and on the other hand, those who give their promise of obedience and their lifelong retreat in a monastery, and the next day are out in the streets, making monks out of Christians living in the world. These morbid situations appeared during our time, after the catalytic influence of the western experience of missionary zeal, which was introduced in Greece through the various Christian organizations, causing complete confusion in Ecclesiology. The Orthodox conscience nowadays appears more confused than ever before. When a monk leaves his retreat to speak to the world, he is usually overcome by the disposition to save the world, which constitutes a substitution and transference of the missionary spirit into the monastic ideal. In older times, a monk retreated from the world, having felt his great need to be saved. Nowadays, one becomes a monk in order to save others. Needless to say, that there is a significant number of the laity who, for instance, are puzzled as to where they should show obedience, but are also puzzled in numerous other areas. Thus, nowadays, there is a whole lot of practical problems for people who do not know what to do at a given moment or situation in their life; problems that never used to exist. The confusing of missionary zeal with the therapeutic method, the underestimating of the eucharist view and the confession-oriented mentality of theology, brought on such a condition to Ecclesiology, that the identity the place and the way of determining the life of the Church is no longer discernible. We are living in a time of theological confusions, therefore our essential poemantic responsibility as theologians is to help man to exit this confusion. This of course is not achieved only through the discerning by our mind; this is necessary too, but always within the framework of the organic synthesis of Ecclesiologys liturgical and ascetic perspective.

QUESTIONS Q: The problem with therapeutic Ecclesiology is, perhaps that, with its gnosio-theoretical method, it seems to forget the par excellence eucharistic social aspect of the person. Is this absence of the Person indeed discerned in therapeutic Ecclesiology? A: -In Ecclesiologys therapeutic approach, a priority is definitely given to gnosiology. This is precisely why we observe an intense preoccupation with the issue of knowledge, whether it be of God, or the charismas of having this knowledge, which have a particular weight and attraction. If someone were to divulge what is to happen to you tomorrow, or what you are thinking of right now, then you would quite possibly think: How can the essence of things the very Church itself depend on the charisma of far-sightedness? If someone else was spending his time in a hospital tending to a sick person, it would be considered of secondary importance. Gnosiology acquires a kind of priority versus ontology, where the theological dimension of the Person and society as the identity that emerges from within a specific relationship- has a more weighty significance. This relationship and this society extend towards the entire material world; towards the natural environment. Let it be noted, that we are only just beginning to become aware of the spiritual prerequisites of the so-called ecological problem. Incidentally, the indifference displayed by many orthodox towards the dangers that threaten our natural environment is, unfortunately, very disappointing.

Q: - Given these so confusing situations, what is left for us as a practical possibility and hope? A: - My suggestion would be to delve into and study these problems in depth, aspiring to something beyond todays confusion. I do have a positive outlook however and it is supported by History and a theological perspective that in Orthodoxy, in spite of the present state of confusion, there are underground currents which, if one encounters them, will reveal the authentic ecclesiological experience. The historical course of Orthodoxy in Russia is stunning. What events didnt invade the orthodox conscience of the Russian people: the invasion of Protestant and Papist propaganda, westernization, confusions and schisms, atheist ideology, persecutions.... And yet, despite all these, certain people such as the late, memorable G. Florovsky, succeeded in encountering the true meaning and the authenticity of Orthodoxy. Such expressions and displays of underground currents in the Orthodox tradition albeit unfashioned are frequently observed in non-theological circles which, however, possess a sensitivity cultivated by art and other factors. At any rate, the role of theology nowadays is to unearth whatever underlies the surface of what we call Orthodoxy, with all its accompanying confusions and problems. I have the conviction that something is happening. When, for example, I see simple people swarming to churches that are celebrating, they are giving witness with their life and their act almost instinctively- of what the identity of the Church truly is. The rationalistic and pietistic sermon by various theologians may of course have attempted to correct this lay piety; by imposing an entire system of behaviour and mentality, neo-Hellenic pietism strove to bend and change this underground current of Orthodoxy, which has been flowing through the ages. My optimism however, is based on the experience of recent History. No matter how many attempts have been made, nothing and no-one was able to eliminate this underground current of Orthodox self-awareness. Contemporary theology might perhaps have to return and be re-baptized within these lay manifestations of true Orthodox piety.

Q: -Would you like to give us some indicative information on this? A: -The manner in which people perceive their relationship with the Church, the Saints, the icons, is a relationship of direct and personal familiarity; an ontological relationship that is not filtered through ones mind, so that things do not become confused, either from a gnosiological and moral aspect, or a missionary and ideological one. More specifically, my view is that the sub-stratum of the orthodox conscience is the relationship with God as a relationship of saints, which includes and cares about the material element of Creation. When someone presents a promised offering, when one light a candle as tall as his stature, the preacher will probably comment that these things will be of no benefit, if, at that moment you are not thinking of........ Anyway, the important thing is not what one is thinking of, but the fact that one is acting: he has left his home and entered the Church he is in a communion with the Saints. From a gnosiological point of view, he might not actually be there, but ontologically, he is. It is also necessary to cast out every concept that suggests the Liturgy has any other purpose, other than the realization of ones ontological relationship to God, to others and to the entire world. The Divine Eucharist unlike a sermon - does not serve any gnosiological purpose. In Church, the simple believer does not go there to think, which is probably why he doesnt comprehend the sermon, no matter how plainly it is delivered. Things become more obvious, when, for example, at the mention of a saints name, the congregation instinctively makes the sign of the Cross. This signifies that the faithful, even though not intellectually participating during the delivery of the sermon, their personal relationship to the saint is nevertheless directly activated. The faithful will go to honor a personal relationship with the community of saints, while the preacher seeks to provide him with ideas of things. We usually dont bestow the appropriate priority that befits the Divine Eucharist. It is a sad phenomenon that is observed, mainly among the ranks of the educated clergy, when they are under the impression that they must preach, because the people have come to hear the sermon. Without the knowledge of where the Churchs identity is located, we preach to others about what they should be doing. Of course Orthodoxy can judge and teach the world, but first we need to filter the perception that we have of Her, from all the foreign trumpery that is hiding Her Truth and her personal identity.

1. Orthodox Ecclesiological topics

A concept of Church Searching for the historical roots of the Church The expectation of Maran Atha (the Lord cometh) of the Apostolic Church The loss of Eschatological awareness in the West, and its influences Secularization leads to the inertia of ones Eschatological awareness A foretaste of Eschatological unity: The Church between two worlds

A. The eschatological identity of the Church The basic characteristics of the Churchs identity are: Gods people all assembled for the same purpose, with the entire world around them, united in the Person of Christ, in the Holy Spirit. This is the identity of the Church, which, however, will be fulfilled in the future. In the meantime, during the course of History, this community struggles firstly to preserve its identity uninfluenced by other identities that exist, and secondly, to bring the rest of the world alongside it. Thus, it appears we need to have a concept of the term Church, rather

than a definition of it. Church is mainly something that we experience, something that we observe, and not something that we merely define with words. Historically, the roots of the Church are located I believe in Gods appointment of Abraham and the subsequent forming of Gods nation. We shall examine later on how the beginning of the Church was perceived by certain theologians (mainly of Alexandria). Clement spoke of the pre-existence of the Church, Origen and others were more Platonically-oriented, but I imagine the data of Biblical theology lead us there. When a nation is created from the seed of Abraham, the purpose is specific: ...for all nations shall be blessed in you... and it is from there, that the Messiah and the eschatological community spring forth. Given that all this information is available to us in the New Testament (i.e. that this is how the first Christians and Paul perceived the Church), I believe that this is where we should seek its roots. It is within this context that we should also place the Incarnation. There are certain orthodox theologians who seek the roots of the Church in the reality of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is the incarnation of the Son and Logos of God. It wasnt mine, or yours, or anyone elses. The Church does not appear in the Incarnation. Given that the Incarnation has to do with human nature in its fullness, it has a certain pertinence to the fact that various persons are going to be embodied in the body of Christ. However, the body of Christ (in the sense of being incarnate) is not sufficient, nor is it capable of providing a basis for Ecclesiology, because the Church is not the corpus per se of Christ a personal Christ who extends into eternity as the Western theologians used to say. In order for the Church to become the body of Christ, it is in need of our personal incarnation. A body of Christ which doesnt include our personal incarnation cannot I believe be called a Church, if we were to suppose that the incarnation is left on its own, without the follow-up event of the Pentecost. But the Pentecost did follow, on account of the fact that there existed the people of God, which is why it is preferable for us to seek the roots there, rather than in the Incarnation of the Son of God. I repeat, the Incarnation can be perceived as an isolated event, without the creation of a community, whereas the Church without a community is unthinkable. Of course the Church is also a historical fact, whether we regard it as Gods people or as a body of Christ in the sense of a commonness, ie., in the Holy Spirit. Because, you should not forget that when the Apostle Paul analyzed the term body of Christ (Corinthians I, ch.12), he said nothing more than that the members of the body of Christ are those precise charismas. There cannot be a body of Christ without the Holy Spirit, Who assembles its members. The members of the Body of Christ are not merely His physical members, i.e., the ones that were crucified or even resurrected; the members are the many who are joined within the One, to become one whole. Consequently, the Body of Christ is the Church, but with the prerequisite that we are speaking of actual members of persons and not of an impersonal human nature, the way that the Son of God assumed human nature and hypostatized it. If this were so, then it would not constitute the notion of Church. [*]. When referring to the primeval Christian communities, it is understood that the eschatological element was more intense during their time, both because their experiences of actually seeing the Risen Christ were more recent, but also because they had a keener anticipation of the arrival of end times events. The expression Maran Atha (=the Lord cometh) was alive in them. Gradually, with time, the Church began to feel this Maran Atha less intensely, because the Second Coming of Christ did not appear to be materializing. Nevertheless, because the eucharist liturgies had been developed around this core of Maran Atha, they were not able to rid themselves of this eschatological aspect of their expectation. By repeating this phrase in Her liturgies, the Church of the first centuries preserved this awareness of end times expectations to a significant degree. I fully respect this position, on account of the Divine Eucharist and the fact that the Eucharist had such a central place and such an eschatological destination. The Church perpetuated the Maran Atha with the Divine Eucharist, hence the eschatological perspective that is observed. Even after the time of Constantine the Great, the eschatological perspective was preserved vividly in the East,

thanks to the Divine Eucharist and its central position, and to the fact that it maintained the character of Maran Atha. I think the problem began to first develop in the West, when this eschatological orientation was substituted by an orientation of a rather commemorative nature, i.e., as a kind of commemoration of the past. The Divine Eucharist became a remembrance of the Last Supper, and thus lost the character of a pre-portrayal of end times. On the other hand, in the Orthodox East with all its hagiography and hymnology and the vestments of the clergy, the Church continued to preserve eschatology. In other words, it transferred the Kingdom of God into the Liturgy. This is why I believe this aspect was not lost during the period of Byzantium. In the West, it had already begun to wane since the Mediaeval period, and the Church there began to draw from the past, and not fro the future. Now, one might ask how it came to be that we too have lost this eschatological dimension. It is my view, that it was the result of the various influences from the West that we succumbed to during the last centuries. In other words, we too have lost that eschatological orientation, because we too have embraced that perception of the Eucharist that the West had. When studying the late Trembelas Dogmatics, in the section concerning the Divine Eucharist I found no mention whatsoever of End Times. In all its 200 or so pages, all of the Divine Eucharist is conceived in the sense of a reference to the Last Supper and to Christs sacrifice on the Cross. So we too went ahead and planted these huge crucifixes atop our altars. Not to mention my favorite Liturgical topics, and to expound how many influences we accepted there. Well, what can one expect, if the Divine Eucharist (which was the only thing that preserved an awareness of the eschatological identity) has also changed and is heading in another direction? It is to be expected, that this will cause the Church to also lose its eschatological awareness. When you bring an eschatological dimension into the world, you create a morality and a behaviour which has social repercussions. You arent supposed to make a special effort to emulate the activities of secular societies, to copy their methods and to familiarize yourself with their activities in order to compete with them. Instead of getting itself involved in philanthropic projects, with all the specifications of a successful philanthropic organization or a Ministry of Welfare, the ancient Church simply had almsgiving. You cannot turn love into an institution (if we were to take love as an example). This of course does not mean that you remain inactive. When someone is hungry, you give him food. The more that you carry the eschatological identity inside you, the more you will love him and help him, even sacrificing yourself. I am trying to say that there are ways that the Church can better perform its duty in such areas, without spending itself in social activities, without becoming inactive, but rather in a personal manner, and not as an institution. I would say the same thing applies to missionary work and to all related topics. Things evolved more naturally in the ancient Church. Nowadays, everything is organized. What we call organization of the Church is based on secular standards. We may not be inactive, but we certainly havent avoided secularization, because that is what will happen, when you emulate secular forms. I happened to read a newspaper article, whose commentary-response by a professor Gousides I found very interesting. He labelled the article the exodus, while the reference was to the clergy. Apparently, everyone seeks an exit in order to become more active, hence the clergy should do the same. But the nature of the Church is entirely different, and I believe that the people need that otherness, that eschatological difference. Proof of this, is that whenever the Church attempted to develop secular activities, even though She may have momentarily noted success, it eventually dwindled away. We (of the previous generation at least) had actually lived through such attempts years ago, where bishops strived to build boarding homes, foundations, etc. All of these were quite nice of course they were a testimony of the Church. But then along came the welfare state and improved them or even took over such institutions. So, what do the people expect? How was this act of the Church evaluated? Very little. People go to Church to worship, to cross themselves, to light a candle, and not because the Church has, say, a retirement home for the aged. You may very well ask: cant the Church have such a retirement home? Of course it can. But what I am trying to say is, that the Church must not make this a part of Her identity, or Her program. Naturally every

diocese has its elderly, and it will take care of them. So will the bishopric. What I am referring to, is the spirit, the stance, the placing. Anyway, the Church seems to be bipolar at this point. On the one hand, it has to attend to its mission, since it is dispersed throughout the world. On the other hand though, in contrast to the Jews (and even the Westerners, I would say), the Church also has the experience of an eschatological congregation, on account of the Resurrection of Christ and the Pentecost. In other words, the Church has a foretaste in the present of that which is to be expected in the future. The Church is linked to this eschatological union, which has not yet been fully realized and is still anticipated, hence She exists between these two situations. She exists within History, She is dispersed, She makes missionary attempts, but that is not the entire issue. She simultaneously tastes and experiences the eschatological congregation a situation that does not contain missionary work or dispersal. That is to say, while the missionary experience and the dispersion are elements of the Church, they do not constitute Her identity. The Church that does not have this experience of an eschatological congregation has lost its identity. Its identity is linked to that very foretasting of the eschatological union of Gods people. Anyway, judging from all the above, it appears that the Church is going through an identity crisis, as it is fashionable to say nowadays in Sociology. It is a fact that people also go through an identity crisis, just like institutions do. And if you were to pose the question: where is the identity of the Church? where does each one of us place it? then, not only in theory, but also in practice, I am afraid you will observe a vast difference of opinions. The temptation of History is immense. Eschatology seems like a vaporous thing, which cannot be grasped. But we do not realize as a Church that people do not want us like that. I believe that Man needs this vaporous and elusive and future element; he cannot find it in any other institution of society, only in the Church. And that is why he will continue to go to Church, regardless of how many activities the priest or the bishop may have to show for themselves, because that is where a person wants to drop anchor in that elusive future. And woe betide, if the Church deprives him of it. Fortunately, we Orthodox have a form of worship that is permeated with the eschatological dimension, the eschatological character. That is what makes it so appealing. That is what attracts the people, otherwise we would have no-one in the Church, just as it is beginning to occur in England nowadays, where those gigantic churches are being shut down and sold. They lack people. Because the social work that the churches believed was of greater importance, has been supplanted by other institutions; it has been substituted. And the clergyman does not know what else to do, or to give. The more we displace the eschatological element, the more that it dwindles within the Church, the more we are at risk of losing the true identity of the Church.

[*] OODE note: In our humble opinion, the historical roots of the Church should be sought in the garden of Eden, when the first Man and Woman who were made in the image of God were partaking of Divine Grace, and were on the course for constituting members of the body of Christ, as they were deemed regal priesthood. The Church should not be perceived as something static; it is an ever-changing reality, which moves towards an objective and which, during the course of History, has changed many forms, as for example in the Old Testament, where it was the Church of Israel, and from the Pentecost onwards became the Christian Church. We most assuredly encounter the roots of the Church of Israel in the person of Abraham, but they are not the roots of the overall Church.

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1. Orthodox Ecclesiological topics

The eschatological basis on which Ecclesiology is developed The Future Aeon intersects History The development of Ecclesiology, from Paul up to Ignatius Bishop and Presbyters in 1st - century Ecclesiology The subversion of Ecclesiology during the 3rd century Platonic influences in 3rd century Ecclesiology The ecclesiological consequences of those influences The parallel development of the two Ecclesiological approaches The spiritual problem underlying the practical conflict of the two Ecclesiologies Saint Maximus intervention and the elimination of Platonism How Saint Maximus merged the two Ecclesiologies into one

QUESTIONS Comparing private prayer to the prayer by the Eucharist Community Relating catharsis to the sacraments The erroneous quest for personal salvation The anti-materialistic consequence of Origenism The differences between the authors of our Hymnology

B. Therapeutic or Liturgical Ecclesiology? The synthesis by Saint Maximus Ecclesiology evolved smoothly in the expectations of the Jews; expectations that were shared and corroborated by Christ with His teaching, and even more so with His opus and His life. These expectations were that the people of God once scattered would, on the last day be called to a place where they would become a unity, around the person of the Messiah, who had been described with various titles. In Isaiah, He had been called the child of the Lord the One Who would take upon Himself all the sins of the world, while elsewhere (as, for example, in apocalyptic literature, chiefly by the prophet Daniel onwards) He was referred to as the Son of Man. These titles, with which the Hebrews described the Messiah, were also used by the Lord for His Person, thus relating Himself to that Messiah of end times, Who was to become the epicenter of the re-assembling of the scattered people of God. This is why in Johns Gospel we find all these ideas extensively elaborated on, and in great depth. At the epicenter is the idea of the Son of Man the One Who would engulf the many within Himself, basically by offering His Flesh so that the people of God would be provided with sustenance and would also form a unity. Furthermore, the notion of an eschatological assembly is stressed very intensely in Johns Gospel. In the Apostle Paul, we also have similar references and thus, on the basis of the expectation that the Lord mentioned with a reference to Himself, the conviction was developed that all those who believed in Christ and became incorporated in His Body through Baptism and the Divine Eucharist, they would be the ones who would comprise the people of God assembled for the same purpose. Hence, we have here the fact of the Church as an eschatological reality. The. fact that they also believed - chiefly after the Resurrection of Christ and even more with the Pentecost that the last days had already made their entrance in History, that they were already happening within History, explains why this Messianic, eschatological community believed that the last days were a reality during their time, in every place, whenever that scattered people of God assembled in one place for the same purpose chiefly to perform

the Divine Eucharist, which was the incorporation of the many into the One Messiah, hence a realization of the eschatological community. As already analyzed, this is the basis on which Ecclesiology is built. This is the historical experience of Gods people, who were scattered and became united for the same purpose, around the Person of Christ, in Whom they acquired their unity. That is how Ecclesiology commenced, and that is how it developed after the Apostolic period, mainly during the 2nd century with Fathers such as saint Ignatius of Antioch; this was the Ecclesiology of John and Paul; this assembling of Gods people in one place for the same purpose, mainly for the Divine Eucharist, which not only was embraced but was in fact stressed very much and thus became the basis of overall Ecclesiology Thus,. with saint Ignatius, we have the notion of the Church mainly as an assembly of the eschatological community assembled for the same purpose. Ignatius goes on to a more detailed description of that assembly. In the Apostle Paul, things have not yet been fully settled as to the structure of this assembly; we have but a very loose structure of the community. For example, we notice that the community consists of those who are heads of the community and who lead the Divine Eucharist, and those who respond with Amen. We had observed a basic distinction between clergy and laity with the Apostle Paul, in I Corinthians, but with Ignatius, we now have a more detailed definition, inasmuch as we dont simply have clergy and laity; in fact, we have distinctions within the clergy, i.e., of the one who heads the assembly (whom Ignatius calls episkopos (bishop*), the presbyters (priests) who accompany him, and the deacons, who connect this team of officiating clergy with the laity, which has assembled for the same purpose, around the person of the bishop. We consequently notice here a transferal of the eschatological image of the assembly of Gods people for the same purpose around the Person of Christ, which we now observe reflected in these liturgical aspects of the Church. This fact has ever since comprised the basis, the overall structure of the Church. The bishop is the centre, around which the people of God unite. Where the bishop is, there let the crowds be gathered, so that wheresoever Christ may be, there the Overall (catholic) Church will be; in other words, just as all of Gods people are united around Christ, so should the crowds be united around the bishop all of the population, all of the members of the community This bishop is surrounded by the convention -as it is called- of the presbyters, which represents the Convention of the Apostles who, in the eschatological community, will have the position of Judge over the tribes of Israel. In the last days, you shall be seated on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. In other words, at the End of Time, Christ will not be coming on His own, without being surrounded by the Twelve. This is an extremely basic factor that the Twelve, when they were chosen by Christ, were not chosen merely as Apostles who would be sent forth to preach the Gospel; they were chosen in the eschatological sense of the ones who would be surrounding the Person of Christ, so that during the last days, the judgment of Israel and the world would take place through the Apostles. When we envisage the last days, the eschatological community, it is not enough to envisage only the Person of Christ; we must also envisage the Twelve, who, according to the revelation, are the foundations of the eschatological community. Consequently, the Apostles are reflected in the persons of the presbyters who surround the bishop, according to Ignatius. As for the bishop, in view of the fact that he will be judging the world in the name of the Father, of God, and not merely as Christ, this is why -according to Ignatius- it is God Who is reflected in the person of the bishop. The bishop is in the place or the semblance of God. As you can see, we have here a typological Ecclesiology, in the sense of a foretasting of the eschatological reality. The Church Her very being is not, therefore, that which exists in History, but that which will be at the end of Time; in other words, She is a future reality, which presents itself as a foretaste and is experienced in every place that the Divine Liturgy is performed. Thus, the congregating of the people is imperative, in order to reflect the eschatological community, but equally necessary is the presence of someone incarnate, representing the figure of the Father or Christ, who is surrounded by the twelve Apostles. Thisis of great importance, for the period in question (2nd century), because Ecclesiology changes later on. (We shall see further along what turn it took). So, on the basis of the

eschatological picture, the Church clearly draws Her identity from that which will be in the future. In other words, She is a portrayal of the things to come. We shall now proceed to the next important stage in History in order to describe the evolution of Ecclesiology, where this notion of the Church as a portrayal of the things to come slowly began to be overturned and substituted by something else. This overturning took place with the Alexandrian theologians, at the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd, and also with the so-called Christian Gnostics, who appeared in the framework of the Catechist School of Alexandria. The leading representatives as regards the topic of new perceptions that we are examining- were Clement of Alexandria and Origen. They were the ones who gave a new direction to Ecclesiology. One could even call it something more than a change in direction: an overthrowing. Because, as I explained, whereas on the basis of biblical data and Ignatius the Church depicts the final stage, the things to come, on the other hand with Clement of Alexandria and Origen, they signify that the Church comprises a depiction, not of the Final stage, but of the original status the one that used to exist in the beginning. This is a characteristic of the specific school of thought, which was based on the influence of Platonism; in other words, to regard the original state of things as the state of perfection, while everything that occurred afterwards was to be regarded as a falling away from that state of perfection, and what is more, everything that is to occur in the future the eschatological state was to be seen as a return to the original state. In other words, perfection was to be found in the beginning. This is a basic, ancient Hellenic, mainly Platonic perception; i.e., the world once used to be perfect; the world of ideas is located in the beginning of things; everything that follows thereafter is a repetition of the original idea or a falling away from the original state. Subsequently, the Church is likewise a reality - for those authors that I mentioned that once used to be perfect, in the beginning. And of course, perfection was visualized under that influence of Platonism, as something that is manifested in the individual logos of beings. We have here a cosmological approach by the Church, and not an historical one, as we have in the Bible. We are not looking at a historical community, but a perfect state of the entire world. All beings had their roots inside the logos of beings, which existed originally, even before the creation of the world, and which logos of beings came together and comprised a unity within the one Logos of God. Therefore the unity of the Church the Church that we spoke of earlier is in no way related to the unity of all beings, through their logos, in the one Logos, eternally. Subsequently, we have here an eternal pre-existence of the Church, and consequently, we not only draw from there the identity of the Church, but also Her content and Her opus. These all have very serious consequences, for all aspects of Ecclesiology. You can understand from this comparison that, while Biblical and Ignatian Ecclesiology place a greater significance on the functions, on the institutions, by regarding them to be depictions of future situations, in the Ecclesiology of the Alexandrians (Origen and Clement), all these are of secondary importance, perhaps even of none. The Logos, not the institution, now acquires a special significance, and not in a juridical sense either; the institution is not something that will count, in the future. What does count, is the union of mankind with the Logos the eternal and pre-eternal Logos; the union of the soul with the Logos. Thus, a kind of mystical Logocracy is created. This is not a logocracy that implies that salvation is not found in the expectation of a new world, with a new structure a new community; it has rather to do with the uniting of the soul with the Logos and the striving for a catharsis of the soul of anything that hinders it from becoming united to the original Logos, Who is precedent to the material world. Consequently, catharsis means cleansing oneself of matter - of everything tangible and uniting oneself to the One who came before the creation of the material world. Consequently, the Church is located there, at that union with the eternal Logos. In this way, an Ecclesiology is created, which does not place any extreme significance on the functions of the Church functions, that could very well be considered supportive in the best case, which can bring us to that initial state of the souls union with the Logos or, if you wish, to the

state of catharsis. This is where we find the roots of numerous things that preoccupy us today. Specifically, from within the Ecclesiology of the Alexandrians of Clement and of Origen sprang the perception that the most important thing in the Church that which gives Her her identity is that it represents an infirmary for curing passions and for catharsis of mankind, of souls, so that those souls can be joined to the Logos-God. An entire tradition sprang forth from that perception. To be exact, this tradition was historically- linked to Monasticism. In monastic circles, Origens texts were read incessantly, hence an Ecclesiology was cultivated among them, whereby the functions and the institutions of the Church were not considered a primary importance; instead, they viewed the Church as an infirmary for curing souls. On the other hand, however, and parallel to this course, Ignatius Ecclesiology was also developing within History. It was continued by Cyprian and many other Fathers of the Church, and at times, the parallel course of the two ecclesiologies actually coincided creatively, producing an organic and uniform whole. But, just when they began to form a whole, they would again deviate from one another; the parallel courses would separate, and quite often, they would reach the point of causing dilemmas as to which of the two courses was the more correct one, ecclesiologically. So, what, finally, is the Church? Which is Her hypostasis? Where do we find it? In the bishop and those surrounding him? In the structure, the assembling of the people for the performing of the Eucharist, or is it in the monastery, in the anachorites cell, in conjunction with the attempt to cleanse oneself of passions? This was posed as a dilemma many times throughout History. Naturally, from a theological, dogmatic point of view, it should not be a dilemma at all; but, what something should be is one thing, and what actually occurs is another thing altogether. And it is my opinion, that this bi-polar situation in Ecclesiology is the most important problem that the Orthodox Church is faced with today, because we still havent been able to solve it creatively we still havent overcome this bi-polarity. Of course the problem is essentially a spiritual one. That the Church offers therapy for ones passions is beyond any doubt; one can immediately identify the significance of the various functions and the divine Eucharist. However, to become cured of ones passions is the most difficult thing to do, especially for those who actually struggle to be cured. From the moment that even the slightest hint of egotism infiltrates the ones who are struggling to be cured of their passions, they are immediately overcome by an arrogance, which is linked to the common officials of the Church. I repeat, the problem is strictly a spiritual one. Experience has shown us that this arrogance is naturally not a characteristic of someone who has been cured of his passions. A cured person will look upon the bishop with every due respect, without any internal concern nagging at him. But those who have even the smallest trace of a passion will readily say: But who is this person? What do we need him for? As a spiritual person, I too can undertake the essential work of the Church they will thus create spiritual children of their own, which they will influence accordingly, and eventually create their own community, saying: After all, look at the sorry state the bishops are in!! That is when Ecclesiology begins to disintegrate, and the bishop thereafter begins to seek juridical means (thus giving emphasis to the institutional aspect) of quashing the problem and imposing his authority on the monk. In other words, in order to call things by their name and to not hide or be afraid of mentioning them, we have in the Church a problem of relations between bishops and monks. And the historical roots are located in the place that I have indicated. We need this historical awareness - as a kind of psychoanalysis in order to become aware of our problems. It is not by coincidence that the roots are located there; and it is not by coincidence that an Origen (or a Clement, to a smaller extent) finally deviated from the true Faith of the Church. Thus, one could say that it would be an incorrect beginning of Ecclesiology, for one to regard the Church either through a cosmological prism, or through a Platonic one, in the way that I mentioned earlier, i.e., by relating everything of the Church to the beginning and not to the end. The only one , who succeeded in shaping Ecclesiology in such a way as to combine the two

trends without losing balance or be led into a heresy, was Saint Maximus the Confessor. If I have a reason for acknowledging this Father of the Church as the greatest theologian in History, it is because he was, in fact, the only one who was able to take the cosmological element and unite it with the eschatological one. No-one else had been able to do this. If we follow Saint Maximus, if we have him as our guide, we shall not be thrown off course. But it is a difficult thing to do, and that is why there were so many deviations. Maximus took Origen, and rendered him eschatological; he took his cosmology and rendered it eschatological. In this way, he ousted Platonism and struck a blow right in its heart. This is why Western researchers could never understand Maximus; even though they were the ones who had resurrected him and written books about him, they were nevertheless unable to grasp his spirit, because they all began with the assumption that he too belonged to the Platonizing fathers. He has a Platonic cortex and terminology, but in essence, he destroys Platonism because he takes us from that return to the past and about-faces us towards the future towards the end of Time. Thus, in the person of Saint Maximus, Ecclesiology once again becomes the eschatological community, which, unlike the Biblical and the Ignatian perception, also has its mundane dimensions its clear-cut cosmological aspects. Well, what then do we observe happening, when we creatively unite cosmology with eschatology the Ecclesiology of Ignatius or Cyprian with the cosmological element? We then arrive at Saint Maximus, who can see within the structure of the Church and the Divine Eucharist the eschatological community, and not merely the ideas and the logos that relate to the past. One such eschatological community incorporates the logos of beings, the world, but only as realities of the future. Consequently, we return to the iconological Ecclesiology, where the Church portrays the future, the events of the end. However, these end events are not simply functions and assemblies of Gods people; they constitute an event of cosmological significance, i.e., the assembling of all beings in the person of the Logos ( the already incarnated Logos, not the Logos prior to the Incarnation ), the incarnated and eschatological Adam. Thus, Ecclesiology also takes on the form of anthropology, because the eschatological Adam also recapitulates everything in his person, and this relieves us of the dichotomy between lets call it therapeutic - and liturgical Ecclesiology. This is very sad, because in our time, in the Orthodox Church, this dilemma is still so alive. You see some people being preoccupied by and supporting that this aspect is everything, while others are preoccupied only with liturgical or institutional Ecclesiology, and not being able to combine these two trends. This chasm is ever widening, and it will have very serious consequences for the Orthodox Church. You younger people are the first victims of this situation, and it will be necessary for God to arrange so that you might be hindered by someone from being led by this chasm, or from you actually leading things towards this chasm between the two Ecclesiologies. Anyway, I would like to be more analytical, in the next lesson.

QUESTIONS Q: -I would like us to examine in more detail the difference between Ignatius and Origens Ecclesiology. What is the relationship between private prayer catharsis, and the prayer of the Eucharist community for the realization of salvation? R: -I would have no difficulty in replying on behalf of Saint Maxiums to this question, saying that the supreme prayer is the common one the one offered during the divine Eucharist. Of course private prayer in ones cell is also a basic thing, but I dont think it can comprise a means for mans salvation or have the same significance as the prayer of the community in the Church. Of course, when one takes the stance of leaning more towards private prayer in a cell, he is naturally making a concession towards Origens Ecclesiology, not Maximus. Now, how much more specific can one be? Whether we look at it through the prism of Ecclesiology,

or that of cosmology, the point where one is united with God is the Divine Eucharist. This, I believe, is how Saint Maximus would reply. Consequently, one could ask: Cant someone participate worthily in the Divine Eucharist without having undergone catharsis and without private prayer? Perhaps for purely educational and ascetic reasons, one could give a monk such a method, which would begin with the one kind and reach the other, but I believe that the co-existence of both kinds of prayer is a genuine characteristic of Orthodoxys monasteries. I believe that whoever doesnt participate in the Divine Eucharist and the common Worship with his brethren, has no yet found the road to salvation. That we are hearing differing opinions nowadays is a fact, and that is what made me say earlier that we are experiencing a serious problem in Orthodoxy nowadays. However, that is also the reason we are discussing it: so that we can determine where the danger lies, and what we should avoid. I am not sure how much more specifically I could reply, and if my reply was satisfactory.

Q: -How is catharsis related to the sacraments? R: -Catharsis is not fulfilled, without a liturgical life. It might be a good start, indeed, but it will not lead to the result of catharsis because the absolution of sins catharsis itself is a result of Grace, of the union with Christ, which takes place within the community of the Divine Eucharist. One cannot claim that he has attained catharsis without the experience of the Divine Liturgy to answer those who assert such things. Then there are others who consider the divine Eucharist to be enough, without the need for catharsis, and they too have a problem to face. But in any case, if we were to make an evaluation, I would say that the catharsis that the divine Eucharist provides is the final one, the greater one, the supreme one. The Church can lose Her identity in two ways. One way is by wallowing in this world so much, that She loses interest in Her eschatological identity and that is where the Protestant churches are found, to a large degree. The other way is for Her to show a complete indifference to the advent of the end times events and of course end up the same, so that She can expect nothing more than what She has at present either in the form of the saints or in the form of the various experiences that She has of the End Times (experiences of the Holy Spirit). When they were given during the Pentecost, they were not given so that we would say that everything is over. They were given, in order for us to experience the End of Time. Thus, the Church is that community which has a foretaste of the end times, which expects the advent of the end times, which knows that its identity (which is drawn from the end of Time) is situated within History. It is that which the Lord said to His Disciples in Johns Gospel: they are in the world, but are not of this world; i.e. its identity is not drawn from History, but from the End of Time, but is, nonetheless, in the world. In the case of Origen, we are led to a religious individualism and this constitutes a very serious problem. We are not in need of the other we head towards salvation on our own! This is a very basic consequence; in other words, we have a notion of salvation, without love, given that it is love that leads us towards the other. Thus, although we are talking about the curing of passions, in essence we are looking at subservience to the passion of egotism. One other, basic consequence (which is noted in Origen and the entire Origenic tradition) is that we lose touch with the tangible, material world. A disregard towards the material world is generated if not a tangible repulsion; it is, at any rate, a lack of reference to the material world. This also causes many problems; it causes a disturbance in our relationship not only with the material world around us, but also with the material world that is inside us and above us: our own body. In general, it causes tremendous anomalies in mans life; the disregard for the material world can even lead to the phenomena that we observe today, in the destruction of the environment and our indifference towards it, and a thousand other things also. One might say: Why should it interest us, if forests are being burnt down, or if the oceans are being polluted? We pray, we tend to the catharsis of o passions etc.. But a

healthy state will also make you pray for these things and weep for the death of that bird or that animal. But I am now describing the deviations and the situations that we can reach, should Origens Ecclesiology prevail. We can therefore see that the existential consequences are indeed very serious. The association between Ecclesiology and Pneumatology is immediately related to the division that we just expounded. Anyway, therapeutic Ecclesiology is not heretic, nor is it Origenic. Of course when overemphasizing it, to the detriment of the liturgical Ecclesiology, will lead to Origenism. Because even in Origen, if you study him, will not find any objections on these things. Ignatius cannot merge into Origen, in any way whatsoever. One can even observe in the hymns an emphasis on the therapeutic element. Of course we have a more important influence, but not even the Churchs hymns can exhaust Her Ecclesiology. Depending on the hymnographers and the communitys experiences, hymns merely touch on certain aspects and highlight them. Naturally we mustnt forget that the hymns we have in Church are all taken from the monasteries, written by monks. And quite frequently, this is evident from the manner in which the verses are composed; the saints are chosen, and the references that are made. One can venture an analysis, thus, every time I participate in worship, I can see there is a deviation towards the presupposition and the anxieties, the preoccupations of the monk, because he is normally the author. On the other hand, if you take a liturgy a eucharist anaphora whose author is always a bishop (we do not have eucharist anaphorae by monks we say Basil the Greats Liturgy, or the Chrysostoms liturgy etc. and we dont have any liturgies by presbyters either in History, because the bishop is the one who heads the Divine Eucharist and those anaphorae (prayers of reference) in the beginning of the liturgy were once improvised and gradually, with the problems that the heresies caused from the 4th century onwards, there began to be a selection of anaphorae, some of which had been written by certain bishops and became established; in fact, some of them acquired the authority and the name of major fathers and bishops), you will notice there that the concerns, the content, is entirely different. You will of course notice an opening towards cosmology towards the world towards all of Creation towards daily needs towards the course of all mankind while at the same time, another thing is observed: an eschatological synthesis, in the sense of a participation in the Kingdom of God etc.. Anyway, this danger is always found in the innermost content of Ecclesiology. Like everything else, when we walk on a tightrope, it is thus easy to slip here. Of course one does find outstanding cases of those who havent merely slipped, but have literally sunk into the unilateralism of the one or the other form of Ecclesiology. But lets not refer to specific examples the things that are happening are too disheartening. Anyway, the existence of hope-filled syntheses (and not only hope-filled, but actual instances) here and there does not drive away the problem, which we must stress, in order to become fully aware of it, otherwise, if we do not know how dangerous a path it is if someone doesnt say to us be careful, there are landmines there, we will stroll over them without a care. The duty of a teacher is, precisely, to point out were the mines are. I am not saying that only mines exist; of course the correct, safe path also exists somewhere; the problem is, that a mine can explode and send you way out of your path, which is something that occurs to a large extent, hence the need to discuss it. (*Bishop = Greek : Episkopos, overseer-supervisor)

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1. Orthodox Ecclesiological topics

Linking to the previous lesson regarding the two kinds of ecclesiology Saint Gregory of Palamas influence on the contemporary Church The risk of a splintered Theology The role of the Father in divine Providence The difference between initiative and acquiescence in Godhood The acquiescence of the Son The role of the Holy Spirit in salvation The role of the Church in the will of God The new crucified form of the Church The Wests confinement within a Crucifix-centered, worldly ecclesiology Why Resurrection-centered, Orthodox ecclesiology cannot be fenced in The sanctification of the Entire World and its incorporation in the Church

C. The Trinitarian basis of Ecclesiology In. the previous lesson, we discussed how Ecclesiology was shaped during the Patristic period, and we saw how two braches of it appeared, which at times had joined forces and comprised a robust Ecclesiology, while in other instances, they moved along parallel paths, thus causing problems to Ecclesiology. We concluded with the ascertainment that in contemporary orthodox Ecclesiology, we again have the same problem of a synthesis of the two branches, which we shall now examine The first branch, which commences from the Bible and is chiefly expressed by Saint Ignatius in his Teaching, as well as by other texts of the beginning of the 2nd century, asserts that the identity of the Church its very being is located in the end of Time, i.e., in that which the Church will be, eternally. (This is already being experienced by the Church, as a foretaste, mainly during the Divine Eucharist.) This is why the form of sacramental Ecclesiology is found in the Churchs functions that are predominant and are expressed and fulfilled primarily during the Divine Eucharist, i.e., the functions of the Bishop, the presbyters, the deacons and the laity. These are the things that comprise the structure of the Church, which lives -and in a certain way eternally lives- because it is a fore-portrayal of the eschatological community. This was the one direction of Ecclesiology. The other direction began mainly with the Alexandrian theologians: Clement, Origen, etc. and was influenced by Platonism. Instead of visualizing the Churchs being in the future, in the end of Time, it visualized the Church as something of the past, i.e., at the beginning. The predominant concept there was that of the Logos being the unifying power, the center of unity of the entire world a cosmological center hence this Ecclesiology was more cosmologically-centered, whereas for the other direction, Ecclesiology was more Sacramentally, Eucharistically centered. In the instance of the second branch, which is based on the Logos and the unification of all in the Logos, the dominant element was the union of souls generally with the Logos; a union that used to exist originally and which must now be restored, so that the souls will be re-joined to the Logos, after having been cleansed of everything tangible, to return to the way they were in the beginning. Therefore, the true Church is the place in which souls are cleansed of everything tangible and, thus cleansed, they return to the original union that existed between the Logos and the soul. The sacraments and the Divine Eucharist in this instance are regarded as supporting means, and not as a final objective. If the sacraments exist, if the Divine Eucharist exists, it is precisely for the sake of assisting the soul to be cleansed and joined to the Logos. This is an entirely different concept than the one that looks upon the Divine Eucharist as the final realization;

that there is nothing beyond it, or more than it. It is not a means for achieving a goal; in this case, it is the goal, per se. In the other case, it is just a means for achieving a goal. This dilemma, this division, continuously keeps showing up in the Orthodox tradition. Before the commencement of this lesson, I had an interesting conversation with Mr. S. Yagazoglou, who works at Saint Gregorys; he reminded me of certain discussions that had taken place in our time, between Trembelas and Theocletus Dionysiates etc... All of these discussions were reminiscent of the exact same problem: What, finally, is the ultimate goal? Is there something else, that is more than the Divine Eucharist? One observes a tendency in many people to reply that there is something more; that the Divine Eucharist is supposedly- for the simple people, while for the spiritually advanced ones the ones who have attained theosis etc. these are secondary items, they have gone past them, they have moved on! As you can see, the roots go deep into History. And if these two trends are not clarified, if they are not synthesized between each other in a manner that doesnt cause any polarization and division, we will have terrible consequences in the overall life of the Church. So, I believe we said the last time (and I am repeating it) that Saint Maximus the Confessor is an ideal example of a synthesis between both these trends, because there, the one trend indeed does not negate the other. I would say, however, that in Maximus, finally, the Divine Eucharist (i.e. the Church as a fore-portrayal of eschatological events a foretasting of end times) is that which dominates his Ecclesiology. In other words, even though he admits the significance of the catharsis of souls and the union with the Logos etc., Saint Maximus sees the Logos, not as something fleshless and pre-eternal, but as the incarnate Logos in His future, eschatological state and he subsequently relates Him to the Divine Eucharist in a basic sense. And that, I believe, is where proper, Orthodox Ecclesiology is located. Unfortunately, not many studies have been made yet, to determine where other significant representatives of the Patristic Tradition stand on this issue of Ecclesiology. It would be very interesting if someone were to study say- Saint Simeon the new Theologian, because there, one is tempted at first glance to deviate towards the Origenian perception rather than the other way that I described. Maybe he sees the sacraments and the Divine Eucharist and those functions of the Church that are related to the Eucharist such as the bishop etc. possibly as preliminaries, versus the spiritual paternity and filiality that is born in the ascetic environment in the monastic infirmary. But again, I repeat, in view of the fact that there have been no relative studies, when observing Saint Simeon the New Theologian I am under the impression that this is not the way things are; I mean, this matter has to be clarified one day. Then we have Saint Gregory of Palamas, where I am looking forward to Mr. S. Yiagazoglous elucidations on the above topic, because there is a vast amount of confusion there also nowadays. Palamas appears to be a representative of an Ecclesiology in which the divine Eucharist and the Sacraments and those functions seem to be a means serving an end, and not the end itself. At least that is how he has been interpreted and presented by many nowadays, and we need to examine this area as well, to see what is going on there. Because ou current Orthodoxy is very dependent on Palamas. We are currently living a Palamic era. With the projection of Palamas by Russian theologians (those who migrated to Paris especially Lossky and then Meyendof and others) as the par excellence symbol of Orthodoxy, as compared and in contrast to the West, Palamas has become a banner and has greatly influenced contemporary Orthodoxy. All of us more or less draw our Orthodox identity from Palamas views. This must be attributed to the studies that have been written in the meantime, which have also been springing up constantly like mushrooms, and also in Greece, after the publication of Palamas woks by professor Christou. However, under the influence of this excessive zeal for Palamic studies, whose bearers (as a rule) are monks, or by those who are pro-monk or monastically-inclined Orthodox (because we have this species also in

Greece), Palamas was interpreted in a manner that marginalized Ecclesiology, which, as I said, regards the Divine Eucharist and the functions as the purpose of the Church that the being of the Church is located there and that they are not just means that serve a purpose. We shall now move away from the history of Ecclesiology, in order to take a deeper look into the issues and the problems that this double approach creates for Ecclesiology. I would like to first start by placing Ecclesiology in the broader framework of theology, in order to see how it was shaped therein. Naturally, no-one can deny that what the scholastics did in the West during Mediaeval times, when they chopped up theology into almost autonomous chapters one of them being Ecclesiology was a wrong move and a very dangerous one. You cannot speak of Ecclesiology without referring to the other chapters of theology. Because the Church is a reality that springs from the Holy Trinity; it springs from God Himself. She is the result of the Fathers will a will common to the other two Persons of the Holy Trinity and is realized through the Providence of God, which Providence incorporates all three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Therefore one cannot tackle Ecclesiology without any reference to the Triadic God. Therefore the question is raised: What is the particular contribution of each Person of the Holy Trinity in the realization of that which we call Church? In very broad terms, everything in Providence begins from the Father and everything returns to the Father. And the Church, as I also mentioned previously, was likewise willed by the Father. The Person that wills in the Holy Trinity the One Who commenced everything was the Father. So, the Father willed the Church. What does this imply? That the Father willed to unite the created to the Uncreated; to unite His world with His self. And not to unite it simply and at random, but to unite it in His Only-begotten Son. This was how the Father favored things to be. The Father favored the world to arrive at an eternal communion, so that it would be able to live, otherwise, Creation would have been unable to live on its own to arrive at a communion with God Himself, and in His Son. Therefore, the initiative for the existence of the Church is the Fathers. Of course the Son and the Holy Spirit are also in favor of this, however, in saying this, we must not lose sight of the delicate distinction that it is one thing to co-favor something, and an entirely different thing, to have the initiative in favoring something. It is a very delicate, but also a very important distinction that exists between the roles so to speak- of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. In other words, when referring to this volition, this favoring, we are in fact observing a certain movement taking place in the Holy Trinity: there is nothing static within the Holy Trinity, so that the volitions of the three persons would simultaneously (from the aspect of their eternicity) have to make their appearance, or relate to each other without discrimination. The Father favors; the Son and the Spirit co-favour. In other words, they say yes. There is a yes inside the Holy Trinity a dialogue. The Son consents lets call it that --; He too favors; He co-favors, to be the one in Whom this favoring of the Father (for the union of the created to the Uncreated) will be realized. The role therefore of the Son, His particular contribution, is: firstly, to acquiesce freely to the favoring of the Father and secondly, to become Himself the focal point, the center, upon which this union of created and Uncreated is to be realized. In other words, the union of the created to the Uncreated will NOT be realized with the Father as the focal point, nor will it be realized in the Father. Creation will not be saved in the Father. The salvation of Creation does, of course, eventually end up with the Father; it will report to the Father, but only in the Son. The Holy Spirit likewise has a particular contribution: to ensure that the incorporation of Creation in the Son is rendered possible, by offering with His presence the ability for Creation to open up to open itself to its incorporation in the Son. Because Creation cannot on its own communicate with God, on account of its natural limitations and not only

on account of its Fall, which entails a reaction towards God and hinders the incorporation in the Son. Creation has to overcome its boundaries; a finite thing cannot be a part of the infinite, if its boundaries arent transcended. Thus, neither is the Holy Spirit the one in Whom Creation will be united, nor is the Father. It is only the Son. This is why this entire plan, this whole Providence as we call it, is realized in the Son, and it is the Providence of the Son, of Christ. Of course the Son does not act without the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit, but we mustnt confuse the roles of each person. The Church is located within this Triadic plan, where the Father favors, the Son is the One Who offers Himself so that Creation can become incorporated and be able to have a relationship with the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the One Who liberates Creation from its limitations, from the restrictions of being created. It is therefore within the Church that all these things take place, but, they take place with the Son at the epicenter, which is why the Church is described as the Body of Christ. Never as the Body of the Father or the Body of the Holy Spirit. From this, it becomes apparent that there are differences. Given, therefore, that the three persons collaborate with each other, we must not omit to mention why it is so important to point out Who does what. Each Persons role has a vast significance. It is the Providence, the favoring of the Father, for Creation to attain union in the Son. This incorporation of Creation in the Son and its subsequent union with God its referral to the Father, is the final objective of Creation. It was the favoring of the Father (that existed from the very beginning of Creation as its final objective), which explains why the Church as that incorporation in the Sonwould inevitably become a reality. The purpose of Creation was the Church. In other words, when creating the world, the Father desired to transform it into a Church. But for this incorporation of Creation in the Son to take place and in order for the Church to materialize, it was necessary to secure mankinds willing consent. Because it is mankind, who, on the part of nature, as the only free being within Creation material Creation would be utilized in order for Creation to be able to refer to God. But mankind, instead of summarizing Creation, instead of finally reporting to God, preferred to report to itself; in other words, it deified itself. It was for this reason, that Gods whole plan for the conversion of the world into a Church stumbled onto Mans denial, and, as Saint Maximus had said, God had to thereafter think of another way to save the world and unite it with Him. This other way was the incarnation of the Son in (now fallen) Creation, something that required the Son, mankind, and Creation in general, to all pass through the experience of death in order to attain that union; in other words, it was necessary for the Crucifix to intervene. This is why the Church could no longer be realized, without first going through the Calvary Cross. The Church therefore, now took on a new form, as compared to the one that God had originally foreseen and desired. But here we have a very delicate and very important observation. Despite the fact that the Church, as well as Providence, now took a path that passed through the Crucifix, the end of that path remains the same as it was in the beginning, i.e., the union of the created with the Uncreated God. Subsequently, the Church is a reality that goes through the Crucifix and in going through it, She takes unto Herself all the characteristics of the Crucifix, but with the objective and destination to not remain there; She must convert these characteristics of the Crucifix into characteristics of the eschatological status. This is where ecclesiologists begin to encounter difficulties. Because the Churchs passage through the Crucifix leaves the scars of the Crucifix on Her; scars, which are the wounds that evil and History have dealt on the Body of Christ. Consequently, there are many who stop at that point and assert: this is the identity of the Church - a body, a Creation that is incorporated in the Son, but one that has been wounded by evils like the Crucifix. This is the notion that mostly Western theologians tend to lean towards, because they are inclined to begin with History, and end with evil (with an ontological disposition, one could say); they tend to place on evil a final, ontological stamp. This is also why all the music, literature and

theology of the West seem to preoccupy themselves with the problems that evil causes in the world, and because of this, they do not move further on, to the Kingdom of God. Thus, it becomes evident how an Ecclesiology can be formulated here as it has, in fact, been formulated having at its core the Crucifix, and Calvary. The characteristics, therefore, of this Ecclesiology is the concept of the Church as the body of the One Who is sacrificed in History, Who suffers and Who ministers to the world. This is a very appealing Ecclesiology, which is addressed mostly towards mankinds sentiments; however, it is an Ecclesiology that excessively incarcerates the Church within the world. Thus, the Churchs activity within the world acquires a predominant place inside this Ecclesiology: What will the Church do, in the face of the threat of evil, in the face of the worlds problems, in the face of human suffering? How will She console mankind? How will She minister to mankind, to ease its suffering? You have only to observe the Churches of the West: how, in one way or another, they are chiefly preoccupied with such problems. This is why they also become involved in political issues andsocial problems, with poemantics that focus on relieving suffering, helping the hungry and the sick. Thus, the Church acquires a par excellence moralistic character; something that predisposes one to attribute an identity define the very being - of the Church, based on this activity of Hers within the world. Moreover, the Son is clearly the Crucified Son. There is also the tendency (because this is considered the most important element in Providence) to transfer the event of the Crucifix into the eternal, Triadic life of God. We have such tendencies nowadays; for example, in J. Moltmann and other Western theologians, Providence, the Crucifix, and even the suffering of the Crucifixion are transferred into the eternal life of God. The same tendency is observed in certain Russian (Slav, mainly) orthodox theologians, who have a highly developed sentimentalism. The Slav soul is more sentimental than rational. They more or less see God, the eternal existence of the Holy Trinity, very closely tied to the mystery of suffering and the Cross. But in Orthodoxy, this is only a tendency that hinders it from developing and from establishing the liturgical and Eucharist experience of the Church, which in Orthodoxy, transcends the experience of the Crucifix and takes us beyond it. This is why, in Western Ecclesiology, the sacraments (and especially the way it perceives the Eucharist) are in essence nothing more than a continuation and a repetition of Calvary - a perpetuated presence. The Crucifix is planted in the center of the Eucharist, just like it is in many Orthodox temples nowadays (which was not how it was, in the past). But that is how things are in the West. In the East, one cannot easily stop at the Crucifix, because the Eucharist is thus designed, that it leads us to the transcendence of the Cross. The Eucharist takes us, not to Calvary, but to the Kingdom of God. It takes us to the communion of the Saints, the luster, the radiance, the splendor of the times to come, with its iconography, its attire, its psalms with everything that the Orthodox Tradition had adorned the Eucharist. All of these things indicate a transcendence of Calvary, and it is for this reason, that our Ecclesiology reverts to that initial favoring of the Father to unite the created with the Uncreated, as the final objective of Creation and Providence. So, once again we return to those two courses that appeared in the history of the Church. If the final objective of the Church and subsequently Her final identity are found in the realization and the foretasting of the Kingdom of God, then ascesis (which is our personal participation in suffering and the Crucifix) ceases to be the final and sublime objective of the Church. Of course, the ascetic cell is part of the Church; the monk who bears the marks of his participation in the Cross of Christ very clearly on his person is assuredly inside the Church. But, when that monk, or someone else (to portray it in a more dramatic way) dons the gold-trimmed attire of the Holy Mountain Priory (I dont know if you have ever gone to see what kind of attire they have; so much more intricate and splendid than our own, which they wear during the hour of the Eucharist), that is when the Eucharist the Kingdom of God is realized. It is that transcendence of the Crucifix, in the light of the Resurrection, that

constitutes the Being of the Church. Consequently, it is not possible to reach the Resurrection without the Cross. We all say this, again and again, but many of us forget it, and we tend to speak of a Church that lacks the resurrectional experience of transcending the Cross without the experience of transcending the Cross, the experience of the new Creation, which glows, filled with light. One could say that the new Creation and the experience of the Church can only be found in the person of a monk who glows with sanctity. Of course it can be seen there also, but that is not the Church. The Church is what should reflect the transformation of the entire world; the transformation of the material world, along with the human society and community. Therefore, it is only when we have a community, that we have a Church. This is also why it is necessary for the monk whose person glows with sanctity to also be a participant of this community of end times (which is the Eucharist community), so that he too might be churchified. We therefore come to the conclusion, that: the favoring of the Father is for the entire world including the material one to become a Church, in the Son, as the body of the Son (not only mankind, or only certain people), and also that, because of Mans Fall, this incorporation of the world with the Son passes through the Crucifix but does not stop at the Cross. It passes through the ascetics cell through that profound and overwhelming experience of evil that the ascetic faces, when he battles with the devil (that is what a true ascetic is, not the merely contemplative monks), just like Saint Anthony did, and who participates in the Crucifix and that passage through Gods favoring the passage through the narrow gate and narrow path which is the experience of evil. But his destination is to leave that narrow gate, and enter the Kingdom of end times. And the Church indeed goes that far; She does not stop at the Cross, or at the narrow gate; She is fulfilled and realized, in the Kingdom. Therefore, the Westerners in their Ecclesiology have this immense weakness for focusing on History, on Calvary, and thus focusing the Church there also. And this, in Orthodox Tradition and Ecclesiology, is translated as a tendency to regard the battle with evil (the Devil), as chiefly experienced in Monasticism, as the endmost element that par excellence expresses the Church. It is therefore a case of Western influence, wherever this tendency is found in Orthodox Ecclesiology. There are those who will not forgive my pointing this out; on the contrary, as I already told you, it is the healthy Orthodox Ecclesiology that leads the monk and the lay person who wrestle with evil into the tasting the foretasting - of the Kingdom of God in the divine Eucharist; into the experience of the Light that experience where a community of people portrays the world of the future the world of the future society and the world of the future material world which has overcome corruption. This has its consequences, with regard to the perception that we have of spiritual living, on the organization of the Church, on the Sacraments, and on any specific aspect of Ecclesiology.

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1. Orthodox Ecclesiological topics

Relating the eschatological Kingdom to the Church The role of the Holy Trinity in the uniting of created and Uncreated

The Kingdom in regard to the outcome of Providence Discerning between the eschatological and the current image of the Kingdom The paradox of saints and sinners in the Church The relation between the image and the original The Church as a mystery ("initiation") The sacraments as a revelation of eschatological ontology The revelation of End Times in historical form The Divine Eucharist as a sacrament that gives meaning to the Church The error in splitting the Sacraments into 7 Baptism as an introduction into the Divine Eucharist The Canonical structure of the Church QUESTIONS The clash with and the transcending of Christomonism and Pneumatomonism To whom is the Divine Eucharist offered? The abuse of the Divine Eucharist, as a portrayal of Hell

D. Pictorial Ontology In the previous lesson we stressed that the Church is rooted in the life in the very existence, one could say of the Holy Trinity, because when creating the world, Gods will, Gods purpose and Gods end was for the world to attain communion with His life; with the life of the Triadic God. Consequently, we have an Ecclesiology that is not exhausted within the period of Providence. In other words, it is not exhausted strictly in the time between Creation and End Times; it has its origins and its destination in eternity. This is a very important point that we should keep in mind, because there is also another Ecclesiology especially in the West, but one that certain Orthodox have also embraced which sees the Church as something that is related to that period between Creation and the Kingdom of God, in which case, the Kingdom of God somehow displaces the Church and we can no longer speak of a Church during End Times and within the Kingdom of God. This is wrong. The Kingdom of God and the Church are the same thing, because I repeat- in the will of God, the purpose in His creating the world was to transform all of it into a Church. Consequently, Ecclesiology cannot be treated as a subject to be studied without any reference to that very life the existence of the Holy Trinity, and to the End Times, the Kingdom of God. The Holy Trinity is linked to the Church in the following manner: the Father is the One Who favors, Who desires Providence in its entirety (in other words, for the world to be created and eventually be joined to God in an eternal communion); He is the One Who wants this the One to Whom everything is attributed, while the Son is the One Who personally undertakes to realize, to physically materialize this union between the created and the Uncreated and the Holy Spirit is the Person of the Holy Trinity Who acts in a way that facilitates the transcendence of the limitations between the created and the Uncreated. This is the Spirit of communion; the Spirit of power and of life, Who tears down the barriers that separate the beings between themselves, but also the One Who leads to the transcending of the physically impossible communion between the created and the Uncreated. The created and the Uncreated are two natures, which can in no way relate to each other, but in the Holy Spirit, this union of the two natures is made possible. Consequently, the Holy Spirit is the One Who makes this union between the created and the Uncreated possible, in the Person of the Son. Thus, all three Persons of the Holy Spirit act and are present, each in His own way within the Church. The Church, thus, is a fact; a reality, in which all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are involved. But, because the Son is the One Who takes upon Himself the interfacing between the created and the Uncreated, through His vacating and His incarnation, this is why the Church is called the Body of Christ, the Body of the Son and not the Body of the Father or the Body of the Holy Spirit. As for the final outcome of Providence, the End Times, the Church is fully identifies with the

Kingdom of God; She is the Body of Christ, in which everything is recapitulated, everything is united everything that will live, that will survive forever. The Kingdom of God is precisely that recapitulation, that union of everything in Christ, thus making Christ the One Who, amongst all others, is the foremost of all. In other words, Christ becomes the Head of that Body, in which everything is joined and in communion (by the Holy Spirit) with the life of the Holy Trinity, with the very existence of the Holy Trinity, to such a degree that it is enabled to live eternally and in bliss. This reality of the End Time, which coincides with the very Kingdom of God itself, is depicted within History in that which we call the Church. We need to pause at the word depicted, because if we say that it fully identifies with, we shall be confronting many problems. First of all, the Church in Her present state quite clearly does not identify with the Kingdom of God. This is attributed to the fact that we still have within History the existence and the intervention and the actions of evil to such an extent, that the members of the Church and the entire world continue to be in a state of combat with evil, and this constant state of combat with evil is, for the Church also, one of Her characteristics. In other words, the Church is not comprised solely of members who have overcome evil; the Church is comprised of those who are struggling against evil. Consequently, She is comprised of sinners and saints (and when we say saints, we dont mean them in their eschatological state, with regard to the final reality of the Church, i.e., in their union, their relation to the other members of the Church). It is possible and it is of course a fact for saints to exist, who, in their relation to God (there are delicate distinctions here) have already been judged as eschatological saints, but in their relation to the remaining body of the Church, these saints are not in the state that the Kingdom of God entails in its eschatological form. In other words, there continue to be obstacles in the full union of the saints with the remaining Body of the Church, the foremost obstacle being naturally- the ultimate enemy as it was called by the Apostle Paul i.e., death, whose existence hinders the full union of the members of the Church with all of the saints. Whether we accept that saints exist, and that saints in fact exist who have already been judged as such with eschatological criteria, who are the ones that we literally acknowledge as saints in the Church; whether we therefore see the Church from the point of view of those saints who have as I said- been judged eschatologically as being saints, or, whether we we see it from the point of view of the sinners who are members of the Church, in both cases we are faced with the following problem: that the reality which we call the Church does not identify absolutely with the reality that we call Kingdom of God nowadays within History here and now. This is why we use imagery for the term, i.e., the Kingdom of God, the End Times are depicted in the Church. This pictorial, eschatological ontology is a key in Ecclesiology; without it, we cannot speak of the Church without risking paradoxes that could quite easily be misconstrued as illogical. One example is the paradox of the Churchs sanctity when we say that She is holy by nature, when on the other hand we have the reality of sinner-members in the Church. It would be a huge mistake, to say that the Church is comprised only of saints a trend that one frequently discerns in contemporary Orthodox theologians. The Church is not of saints only. That would have been a huge mistake. The Church is composed of sinners also. But then, how can we claim that the Church is holy? This paradox cannot be comprehended (or used) in Ecclesiology, without introducing what I called pictorial ontology; in other words, we need to say that the reality of the Church in the form that it presently has in History, is only a depiction of the End Times; it is not the End Times, per se. However, we need to clarify something here: a depiction can also be perceived purely symbolically, without having any ontological relationship to that which is depicted, or, it could be related to a form provided by a logical sequence of ones imagination; for example, what relation can there be, between a persons photograph and the person himself? The relation is obviously dependent on what I just mentioned, i.e., the logical sequence of the imagination, because of the reminiscent

elements that man finds therein. This is the reason we say (when looking at someones photograph) that the photograph is that person, albeit the reality of the person and the reality of the photograph have no ontological relationship whatsoever. The photograph does not partake ontologically- of the original, except only to the degree that ones imagination intervenes and creates those mental associations that link the photograph to the original, in ones thoughts. This is not the meaning of picture. A picture an image is one thing, and a photograph is another. An image of something partakes of the original, ontologically; in other words, if we were to take the photograph of a person and abuse it; if we rip it up or scrap it, the original would not be affected. Our actions would have nothing to do with the original depicted therein. The image of something, however, is another thing. If we abuse the image, we also abuse the original. Or vice versa: if we honor the image, we are also honoring the original. This is also the meaning behind the words of Saint Basil the Great, which were used (as you surely know) by the defenders of icons during the Iconomachy era, i.e., the famous phrase that the honor bestowed on icons moves on, to the original. Usually, we use this phrase by Saint Basil to highlight the distinction between an icon/image and the original person depicted therein. But this phrase has two elements. Observe how carefully such phrases are formulated: one could verily say that they were divinely inspired! The honor bestowed on an icon moves on, to the original. One truth that is discerned here is that we can see a distinction, and not an identification between the two. The other truth, however, if one were to focus on the word move on, is that the honor moves on, to the original, hence, it does not remain with the copy. In other words, with an image/icon (with the reality of an image), we have an actual communion, between the one depicted and the image itself. This is the ontology of the image the pictorial ontology. It is the truth of things, which, however, is presented to us - is offered to us in such a form and with such media, that are not the same media and form and method by which the original exists (or will exist, in its actual hypostasis). When Saint Maximus made this important distinction between image and truth this well-known distinction between shadow, image and truth (Hebrews 10:1), where he says that the shadow relates to all that is found in the Old Testament, while the New Testament contents are the image and all that is to come in the future i.e., the Kingdom of God - is the truth, he is striving precisely to highlight the ontology behind the notion of image. The New Testament is not a photograph of the truth; a photograph of End Times. It is an image of the things to come. It partakes of it possesses the reality of things to come, in clay shells as Paul says, i.e., in a material and historical form. But, while this may, on the one hand, allow for a distinction between the image and the truth (and thus allow us in our Ecclesiology to speak of the existence of saints who are sinful or are struggling against evil), on the other hand, there is that partaking of the truth, of the reality of the truth, which allows us to say that the identity of the image the true being of the image is found in the person depicted therein, i.e. in the depicted truth. That is why we can and must say of the Church, that the identity of the Church is Her eschatological state. In other words, the Church is not what She is, but what She will be, at the end of Time. That is the mystery we call the Church. The Church is a mystery, and it is for the following reason: because She offers us Her identity, Her truth, within this clay shell of History, in which Her weaknesses can be seen, as well as the clashes with evil and sin. And yet, within that clay shell is also hidden the treasure of truth, which is the real identity of the Church. Thus, we cannot formulate Ecclesiology without a mysteriology. It is not possible to describe what the Church is, if we dont examine the mysteries-sacraments of the Church; i.e., those things that depict the truth of the Church, within historical reality. You can understand why John Kavasilas had said that classic expression, i.e., that the Church is denoted in the sacraments (P.G. 150, 452 CD); in other words, it is only therein, that we can discover the definition of Church. If you look in the Fathers, you will not find any definition of the Church; it does not exist; it cannot be defined. Scholasticism attempted to provide a definition of the Church; it provided various definitions, which we copied and we too repeat

in our own Dogmatics as we have done in practically every topic. A definition of the Church cannot be given, as though the Church is a reality per se. The Church is revealed; She is manifested and realized within those images of the Kingdom of God, which are none other than the Sacraments. And that is why the Church is a mystery in Herself, and why She is denoted in the Sacraments exclusively. It is therefore necessary, in Ecclesiology, to start from the sacraments and to not regard them as a chapter of Ecclesiology. We must begin with the sacraments, because that is where the reality is the experienced reality of the Church. And the sacraments have that precise character, which I mentioned: they are the images of the reality, images of the truth of End Times not in the sense of a photograph, but in the sense of an image; i.e., the manifestation of the real and true identity of beings that are in the historical and material forms of the present. When the future is depicted with materials of the present, then we have an image of it; but, the reality, the true identity of the image is its future state, not its present one. That is how all of the sacraments of the Church are, and that is why (as I said) we must begin with the sacraments. But we must again pose the question: when we say sacraments, what do we mean? I will again say that, as a general definition, a sacrament is the depicting, the revealing of an eschatological (true) reality the reality of beings in their eventual, final state, because that is the truth of beings. The truth of beings is not found in the ever-changing reality of History, but in their final form. That is how God willed things, and that is the way He sees them. This is because the entity, the truth of beings is dependent on the will of God on how God willed it and it is for that reason, that the true identity of beings and their truth is found in their hindmost form. Thus, it is this depiction of the ultimate, true reality with the forms and the means provided by todays historical reality that constitutes the sacrament. One such revelation of the eschatological reality of the Kingdom of God in such a manner is the Divine Eucharist and its officiating, its enactment, which is the Liturgy. The Divine Eucharist depicts the future state; it does not symbolize the future state (there is a vast difference), but it denotes it; in other words, it reveals the future state in its reality, under the forms and the manners of the present. Historically, the roots of this virtual, pictorial ontology is found in the Bible, chiefly in the prophetic tradition, and in fact in the revelatory form as developed towards the end of the Old Testament, in the Book of Daniel and in other Books (Isaiah etc.); i.e., the prophet sees the End Times actually entering History and preventively judging History with their presence. This depiction of End Times in the Judaic tradition (and subsequently in the Christian tradition) took on the form of depicted celestial realities; of the celestial reality as opposed to the terrestrial reality. (There is no difference between the Celestial Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Future; they are the same thing, and the term celestial-heavenly or our Father in Heaven the reference to heaven is the same as the reference to End Times). It is just a way of seeing the truth the Kingdom of God outside of, beyond our own historical experience and reality. A prophet either sees the Throne of God in heaven, or, he sees the End Times. In revelatory tradition, this leans more towards End Times, however it also alternates, even within the celestial concept. Thus, even if we say that the celestial things are being depicted, we mean the same thing. In other words, a truth is being depicted; a reality, which, albeit a reality of things to come, appears within History with a historical form. That which depicts the End Times or the Celestial state in the sense that I just described, is the Divine Eucharist. Because the Divine Eucharist has its reality, its truth, in that communion of the created with the Uncreated; the union of created and Uncreated in a specific manner, which is the union in Christ, the recapitulation of everything in Christ. Thus, when this recapitulation of everything in Christ is revealed and realized, that is when we have the mystery of the Church, but at the same time, the sacrament of the Eucharist, because that is when the recapitulation of everything takes place in the Eucharist. Therefore the Eucharist is the sacrament that manifests -within Time- the identity of the Church; an identity that is eschatological, and it renders the truth of the Church a reality, here and now. This, therefore,

is the starting point of Ecclesiology. If you wished to phenomenologically speak of the Church (i.e., on the observations that we shall make on the experience), you must begin from the Divine Eucharist, because that is the phenomenology of the Church; that is the way in which the Church is revealed. As I have already explained in the previous lesson, the Church is that ultimate recapitulation of everything, which the Father had favored pre-eternally, which He had willed pre-eternally, which the Son had incarnated and which the Spirit had made possible with His potential to transcend the limitations of the created. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Church and the Eucharist from this aspect are the same thing. This may often sound one-sided, and there are many who resent this viewpoint. This is because the have a perception of the Eucharist, which is a very segmental one and by no means an overall perception of the Eucharist as the eschatological recapitulation of everything. If the essence of the Divine Eucharist is that depiction, that manifestation of the recapitulation of everything, then it is not an exaggeration to assert that the Eucharist and the Church identify with each other, because, as I explained, that is also what the Church is. But, if we harbor the perception that the Eucharist is just another Sacrament among the many (and especially the prevalent Western concept of the Eucharist being the sacrament that merely perpetuates the Last Supper and Calvary, throughout History), then according to this perception, the relating of Eucharist and Ecclesiology leaves out many facets of Divine Providence and a view such as this is naturally a one-sided one. This is where we Orthodox also stumble nowadays, and we find it difficult to communicate between ourselves, often attacking each other because of this lack of understanding on the subject. Of course it is one-sided for one to perceive the Eucharist as just another sacrament among the others; however, it is not one-sided, if one can perceive the Eucharist as that recapitulation or the depiction of that recapitulation of everything in Christ. In other words, everything depends on how we perceive the Eucharist. If we see the Eucharist in that segmented sense, and not in the overall sense that I have proposed, then the issue immediately arises, as to why we should say this, only of the Divine Eucharist and exclude the Baptism and the Chrism and all the other Sacraments. On the other hand, if we take this overall concept of the Church as the eschatological recapitulation of everything, then what happens to the other Sacraments? Well, the other Sacraments are likewise incorporated in the Eucharist, and they too draw their meaning their hypostasis, one could say from the Divine Eucharist. And here, we truly have a huge problem in Orthodox theology; a problem that springs from the influence of Western Scholasticism, which had initiated this segmenting of the Mystery of the Church into separate sacraments, which were even enumerated given that we speak of seven sacraments only (and who today would dare say that they are not seven, and that the matter appeared thus, in just the 12th century, and even without the specific form that it has today?) This is because it went through a series of fluctuations; for example, even the funeral service was once considered a Sacrament, just as the tonsure of a monk was once regarded as a sacrament, but these are no longer included in the sacraments. The seven Sacraments that we have named are a Western enumeration, which was introduced at some point in History and is still preserved. This is not the usual approach to the sacraments, the way they were in the ancient Church. The bad thing - which has caused such a problem for us today is that this splintering of the Sacraments was not only on a theoretical level, but also a liturgical one, and therefore we cannot even incorporate in our thoughts the other sacraments within the Divine Eucharist. We cannot do it, because this incorporation is not possible in our experience; this correlation cannot even be considered. But, just as this separation was nonexistent in theory and was introduced in the West during mediaeval times, likewise in practice in the experience of the Church there was no such separation in the ancient Church. The things that we call sacraments nowadays, which we perform separately (if not all of them, at least the basic ones), used to take place liturgically within the Divine Eucharist, a fact that is very clear when observing the liturgical structure that we use nowadays for these sacraments. Baptism was performed within the divine Eucharist, proven by the fact that it commences with the words Blessed is the Kingdom., while the entire liturgical structure of the Baptismal

Service is also Eucharistic in form. The Sacrament of Marriage likewise. Why, then, do we say that the correlation of Divine Eucharist and Church is a one-sidedness, when we can easily imagine (because we can probably accomplish it with the imagination, since we dont have it in practice) the other sacraments incorporated within the Divine Eucharist, in which case, everything acquires its true significance from within the Divine Eucharist? Indeed, no other sacrament can lead to - can depict - the Kingdom of God, independently of the Divine Eucharist. None. Baptism inserts us in the Kingdom of God, through the Divine Eucharist. It inserts us in the Divine Eucharist; it does not insert us anywhere else it does not insert us directly into the Kingdom of God. The baptized one immediately participates in the Divine Eucharist, because that is the purpose of the Baptism. The purpose of Baptism is to render us members of the Eucharist congregation and communicants of the Divine Eucharist. In the ancient liturgical ritual, Marriage had the same purpose. If we see things in this light, then we cannot speak of one-sidedness. The Divine Eucharist embraces the life of the Church in whole, and it embraces all of the so-called sacraments. Consequently, that is where the depicting of End Times is located; that is where the image of the Kingdom of God is found, hence, that is where the identity of the Church is also found. But, by commencing from this starting point, and building Ecclesiology on this basis, there will be specific consequences with regard to our Ecclesiology. The image of End Times that the Divine Eucharist presents us with is now the image, or, rather, the structure of the very Church. Subsequently, if we wish to find the structure of the Church, we should look for it in the structure of the Divine Eucharist. And that is where we will also find the structure, exactly as it was shaped in the ancient Church and delivered to us in the Orthodox experience. This of course is the basis on which the canonical structure of the Church is built. The canonical structure of the Church is not an accommodation of the Churchs organizational needs; it is a manifestation of the structure of the Kingdom of God, because the Kingdom of God also has its structure, and therefore all of these nonsensical things that are heard from time to time with regard to administrational canons or dogmatic ones, or, with regard to an irrelevance between canons and dogmas etc. are entirely inadmissible. Naturally there are canons that are not relevant to the structure of the Church; but the canons that are related to the structure of the Church, are related not only to the dogmas (which is nothing); they are related to the hypostasis and the truth of the Church, which is the very Kingdom of God itself. Therefore, these structures cannot be tampered with, without altering the image of the Kingdom of God. In the next lesson, we shall analyze these structures; we shall put them in the light of those principles that I have described so far. And chiefly the principle of the imaging of the End Times the principle of the depiction of the Kingdom of God by the Church, through the Church.

QUESTIONS Q. It has been viewed from time to time, and is quite possibly still viewed by the West, in Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, that the being of the Church is linked to a Christomonism (isolating/focusing on Christ) in Roman Catholicism and to a Pneumatomonism (isolating/focusing on the Spirit) in Protestantism. Could we say that a fusing or a transcendence of the two is what characterizes the being of the Orthodox Church and is discerned in the Eucharist? Could it perhaps be a collaboration of the Father and the Son that is discerned in the Eucharist, or is it something else? A. Yes, it is a fusion and a transcendence of the two, and of neither. The mentality of the Eastern Orthodox Church is an entirely different one. There is indeed a Christomonism in the West; in other words, the mystery of the Church is indeed based on the Person of Christ and the Providence of the Son; on whatever Christ did; on Christs work within History. This is

why in the West, both Roman Catholics and Protestants have reached the point where they visualize the Church as a reality that most likely commenced at the very most with Creation or the Incarnation, and one that will end with the Second Coming; i.e., they regard the Church as a kind of interim stage. This is because they regard the mystery of the Church in a Christomonistic way. On the contrary, what I have been suggesting, is to look at the matter Triadologically. The Westerners highlighted Christ; they overlooked and they demoted the role of the Holy Spirit, thus, we have now intervened, in order to stress the role of the Holy Spirit, in our desire to show how we differ. Our difference is not just at that point, nor do we wish to reach the point of saying that for us, Ecclesiology rests solely on Pneumatology, whereas for the Westerners it rests on Christology. It would be wrong, to reach this point, for the sake of sheer contradiction. I have tried to tell you that Ecclesiology is neither a matter of Christology, nor of Pneumatology; it is a matter of Triadology. Consequently, if we were to introduce Pneumatology in a decisive manner (which we must do, unlike the Westerners who did not), we must do it, always under the presupposition that we are acknowledging the Providence of the Son, i.e., that we are speaking of the realization of that recapitulation of everything in the Person of the Son, and not in the Person of the Holy Spirit. I would therefore say that a Christ-centered view is a correct one, and that we must preserve it. Ecclesiology basically rests on Christology; furthermore, the memorable G. Florovsky had written (perhaps with some exaggeration and without giving it the appropriate hue) that Ecclesiology is a chapter of Christology an expression that he used, in opposition and in contradiction to other Russians such as A. Komiakov etc., who, being opposed to the West, had overstressed Pneumatology to the point of making Ecclesiology a chapter of Christology; i.e., they asserted that the Church is a communion of the Holy Spirit, thus overlooking its Christological basis. I believe it is necessary to find the correct line, the golden mean which, in my opinion, is a Christ-centered Ecclesiology. It cannot be a Spirit-centered one, because I repeat the essence of the Church is the recapitulation of everything, in Christ, and re-capit-ulation means that the head is Christ, not the Holy Spirit, or the Father. Christ is the Head. That is not what Christomonism is; This is a centering on Christ, which is imperative, for a healthy Ecclesiology. So, to summarize: The dilemma is not between a Christomonism and a Pneumatomonism or a Pneumatological Ecclesiology; the dilemma is between a Triadological or simply a Providential, Christ-centered Ecclesiology on the one hand, or, on the other hand, a Chistomonistic Ecclesiology, in which case, we should clearly choose the first of the two. Anyway, the role of the Holy Spirit should never lead us to an Ecclesiology that will not be built on Christology on the Person of Christ.

Q. In certain new, contemporary Eucharist studies, it is stressed that during the enactment of the Eucharist, the overall Church, along with Christ Who is Her Head, are referred to the Father. Couldnt this create a misinterpretation, that there is a splitting between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit during the Eucharist? A. -Yes, and I am the one who par excellence stresses this distinction. I do not know whether anyone else points it out. I stress this detail very much, and I hope that I too do not fall into this very same splitting, or the danger that you just pointed out, because there is indeed such a danger, if we ever forget that the Persons of the Holy Trinity can never be separated from each other that the three of them co-exist, in every activity of the Church. In spite of this inseparability, they nevertheless do not have the same opus within Providence. The referral is the Sons work; it is not the Father Who refers the Eucharist, nor is it the Holy Spirit. It is exclusively the Son, as He is the Head of the Body, and the Body is referred by its Head. Referred where? It is referred to the Father, Who, however, can in no way be perceived without the Son and the Spirit.

When this huge question that you just posed had been posed in the 12th century, it had shaken the Church and had given rise to a serious argument. It was during that time that an important theologian had risen to prominence (but unfortunately, very little was written about him): it was Nicholas of Methoni, and a synod had also been convened for this very problem. In other words, it was preoccupied by the question as to whether the Divine Eucharist (which is offered only by the Son) is accepted-received only by the Father, or also by the Son and the Spirit. You must note here, that undoubtedly, it is only the Son Who offers the Eucharist; however, the question is, whether it is only the Father Who accepts it, or if the Son accepts it as well. The answer that was given was that the Son also accepts it, which is why, in the liturgies of Saint Basil the Great and of Chrysostom there is the expression (during the Cherubic prayer, the priests prayer): You are the One Who offers and the One Who is being offered; the One Who accepts and the One Who is propagated. But, the fact that He is the One being offered, and that the Son also accepts the Eucharist, does not imply that the offer is not exclusively addressed to the Father. It suffices to study the history of the Anaphora (referral) the Eucharist referral in order to get an idea of just how complex yet so important this matter is. It is quite possible, that the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great is older than the one by the Chrysostom; this seems to be the converging opinion of liturgiologists nowadays. In the Anaphora of St. Basils Liturgy, the Eucharist is referred is offered to the Father alone; neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit are referred. This is according to the ancient tradition. In Chrysostoms Liturgy, if one studies the Anaphora, he will see that it has two stages two levels. The one stage is the one we see in St. Basil ( i.e., the Anaphora to the Father ), while the other stage is the one that does not withdraw the referral to the Father, but adds the Son and the Spirit next to the Father (again, I stress, without withdrawing the fact that it is being offered to the Father.) Observe how this prayer is formulated! Worthy and just it is, to offer songs to You, to offer praise to You, to exalt You, to thank You, to worship You, in every place of Your dominion. You will see right away who this You refers to, in the words that follow: for You are the inexpressible, the unimaginable, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the inapprehensible God; the One Who always is, and thus is; You and Your only-begotten Son, and Your Holy Spirit Therefore, the You refers to the Father, but the other two Persons are also added, precisely in order to provide that necessary balance, lacking which, one could easily be led to that dangerous misunderstanding that you mentioned. We are not sure exactly when these two were added, however, they clearly constitute additions to the original Anaphora. They may have been added as early as the first centuries, i.e. the 5th or 6th, due to the heresies of the time. They may have been added in the 12th century, on account of the argument that I mentioned previously. At any rate, they are additions that are intended to protect us from the danger that you very aptly brought to our attention. We need to keep in mind that we cannot split up the Persons of the Holy Trinity, which are forever together. Therefore, when the Father accepts, the Son is present also: ..You, and Your Son, and Your Holy Spirit On the other hand, we cannot confuse the Persons to the degree that we might say it doesnt matter, whether we offer to the Son or to the Spirit, since all three of them are Persons of the Holy Trinity. When I had remarked to a certain bishop that he shouldnt turn towards the icon of Christ when citing the words Let us thank the Lord (because the Lord at that point refers to the Father, or at least to the Holy Trinity), he replied: but Christ has the fullness of Godhood in His Person. Well, that was not a proper response, because, even though Christ may have the fullness of Godhood, we never address an impersonal deity, or a deity that is present within a person. We address specific persons. Q. If, as you said, the Church constitutes a depiction of the future Kingdom, could one then

likewise seek a depiction within History, of the future condition of Hell? R. We do, of course, have numerous images of the future Hell, however, we should not relate them to the Church. Man already has a foretaste of hell within History repeatedly and continuously just as he has a foretaste of the Kingdom of God at certain moments, and especially during the Divine Eucharist. The Divine Eucharist is the moment that we get a taste of Paradise, a taste of the Kingdom of God. Of course we cannot formulate an image of hell from within the reality of the Church, not even a partial one, without distorting the nature of the Church. And to put it the other way around: quite often there is the danger (and it is a real danger) of distorting the Church so much, that instead of being a depiction of the End Times status of the Kingdom of God it becomes a depiction of hell. This is what heretics do. If a heresy is a serious and mortal issue, it is so precisely because it distorts the image of the End Times state; it alters it and it introduces an imagery that does not originate from the Kingdom of God, but instead, from that which is not the Kingdom of God, i.e., hell. I will give you a few specific examples: If we were to perform a Divine Liturgy for lets say only white people and not black people, or, only men and not women, or, only the educated and not the illiterate, or, only the rich and not the poor, or, only students, only lawyers, only doctors, then that would be a depiction of what hell is; because that is what is going to happen in hell. And this is the foretaste of hell that we have, every time we segregate ourselves from our neighbor, with criteria of this kind. What I mean to say with all this, (and it is very important), is that the Church can very easily be transformed into a depiction of hell, and not even notice it has happened. And I would like to thank you for bringing up this question, even though you may not have had in mind those things that I just said, nevertheless, it is a very serious problem. The Church must, therefore strive to preserve Her structure at all costs, so that it is always a depiction of the Kingdom of God. This is why we must always feel exasperated, every time something is distorted especially the Divine Eucharist - because that is how elements of this world can infiltrate it, and this world is a picture of hell, in the sense of a Fallen world, in the sense of sinfulness, with tendencies for segregation like the ones I mentioned previously, but also in many other ways. Very often, I even find myself in an almost pedantic agony, whenever I see the benediction of the bread taking place after Holy Communion, or when I see them not giving Holy Communion to the faithful until after the completion of the Liturgy, or after the genuflection of the Pentecost, which is on the Vespers of the following day, and after the sanctification of the waters on the day of the Epiphany all these are very upsetting for me; it makes me believe that something very serious is going on, and that the image of the Kingdom of God is being brutalized. The final purpose, which is our partaking of the table that is set in the Kingdom of God, i.e., our communion in the life of God (which is where the Divine Eucharist leads us), is twisted into a totally different thing, another kind of experience, in which it does not appear as though the end purpose is that partaking of the table of the Kingdom, of the life of God, of the Holy Trinity, but instead, appears to be a totally different purpose. Thus, we must handle such matters with the utmost awe and fear, because the danger is as you pointed out - that the Church will cease to be the image of the Kingdom of God.

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1. Orthodox Ecclesiological topics

Appearing and acting as an emanation of being The Church is the purpose of Divine Providence The Church as the Body of Christ, through Grace The Holy Spirit as the uniting element between creations and the Uncreated The Church as an image of End Times; as a stranger in the world The uniqueness and multiplicity of the catholic (overall) Church The Augustinian alteration to the meaning of catholicity The heretic ecclesiological view of catholicity in Papism A positive yet contradictory step by Papists, in the 2n Vatican Synod

. The structure and the organizing of the Church By divine coincidence, today is the day we commemorate Saint Ignatius the God-bearer, who constitutes one of the basic sources of Ecclesiology, and in fact, the way that we perceive it here. Therefore, today we shall talk about the structure of the Church. Until now, we have tried to describe the Being of the Church; to seek Her identity and Her relation to the mystery of Salvation in general, and more broadly, to Divine Providence. We shall now examine what the Church is like in Her structure and how She is assembled. As a first and basic observation, we must place the following: the assembling and the structure of the Church cannot but be considered a consequence of what we called the Being or the identity of the Church. In other words, the manner in which the Church is organized, the way She is structured, is not irrelevant to that which the Church is by nature. This is of great importance, and of course applies to everything, and even more to the Church: whatever we do, whatever we apply in practice, must be an emanation of what we are within our identity. In other words, it must be something genuine otherwise we risk falling into two traps. One trap signifies a schizophrenic rift, between what we are and what we do. Thus, our real being is one thing, and our behavior is another. The second danger of course is that of hypocrisy: when we present ourselves differently to what we are. The Church must, in Her structure, reflect Her true being, Her true identity the way we described it. This is why we need to quickly refer to the basic ecclesiological principles which we already outlined, and which will now comprise the basis for our examination of the structure of the Church. The first basic ecclesiological principle, which we insisted on, is that the Church is the recapitulation of the Mystery of Providence, in other words, She is the finale, the objective of entire Providence, and not simply an objective that is to be realized sometime in the future. And this Mystery of Providence, which is recapitulated in the Church, is rooted within the very love of God. The volition, the love of God and Father, is that which moves the mystery of Providence, and subsequently, the Mystery of the Church. The grace of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which is needed for composing that body which will realize, which will incorporate that recapitulation of the Mystery of Providence, is the second leg so to speak- of the basis of Ecclesiology. The third principle is the communion of the Holy Spirit, in other words, that the Holy Spirit, with His presence in this Mystery of Providence, makes possible the communion of the created with the Uncreated, as well as between the participant beings. Thus, Ecclesiology has its basis in the Triadic life of God, which is summarized as I stressed earlier- so beautifully in the words of the Apostle Paul, with which he closes his second Epistle to Corinthians: The love of God and Father, the grace of Jesus Christ (i.e., the vacating of the Son becomes grace a free gift by God), and the communion of the Holy Spirit (which implies, as I have already underlined, the transcendence of the limitations of

beings). Beings place boundaries around themselves, so that they can discern each other. The created needs to be discerned from the Uncreated, because these two cannot remain indiscernible. Person A demarcates himself opposite person B; everything is demarcated so that they can comprise individual hypostases, however, woe betide, if those boundaries are not overcome, in order to create a society of beings and a communion between the created and the Uncreated. And this is precisely the job of the Holy Spirit. This is why the Holy Spirit is linked par excellence to society. This is the Triadic basis upon which Ecclesiology is built, and this basis must always exist in our thoughts, when we talk about the structure of the Church, its specific form of organization as we shall see further along. The second basic ecclesiological principle that we defined, and which must also influence the organization of the Church, is that the Being of the Church resides in the Kingdom of God. That is where the true Being of the Church is; not in that which the Church is presently, in History, but in that eschatological form which is to be revealed. Her true identity therefore is there; the Church is by Her nature the community of the Time to come, or in other words, the Kingdom of God, and Her organization must necessarily reflect that eschatological hypostasis of Hers. The third basic ecclesiological principle is that the historical Being of the Church, (i.e., the way the Church is at present, within History, and not how She will be in the future), is determined by that which we have named virtual ontology. In other words, the Church as She is within History, is a virtual image of the Kingdom of God, and, as History evolves, She provides a fixed point of reference, which is the Kingdom of God. In other words, She preportrays the Kingdom that is to come; She establishes it within the course of History the consequence of which is a conflicting with that flow of History. The Kingdom - and the Church that portrays it are in conflict with the flow of History. The Church is constantly in a situation, not of identifying with History, but on the contrary, in a crisis situation with History. That is also why the Church cannot, by nature, ever find Her expression amongst secular, historical realities with which She will more or less always find Herself in a certain dialectic situation, regardless how many times She encounters them; She will always be in a conflicting relationship with them. Consequently, the Church cannot be transformed into a State; She cannot be expressed by a political party. She cannot coincide with a particular social structure or organization. And not only can She not coincide, but this also means She is in constant friction with History. The Church remains forever a stranger within History; She does not find Herself, Her home, within History. She always seeks the End Times, and is a stranger and a sojourner here. It is very important to remember that since the beginning, the Church was called a sojourner in the world, which is why we call Her foreigner: in Clements first epistle, and even in the epistles of the New Testament, She is mentioned as the Church, the existing or sojourning one in a city. We need to see this fact through this prism; i.e., that the Church is a stranger and one who is just passing through History, as Paul had said. The Church can never be identified and never should be with Historical realities, because She is the image of the eschatological community; hence the reason that the fourth ecclesiological principle has equally a lot to do (as we shall see) with the organization of the Church, because that is where the image of the End Times is expressed; the way in which the Church materializes this image in Herself is only through the Sacraments of the Church, and especially in the Divine Eucharist. This is the par excellence image of the End Times, and consequently, the organization of the Church ( if it is as we previously mentioned, and is expressed as the true Being of the Church should be expressed ) must be rooted in the structure of the divine Eucharist, where we have the structure of the Kingdom, the structure of the eschatological community. With these basic ecclesiological premises, we can now examine in detail how the function of the Church is structured, assembled and organized.

First of all, let us take a look at the Church as a whole. The Church is one. The Lord did not found many Churches; only one. And this One Church identifies with the Body of the One Christ. But, because this One Church is realized, is expressed and portrayed in the Divine Eucharist, that is why it necessarily appears as a Eucharist community; that is why She necessarily appears as many Churches. Because it is unthinkable for one only Eucharist community to exist for all of the world, for all of Creation. So, wherever the faithful assemble for the same reason, to comprise the Eucharist assembly, that is where the overall Body of Christ is realized; that is where the mystery of Providence is recapitulated, and where the Kingdom of God is fully portrayed. We have, therefore, One Church, which however consists of many local Churches. And precisely because each local Church (where the Divine Eucharist is performed) constitutes an image of the eschatological community, and also comprises the complete Body of Christ, that is why every such Church is (and must be) regarded as the whole Church. And that is why She was called from a very early stage the catholic-overall Church Saint Ignatius being the first one to name Her thus. The catholic Church is, therefore, each local church that has that fullness which the Eucharist assembly provides to the Eucharist Body of Christ; the fullness of the recapitulation of everything, and the portrayal of the Kingdom to come in a specific place.. The Church, therefore, (the One and Catholic-overall one), is composed of many catholicoverall churches. This is also why the term catholic was used in the plural, even up to the time of Augustine, following which, its meaning was changed: the catholic Church was no longer that which I just described, but it took on the meaning of Ecumenical Church, in other words, the One Church that is scattered throughout the world. Augustine, in his attempts to strike at the localism of the Donatists whom he was opposed to, highlighted the universality of the Church, and identified Her with the notion of catholicity (universality). Consequently, for Augustine, Catholic Church is for the first time in Patristic literature, exclusively the worldwide Church. This element, like many others, also infiltrated the theology of the Orthodox East, thus drawing us also into this mistaken viewpoint. When we say: ..I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. , we usually mean the worldwide-universal Church. This is of great importance for the organization of the Church, and it becomes obvious, when we realize how it appeared and how it was applied in the West, where Augustines theology prevailed. The Church in the West was organized as one, uniform whole, with such a structure that would ensure what we call a universal Church, with one, universal head the bishop of Rome. On the contrary, in the East such an Ecclesiology on organization could not be formulated; the Church could not be regarded as a universal organization, which has a head and a center. In the East, we have a different kind of structure in the Church. What we must stress is that the thing that differentiates us so much from the West is that perception that we have of the Church as an image of End Times, which is realized with the Divine Eucharist. This is what allows us to regard every assembly that performs the divine Eucharist (we shall mention under what conditions, later on) as a complete Church, because what takes precedence for us is the presence of the whole Body of Christ. Just as the divine Eucharist realizes the Whole Christ and not a portion of Christ, so it is with every local Church. In view of the fact that for us- the term Church is based on the experience and the Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, it is acknowledged as the complete Body of Christ, and not just a part of it. An Ecclesiology such as this, therefore, speaks of one Body of Christ in the entire world, and of the individual Churches as members or parts of that one Body. Perceptions such as these exist among the Orthodox also, but it is clearly a Western perception. Our view is that every Church is a complete Church; a catholic one; the whole Body of Chris, because the notion of Church is based on the divine Eucharist. That is the only reason. If you take away that reason, you will not be able to explain why he local church should be catholic. It was because this Ignatian Ecclesiology of the Eucharist had waned in the West and other kinds of ecclesiological premises were imported, that each local Church was no longer rgarded catholic. Instead, the notion of catholic Church was identified with the notion of a worldwide organization.

We need to open a very important parenthesis at this point. The Roman Catholic Church clearly under the influence of Orthodox theology revised its position regarding the universal Church during recent years, with the 2nd Vatican Synod, and it introduced the notion of the Churchs catholicity in relation to the local Church. In other words, from the 2nd Vatican Synod onwards, it began to speak of the catholicity of the local Church. This is surely a very important step, but, as everyone observes, the initial Roman Catholic Ecclesiology -which had spoken of a universal Church- has not receded, but has merely remained as something parallel to the Ecclesiology of the wholeness of the local Church. This is why the 2nd Vatican synod creates very serious problems to those very Roman Catholics, and, as the Roman Catholic students of this ecclesiology have observed, the 2nd Vatican Synod has two (irreconcilable between themselves) ecclesiologies. And this is the crucial point that Orthodox theology finds itself today, with regard to its relations with the Western and especially the Roman Catholic theology. How can we find the perfect balance between an Ecclesiology that highlights the fullness and the catholicity of each local Church, and an Ecclesiology that regards catholicity as an issue of universality? We therefore have here a very serious problem. We shall examine further along how we could somehow place ourselves on this problem, naturally in the light of Orthodox Ecclesiology. At any rate, I shall repeat, that the organization of the Church is such, that it can never make any allowance for a universal organizing of the Church.

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1. Orthodox Ecclesiological topics

The requirement of unity without a universal organization The local Church is NOT subject to any synodic, universal authority The Synod decides on matters that affect more than one Church The rightful participation of Bishops in a Synod Deviations, exceptions and alternating participations of Bishops in the Synod

F. The Local and universally-spread Church. The synodic institution We cannot have a Catholic (overall) Church in the universal sense. So, what will we have? Shall we have local Churches that are independent of each other, without any organic association between them whatsoever? This is the big question for Orthodox Ecclesiology, as regards the general structure and organization of the Church. The answer is that it would be a big mistake - equal to that which regards the Church a universal organization - if we were to regard local Churches as independent and not connected to each other. Thus, a way must be found to attain the unity of the local Churches, avoiding, however, a universal organization of the Church. This is realized, through what we call the synodicity of the Church. Synodicity is the expression of unity between the local Churches, in one only Church throughout the world, in such a way that does not presuppose a universal organization. And that is why synodicity is such a delicate and profound subject, and is not that easy to describe. In one of my studies on the synodic institution in the volume of the memorable Metropolitan Barnabas of Kitrus, I struggled with this problem, trying to provide an answer which is briefly as follows: Synodicity should in no way lead to the

institution of the Synod, as though it were some sort of structure that hovers above the local Churches, because then, clearly, we would inevitably end up with a universal organization. We do not need a Pope to reach that point. By having a Synod in the place of a Pope, we can again have in this case an Ecclesiology of universal proportions. This is what had occurred with the so-called conciliarismus. In the previous century with the 1st Vatican Synod but also earlier, there had appeared a theory in the West, where the supreme authority of the Church is expressed by means of Synods, which is why in the 1st Vatican Synod, todays Old Catholics had declared their opposition to the Popes infallibility and had leaned more towards synodicity in order to reduce and to restrict Papal authority. There are also many Orthodox, who, if asked how we differ from the Roman Catholics, will probably reply that we differ in that they have the Pope on a worldwide scale as the supreme authority, whereas we have Synods. Things are not at all like that. A synod is not a principality that rises above the local churches. Proof of this from the point of view of Church organization is that no Synod is allowed to intervene in the internal issues of a local Church, and woe betide, if something like this ever happened. An ignorance of Ecclesiology is the cause of many anomalies. I am pointing this out to you, because tomorrow you will be clergymen, bishops or theologian professors; you will have a voice and an opinion on all these subjects that constantly crop up in the life of the Orthodox Church. There is quite often the tendency and it will continue of course to exist in the future for a Synod to want to intervene in issues of a local Church. This has no grounds, from the viewpoint of Orthodox Ecclesiology, because it would mean that we have a universal authority and principality over the local Church. Saint Cyprian in the 3rd century had placed rather provocatively, one could say- a principle whereby every bishop is free to regulate the issues of his bishopric, reporting only to God. And this independence of the local bishop has continued to apply in many cases, such as for example- his freedom to ordain those who he prefers in the Church, and not having to ask anyone about it, etc. There are certain things within the life of the Church, which cannot be confined to the limits of the local Church. Thus, the problem arises: How can a bishop, from within his Church, decide on something that will affect the life of another local Church? If his decision doesnt affect it, he is free to do it and no-one should interfere. But, if it does affect the life of another Church, then the need arises for an intervention by a Synod, so that the Synod can then express not only that local Church, but also all the other local Churches that are affected by whatever is happening in that one local Church. It was this precise problem that gave birth to the institution of Synods in History, and the characteristic cause that led to the need of synodicity, was precisely the Divine Eucharist. Naturally, every Bishop has the right to ordain someone; this doesnt affect other Churches. But then, take the case of excommunication of a member of a local Church from Holy Communion. This issue had already appeared during the 4th century; hence we have the 5th Canon of the 1st Ecumenical Synod which clearly speaks of a synod that was convened for a similar incident. So, what was going on? Well, many people were barred from Holy Communion by their own Church, but they would go to another Church and receive Holy Communion there. The other Church could not have something to say about this. Complaints were expressed, that very often, excommunications were imposed by the bishop for reasons that were not so clear, thus, it was decided that the territorial bishops (who were affected by such a decision or decisions) should convene twice a year, in Autumn and during the period of Lent in Spring, to examine such cases of exclusion from Holy Communion. In this way, the right to exclude someone from Holy Communion was transposed, from the local Church to a Synod; to the other local Churches. This cannot be viewed as an intervention of the Synod, because, I repeat, the local Church affects the life of the other local Churches in this matter. In other words, whenever the issues are common and the consequences on all the other Churches are common, then that is when the need and the authority of the institution of Synods is called upon. And the limits of synodic authority are found at that precise point. A Synod cannot impose anything more on a local Church, beyond the cases where a decision or an act by a local Church affects the life of other Churches. That, therefore, is a golden rule of synodicity.

One other basic rule that maintains the balance between a local church and the one Church all over the world (without leading to a universal Church) is that the Synods that decide on all these subjects of common interest, of common union as Eusebius calls them, are comprised of bishops, and that all bishops participate rightfully in these Synods. If bishops are excluded from a Synod, then automatically the Synod is transformed into an authority above the local Church. A local Church -for example- that is excluded from a Synod (because its bishop has been excluded) is obliged to accept the decisions of that Synod, imposed from the outside and from above. However, when its bishop participates in that Synod, the decisions reached are not from the outside, or from above. They pass through the very local Church itself, via its bishop. This was the way that the church managed to maintain that balance: by never rendering the Synod an authority above the local Churches, but merely making it an instrument for expressing the consent of local Churches; a point of coincidence that all involved can center on. As Saint Ignatius says elsewhere, bishops throughout the breadth of the inhabited earth are in the opinion of Christ; in other words, all of them coincide in their opinions with Christ; they have the same outlook as Christ, and this is expressed by means of a Synod. A Synod, therefore, is not an institution that lies above the local Church; it is an institution that expresses the unity, the coincidence, the consent and the reciprocation of local Churches. Something like this is secured by way of structure and organization by the rightful participation in Synods by all of the bishops. Consequently, the decisions reached by Synods are not foreign to the life of the local Churches. This is why from an ecclesiological aspect every kind of Synod that excludes the presence of bishops (unless there is an unavoidable historical necessity) from participating in a Synod, is considered a serious deviation. There have been and there still are such ecclesiologically unjustified deviations; these are seen as deviating trends towards the direction that I have called the reinforcement of the institution of the universal Church. If it is not historically possible, (for example, in the Ecumenical Patriarchate, because of historical necessities, the Synod cannot consist of all bishops), then there is nothing that anyone can do. But when a Synod can be comprised of all participants, and yet certain participants among them are chosen and are rendered masters over the remaining bishops an act that corrodes very dangerously the foundations of Ecclesiology and creates anomalies and digressions. Of course the problem continues to exist, as to whether everyone can participate in a synod, even though they do not have any problems involving external necessities, which is why the solution of alternating participation in synodic assemblies by bishops was established. The alternating participation of bishops (in order of seniority in ordination) in some way ensures the possibility for participation by all bishops in the Synodic institution. Naturally, the ideal situation is the assembling of all bishops; this is why, whenever the Church was able and it was judged as necessary- She would convene a socalled Ecumenical Synod (or Council), which, for this reason also acquired an authority and prestige greater than that of any local Synod. But, I repeat, the essence of a Synod be it also an ecumenical one is not to establish an instrument by which the consent and the union of the local Churches can be expressed. That is how we should regard the Synod. So much for the locality, the universality and the catholicity of the Church.

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1. Orthodox Ecclesiological topics

The structure of the Church is the structure of the eschatological Eucharist community Eschatological and historical functions The assembling of the people for the same purpose Jesus Christ: The center of the Eucharist Community The witness of the Apostles surrounding Christ The Eucharist assembly of the people around the Bishop: the image of Christ and the people The Presbyters surrounding the Bishop: an image of the Apostles surrounding Christ The Presbyters alongside the Bishop: also teachers of the Church Historical changes lead to the perception that a Bishop is a successor of the Apostles When the main opus of the Bishop is diverted The Deacons : a connecting link between Clergy and Laity Functions that are not permitted to be altered Which functions change The meta-History functions, after the Second Coming QUESTIONS The correctness of the Synodic institution on the matter of primacy Divergences from the Ecclesiastic order The restitution of divergences, through Providence The eschatological image of the Church should not be adjusted to political changes

G. The functions of the Church Let us now take a look at the local Church, internally. How can the local Church organize itself, on the basis of the ecclesiological principles that we have set out? I must repeat that the basic principle of Orthodox theology is that during the Eucharist assembly, the Church is a depiction of the eschatological community. That is why the structure of every local Church historically sprang from within the performance of the Divine Eucharist. It is an unquestioned fact of History (which had already been discerned by a Protestant historian of the Church, R. Sohm, during the previous century,), that the basic structure of the local Church was the same as the structure of the Eucharist community. I will explain what this is attributed to. Before proceeding to analyze this structure, however, we need to make a comparison. The Church has functions, which, as I said, express and comprise that image of the End Times; in other words, functions that coincide with the structure of the eschatological community. However, we also have functions that do not coincide with the structure of the eschatological community, as the Church is obliged to accommodate various historical needs. We shall therefore attend to these further along, but for now, lets just clarify this distinction between them. The functions that reflect the eschatological community are so basic, that they cannot, and should not, be tampered with, otherwise, if they are tampered with, the being of the Church -as related to the eschatological community- is distorted. Thus, on the one hand, we have the functions that cannot be altered, and on the other hand, we have the functions that can change, or be adjusted. This is one basic distinction. Lets first examine the functions that are unalterable because they constitute the structure of the eschatological community (otherwise, if that structure changes, the Church loses Her truth Her being as an eschatological community and becomes distorted). So, what is that structure? Lets begin with the eschatological community. Lets see first of all what its structure consists of, and then convey it, into the practice and the reality of the Church. A first basic element of the eschatological community is that in End Times, in the Kingdom of God, the scattered people of God will assemble for the same purpose, in one place. Thus, a necessary element of the Churchs truth is the assembling of Gods people for the same purpose. When a Church does not assemble Her people for the same purpose, then She is not a Church. A Church that

remains scattered, without experiencing the assembling for the same purpose, in no way depicts the End Times state. The assembling, therefore, of Gods people is a necessary element in order for us to have a Church. The second element, which we again draw from the Kingdom of God, from the eschatological community, is that the centre of this assembly of Gods people is the Person of Christ. In other words, it is not enough for Gods people to simply assemble; they need to assemble around a focal point, and that focal point must be no-one else but Christ Himself. The third element, which we again draw from the eschatological community, is that Christ, Who is the focal point around Whom the scattered people of God assemble, is surrounded by the Twelve Apostles and their broader circle. Why is this? It is because the Apostles are the ones who will be witnessing during End Times. As we can see in the Gospels, in the last days there will be quite some confusion as to who Christ is. Many false prophets will appear, and many will say Christ is here or Christ is there, and many will be misled, because they wont know where the true focal point is, around which the scattered people of God should assemble. The criterion of who the true Christ is, will basically be provided and revealed only by the Twelve Apostles, along with whoever else (and in agreement with the Twelve) had actually seen the Risen Lord; in other words, they are the ones who can certify that He is the One Who rose from the dead, and therefore, He is truly the One appointed by God as the Son of Man, Who will be judging the world. So, the judge of the world is Christ, and He is the Person that the Apostles will be pointing towards. This is why the Church is called Apostolic; it is because She rests on the witness of the Apostles. That is why one should not be satisfied simply with the presence of Christ as the focal point in the image of eschatological times. It is imperative that there be a co-presence a supporting presence by the Apostles, who will testify as to the genuineness and the authenticity of Christs presence. Without the Apostles, we will not know who the true Christ is. Therefore, we cannot have an access to Christ that doesnt filter through the Apostles. The presence of the Apostles around Christ is a primary element of the eschatological image. These, therefore, are the basic elements of the eschatological community, without which, there can be no Kingdom and no Church. The Church, as an image of this community, i.e., as a real participation in the truth of end Times, of the Kingdom, as realized during the Eucharist even before the Second Coming of the Lord on the last day, with the prerequisites that I have analyzed, experiences this eschatological community in the following manner. During the Divine Eucharist, all the scattered people of God assemble together. So, here we have the first element that is realized: the assembling of Gods people for the same purpose. The second element is that the presence of Christ is depicted by the presence of the bishop; in other words, this is the focal point, around which the people of God gather. Given that the focal point is Christ, and because Christ is the Head of the body - the recapitulation of everything that is referred to the Father that is why the bishop, as the depiction of Christ, is, in that sense, the head of the Divine Eucharist, who refers everything to God, to His Throne: We offer Thee everything; Thine, out of Thine, and for everything. In other words, he is the one who enacts this recapitulation, in the manner that Christ does. He is the image of the eschatological Christ. We mentioned that Christ would not be returning alone, but will be surrounded by His Apostles. Saint Ignatius sees the image of the Twelve Apostles during the Divine Eucharist of the local Church, in the persons of the presbyters, who surround the bishop. As you probably know (unfortunately, this too has also waned and disappeared), in the ancient Church there used to be the so-called synthronon (adjoining-throne). The bishop was at the center and was flanked by the presbyters, who were seated on the adjoining thrones at his side. This is clearly an eschatological image. You most probably remember the words of Christ to the Twelve, that in the Kingdom of God, you shall be seated on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. The Apostles, therefore, are the ones who point us towards Christ.

The presbyters or, more correctly, the depiction of the Apostles in the Church through the persons of the presbyters (which did not last very long, and we shall see how things evolved historically) signifies precisely that the presbyters point us towards Christ, through their teaching, because the basic task of the presbyters in the ancient Church was tuition and catechism. The presbyters were responsible for catechism; they were the ones who convened assemblies and preached. Some of the major Fathers who preached and delivered the homilies that we have today, bequeathed us with homilies from the period when they were still presbyters (Chrysostom, Origen, etc.). Bishops, on the other hand, bequeath us with Liturgies and Anaphorae in their name; we never have Liturgies in the names of presbyters and this of course is not by coincidence. Quite the contrary: we have numerous homilies by presbyters who were the teachers (this being their chief role), hence the reason they were given the task of catechism. They also participated in judicial matters of the Church. Together with the bishop, they comprised the convention; they were the ones who flanked the bishops see. This didnt last very long, because already by the 3rd century (with Cyprian we have the first testimonies), this began to take a different course in the West, while the East more or less followed suite, albeit somewhat confused. This is how bishops came to be the par excellence successors of the Apostles; how the notion of bishops depicting the image of Christ came to be replaced by the notion of bishops depicting the image of Apostles. Furthermore, there is also the matter of Apostolic succession. If you were to ask most people nowadays what the bishop is, and why he has authority and power, and what his powers are, they will say that he is primarily a successor to the Apostles, consequently, his primary responsibility and his primary authority is to teach. But Saint Ignatius clearly states that a bishop does not teach, and he further says that we should be respectful of his silence, because his chief task according to this image by Ignatius that I described- is the referral, the Anaphora of the Divine Eucharist; it is to be the head the Eucharist assembly. For him to speak etc. is also within the scope of his work, however it is not his par excellence function. I will repeat, that all these things underwent certain developments during History. I do not think that things diverge from Ecclesiology, if one were to say that teaching is also a labor of the bishop, however, what is first and foremost, and basic and decisive, is that he heads the Divine Eucharist; that is when we are on the right track. But, if we say that teaching is his primary role and the Eucharistic role is secondary (which, regrettably, has also become established almost entirely in our own Church, under Western influences), then we definitely have a divergence. In the West, teaching became the bishops chief role, through the Apostolic succession, while the performing of the Liturgy was handed over to the presbyters as their chief function. If you were to look up the definition of priest-minister in the West, you will see that he is the one who performs the Liturgy. The bishop is not intended for performing Liturgies; he is only for teaching, for dogmatizing in Synods etc.. We therefore see here a divergence from the eschatological image that is what I wanted to point out. It is the eschatological image that imposes everything that I have described until now. A fourth element was introduced into the Church, on the basis of this image. It is that of the Deacon as a link between the heads of the Eucharist and the laity. And what is this image? As you know, dialectics does not imply something oppositional; dialectics implies a discernment when uniting things. Well, Deacons are the element by which the laity is discerned from the clergy, without being separated from it. Note that the Deacons function is a very important one. And it is a shame that we have made deacons redundant, because it means we have lost that End Times image. The Deacons, therefore, are the ones who ensure the dialectic relationship between clergy and laity. This is also why they have this dubious and ambiguous hypostasis: are they clergy, or arent they? We naturally acknowledge them as clergy, but they are not priests per se. Of course they do not head the Liturgy; they cannot be seated on a co-throne; they only move back and forth between the laity and the clergy, and that is their mission: to transfer the Precious Gifts from the laity to the Head; to pray with the

laity, in the name of the laity; to act as a link, and finally, be the ones who transfer the sanctified Gifts the Blood and the Body of Christ to the laity. This is why the Deacons chief task is to commune the faithful. He takes the Gifts in the form of bread and wine, and he again takes them to the laity, as the Body and the Blood of Christ. Through the Deacon, there is that dynamic link between the clergy and the people; a link that is very important and necessary for the community of the Church. Consequently, the basic functions of the Church, which cannot be omitted in any way because it would alter the eschatological truth of the Church, are: the assembling of Gods people with the bishop as the focal point; the Presbyters that flank the bishop, and the Deacons who are the link that unites -and at the same time discerns between- clergy and laity. Without these, it cannot be called a Church, as Saint Ignatius had said. You cannot call it a Church, if it doesnt have these elements. I will conclude, by reverting to what I said earlier. The Church has other needs also in the world, and is not entirely accommodated by the basic functions and structures alone. This is why She also has other functions, such as teaching, missionary work, poemantic work (i.e., confession, philanthropy, therapeutic functions such as spiritual paternity which I discern from confession, because repentance as a sacrament is one thing, and it doesnt necessarily require a therapeutic charisma in the psychological sense ascetic labors, monasticism, etc.) These are all functions that the Church is in need of. But note here the difference that I would like to stress. The Church needs all these things, as long as She resides within History. These are not functions that will survive eschatologically; they are not a part of the Churchs eschatological nature, but only Her historical one. In End Times, there will be no preachers, because who will they preach about, and who will they enlighten, given that the missionary period will have ended? Will the Monasteries that we love so much exist then? What will they be doing? You will probably ask: will there be bishops, deacons? Yes, there will be. They will exist, but will not be the same, because the image will have given way to the original. It will then be Christ Himself and the Apostles themselves, and all those things that Bishops currently depict will have become a reality, without this meaning that the functions themselves will have disappeared. They are essential components of the eternal Kingdom of God. One cannot perceive the Kingdom of God without them; the Kingdom cannot be perceived, without Christ surrounded by the Apostles, without the scattered children of God assembled for the same purpose. The other functions, which are absolutely essential to us today, and which we must of course deeply respect as functions of the Church, are not elements that depict the eternal Kingdom of God.

QUESTIONS Q. Wasnt it a historical mistake on the part of the Church, when She ceded a primacy of honor to the Patriarchates of (Old) Rome and Constantinople (New Rome), given that this primacy of honor gave rise to those conditions that enabled a splintering of the Churchs unity, which had previously been secured by the Synodic framework of participation by all equal (until then) bishops, thus turning the Church into a worldwide organization? Because to many, the Church nowadays appears with two heads: the Pope for the Catholics and the Ecumenical Patriarch for the Orthodox.

A. This is a very important question that you have posed, and I shall give you my reply. The Patriarchates, the Autocephalous (self-headed) Churches all of these had developed, precisely as expressions of the Churchs synodicity, and not as institutions that hovered above the Church. They were developed as Synodic institutions in various territories. What was the Pentarchy? It was the five Patriarchates that existed in five different parts of the

world, with Synods that had a Head. And naturally all of the Autocephalous Churches are the same. This status is of course governed by the spirit (and even the letter, I would say) of a canon of the Church; the 34th Apostolic Canon. According to this very important Canon, all the bishops of one territory are obliged to acknowledge one Head; they must have a Primate, otherwise they cannot convene a Synod without a Head. Thus, it was synodicity that brought forth these primacies. However, the Canon further designates that the bishops alone cannot do anything without the Primate, just as the Primate cannot do anything without them. This was the spirit along which the Patriarchates and the Autocephalous Churches developed. So, what do we have? We have a Primate in every territory. We cannot do anything without the Primate, but he cannot do anything either, without a Synod. We might have divergences either way, i.e,, in synods that are commandeered by the Primate, or vice versa. These things do not affect Ecclesiology and Canonical Justice. The institution per se is correct. Now, what if the institution is being abused? Well, this is a matter that concerns ethics, not Ecclesiology. Ecclesiologically, the institution is correct. Provided that the Primate does not do anything without the Synod. Each one of these local Churches - and they amongst each other acknowledges a Primate. Because, if the need arises to convene a Synod, or do something in common, someone has to supervise. And one such Primate had been acknowledged through History: the Bishop of Constantinople in the East. Provided the Bishop of Constantinople moved within the spirit of the Canon that I described, there would be no problem. In other words, if he didnt do anything without taking the others into account, and if, respectively, the others didnt do anything (that pertained to all the local Churches) without taking him into account, then everything was alright. Subsequently, the system itself ecclesiologically speaking- is extremely correct, and we do not have a case of Papism, because the Pope is the one who has taken the right to intervene in absolutely any local Church; in other words, he does things without asking the others. Or, he asks them, but the final decision is his. The Bishop of Constantinople is not like that. When the memorable Athenagoras became Patriarch, he was unable to officiate during the Liturgy in the neighboring Metropolis of Derkon, because the bishop of Derkon did not give him permission to officiate. And the Patriarch Athenagoras was still unable to officiate, until the Bishop of Derkon had passed away. Can you understand the difference here? Could anyone possibly refuse something like that to the Pope? Now, if, out of courtesy or any other reason the bishops make this concession to the Primate and allow him to officiate wherever he wants, this is strictly their personal decision. Thus, the institution itself does not contain the papal element. Therefore, in reply to your question, the development of Patriarchates did not hurt Ecclesiology, nor did it lead to Papism.

Q. I would like to ask, if we can say that in our time there have been divergences from the correct Ecclesiology. A. I think that the Canons that we have mentioned here can alone shed light on the historical events and lead us to judgments. In other words, I do not need to specifically point out what was wrong and what was not, when I set out the principles and the prerequisites. It is therefore quite obvious where divergences have taken place and where they havent. That there have been divergences especially in our time is a sad truth, because I believe that there have been more of them now, than any other time!

Q. What happens in these cases? A. In these cases, it is necessary for Ecclesiological precision to be reinstated, through the path of Providence (Oikonomia). We must return to what is correct, and try to establish what will least disturb the Church, and not create greater problems.

Q. And the well-known expression Ecclesiastic matters should change along with political ones? A. That is a specific point. We confronted the problem of Bulgaria - the problem as to whether we should have an Autocephalous status in the Church of Greece, with this idea of should change! The eschatological image does not change, by following political or other changes. If that were to apply, then the Church will have lost Her orientation; She will have become totally secularized.

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

2. Commentary on Western Ecclesiology

Priority to the essence The priority of the one as opposed to the many, in ancient Hellenic thought The transferal of this priority into the Triadic status, by the blessed Augustine The Worldwide Church as compared to the local Church The conflict between the 1st and the 2nd Vatican Synods

. he dialectics of the one and the many: The priority of the universal Church We shall.now talk about the Ecclesiology of Western theology, by presenting the basic principles that characterize its mentality. One, first, characteristic principle of Western theology is the priority it has ascribed to the essence. To prioritize the essence means giving a priority to an objective, or a general, reality. The essence is given the characteristic on one hand of being objective (and in this case, it even precedes the person) and on the other hand it is also regarded as something general, while the person is regarded as something specific, something particular. Let us take the example of human nature versus specific persons: Persons are the individual hypostases; they are John, George, Kostas. Their nature is human nature, which always implies a general thing, whereas their persons indicate something specific. Furthermore, the term nature always implies a unity, whereas the term persons indicates multiplicity and difference. One single person cannot be characterized as a general person. There is no such thing as a general person. On the contrary, a nature is nature, and an essence is essence. Thus, when we acknowledge a priority in the essence and nature, we are also acknowledging a priority in unity, and not multiplicity. The problem of the one and the many is one of the basic problems of both philosophy and theology, but also of ecclesiology, and with existential repercussions at that. It is a very serious problem. Our analysis begins with ancient Hellenic philosophy, because that is where the roots of our thoughts are. When we say our thoughts, we do not mean exclusively the thoughts of the Hellenes, but at least all of the Europeans the West Europeans to whom we Hellenes also relate, as descendants of classical thought. Well, in ancient Hellenism, the One always had precedence over the many. It is characteristic, that from Heracletus (who was one of the first to shape ancient Hellenic thought), through to Parmenides and all the pre-Socratics, the

One was always predominant; the entire world was one unity. But, this unity was not pursuant to something else; it actually preceded everything else. The One held the beginning, while multiplicity had to compromise with the One in order to exist correctly. This was the meaning behind Heracletus work, (On Things Common); this was the meaning that was portrayed with such tragic consequences in ancient tragedy and in Plato, when he says: You, the component, beware! You exist, because the Whole and the One exist, and because you are obliged to comply with the Whole. Thus, ancient Hellenic thought prioritized the One, which, by means of the effluences proposed by neo-Platonism, became many. Consequently, the many are not only secondary to the One; they are also a kind of breaking down a worsening - of the One. This is also why, throughout all of neo-Platonic soteriology, man must re-assemble the many (through the soul), and restore them, back to the One. This was the only way that the cycle of salvation could close: by concentrating the many back into the One. Thus, the many (or multiplicity) was something secondary, something incidental and a cadence of the One So much for ancient Hellenic philosophy. In Western theology, however, because the roots of Western theology (in its theoretical form) are found in Augustine who was influenced by neo-Platonism, unfortunately this form this system of placing the One before the many was also transposed into Trinitarian theology, hence the reason for placing the essence before the divine Persons. Because this is precisely the train of thought that prevails and determines Western theology, and this is why this mentality this method of thinking is also prevalent in Western Ecclesiology. We shall examine the consequences that it brings about in that area also. Now, let us commence from a basic principle: The Church is one. This is an ecclesiological principle that we all accept. However, the one Church is simultaneously many Churches. So, what is precedent here, logically and theologically, or axiologically? Which is the real Church? The one, or the many Churches? Western theology clearly took the stance that logically, the one Church in the entire world the universal Church the ecumenical Church has priority over the others. The related, local Churches are merely pursuant; therefore they must comply with the one Church. This took on a more specific form in Western Ecclesiology, and it reached the point of regarding the worldwide Church, the ecumenical Church, as one single Church for the entire world, as though it had its very own structure, its very own existence, above all of the local Churches. This structure is of course familiar. It is expressed specifically, with the function of the Pope, who is not just the bishop of a local Church, but an ecumenical bishop; a bishop, as the head of the entire Church the one and only, worldwide Church. J. Ratzinger (the current Pope), along with Rahner, had published a book several years ago, in which the distinction made by Rahner (which was a very delicate and profound one) between the essence and the existence of the Church, implied precisely that the essence of the Church is in the worldwide Church, which exists in the form of the many, partial Churches. But the question is: could it be that, just as the essence of the persons is precedent in Triadic theology, so it is in Ecclesiology respectively, i.e., the one, ecumenical Church is precedent to the many, local Churches? Western theologys reply to the question is affirmative. Even Rahner, who tried to take a few steps forward with his distinction between the essence and the existence of the Church, tried to say that even in order for the one Church to exist, it must necessarily have its local Churches; it cannot exist without the local Churches. Despite all this, the one, worldwide Church is, logically, precedent. This logical priority in Ecclesiology took on a specific form, mainly during the 1st Vatican Synod, with the infallibility of the Pope, and with the principle that all bishops must agree with the Pope. This is not a juridical matter. Its roots are found precisely within that principle of placing the One and the essence before the many and the components. We must always dig deep in theology, not cursorily, the way we see things at first glance. Everything, eventually, leads down to common, deeper roots. This ecclesiology, in which the One is placed before the many, and the essence before the

components, as validated by the 1st Vatican Synod, was somewhat amended by the 2nd Vatican Synod. And this is the crucial point that we are in today. Did the 2nd Vatican Synod differentiate itself or not, on this prioritizing of the ecumenical Church by the 1st Vatican Synod? Everything hinges on this detail, because, if Roman Catholic theology ever reached the point of acknowledging that the local Churches are not pursuant to the one, ecumenical Church, then it would automatically reach the conclusion that the Pope likewise is not precedent to the other bishops, but that he too is just another bishop, and the local Churches that are expressed through their bishops are equally determining factors for the unity of the Church. In other words, it is the multiplicity of the Churches that is a determining factor for unity; it is not unity that is the determining factor for multiplicity, or, at least, the two should coincide somehow. Thus, the West has left itself in mid-air in its ecclesiology, on this crucial point. All those who have studied the 2nd Vatican Synod have seen that it did not actually correct the 1st Vatican Synod, but that it had in fact introduced a new Ecclesiology, which was now obliged to conform to the ecclesiology of the 1st Vatican Synod. This new ecclesiology ascribed catholicity to a local Church, and that is where the crucial problem lies. Up until that time, the Roman Catholic church correlated the catholic (overall) Church with an ecumenical church. Thanks to the influence of Orthodox theologians in the West, Western theology began to recognize that each and every local Church is catholic and complete in itself, under its bishop. And this was what had been incorporated in the 2nd Vatican Synod. However, the catholicity of the local Church conflicted with the catholicity of the ecumenical one, thus, we again note the problem of the priority of the One or the many, and the need to find a way out of this problem. If one were to carefully examine Roman Catholic theology today, he would see the perplexed state it is in. From the moment it allowed that Orthodox stream to flow through it, new potentials for approaching Orthodoxy in Ecclesiology were created. These potentials are very, very significant. On the other hand, dilemmas were generated in Roman Catholic theology, which are nowadays rampant among the Roman Catholic theologians: they must either move in the direction that Orthodoxy somehow introduced i.e., to acknowledge the catholicity of each local Church with all the consequences that this will entail, especially on the matter of papal infallibility, or, they will move back, in the direction of returning to the 1st Vatican Synod, where the powers of the Pope over the local bishops will once again prevail. This is the dilemma that the Roman Catholic Church and its theology are facing today. The Roman Curia is making attempts, so that the power of the Pope opposite the other bishops might be legalized by means of a law, which they have named Lex Fondamentalis. The reactions that appeared in the Roman Catholic family were truly impressive. There are many who are foreseeing (Losky has already pointed this out) repercussions of the Filioque on Ecclesiology, mainly because the Filioque - with its precedence of the essence versus the person is giving priority to the unity of nature. Losky suggests a formation between Christology and Pneumatology. He places Christology before Pneumatology, and relates Pneumatology to the person and Christology to nature. This is a formation that requires a lot of discussion, but it also contains many truths. We shall move on to these consequences, in the following lesson. For the time being, we have merely set out the basis that all this theory of prioritizing the essence before the person (which we also linked to Triadic theology and especially to the Filioque) has direct consequences on Ecclesiology.

F. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

2. Commentary on Western Ecclesiology

Why Papism over-accentuates Christology, to the detriment of Pneumatology A historical Christ and an exo-historical Holy Spirit The favoring of the Father and the support of the Holy Spirit The collaboration of the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Resurrection of Christ The central role of the Holy Spirit in Theosis Historical-ecclesiastic and Christomonistic consequences of Historiocracy Orthodox, Spirit-dominated resistance and the proclivity towards the other extreme Orthodox retrogressions Perseverences of Western Ecclesiology Discerning the Ecclesiological consequences in Papism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy Where does the Church acquire Her sanctity from? The Protestant Ecclesiological mistake The Orthodox reply to the Western, ecclesiological pseudo-dilemma The pseudo-dilemma of the Divine Eucharist The remembrance of things to come

B. The problem of priority between Christology and Pneumatology. Ecclesiological consequences In Western theology, one observes a tendency to over-accentuate Christology, to the detriment of Pneumatology (matters of the Holy Spirit), and this of course affects Ecclesiology. This preference is attributed to the fact that Christology is chiefly preoccupied with historical realities: the Incarnation, the life of Christ, etc., and Western thought is inclined, as we have said, to focus on History. The Holy Spirit, Pneumatology, on the other hand, is the opposite. The role of the Holy Spirit in Providence was to liberate the Son from the bonds of History, because the incarnated Son took upon Himself all of the consequences of mans Fall: He became Adam and entered History with the negative aspect that the Fall bestowed upon it. He entered the History of Time and Space - the Son of God was born in Nazareth of Palestine; He was born during the rule of Caesar Augustus, during a specific point in Time; He was crucified during the time of Pontius Pilate, etc. In other words, He partook of History in exactly the same manner that we do, and He became a part of that History. But History, the way that we are living it, has negative existential consequences, because it carries death inside it. For example, my own history, the way that I am living it, carries inside it the fact that there was a time that I did not exist; that my father used to exist but now no longer exists; that I shall not be alive after a certain number of years. Death is interwoven with historical existence; with Time. Consequently, the Son also entered this status with His Incarnation. The Spirit did not become incarnate, nor of course did the Father. The Father does nothing but favor, because He is the source of every gift of God. For example, when we say Thou, the Father of Lights, as quoted in the prayer that is cited behind the pulpit (which we priests incorrectly cite in front of the icon of Christ). This prayer is addressed to the Father. We must never confuse the Persons, as it is a dogmatic faux pas to do so. The Father, therefore, has this role; He favors the Incarnation and the coming of the Spirit. The Son is the One Who is incarnated. The Spirit is not incarnated; hence the Spirit does not suffer the consequences of History, which contains decadence and death. However, the Spirit also has a role; it is not merely that of non-incarnation the Spirit is the One Who constantly stands by the Son, during the entire period of His Incarnation, in order to liberate Him from the negative consequences of the Incarnation. We have here a very important fact, which we Orthodox constantly forget. By assuming human flesh, the Son also assumed death as a part of History, and was crucified and suffered the pain of the Cross and death, however, He was not finally overcome by death; He was not

conquered by death, as He overcame it with His Resurrection. Many people forget that the Resurrection of Christ was accomplished through the Holy Spirit. The Father resurrects the Son, through the Holy Spirit. Instead of this, the idea prevailed that Christs divine nature had somehow overcome death. This is not correct; not biblically (because we have clear testimonies that the Father raised the Son through the Holy Spirit), nor is it correct from the Patristic point of view, because no natures can act on their own; these were ideas that Pope Leo I had introduced in the 4th Ecumenical Synod the so-called reciprocation of the characteristics of natures but Cyril had insisted more on the hypostatic union. Whatever occurs in Christology is a matter of persons, and is not simply a matter of natures. Thus, we should not forget that the Spirit has a significant role in Christology and that role is precisely to be at the side of the Son, during that adventure called Incarnation; He is at the Sons side in the desert, when He goes to fast. He stands by Him in the garden of Gethsemane, where He is to make His decision. It is not by coincidence that the Spirit accompanies the Son in all of these instances. The major role that the Spirit has is, precisely, to provide the opening for History to move towards End Times; to free History from the limitations of the created. This is why the Spirit is also linked to Theosis as the perfection of the created. When the boundaries of the created and of death are transcended, then the Spirit is present and is in fact playing a main role. However, because the Spirit is not connected to History, i.e., it is not the Spirit Who leads Christ into submission to History, but on the contrary, it is the Spirit Who causes Him to be released from the clutches of History, then, when one has historically-based tendencies like the Westerners have (since they tend to see everything unilaterally, through the prism of History), it is to be expected that they will find something that interests them more, only in Christology. And this is why they developed Pneumatology (matters pertaining to the Spirit) in retrospect; or, to be more correct, when they eventually developed Pneumatology, they did not connect it organically to Christology. One of the basic repercussions this had on Ecclesiology was that they regarded the Church as a historical reality i.e., the Body of Christ, in which, however, the role of the Holy Spirit is somehow only a decorative one. This is like building the edifice of the Church with Christological material - a Body of Christ, a historical community which has its given form in the past and then placing inside it the Holy Spirit to act. This is not a placing of the Holy Spirit in the very foundations of the Church and regarding that the Spirit is the One Who builds the Church. (This is within the basis of the Church). Thus, we have a deviation and a preference in Western theology, always towards Christology and at times towards Christomonism, i.e. the stressing of Christ only, while overlooking the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox theologians had reacted to this situation. This aspect was pointed out, chiefly during the previous century in Russia, by the Slavophiles, with A. Khomiakov. But they went to the other extreme, by saying that it is definitely Orthodox and anti-Western to regard the Church basically as a communion in the Holy Spirit, and not as the Body of the historical Christ. This immediately causes a contrast which is a very serious one and we Orthodox encounter it frequently enough in our time, i.e., the contrast between the charismatics who have the Spirit, and the ordinary, historical bishops successors who have Apostolic succession. Thus, one hears the question: What does the Holy Spirit have to do with a historical, institutional framework? This is the outcome precisely of that over-accentuation of Pneumatology. In fact, nowadays, many people say that in its essence, the Church is a community of charismatics. Then what are the ordinary Christians? Arent they also part of the Church? Doesnt the Spirit have anything to do with them? They claim that the Baptism does not transmit the Spirit! How can Baptism not transmit the Spirit, when all the sacraments transmit the Spirit? We Orthodox as opposed to the West have very often taken Ecclesiology from its historical basis and placed it onto a Pneumatological basis. The first ones to have taught this point of view were the Slavophiles in Russia, with A. Khomiakov. Florovsky had opposed himself to A. Khomiakovs viewpoint; however, he had over-

accentuated the other extreme, making Ecclesiology simply a chapter of Christology. So, Florovsky, by reacting against Khomiakov and reproaching him (and very justifiably at that), that by making the Church a community of the Spirit, he gave a sociological meaning to the Church and had demoted History, thus somehow falling into the Western trap. Others, in their reaction to Florovsky, had over-accentuated Pneumatology within Ecclesiology; these were for example Lossky, Nisiotes, Bobrinskoy, e.a.. Nonetheless, the accentuation of Christology does remain forever a Western phenomenon. Consequently, when we refer to Western theology we must always bear in mind that, along with the over-accentuation of History, we also have an over-accentuation of Christology, to the detriment of Pneumatology. Pneumatology at times has a secondary and decorative role. With Roman Catholics, this becomes apparent in their Ecclesiology, inasmuch as they overstress historical succession and the historical privileges of the hierarchy. Their overall Ecclesiology, the Papist one, with the idea of a Pope at its center, is justified precisely by means of the argument of historical privileges. They assume that the Pope has a historical succession that goes as far back as Saint Peter. This is of immense importance to them; if they can prove the historical succession, the historical link, then the Ecclesiological argument is definitely a convincing one for them. From an Orthodox viewpoint, this is not enough. Even if it could be proved (and it cannot be), it would still not be enough, because for us, the Church is not merely a society that is perpetuated throughout Time historically; it is the charismatic element that permeates Her foundations and Her institutions. Consequently, in our relations with Western theology, we have and must always have- this issue in mind: How do we synthesize Christology with Pneumatology properly in Ecclesiology? By giving precedence to Christology, Western theology created the following situation as regards the Church: the Church basically became the Body of Christ for Roman Catholics. For the Protestants, it became a community that follows Christ and His teaching and listens to His word, the Gospel. This creates a long-distance relationship, one could say. The Head and the Body do not coincide; they do not fully connect, because the Holy Spirit was not introduced from the very first moment, to create that communion which liberates beings from the limitations of the individual. The Holy Spirit creates persons, He creates a community. When we place Pneumatology at the base of Christology, then we do not have Christ first, with a group that follows behind Him; instead, we have Christ as a Person that embraces all of us within Him. The Church, therefore, is formed in this way: it is a community that has its identity, not in Herself but in Christ Himself, because She is so closely tied to Christ that one cannot refer to Her being, without a reference to Christ. Thus, for example, we Orthodox speak of the sanctity of the Church; that sanctity is found in Her very nature, Her very being. Why? Well, where does the Church draw this sanctity from? The answer is given in the Divine Liturgy, every time we cite: The sanctified (gifts) unto the saints . One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ. The saints, to whom the sanctified gifts are given, are the members of the community. The members of the community are sinful; and yet, they are addressed as saints; however, by being fully conscious that they are not per se holy, they respond with the words One is Holy Jesus Christ. If the being, the identity of the Church Ecclesiology resides in the community per se, as opposed to Christ, then it would be scandalous to say that the Church is holy. And in the ecumenical movement in our time, we are constantly faced with this problem. The Protestants remonstrate they consider it blasphemous to say that the Church is holy, and they always pose the following argument: Are you out of your minds? How can the Church be holy? Cant you see the sin that prevails in there? Now the Orthodox are fallaciously leaning towards a Pneumatology that acts against Christology. They maintain that the few saints, the charismatics, are the ones who comprise the Church. Thus, when we say that the Church is holy, we are supposedly referring to the saints. No, this is not the answer that the liturgy at least gives us. In the liturgy, when we say The sanctified (gifts) unto the saints, the response is not certain saints, hence they would

be the ones giving the tone of sanctity. The tone of sanctity is given by Christ. The response is: One is holy none is second. Even if we placed all the saints in front of Christ, they would be sinful by comparison. Thus, the reply to Protestants who say: Cant you see? How can you say the Church is holy, with so much sinfulness inside Her? is not to respond with: we have our saints. In this instance, we must uphold the position that the Church, Her being, is Christ. As the Chrysostom had said, the union between the head and the body is so close and un-severable, that even if one were to even slightly and mentally make such a distinction, they would risk leading the body to its death, because it is the Head that gives life to the body. And the union with the head is that which ensures the bodys life and sanctity. Thus, we are perpetually being led into traps by the Westerners. And everything depends on the correct relationship that we give to Christology and Pneumatology. For heavens sake, we should never separate the two! Because they were separated, in the West also. And quite often, this idea of the few and charismatic is clearly reminiscent of the West. If we were to look through History, we will see this idea in the West, during the mediaeval era, i.e., that the Holy Spirit has this purpose within History: to pick a few isolated cases, be preoccupied with them, and the rest left to Christ, to History. Consequently, Pneumatology is for the Saints, it is the preoccupation with saints, whereas Christology is the preoccupation with History with this general, main corpus that the Church moves in. So, if we look at Pneumatology in its proper relationship to Christology, we Orthodox should then discard all those ideas of an elite of saints, of Spirit-bearers. Pneumatology, when linked organically to Christology, influences the entire body of the Church, and not just certain individuals. For Orthodoxy, there are no charismatics, in that sense. This, therefore, is a characteristic of Western thought, in which Orthodoxy also became entrapped from the beginning with the Slavophiles, and continues to be entrapped, to our day. Now, to get back to Western theology specifically, we shall see that this distinction, this distance (it is, literally, a distance) between Christology and Pneumatology, led the West to an internal speculation among Roman Catholics and Protestants, in which they wanted to definitely involve us also, during the 17th century with the Confessions; this speculation has the following content, more or less: Can the Church relate to the historical community, or not? If it can, then it relates to Christology. Roman Catholics had said yes, the Church can absolutely relate to the historical community. Protestants had even reached the point of developing the notion of an invisible Church; i.e., that the true being of the Church is not in the historical community. And they would ask us Orthodox what we thought on the matter. If one were to read the content of their confessions, one would see that we essentially said nothing, and that we had entered in vain into the problematics of a topic that is not in the least Orthodox, because for us, the historical reality of the Church relates chiefly during the Divine Liturgy, the Eucharist to the eschatological reality, by means of imagery. Everything for us is with images. And that precise imagery is created by the Holy Spirit, Who brings History into an organic and dialectic relationship with the eschatological status. Therefore, for us Orthodox, it is of no interest if the historical or the eschatological Church is the Church. We Orthodox can bypass this pondering, only if we place the Divine Eucharist at the center of Ecclesiology. And we now come to another crucial point. The West was never able to place the Divine Eucharist at the centre of Ecclesiology, because, first of all, it viewed the Divine Eucharist itself clearly through the prism of History and isolated it from eschatology, as it did the other Sacraments. And here again, the West carried us away, into its own ponderings. During the Reform and the anti-Reform eras, the question was posed as to whether the Divine Eucharist is just a repetition of the sacrifice on Calvary, or not. If one were to read the confessions of Peter Mogilas and the others that had appeared, one would see that we too have been drawn

into this discussion, because the West was intent on viewing the Eucharist as a continuation of a historical event. But for us, if we study the divine Liturgy thoroughly, we shall see that the divine Eucharist is a combination of a historical, but in parallel also an eschatological, event. Remembrance for us is not the simple remembrance of a historical event of the past. That is why we have this paradox within the Divine Liturgy, which the Westerners truly cannot accept, nor understand. The Monastery of Essex had produced a truly wonderful English translation of John the Chrysostoms Liturgy. Yet they could not accept the part that is found in the prayer (prior to the citing of the words: we offer Thee everything; Thine own, of Thine own, and on behalf of everything), i.e., the words: Remembering, therefore, this salvific commandment (=Jesus instructions to the Apostles to eat of His Body and drink of His Blood, in remembrance of Him), and everything else that came to pass for our benefit: the Cross, the Tomb, the thirdday Resurrection, the Ascent into the heavens, the right-hand Seating, the Second and glorious once-again Presence (=Coming), we offer Thee. They exclaimed here: What is this? How can someone say this in the English (Western) form, that we are remembering the Second Coming in other words, an event that has not yet taken place? What kind of remembrance is that? This is indeed scandalous, for Western thought. And it is not only Western thinking here; there is also Hellenic philosophy behind this story. And for Hellenic philosophical thought, a remembrance is a remembrance of the past. And this is where the major conflict appears. This is where we have a complete overturning of Hellenic thought. It would be impossible for an ancient Hellene to state remembering the future. Whatever the ancient Hellene might remember, is an unfolding of the past. So, this is what the Westerner also sees, in his historical conscience. This history-dominated conscience, this historicism, is intended for recording past events in the way that they occurred, but essentially without their inner meaning, which may very well be eschatological. It is truly treasonous, not only towards History, but even towards human logic, for a Westerner to admix the eschatological element into the unfolding of History. History, historical conscience, means to actually detect the time and the place of an event, solely in the past; to perceive it as an event that the mind apprehends and confines within noetic boundaries. In which case, what role can the Holy Spirit play here? Christology is dominant here, because it is once again understood as containing events of the past, i.e.: the Cross, the Tomb, the third-day Resurrection, the Ascent into the heavens All these events can be traced and be placed within a timeframe. During the time of Pontius Pilate.on the third day..etc. So far, so good. But when we insert the element of the future a remembrance of it that is when we part ways with the West. Can you see how deep all these things go, not only with regard to the general perception (which includes mentality), but also with regard to Christology and Pneumatology, because the element of the future enters History, thanks only to the energy of the Holy Spirit. Christ brings God into History; He brings the End Times into History, with the collaboration of the Holy Spirit. In these last days, I shall pour forth from My Spirit, upon every flesh. Christians saw the Pentecost as the advent of End Times. The Westerner sees the Pentecost and the Spirit as something that illuminates him personally, and bolsters him so that he can comprehend historical events. But that is not the case. The Spirit actually takes me into another dimension altogether. It is the dimension of the future that is where the Spirit places me, and also places History and Time there, thus freeing me of the confinements the boundaries that Time and Space entail, and which are expressed mainly by death. And that is why the Holy Spirit is simultaneously life-giving: because He introduces the End Times into History. All of these things, we experience during the Divine Eucharist. For Orthodox theology and experience, the Eucharist is the advent of the End Times and does not constitute a repetition

of anything. This pondering does not exist for the Orthodox as it did for the Reform, i.e., if it is or isnt a repetition of Calvary. Unfortunately, if we were to open up our Scholastic Dogmatics books, that is we would read. However, that is not our concern at present. It is a Western pondering. For us, it is neither a repetition, nor the continuation of a past. It is the penetration of the future in Time, something however, that creates a new event each time. And that event is the Eucharist. The Divine Eucharist is every time a new Incarnation, a new Crucifixion, a new Resurrection, a new Ascension and simultaneously a new advent once again, and a new Judgment Day. That is why it has all the accompaniments of Judgment Day that the Divine Eucharist has always had. That is why one should not approach it unworthily. It is no chance event. The world is being judged. Now is the judgment of the world. The word now of the 4th Gospel refers, precisely, to the Divine Eucharist, because the experience embraced by the Gospel is a Eucharist one. Thus, we have new events, without any definitive rifts with History. Therefore, for us there is a historical continuation; except that the future dimension is introduced therein the dimension of End Times which frees History of its limitations. With all the above, one can understand how easy it is for us Orthodox to slide into Western mentality, Western theology, almost imperceptibly. That is why we must always have this alertness, whenever theological positions are projected as Orthodox ones. The West has no eschatological approach incorporated in its History. It has separated History and Eschatology. And, either the End Times is a separate chapter that will take place afterwards like it does in our own, scholastically Orthodox dogmatics - or, it is a charismatic experience of a select few, to be isolated from the framework of the historical community. In this way, however, we are splitting Ecclesiology: the Church of Saints and the Church of the historical community. This is one, and that is another. It remains to be seen, whether we can still call the historical community Church. This, therefore, is a Western view. The eschatological approach needs to be incorporated into the historical one, and for Orthodoxy, this happens only during the Divine Eucharist, nowhere else. Outside the Divine Eucharist, we can easily slip into the aforementioned splitting.

2. Commentary on Western Ecclesiology The difference in Ecclesiological basis between Papism and Protestantism The Historical and Eschatological basis of Orthodox Ecclesiology The secondary role of the Holy Spirit according to Westerners The structuring of the Church in the Holy Spirit Congregation and Freedom in the Holy Spirit The necessity for laity to exist The authority of the Holy Bible and the clergy in the West Western problems with regard to the authority of the Holy Bible The chanting of the Holy Bible in the Church The liturgical character of the sermon in Church QUESTIONS Bishops without an episcopate The Wests sentimental need for an objective point of reference The Protestant perception of the Divine Eucharist Several points on the proper Liturgical view of eschatological events End Times: Freedom, or necessity? And its link to collectiveness Sensing the End Times The criteria of a liturgical sermon The institution of church preachers

C. History and Eschatology We have seen certain peculiarities in Western thought, which, as we stressed, give priority to History on the one hand and to the essence to objective reality on the other. The basis of Ecclesiology is History, the Incarnation, and generally speaking, the objective reality that the event of Christ brought to History. This visualizing and approach is what comprised the basis in Western theology, leading to a confrontation between Roman Catholics and Protestants that reached the point of contesting about the essence of the Church. A characteristic position of the Roman Catholics has always been that the Church is a kind of extension of the Incarnation. And there are many Orthodox who also say this; i.e., that the Church is Christ perpetuated throughout the ages. This is a position that was formulated by Bossuet in his famous sermons and was repeated by many Orthodox preachers. Of course from one point of view, it is correct to say that the Church is the body of the living Christ perpetuated throughout the ages, but it is not only this, for us Orthodox. In other words, for us, the basis is not the historical continuation of the Incarnation. This would be the Roman Catholic position. The Protestants, reacting against this position, maintained that there is no continuity to the event of Christ in History. Protestantism maintains the discontinuity of History, and that what makes the Church genuine is the fidelity of a community towards the word of God, especially as expressed in the Holy Bible. This fidelity, therefore, is the essence of the Church. For the Roman Catholics, I will repeat, the essence of the Church is not the fidelity of a certain community at a certain point in History, but that incessant historical continuity. For us, neither the one nor the other view is correct or adequate, as a basis for Ecclesiology. According to the Orthodox view, there is, of course, a historical continuity in the Church and therefore we do not agree with the Protestants who insist that Apostolic succession and all the other things that we Orthodox maintain are of no significance. At any rate, we mostly support the eschatological aspect of the Church; i.e., that the essence of the Church is the portrayal of eschatological events. And this portrayal of eschatological events can be seen mainly during the Divine Eucharist. For the Orthodox, Christology that historical continuity, or even the Westerner discontinuity does not comprise the basis of Ecclesiology. For us, the basis of Ecclesiology is the proper combination of historical continuity with a portrayal of the events to come. Our gaze is turned towards the forthcoming events, rather than the past. Roman Catholics and Protestants are faced towards the past: the Roman Catholics on the one hand stress the historical continuity and the institution that it is perpetuating, while Protestants, with their fixation on the word of the Holy Bible are enacting a return to the past, which is where they have situated the essence of the Church. Quite often, we Orthodox become lost in this labyrinth and some of us seek Orthodox Ecclesiology in the Roman Catholic model, thus overstressing the historical element. Then there are others, who tend to stress what we call the charismatic nature of the Church, without of course- the Protestant form of fidelity towards the word of God and the Holy Bible, but definitely with certain criteria that do not contain that portrayal of the eschatological community. In the Orthodox theological tradition, the Church is the eschatological community, within Time. This of course does not refute historical continuity, but it combines it with events, with each instance that the Church congregates for the same reason mainly to perform the divine Eucharist. That, therefore, is where we Orthodox locate the essence of the Church. This is attributed to the fact that we place a special significance which neither the Roman Catholics nor the Protestants place on the role of the Holy Spirit in Ecclesiology. How and why is this observed? The role of the Holy Spirit is acknowledged by the Westerners also, but only as a secondary one in Ecclesiology. The basis, the foundation of Western Ecclesiology is Christology. What is

of importance for the Roman Catholics on the one hand is that Christ was the founder of the Church and that the Church is the body or rather, the community- that Christ established and that is perpetuated through certain institutions, so that the Church can survive in History, whereas for Protestantism, what is of importance is as we already mentioned- the word of God, which again is a Christological historical reality. Thus, both views are based on Christology, following which, the Holy Spirit comes along to help us and inspire us, to animate the Church, according to what Roman Catholics have asserted. This is something like a soul entering a pre-existing body. The body is Christologically constructed, with Christological material. The Spirit enters into that institution and animates it, gives it life. But the Spirit Himself does not provide the structure of the Church; observe this detail: the Spirit does not provide the structure; the Spirit merely provides the soul; it merely inspires the Church. And this of course is extremely close to the Protestant position, where there is no interest in the institution of the Church the establishment but only in the comprehending of the word of God. And there too, the Holy Spirit plays the role of an inspirer, who assists every person individually and the community overall to comprehend the word of God. In other words, the Spirit is a factor that is always secondary to the first, founding and institutional factor who is Christ, whether by founding the Church according to the Roman Catholics, or by providing the word, which the Spirit renders palpable every time and inspires the people, according to the Protestants. For the Orthodox, it is the Spirit Who forms the Church. It is characteristic, what is mentioned about the Holy Spirit, in one of the Vespers hymns of the Pentecost: Who composes the entire institution.. The Holy Spirit composes the institution of the Church. The institution of the Church is not simply something that Christ founded within History. These details may appear insignificant, however, they are determining factors. For us, the Church is perpetuated in History and has continuity, thanks to its perpetual renewal by the Spirit. Every time that the Church congregates, it becomes the Church anew. The Spirit therefore makes the Church, constructs the Church, by providing precisely those basic structures, the basic functions of the Church, such as the laity (through Baptism and Chrismation) and the clergy (through Ordination, and in fact through a Bishops Ordination, which in itself is a Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit founds a Church. Thus, for the Orthodox viewpoint, in every place and at every specific time, the Spirit re-composes and renovates the Church founds the Church; and by re-composing the Church in this manner, creates the Churchs historical continuity. In other words, the Holy Spirit does not come and act within a pre-existing ecclesiastic structure. This is the way things are for the Roman Catholics: Christ founded a Church. He placed its fate and its perpetuation in the hands of certain Apostles, mainly Peter. And by giving Peter the privilege of heading the church, He must have therefore given it to the pope as well, as the historical successor of Peter. These were all supposedly given by Christ, and are not events linked to the Spirit; the institution of the Church is constructed Christologically, and the Spirit merely enters it to animate it, so that it wont be a soul-less structure. I repeat, for the Protestants, this edifice is of no importance; that is why they even doubt whether Christ founded the Church at all. Many Protestants maintained that Christ did not found the Church, but that the only thing Christ did was to leave His word and of course His Cross, and everything that He underwent and taught. That is supposedly their basis of the Church. Thus, by remaining faithful to these things as individuals, or as communities, the Church is supposedly formed. Then the Spirit supposedly comes along, to help us remain faithful to these things. I will reiterate, that for Orthodoxy, the issue is neither an institution that has previously been formed and in which the Spirit enters a posteriori, in order to animate it, nor is it an institution that doesnt exist as an Institution; it is -every time- a local and a temporal composition by the Spirit of that image of eschatological events. How will the Church be in the future? How will the world be in the future? The Church is what recapitulates the world, and it is only inside the Church that the world survives. The essence, therefore, of the Church is, for us, precisely the work of the Holy Spirit, Who enacts the work of Christ, by rendering the body of Christ ever-present and active, at a specific time and a specific place:

right now, right here. For the Westerner, therefore, the local Church is secondary, by comparison to the worldwide Church; whereas for an Orthodox, the local Church is of primary importance. We do not have one universal Church; we have many local Churches, which all coincide at the same point and they all represent faithful images of the eschatological community. Subsequently, we see an orientation towards the past by the Westerners and an orientation towards the future by us Orthodox, but without abolishing the historical continuity that is realized through the future. By enacting images of the End Times every time we congregate in Church, especially during the Eucharist, we are revealing that which the body of Christ (of the risen Christ of course, which is eschatological anyway) perpetuates; but perpetuates through those events that pertain to the congregations of local Churches, which the Spirit constructs and composes each time. The consequences of this fact go into great depth. First of all, for the Westerner, Ecclesiology always contains the seed of opposition between institution and charisma. What do we mean by this? Well, when a Roman Catholic says that the Church is, in its essence, the institution that Christ created, he is imposing an institution above Mans freedom and the Spirits freedom. The Protestant also, when insisting that what counts is ones fidelity towards the word of God and the Holy Bible, is imposing the authority of the holy Bible over Mans freedom. And so, the West perpetually has the problem of the institution and of the imposition that this entails for Mans freedom. In the East, in Orthodoxy, when saying that the Church is that congregation which is created by the Spirit as a portrayal of eschatological events, every time, in every place and whenever the divine Eucharist is performed, no such problem arises, because the Church is formed by the freely willed congregating of the faithful. We say, Im going to Church. The structure, the institution of the Church is not something that is imposed by someone; we ourselves compose it, together with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One Who gathers us all into the Church. When gathering us, one could say that the Spirit is making us founding members of the Church, because the Church to us is not an institution that has come into existence just like that, on its own. In this way, we never have (or ever had) the problem of clericalism or secularism as did the West. Why? Because clericalism presupposes the perception that the institution of the Church, its basic structure and its officiators, the clergy, have their hypostasis independently of the event of the congregating of the faithful. This leads us to the opportune topic of the role of the laity in the Church. For the Orthodox, the people comprising the laity are the ones who are a necessary prerequisite for the clergy to exist, to officiate. When we say officiate, it is not to simply perform the divine Eucharist, but to act, to be effective. The activity, therefore, of the clergy; their charismatic action and their authority at the same time, presuppose the laity as the framework in which the gathering of the faithful takes place. That is why we Orthodox cannot be led into that which the Roman Catholics were led: to personal liturgies by the clergy. Based on the logic of Roman Catholic theology, which several Orthodox also apply, the clergyman (given that he personally possesses institutionally certain energies such as the performance of the divine Eucharist, with his ordination) should be able to transform the bread and wine into Body and Blood of Christ, by blessing and performing the divine Eucharist on his own. Why not? Roman Catholics do it. Naturally, it is not a matter of democracy in Orthodoxy, that clergymen cannot perform the divine Eucharist without the presence of a layperson. It is precisely because the overall perception of the Church is such that it presupposes a congregation in order to exist: the congregating of all the basic functions and structures. Consequently, the laitys Amen, the laitys response and to your spirit also, all of these responses reveal that in Orthodoxy it has never been possible for the perception to infiltrate that the clergy can act sacerdotally, based on the rights that were given during his ordination. The fact that it is not possible for an Orthodox clergyman to officiate on his own is apparent from the fact that a dialectic form exists within the basic structure of the divine Eucharist. I have often told those Orthodox clergymen who (are unfortunately many) also perform personal liturgies: Well, what happens when you reach the part where you say Peace to all? Who responds with and to your spirit also? They reply: I say it myself. Now that is a ridiculous, comical thing. You

cant respond to yourself with the words and to your spirit! On the other hand, you cant remove the response and to your spirit also you simply cant. You cant remove the Amen either. The Amen is also a prerogative of the layperson. And to many clergymen who get carried away and say: The blessing of the Lord, .. now and for ever and ever, amen, I say to them that the Amen is the prerogative of the laity. What business do you the priest, have, to say the Amen? It has been the privilege since very ancient times as early as New Testament times of the laity. The Amen of Gods people - which goes as far back as the Old Testament - is the confirmation and the consent of Gods people towards whatever the clergyman does. All of these signify that, without the communion of the Holy Spirit Who will gather everyone together for the same reason, the Church cannot function as an institution and it is for this reason, that it is not proper to say that the Church is the clergy, the hierarchy etc. This is why we never encountered the problem of clericalism, whereas in the West, this problem had flared up. So, you can now understand why Western theology reached the point of clericalism. I shall repeat the basic point: By giving priority to Christology and History, priority was given to the institution per se; and the institution contained certain forms of functions which they had initially attributed to the person of Christ. The Roman Catholics on one hand, through the institution of the Apostles etc., excessively stressed the divine Eucharist and generally all the privileges that Christ had given to the Apostles and Peter especially. Protestants on the other hand leaned more towards the word towards what Christ had said, and whatever was authentically delivered to us in the New Testament through the Apostles, which is why they always see the clergymen who preach (because preaching is fundamental for Protestantism) as persons with authority, regardless of the congregation of the people, of the community. The congregating of the community does not play an essential role; the community gathers, only to listen to the preacher who will relay the word of God with his sermon and the reading of the Scriptures. But for us, all these things are dependent on the congregation. It is a basic requirement for the Orthodox. If one doesnt live in the West, it is difficult to understand how easily one can become westernized, in the belief that he is Orthodox. For us, the key is that the Spirit acts in a founding manner; in other words, the Spirit constructs the Church, through the congregation, through communion. There are other consequences here; much deeper ones. For us Orthodox even that very word of God originates from - and passes through eschatology and the communion of the Holy Spirit; through the community that the Holy Spirit creates, and then it becomes authentic. And now we come to a crucial issue, which is the authority of the Holy Bible. For Western theology, it is one of the more opportune problems, but it is an equally basic one for us. For the Roman Catholics, the Holy Bible is interpreted authentically by the officiators, who are the magisterium as they call it, apparently because they received the power and the right from Christ Himself to represent Him as successors of the Apostles. Thus, for the Roman Catholics, the word of God can be interpreted authentically by a clergyman, mainly a bishop, and finally the pope always as a person, and under any circumstances whatsoever. For the Protestant, the principle that applies is that the word of God is interpreted authentically through the word of God again, which means: Protestants interpret the Scripture through the Scripture, and it is a matter of proper scientific research. This is why in Protestantism, in order to become a minister (which essentially means a preacher, so that you can expound the word of God) you must have a university education; in other words, you will need a University diploma to explain the Scriptures, with the Scriptures. You can in fact do this from your office, your place of education, and even in your circle of teaching, if you teach. Teachers, therefore (the doctors of the Church) are, for Protestantism, the instruments by which the authority of the Bible is explained. Notice what kind of problems this presented with regard to the authority of the Holy Bible in the West, which is one of the problems that hound it persistently nowadays. As regards the Roman Catholic position, it was natural for the question to be raised as to why a bishop should be regarded as infallible, or, why an entire synod of bishops should be considered

infallible, or why the pope should be infallible. And that is where they truly stumble; that is where they cannot provide satisfactory answers, especially nowadays. As for Protestantism, another problem had arisen, which today preoccupies everyone in the West. How can the Bible be interpreted by the Bible and by scientific analysis, when we know that the Bible was also subject to certain historical and cultural influences, which do not continue to apply forever? This is why Protestants today are forced to look for the canon within the canon, given that the canon for the Holy Bible is not enough for them. In other words, they seek a smaller canon, within the canon of the Holy Bible. They seek the criteria on the basis of which they can locate whether something in the Holy Bible is truly authentic, and with which we can discern whether something today is not authentic and necessary. For example, the Apostle Paul says that even our nature teaches us that if a man leaves his hair long, it is ugly and unnatural. Or, he says that the world consists only of sky, earth and the underworld etc.. All these are obviously cultural elements that prevailed during the Apostles era. Of course there are also those among the Protestants who are known as fundamentalists, who maintain that every single letter of the Bible must be observed meticulously. If the Bible says so, then thats how it must be, no questions asked, we simply cannot doubt it. We must therefore all be shaven, with our hair cut. Based on this logic, our own, conservative monks should be considered the first to have transgressed Pauls words! What I am trying to say with this admittedly striking example is that we have been compelled to not adhere to Pauls words verbatim, because otherwise, we would have been forced to do other things likewise, and not what we are now doing. Examples such as this are very many. When the Bible is interpreted by the Bible, the way that it is done by Protestants nowadays, numerous things are discovered, which are purely cultural and historical in nature and no longer apply today. Consequently, this leads them to a crisis as regards the authority of the Bible. What is characteristic today, is that those who do not accept the authority of the Scripture, are the spiritual descendents of those who had proclaimed Sola Scriptura (=only the Scripture, nothing else). Thus they reached the point of no longer trusting the Holy Bible. Hermeneutics has developed to such a degree in the West, that the Bible itself is also subjected to interpretation on the basis of the newer factors of each historical era. All of the above have as their starting point the fact that Western man Roman Catholic or Protestant places the essence of the Church and the essence of the truth in decrees or moulds that were shaped in the past. A norm is defined and imposed in the past, and we now struggle to adhere to it faithfully. This is a purely Western outlook. It is on the surface of this perception that all the problems regarding the authority of bishop, of synods, of the pope, of the hermeneutics of the Bible and the suchlike are located. But behind all these is a latent disposition for subjugation to a specific, pre-defined canonistic decree. This problem was never raised in Orthodoxy. The Scriptures are interpreted within the Church, within the congregating of the Church. But beware of the confusion that we too have undergone in these matters, on account of Western influences. When, of late, we observe an increase in the number of those who read the Gospel in a narrative or emotional style instead of the traditional chanting of the Gospel, one can only wonder if these people have any awareness whatsoever of this peculiarity of Orthodoxy. The reason they read in their own way is, of course, to make the text palpable; otherwise, they are under the impression that the meaning is lost and what counts is the meaning. In other words, it is like an educational book, which I read and memories are brought to mind of the past; for example, I read as though Christ Himself is delivering his Sermon on the Mount. In that way, I am made aware of the events the way they took place the way they were shaped in the past. This is most clearly a Western mentality. For the Orthodox Tradition, what counts is not just the narration of how things happened; it is the way things will happen, and will be. The word of God must always have that eschatological angle, which is why -according to the Orthodox view the word of God comes to us from the future and not from the past. It is a different thing for us to sit down here and study the Holy Bible; or even in those so-called Bible circles, which are a purely Protestant imitation, where they sit down and study the Holy Bible. What can the Holy Bible tell you, outside the congregation of the Church? It will tell you other things; that is, whatever

it says to a Protestant. It is within the framework of worship and especially of the divine Eucharist that we find the reason for which we chant the readings, melodiously. Not so much the readings of Vespers it is not imperative for them to be chanted. But the Gospel and the Apostle during the Liturgy must be chanted. The Chrysostom says somewhere: we open up a syllable, because syllabizing is a conceptualizing (Greek, syllabi = conception, arresting) by the Nous; it signifies that which the mind conceives/grasps noetically. And we help the mind to grasp the meaning. But the word of God can never be conceived/grasped. It is far greater than us. It is the word of God that conceives/grasps us. The Chrysostom says it beautifully, that through chanting, the word of God is opened up; the syllable is opened up and it incorporates us, as opposed to us conquering it. This conquering tendency of knowledge that we apply to things is the same one that we apply every time we abolish chanting and strive to make the Scriptural readings comprehensible. Even the word itself is interesting. We want the people to co-(ap-)prehend! To apprehend the readings! Can one truly apprehend the word of God, or comprehend it? Of course one may wonder: What sort of mysterious and chaotic perception is this? Many Westerners are moved by the Orthodox when they attend their Liturgy and everything there is chanted, and they usually say at least you Orthodox have a mystery. It is not about that secret and exotic mystery which lacks any importance. It is a method of knowledge that is based on the communion of persons, and not just the workings of the mind. That is why for the Orthodox, the Holy Bible cannot speak to us in the same manner when we read it at home, as compared to when it is read and heard in Church. That is why the greatest destroyer of the word of God in Church is the preacher, who can appear at the most inappropriate moment, during the hour of the Koenonikon (Holy Communion), thus overthrowing the entire structure of the Liturgy. What is the purpose of the sermon at that point? The sermon should follow immediately after the reading of the Gospel. Then we move away from mere words and are led elsewhere. For these issues, it is not necessary for one to have a profound knowledge of History, in order to realize that they are newly introduced and that they are of Western origin. And even from a purely historical aspect, one can see that these are erroneous customs. But right now, we are chiefly concerned with the theology of the matter. Theologically, therefore, all these attempts to apprehend and to comprehend the word of God are most definitely a Western phenomenon. If we havent already corrupted the common laity with our conscientious theology - and for as long as they have remained uninfluenced - they normally see the Scriptural readings as a part of the whole event. And the Gospel for the Orthodox is never just a book that you open and read. It is almost a person. You kneel before it. And when the entrance of the Gospel takes place in Church, where the people make the sign of the Cross and kiss it, this is what it signifies. In order therefore to not ruin the character of the word of God, the sermon must definitely (a) be delivered at the correct moment, immediately after reading the Gospel; (b) focus as much as possible on the Gospel text that was recited and (c) be of a liturgical character and reference. The sermon is a liturgical event, and not something that can take place in any kind of hall (whereas many other sermons could take place in a hall). By presupposing all the above, one can see where they lead, and how the Westernizing of Orthodoxy is nowadays being fulfilled. And yet, those in Orthodoxy who cry out against the West have not pointed out these problems; obviously, other things preoccupy them and they have thus allowed the Liturgy to be distorted - which (for us) however, is the only thing that keeps us genuine. For us, the word of God is an event that comes to us from the End Times; it is a sacramental presence a Eucharist event. It is the word-Logos, the way that we personally meet with Him during the Eucharist and we meet with Him in full, by communing with the Body and the Blood of Christ. This is a fullness: the logos of God is the communion with the Body and the Blood of Christ. It is there that one finds and places the readings. And this is why they have always had the form of a melodic recital. The authority of the Holy Bible therefore does not lie in who will explain it to us whether that person is well versed, or if that person

possesses certain privileges (from a hierocratic institutional aspect) to explain it. This is why for us, even the synods of our bishops are somehow a part of that circuit called the communion of the Holy Spirit and authority finally emerges from that overall event of the Spirit circulating among all the members of the Church; For us, it is understood (unlike the Roman Catholics) that a decision or an interpretation by bishops can prove to be mistaken, just as it is understood (and contrary to Protestant perception) that a scientific interpretation is of no significance and no importance. Nowadays, acute speculation has arisen in Greece on the subject, because, by lacking the appropriate experience and the clear-cut use of the Bible, our biblical scientists (all educated in the West) are showing deep concern, when noting how we Orthodox are almost indifferent to the scientific problems posed nowadays by exegetics on numerous issues. Naturally, we cannot ignore scientific interpretation altogether; but, on the other hand, scientific knowledge is not the means by which we acknowledge the Scripture as the word of God speaking to us. We have a different context, a different framework, in which we place the Bible so that it can finally speak to us. Of course it is not proper to say that the things science says are incorrect, simply because we were taught that way. Again, the criteria themselves are usually based on older scientific data and are no longer valid today. You can therefore see, just how important Western thought, Western theology, and the precise and accurate knowledge thereof are to us Orthodox. They are greatly mistaken who maintain that they are interested in the West and usually, those who make such claims are thoroughly steeped in Western thought, without realizing it at all. All of these things therefore have to do with Ecclesiology. I will repeat, that the key for us is the Church it is the congregating of Gods people in a specific place and time, portraying the community of End Times; it is the gathering that is summoned by the Holy Spirit, which, every time the Church is thus summoned, the Spirit incarnates anew, every time (and therefore in a constantly re-manifested historical continuity) the Body of the historical Christ. In this way, we have neither a denial of History, nor an attachment to History and the Past (the way the Westerner does), without the intervention of End Times. For us, the End Times invade History via the Holy Spirit - chiefly during the Divine Eucharist and it is within this framework that a true meaning is given to the terms priesthood, the word of God, the Holy Bible, and the life of the Church in general.

QUESTIONS Q. An application that is inversely proportional to the kind of congregation that the East has (which believes that the Spirit summons the Church as a gathering of the faithful): Could it be, that precisely the denial of this congregation in the western ecclesiastic tradition had, as a result, the bishops of the West to be referred to as being in absentia of an episcopate? A. Not everyone in the West is without an episcopate. But this possibility does exist; however, it is inconceivable for us to have a bishop who is devoid of an episcopate. He must definitely have an episcopate, whereas in the West we know that there are assistant bishops, secondary bishops etc.. This is indeed an application, so, what will the consequence be (if any) on the entire gathering of the faithful, on the entire Church? In other words, having said that the bishop is indeed the Church wherever the bishop is, there the Church is what consequence will this thing have, that is going on in the West? Of course, the consequence is that the bishop might be perceived by us the way he is in the West, i.e., as an institution that pertains to one person alone. He will therefore perform certain offices, he will have sanctifying and other abilities and energies, which somehow

emanate from himself only, because he alone has received them and he has stored them within himself, and he brings them out to use them. This is of course the perception in the West, and the sacraments there become canals - channels so to speak of Grace, which flows through those persons. This is why a clergyman who is defrocked in the Roman Catholic church will continue to be a minister. For the Orthodox East, the bishop unites a community. This community may be nonexistent at present, for various historical reasons as is for example Keryneia, in the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus today. And yet, we have a bishop of Keryneia, who was ordained after the occupation of that territory by the Turks and continues to be bishop of Keryneia without actually living in Keryneia and without his flock being in Keryneia either. We have many such cases in Constantinople also, and in the episcopates of Asia Minor etc. Ecclesiastically speaking they are legitimate, because these are bishops who have become impoverished on account of historical situations. They are bishops rightfully, of a formerly glorious episcopate. This term, formerly glorious, has nothing to do with historical reality, and this in a way is Western. But the other term is not Western. For us, unlike the Roman Catholics most of the time, the bishop is not unrelated to a certain community, even if historical circumstances are peculiar. I imagine that in Cyprus, the Church will not easily agree that Keryneia is stricken off the Map. She will provide bishops of Keryneia who will not be able to go to Keryneia, but that is not important. Those who have overdone it and unfortunately they are not Westerners (but as we have said, the West is a phenomenon which permeates everywhere, without our realizing it) are the pre-Chalcedonians, who have bishops, without any reference to an episcopate. They have bishop so-and-so with a religious education; bishop so-and-so for external affairs (just like you have a minister for the exterior, they similarly have a bishop for external affairs, a bishop for education etc., without any link whatsoever to an episcopate. Of course these are all emanations of the Western perception that high priesthood, just as priesthood, is acquired by a person without any reference to the community. And I repeat - they all spring from the purely historical and Christological approach: i.e., these things were delivered by Christ Himself; the Apostle took them, and gave them to his successor, and he in turn to his successor, etc. They as persons receive them. But if we place the Holy Spirit as the composing factor of the Church (as a community, which it is); as the factor that assembles the community, then we see that things cannot be otherwise. This is why, for us, ordination takes place within the sacrament of the divine Eucharist, and does not constitute a separate ritual.

Q.- I am under the impression that this rejection of Pneumatology is directly linked to the phenomenon of secularization (and in the East of course). But could we perhaps ask you, on this basis, to tell us what sort of interpretation you give to the fact that in the West there prevails a historical urge (and a pressing one, quite often) as to why there should be a historical origin, which also aims at (and rescues us from) the danger of hypostasizing the things unseen the things of an inconceivable future? R. As we have said, historically, we can discern how the Western spirit is indeed born with these peculiarities. We see this in Tertullian, where we can trace the first displays of the Western spirit, the way it appears (clearly, I believe) as compared to the Christianity of Northern Africa and Rome in the 2nd century. That is where these phenomena are observed; not as much in Rome, as chiefly- in Northern Africa. This mentality was then transferred into Rome. Naturally this was the strictly historical framework. But if you wanted to look for a more profound interpretation, I would give the same interpretation that Id give when interpreting our own (acquired through influences) narcissism, when it comes to our own historical past. History satisfies a psychological need for security. Its objective data withdraws the responsibility from the person a responsibility that is always an adventure, and you never know where it will lead you. This is often what Westerners claim; for example, with regard to

our Synods, they say: where is the authority of your synods? Where does it begin and where does it end? And when we tell them about our accepting a conciliar decision in the fullness of the Church etc., they say: but all this leads you to a thorough uncertainty; whereas I am certain! It was instituted by the synod, thats why I know it is correct! In this way, the Westerner retracts his personal responsibility and acquires certainty from an objective event. Just as a Protestant especially a fundamentalist will take Gods word verbatim, since it was said by the authority of the Apostle Paul. All these therefore have a psychological reverberation, because they provide a sense of security, and Man always seeks security. As for the West, it has always had this characteristic of objectivizing everything, for two reasons: to feel secure, and to be able to use it for formulating institutions, which I believe are in the blood of Western man. If they do not institutionalize, if they do not make use of something, or, from the moment that they do make use of it, they regard it as offering them nothing that it no longer has any meaning. In other words, only if a faith can offer something be it something sentimental or institutional or something for improving society, or moral, or something else only then is it considered trustworthy. This is how the criterion of rejection and acceptance takes shape: depending on how useful something is. It is my belief that Western man has always been characterized for this tendency of his, and I cannot put all the blame on the Franks. This tendency of the western mentality to institutionalize things so that they produce results is far older than the Frankish era; it was the way that the roman state had made progress and had put together that edifice of legislation - the organizing, that no-one was able to surpass. This also was the way that the Roman Catholic church actually survived throughout the centuries and continues to be so powerful with its institutions. We Orthodox actually depend on the Holy Spirit even in the Liturgy, which constitutes -par excellence- the eschatological event that invades History. What I am trying to say is that the explanation probably lies there: the Western spirit has always sought a sense of security, utilitarianism and effectiveness, which, however, in order to yield, presupposes a conception by the mind, objectifying, analysis and institutionalizing. Q. You just mentioned the word objectify. Berdiaeff had spent many years of his life to tell us that truth is not the objective reality in the realm of objects, which is what is observed in the roman catholic and the Marxist dogma. In other words, it appears according to what we are saying- that Christianity in the West was objectified and in a certain way, the secularizing of the conception of Christianity is precedent, as something stable and finalized. In other words, first comes the apostle as a secularized institution and then comes the apostle as a charismatic presence. A. That is correct. You see how interesting these things are and yet they have not been studied, because even the Byzantine state was a continuation of the roman one, except that things changed from that point on. It is more than obvious that the West with the Franks had changed and had taken on the non-Byzantine form of the roman state, which is characterized by all these things. But, as you correctly pointed out, of course Christianity did not introduce secularization; it found it already in place; it, too, was merely subjected to it in the West and the consequences continue to be apparent.

Q. Certain Protestants perform sacraments, but I would like to ask you: how, and in what sense, do they perform them? R. They too vary amongst themselves, with regard to the meaning and to the way that they perform them. But for all of them, it is still just a commemoration of the past. The eschatological element, the portrayal of the End Time events, the foretasting of the eschatological feast is nonexistent. To them, it is a commemoration which, for some signifies that whatever happened during the Last Supper is reoccurring to a certain extent, while for others for most others whatever happened during the Last Supper is merely a symbolism without any content. Anyway, what matters to them is what took place during that Last

Supper, and that is the Western aspect. Apart from this, we have expressions in the Hellene Fathers that could also scandalize. Cyril of Alexandria and others, like Saint Basil, in his Liturgy, say that the Gifts are copies of the Body and the Blood of Christ. Words like these can give the impression that we similarly have a viewpoint like that of Protestantism. We do not have a symbolism, but we also do not have a problem with what happens if certain elements etc. change or not. What counts for us, is that what we have at that moment is an eschatological event, during which the eschatological reality becomes an actual presence, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and in fact through the energy of the Holy Spirit which is why the invocation of the Holy Spirit is so important for the Orthodox. Consequently, the Gifts actually bear inside them the presence of Christ; they actually are this very Body and this very Blood of Christ. How this can be, etc., we Orthodox do not bother to examine.

Q. With regard to the divine Eucharist being the depiction of End Times: Can we now say that the phrase has been completed, about it not simply being an image which means it merely symbolizes something but that it is an actual foretasting of eschatological events; that they are being experienced and not just symbolized? The term image is of course a word that needs to be explained.

A. - Precisely. So, how do we interpret the image of End Times, and if possible, can we say what its characteristics are, in the Divine Eucharist? What does the Church experience with the Eucharist? What are the End Times? How are they realized within History? Why is the laity asked to transform the world when they return to it, after the enacting (NOT the end) of the Divine Liturgy? What is it that the Church has a taste of, during the Divine Eucharist? First of all, this portrayal of the eschatological events is not symbolical; it is real it can be tasted, it is an experience that primarily consists of that event per se, and the way in which the Church congregates. It is a congregation that is not a product of coercion, but of free will. Consequently, it is not dependent on exclusive associations, the way that biological and social associations are. This is why it is so important for the Divine Eucharist to not be performed, for example, for children only. This would be a complete distortion of the Divine Eucharist. The Eucharist is that which gathers together all ages and all professions. Man needs to overcome these divisions and contrasts that nature and society impose - for example, poor, rich, coloreds, whites, etc. You cannot perform the Eucharist only for white people as they do in South Africa, and in America in the past. It has appeared with us also the phenomenon of performing Liturgies for children, for students, for scientists of various specialties, etc. On the contrary, the foretaste of the Eucharist is the transcending of all natural, biological, social etc. divisions. This is no small matter. It is the portrayal of End Times, because it is only during End Times that will we have overcome such divisions. And of course, death is essentially yet another aspect of this division that we have, because of our biological and social existence. But still, having overcome all of these things, this is where the portrayal is still incomplete. We are still waiting for the resurrection of our bodies, so that the reality will be complete. But we do foretaste it, by transcending these differences, which are interwoven as we said- with death and corruption. This, therefore, is no symbolism; it is an experience. This is why the Church must preserve the Eucharist as a proper experience, and not alter it with various things, like the ones we mentioned. And naturally, all these things are done in the name of the historical Christ and the historical Christ is present, but He is present as Risen in the Spirit; we do NOT have a repetition of the Last Supper. I have thought of one day writing something that I will call The theology or the Ecclesiology of Forms those forms that we are constantly altering, for example during the moment of the Koenonikon when we are receiving Holy Communion, we now chant (and this is a newly introduced thing) .Thy Secret Supper. Why is it Thy Secret Supper? Of course, if we were to comprehend it in the eschatological sense of a secret supper, then yes. This hymn indeed has an eschatological significance, yet many take it as a remembrance. That is why the Church, in Her rubric, this form of Koenonikon is foreseen only for Great Thursday. The Koenonikon of

all other Sundays is praise the Lord, from the heavens. All these are eschatological elements. In other words, the eschatological state is being created. I remember, when I had gone to the Holy Mountain some years ago, in one of my first visits there, I had observed this tradition there of chanting the Supplication during the Koenonikon and I did not know how that came to be inserted. Anyway, I expressed my surprise and discussed it with the Prior and some others in one of the very good monasteries, which resulted in this tradition being changed a tradition which proved to have originated from the previous century. You simply cannot chant .from my many sins my body is ailing, and ailing also is my soul., and carry all this depression into the most joyous and majestic eschatological moment of Holy Communion, where the hymn of Praise ye the Lord, from the heavens, Hallelujah is more appropriate. There can be no hymn more triumphant than Hallelujah. The essence, therefore, is that we Orthodox see portrayal as an experience and a foretasting of End Times, and not of the Past. This portrayal (and perhaps this is the most important point in the question) is a matter that pertains to the overall event of the congregation and not just what the clergyman does or what I do separately as an individual. The very fact that I go to Church, that I take my place, that I stand somewhere, all these are a part of that portrayal of End Times. The congregating of Gods people is a basic eschatological element. It exists in the New Testament; it is the expectation of the Hebrews, which Christ fully realized in His Person. And in the New Testament also especially in the Gospel according to John there is a mention of the gathering of everyone in Christ, in the sense, precisely, that when the Last Day arrives, the Day of the Messiah, the Son of Man, everyone shall gather together, from the ends of the earth. And the term shall gather together was then the perception that they would gather together in Jerusalem, because Christ had also told them: wait until I return to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was finally destroyed in 70 AD, and gradually, the concept of Jerusalem began, even before it was transferred to the Divine Eucharist, in the sense of the Upper the New Jerusalem. In the Book of Revelation, we have precisely that picture of the Upper or New Jerusalem. Upper Jerusalem is exactly the depiction the way we have it in Revelation of the Divine Eucharist. A basic, therefore, element, is the congregation. Therefore that is where we start from; we do not start from what happens. Quite often they ask how we should go to the Divine Eucharist how we should be prepared psychologically, how we should not go there in a tired state or in a bad mood etc. But what counts is our actually going there. It seems odd, in our westernized thought, to want everything to go through psychology and the mind. It is by going, that you compose the Church; that is the way Gods people gather together. And so what, if you are in a bad mood? Well, basically, you cannot be in a good mood every day. But neither can divine Grace, nor the divine Eucharist ever be affected by your mood!

Q. What about the moment that laity does not respond with Amen? A. From the moment it does not say Amen, all the things we see around us happen. In other words, the meaning of laity is rendered useless. And we have indeed reached the point of saying as the westerners do and the newspapers claim that the Church has decided and by that, imply the bishops.

Q. We have said and we know at least, that we anticipate the resurrection of the dead; we live in anticipation of End Times. Will the end of Time come, because we anticipate it, because we yearn for it, or will it be an objective event on the part of God? In other words, will the end of Time come, independently of our intervention, regardless of our will, independently of our freedom? A. The end of Time will come, because Christ came, and because Christ rose from the dead.

Q. Doesnt that constitute a compulsory situation? A necessity? A. It does not constitute a compulsory situation, because Christ freely brought the End into History. For us, it does not constitute a compulsory situation, as long as we come together at the divine Eucharist, which is the free foretasting of the End Times. If the Church were a biological event, a congregation, a relationship like the biological ones, where a mother has to necessarily love her child and the child its mother, then it would have been a relationship imposed by nature. But here, nature does not impose anything; not nature, not society, not anything. Of course, quite often, social elements may also infiltrate (we do go to Church for those reasons also); however, we essentially go freely nobody actually forces us to go to Church. Therefore, if you take the matter gravely that you are going to Church and you interpret it as a foretaste of an eschatological event, then you will indeed feel that you are being forced. The end of Time is certainly coming; it will most certainly come; you of course will not be the one to bring it on, but it will come freely as far as you are concerned (because you can quite easily say that you want nothing to do with this eschatological matter that Christ is bringing); but even so, the end will come, however it will no longer be in its positive form for you - only in its negative one: your undergoing final judgment. Q. Doesnt this somehow relativize, or rather, negate the perception that we might return to the pre-Creational Nil? A. The fact that Christ Rose from the dead does, indeed, hinder us from saying that Nil will eventually subjugate, or take over the world. But for those who freely do not accept the Resurrection, I have my reservations. I cannot regard absolute death as absolutely irrelevant to nil to the return to the pre-Creational Nil. Consequently, one could say that somehow, my freedom plays a role in whether I shall return or not to the pre-Creational Nil. But, my freedom as an individual Adam does not decide whether all of Creation will return to Nil. With his freedom, the first Adam (given that he was a collective one) dragged all of Creation down with him. With death (which came with the Fall), we no longer have that collective Adam; we now have individual Adams, and subsequently, they are unable to determine the fate of overall Creation. The one and catholic (=overall) Adam is now Christ, the ultimate Adam, so that just as everyone dies in Adam, thus everyone in Christ is vitalized. Christ as the ultimate Adam influences all of Creation, but without depriving the freedom of each individual Adam. We presently have an Adam that is splintered into many pieces: you, me, the other person, all of us are in a condition that splinters the human essence. And that is where the difference lies, between what influences the freedom of one individual and what influences the freedom of the catholic (=overall), the ultimate Adam, who is Christ. I think that there is a certain difficulty, precisely in describing the ultimate, the hindmost, in its purely existential dimension, because we cannot see its gnosiological texture. It is a now which is more now than now; it is an event that establishes the par excellence act of an external, existential, all-embracing knowledge of the being, of the occurring and of History. This is the gnosiological aspect of the matter, which, however, is not the only one, nor is it the determining one I would say, because one can lack this awareness of now or of the end events gnosiologically. The gnosiological aspect is only one aspect. The one who goes to Church experiences the ultimate events, without however developing his awareness. Even a child who has no idea what is going on when it goes there, is also experiencing the events of the end, without comprehending them gnosiologically.

Q. Does the child feel this? A. Feel? I dont know what that means. Perhaps it does. If you broaden the meaning of

gnosiology even more, then perhaps you can say that indeed, everyone feels and everyone knows. I have a few difficulties there. Gnosiology is rather limited it demands a certain noetic energy, which definitely cannot be done in the case of children or the mentally underdeveloped. We have these instances also. We cannot exclude them from the ultimate events, simply because their gnostic receptor is not developed.

Q. You said that for the Westerners, the Church is built by Christ only, leaving out the Holy Spirit. Could this perhaps not have such an impact on Ecclesiology? A. I think we already went over that point, but I will repeat the basics, i.e., that it is one thing for the Holy Spirit to act retroactively on Christ, and another thing for Christ to have been born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin; i.e., to have an identity. Therefore, since He is born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin, this is definitely a specific situation, a case of communion with others. We have the one and the many simultaneously; consequently, this will also shape a different kind of Christology, respectively. Q. At one point you said that the sermon should have a liturgical character. I have certain reservations on that point: what do we mean by liturgical character and with what criteria is this judged? What is it, that drastically differentiates the study of the Holy Bible or better still, the sermon in Church from every other study of the Holy Bible in any other congregation? After all, even the sermon that we hear in Church is something that was composed earlier on, by a priest or a preacher sitting at his desk. A. Correct. It is not easy for one to say what this liturgical style is, what its liturgical character is, because it is also not easy to deliver a correct sermon. This is difficult, for a sermon that you are preparing in your office although you can of course prepare it in your office, transporting yourself in a way into the atmosphere of the Liturgy. What is important is to be transported into the atmosphere of the Liturgy. A lot of work is required, to see how we can compose a sermon so that it will be Liturgical in mien. Because it is not just a matter of what you are going to say. There are many who suggest that we explain the Liturgy. That is not the point. The point is to insert in the corps of the sermon those dimensions (I will say this once again) that the End Times community will have; to insert those dimensions of transcendence and of exclusivity and of death; to somehow give the listener the hope and the certainty of eternal life. Because that is what the Liturgy strives to do. The entire Liturgy prepares the faithful for a taste of transcending death. One can now understand why, when departing from a sermon, one says we must be good, we must do this, we must do that, on abortions, etc. Anyway, you can say these things per se, if you actually link them to the problem of transcending death and to a hope for the events of the future. Give the other person a tragic picture of things even if only to begin with show him the impasse that mans existence can reach, but dont leave him there, because everything in the Liturgy speaks of transcending the impasses. Prepare that person, so that he can afterwards accept that transcendence which is par excellence- Holy Communion. However, this needs extensive analysis, and a huge effort. It is no easy thing, to deliver an Orthodox sermon.

Q. Finally, the question is posed as to how successful a sermon is, when it is closely tied to contemporary problems and is limited to just them, or, to what extent should it be limited? We must not forget its objective, which is the same, throughout time. A. Correct. To not remain unaware of problems may not be a bad thing, but to remain glued to those problems, or to strive to give ethical solutions to problems is wrong. Unfortunately, that is what all sermons do: they pinpoint the problems and then they start

with the must this and the must that But the message of the Liturgy is not an ethical one. The message of the Liturgy is an ontological one. You must make Man stand before the impasses and the change in the way he lives the point of reference being Gods way of living, which one finally tastes by partaking of the Divine Eucharist. This is no easy task. At least, however, with the sermon, we do not entirely disorient people from the ultimate state of events and confine them to only the secular issues. We need to pay attention to this point.

Q. In the Orthodox Tradition, what place does the institution of preachers have? A. This is somewhat difficult to reply to. The institution itself exists in the Orthodox Tradition, but it is my belief that it has no place within the Eucharist - within the liturgical framework. You need to know the following historical information. In the ancient Church, the sermon was always delivered apart from the divine Eucharist. In Alexandria, congregations for Bible study took place on Wednesdays and Fridays, and all the Patristic homilies were recited in the framework of those congregations, which usually took place along with Vespers or some other Service, but not within the Divine Eucharist itself. Nor do we see any relative reference, in any liturgical manuscript. We would have known it, if things were indeed the way they are today, i.e., that this is the point at which the sermon is delivered. Nowhere do we find any such historical testimony. The sermon is NOT a part of the divine Liturgy. The fact that many people claim that if we dont have a sermon, the Liturgy itself is not proper, is a result of the pressure that the Protestants had placed on us. HARNACK had accused us simply of being a community of worship, which led Balanos to write a book, Why the Orthodox Church is not a community of worship, in lieu of an apology for Harnack, that we too have sermons; that we too have this and that. And we have since developed a conscience that we must have them, only so that we might not be accused of not having them. I believe that a layperson can preach, but in a non-Eucharist framework. However, if a sermon is delivered therein, it must absolutely be related to the overall event of the Liturgy, whose head is, of course, the Officiator. Even I, as a layperson, whenever I was asked to preach, would refuse to do so, for that reason alone: because I felt as though a foreign object would be interjected in the Liturgy. And in the ancient Church, when Origen would begin to preach you all know the episode with Demetrius of Alexandria he immediately provoked an objection: Who ever heard of a layperson speaking, in the presence of a bishop?! he had exclaimed. Naturally, he was not referring to the presence of a bishop inside some ordinary room; it was in reference to the presence of an officiating bishop, in the Divine Eucharist.

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G. WESTERN THEOLOGY 1. Introductory, basic characteristics of Western thought

The development of Orthodox Apologetics vs the West in the 20th century Questions on the topic being examined The supplementary approach by fr. John Romanides Western utilitarianism and Hellenic ontological query The basis of Hebrew speculation Western utilitarianism Moral, historical and institutional utilitarianism Augustinian introspection The Augustinian basis of Psychology, Romanticism and Existentialism Consequences of utilitarianism on soteriology

Consequences of the perception of the Church's institutions

1. Introductory, basic characteristics of Western thought There are many who believe that we have been influenced by Western theology. Of course this is something that is easily verified - it has been verified - except that the problem per se begins afterwards, during our attempts to determine what that influence was, what it consists of, in what Western theology differs to Orthodox theology, and of course in what areas and to what extent that influence has reached. Generally speaking, the distinction between East and West is something that was stressed in recent years, and chiefly by the Slavophiles in Russia. Slavophiles are a group of theologians of the previous century in Russia (whose main representative was Alexei Khomiakov, a lay theologian), who had reacted chiefly against the innovations that Peter the Great had imposed in Russia, and who had oftentimes excessively stressed that the spirit of the West and the spirit of the East -as they had named it- differ greatly between them (and that this difference renders these two magnitudes irreconcilable). What they tried to show was that "Eastern" which they related to "Orthodox" and to Orthodox Tradition and "Byzantium"- was far superior to "Western". In other words, it was not an attempt to merely differentiate between these two mentalities, it was in fact a comparison, an evaluation of the two, a case of clear-cut apologetics in favour of Orthodoxy and opposed to the West. This happened in Russia. We here in Greece never became aware of this movement. The group of Russian theologians who departed after the Communist revolution of 1917 - the exiled ones, who had gone to Paris mostly and had founded Saint Serge's - had carried with them all this Eastern theology (as it came to be called), which, now planted in the heart of the West, in Paris, gave rise to a contradiction with the West and brought to the fore certain elements that we in Greece had not noticed, because our theology here had basically followed those confessional dogmatics which had Western influences. It had infiltrated academic theology through Zikos Rossis, Christos Androutsos and the like. The differences between Orthodoxy and the West in these dogmatics were objections related to Roman Catholics, based on arguments that we would take from the Protestants, and objections related to the Protestants based on arguments that were taken from the Roman Catholics. That was mostly how our theology evolved. This dilemma (of "East" or "West") - this contradiction - was what we had not become aware of. In 1936, when the first meeting of the Orthodox schools of Theology was convened in Athens, this was the issue that was brought up, mainly because present at the meeting was Florovsky, and because the Russians had raised that question. Nowadays, everyone uses it - it is now a common term, ie, that "this is Western", "this is Orthodox"... And while we use these terms, one discovers that oftentimes, we don't know what we mean by them. What, then, is that which separates the "Western" from the "Eastern"? In this lesson, that is the question we shall try to shed some light on. What are the characteristics of Western theology as opposed to those of Eastern theology? In order to find out, we need to go back to the roots of Western thought. Therefore, from one aspect, we need to do some historical work and go back to the Past. With the help of the Past, we shall then take a look at the Present. By looking into the ecumenical movement, in which Western and Eastern Churches and theologians get together, we shall try to determine how those differences are set out, in what form, and, especially for Western theology which is

of interest here, to find out if there are any changes in it today, as compared to the Past, or not. These questions are most significant for our own self-awareness, and for our contemporary opus in regard to our relations with the heterodox churches. At this point, we need to make an observation. Father Florovsky stressed something that we must not forget: that inside the ancient Church, there somehow existed a legitimate differentiation between the Western and the Eastern, the Hellenic approach, because to the ancient Church, that is what denotes the East. Furthermore, father Florovsky notes that in order to have the fullness of the Church, it is imperative that we have a coexistence of both these types of approach. Having made that observation, we can now take a look at what the difference and the characteristics of Western theology are, and to what extent that theology can coexist and be connected within the catholicity of the Church, the way that father Florovsky wants it, with the Hellenic - the Eastern - theology, and from beyond which points the coexistence and composition of the two becomes impossible. In very broad lines, the phenomenon of Western thought, Western theology, made its appearance very early in time. Father John Romanides is inclined to see the beginning of these differentiations in the 9th to 10th centuries, with the appearance of the Franks; he is also inclined to name that entire era the "era of Romanity", in the sense of full unity of the Western and the Hellenic elements. Hellenes are Romans; Romans are Hellenes, therefore we have no differences up until that time. The Franks are the ones who created the problems. I believe that the differences began much earlier and are interwoven with what we could call "Roman mentality", which, despite the fact that - because of Byzantium - it is the continuation of the Roman Empire and partly of Roman civilization, and, despite the fact that the terms "Roman" and "Hellene" were recognized as equivalent meanings in Byzantium and later, nevertheless, Rome and especially the Latin-speaking Romans (ie, when Rome began to use the Latin tongue), had from the very beginning certain characteristics and certain stances towards matters, which differed greatly from the Hellenic stance. [COMMENT BY O.O.D.E.: We believe there is no substantial antithesis between what the evermemorable professor fr.John Romanides maintains, and what the Reverend Metropolitan of Pergamus, fr. John says. They in fact seem to supplement each other: For as long as Rome had held on to her Romaic-Hellenistic character, she did not present any signs of having lost her Romaic theological orientation. Not only that, but Rome actually proved to be an "Orthodox Fortress" against heresies. Her full Latinization was the first part of her decline, which however was completed by the Frankish/barbarian influence - a drama that was completed in the 9th-10th century, with the catalytic presence of the Franks. The first "tremors" were indeed felt earlier, but the Frankish earthquake was the event that essentially demolished the edifice.] Danielu wrote a very important book on the principles of Western theology, where he pinpoints certain characteristics of this (clearly Western) Romaic thought, which are different to the Hellenic one. One characteristic is that a western Roman always puts practical usefulness first, in every matter that might preoccupy him. A classic example to illuminate this is the following: We have a table in front of us. The fact alone that this table exists will immediately raise questions to a thinking person; he will not bypass it that readily. If that thinker is a Hellene, the problem that the table will pose for him will be: "I wonder what the nature of this table is? What is it that makes it what it is?" This is the famous ontological query of the ancient Hellenes. The ancient Hellene found himself standing in awe before Nature, which is why he posed such a question. This world around him that dazzled him: how is it explained? What is its principle? What is its meaning? So he sought from within and behind perceptible beings the reason (the "logos") of those beings. He placed the reason/logos of beings behind those beings, within the beings themselves, and thus worked his way to the meaning of essence and of nature. Subsequently, for a Hellene, the enquiry pertaining to this table would be: What is the essence, the nature of the table?

In order to comprehend the differences between civilizations - before we get to the Western one - we shall take a look at the Jewish way of thinking (which we can find mainly in the Holy Bible), which is also entirely different. If a Jew observes the table, he will not seek the reason/logos of the being in the essence or the nature of the table; instead, the question he will pose -and the issue that will preoccupy him- will be "Who created this table?" "Every house is built by someone, therefore the one who manufactured everything is God" and it cannot be otherwise. This is a purely Jewish conclusion - and it is a prerequisite. There cannot be a house that was not manufactured by someone. Thus, that which interests a Jew is "who made it?" Therefore on the question regarding the world, which is the question from which every thinking person begins, the Jew will presuppose a creator - a God - who made it. The Hellene will seek, within the beings and behind them - within the very principle of beings, whether in the idea or the essence - to find the reason ("logos") for the existence of the table. To the Jew, the reason for existence of the table is is found in the one who made it. These are the things that shape all of civilization: a different civilization, a different philosophy. There is also a third category: the one we could call "the Westerner's" - the Roman's (but not the "Rhomios" in the sense of the Hellene with his stance towards beings). The Roman (the Westerner) would not have been preoccupied with who made the table, or what the reason behind the being is - ie, what the nature of the table is. What would preoccupy him, is the basic usefulness of the table. To him, the essence, the ontological aspect, is that it is an object, which we can sit by, to eat or write. In other words, if a being does not have any practical significance, it will not preoccupy - it will not interest the Westerner. He will not even bother with the issue of "being". These three placements clearly exist in the roots of our civilization. And it is from these that many things can be explained in the Anglo-Saxon world; for example, the mentality behind: "Of what use is this? - It serves no purpose, so why should we bother with something that is not useful?" To the question whether this affects Theology, the answer is Yes, immensely. Even God Himself is approached with the question if He is useful to us or not. A prayer that brings no results - whether in my soul or in my life - is meaningless. What is important, therefore, is the quest for practical consequences. Tertullian himself infiltrated the West in general - albeit North African - and if one were to study him, one would definitely discern certain characteristic of the West in him. The first characteristic is the intense interest in morality, in praxis. When something is not expressed with praxis, it is as though it doesn't exist. With someone like a Platonic philosopher, who just sits and observes the movements of the stars and who sees God behind the harmony of the cosmos and in his view of all things, well, this kind of view is not one that stirs the Western man; it does not provide him with the meaning of Theology. The meaning of Theology is found in how religion can be translated into praxis - into morality. The second element, which is related to the first and may well spring from within it, is the immense interest in History. The Westerner seeks his own roots, in order to locate the presence of God within History. At this point, at least in Tertullian's time, we can actually see a relationship to Hebrew thought, because Hebrew thought also looks for God within History - in His works throughout History. There are many who assert that Tertullian is deeply influenced by the powerful presence of the Judean Christian Communities in Northern Africa at the time. Regardless, History always takes on a special meaning in the hands of the Westerners. History is the space in which not God's acts per se, but rather the praxes of mankind are what determine the course of events. Thus, therefore, a special kind of preoccupation (as in the case of morality) is created, in respect to man's actions in History.

Instead, therefore, of observing Nature in order to find God, he observes human works. The third element which is again linked to the aforementioned, is the significance placed by the Westerner on institutions. Everyone knows how the Romans had fervently cultivated organization and institutions. The science of Law is one of their creations. The Roman State placed a special significance on institutions and essentially depended on them. No other peoples had ever made such great achievements in the organizing of the State, like the the Romans had. And why exactly was that? Because they were interested in practical efficiency. And in order to have practical efficiency, you must utilize people within institutions that will determine the functionality of each individual, but also of all the people together. You cannot leave the individual to do what he wants, to think whatever he wants, to be satisfied with philosophizing on his own. There must be an organizing of society, and this organizing of society was cultivated extensively by the Romans, even more than the Hellenes. In the 5th century, the Roman State - that amazing edifice, that organized whole - began to show the first cracks and later on it collapsed. At the same time, its institutions collapsed, which had until then provided a sense of safety and security to the people. It is not an easy thing, imagining what it is like for institutions to collapse. Just imagine if today, Parliament here were to collapse, or the University - everything that gives us a sense of security for tomorrow. Everything is dependent on the functioning of the institutions. If those institutions begin to collapse for one reason or another, then we have a collapse, not only of civilization, but also of the individual, especially when he hinges his sense of security on those institutions. Thus, in the 5th century, the institutions break down. Normally, the West should have collapsed, both as thought as well as theology. But at that point in time, the West is saved by a major personage, who is regarded as its father: Augustine. And how does he save it? In the following manner: By introducing a new element, which in essence is also Western but had not yet been highlighted by anyone before him. What was that element? Augustine turned the collapsing Western man towards the self - towards the depths of a person's own self. Augustine was the first one in History to introduce introspection - the notion that there is a world inside us, an "I' that is worth studying and depending on. When everything around us is collapsing, we can always depend on that world that exists inside us. Augustine led the Westerner to that introspection. He is the first to write Confessions. And Augustine's Confessions are descriptions of his own personal experiences - something that had never been done in the East. In recent years (as we are now influenced by the West and the worst form of influence is unfortunately pietism, which has very subtly managed to disfigure us), we too have begun to notice the appearance of descriptions of spiritual and inner life. This is an element which had never appeared, throughout the age-old history of Orthodoxy. It hadn't appeared, even in ancient, classical Hellenism. Classical Hellenism did not turn inwardly; rather, it tended to immediately shed light on matters and was desirous of bringing out the history of the cosmos into the light. Augustine is the one who made the big turnabout, which is the root of Western civilization. I will briefly outline some of its predominant characteristics. First of all, the development of Psychology. The development of Psychology, which is the West's greatest achievement and reaching its apex with Freud, is precisely the evolution of introspection, which allows man to perceive even the darkest backdrops of his being: the pre-conscious, the un-conscious. Who can ignore Psychology nowadays? Psychology wouldn't exist, if it weren't for Augustine. Another very characteristic achievement - likewise a creation of Western thought in our civilization - is Romanticism. Romanticism is not the thing we so naively call "romanticism" in our day and age. That has nothing to do with the spirit of Romanticism. The spirit of Romanticism is far deeper than what they imagine, like for example when they say "he is romantic". It has nothing to do with that notion. The essence of Romanticism is the juxtaposing of the human self opposite Nature. The pondering is attributed to our perception of Nature - ie, either it is larger than us and is beyond us and therefore we are

obliged to be in awe of it, or, that we as individuals can elevate ourselves above Nature. This quest for the individual's disengagement from nature is an extremely central issue in the whole of Western culture and it can be traced back to the same principles: back to Augustine. Even Existentialism, one of the predominant philosophies, begins from the issue of juxtaposing the individual's freedom opposite the necessity called Nature, which of course essentially leads to nihilism - and more so, if it is an atheistic existentialism. But no-one can deny that this kind of pondering is extremely important, because it has to do with a person's freedom, and Nature always constrains Man's freedom. Consequently, all of this pondering goes back to - it has its roots in - that discovery that we could call the "I" of Augustine; it is observed even in the great statures of the West like Pascal, who was also nothing more than an expression of that spirit. This is where a thinker - who ponders about limitations and potentials, with the infinite and the finite element of the human essence - can reach, and where he will stumble. And this, is within the cultural framework. Now, should we wish to apply all the above to Theology, we would see that they beget some very interesting consequences. We mentioned that the characteristic of a Westerner was his preoccupation with praxis, with experience, and with efficiency in praxis. This led theology in the West to an over-stressing of morality. The question: "What does Man contribute towards his salvation? Something, or nothing?" created a serious problem in the West. (It had preoccupied the West but didn't preoccupy the East specifically, even though there was communion during that era, ie, the problem of Pelagianism and its juxtaposition to Augustine.) Do the works of Man create presuppositions for salvation or not? This was a problem that continued to torment the West; it even reached the time of the Reformation with the characteristic stance taken by Luther who is Augustinian and according to whom works do not provide salvation. This was a clear-cut antithesis to Pelagianism. But the strange thing here is that if this question is posed to an Orthodox, to a Hellene, he will be puzzled. He will not be able to reply. Why? Because the problem itself is foreign to him. What does that mean? That we Orthodox can assert that works are irrelevant to our salvation? That would be incorrect. On the other hand, can we say that our works do secure salvation for us? That would also be incorrect. But, by being under the pressure of Western pondering on this point, we have also developed in recent years a very dangerous situation, because when we say that Salvation is a synergy of God and Man, our entire ascetic tradition is overturned, inasmuch as it claims that "Man is not saved by his works. Only the Grace of God saves." However, on the other hand, if this is interpreted in a Lutheran or Augustinian way by denying synergy, it would be like saying thereafter that no matter what one does, it will be of no significance, and therefore, ascesis is meaningless. To us, ascesis is that bizarre thing that albeit meaningful - does not render salvation dependent on it. So, how can this be expressed in a form that would provide a reply to the Westerner's pondering? It cannot. Because he has molded that pondering on the basis of the question that points to what we mentioned earlier: "What does Man contribute towards salvation?" He wants to determine what Man's contribution is precisely. If he does not get an answer to that question, he cannot feel satisfied. He wants to see Man's praxis, and will have his attention focused on the functionality of moral praxes. This is a fundamental chapter of this type of influence. If we now take a look at the other characteristic that we mentioned, about institutions - about the significance that they place on institutions - the huge dilemma of Western theology that continues even to this day, is whether an intrinsic authority does or doesn't exist - a salvific authority, within the institutions of the Church and the sacraments. Because that is also where the issue with the Reformists - with the Reformation - was judged - and once again with Luther, because with Calvin we have another situation on this point. Anyway, the intrinsic authorities of the institutions there were overthrown. This is of great importance. Even the infallibility of the Pope, which was defined by a special clause in the 12th century, is precisely the culmination of this Western perception, i.e., that an institution contains an authority within itself and does not obtain it from anyone else. Once he is Pope, then he is the authority; once he is a bishop, he contains the institution within himself. Even the sacraments are words of Christ that transform bread and wine into Body and Blood. These institutive

words, by which Christ establishes the Sacrament, intrinsically contain salvific power - the power of transformation. Then along comes the antithesis in Western Man (it is the dilemma we mentioned previously) who asks: "How is that possible? For that salvific power to exist, the institution is not sufficient, because it must also involve the faith of the individual." So now, Protestants are constantly fighting with the Roman Catholics as to whether faith is necessary, and what faith does in the sacraments. then we Orthodox come along and we feel cornered, because what can we tell them? That the problem which was created, we solved by essentially accepting a Western position? So? If its interpretation were tackled Orthodoxically, would it be alright? The renowned principle of "ex opero operato".... We have, in other words, accepted that the sacraments (regardless of the worthiness or unworthiness of the officiator) contain the salvific power within them. The Protestant did not accept this, as it is a purely Roman Catholic position; however, we did accept it, because the opposite is worse for us; that is, to assert that it IS dependent on the worthiness of the officiator. Despite all this, an Orthodox interpretation is required here. For a Westerner, the question whether the institution per se has ontological content is a question that no-one can extract from his mind. We cannot have a Westerner and not have that question.

1.b Dostoevsky and Morality Translated from the publication of "Nea Efthini" vol. 3 - January 2011.

I cant say that Dostoevsky was a good or a happy person He was mean, corrupt and full of jealousy. His entire life he was a victim of passion, which would have made him ridiculous and miserable, if he had been less intelligent and less mean. In Switzerland, right before my eyes, he treated his servant so badly that the man revolted and exclaimed but I too am a human being! I remember the impression that those words gave me addressed to someone who always taught humane feelings to the rest of mankind. These words belong to Strachov, a man who knew Dostoevsky quite well (see Gerard Abraham, Dostoyevski), however, they were based on a misunderstanding: Dostoevsky never sought to teach kindness and humaneness to mankind. Dostoevsky was never a moralist; on the contrary, we could assert that in his overall opus he wittingly and systematically did nothing but battle Morality, to a provocative degree. However, we shouldnt rush into concluding from this, that Dostoevsky was a preacher of immoralism. Dostoevsky had the passion of truth. He had the power to penetrate human behaviour and reveal to us in the most dramatic (and convincing) manner that whatever Morality presents as moral is never purely good , and that man can never eliminate evil with Morality, given that absolutely noone can be purely good. Furthermore, throughout his entire opus he never ceased to preach that what mattered in human existence was not morality, but freedom; and that only that which is free is truly good. What Dostoevsky wants to convey to people is that to classify people as good and bad is based on a lie and that the only way to defeat evil is for one to freely take it upon himself. Dostoevsky is not an immoralist(*), given that he never ceases to describe evil as a tragic state and a calamity for man; however, he is an amoralist(*), because he believes deep down that Morality can never lead to mans redemption from evil. In this homily, I shall try in the restricted time that I have at my disposal to analyze this position by focusing our attention on mainly two points: (a) on the matter of good and evil

and (b) on the matter of freedom. I will try towards the end to make a theological evaluation of Dostoevskys stance towards the problem of morality. The problem of good and evil The notion of Morality is based on discerning between good and evil as far back as the time of Socrates, who is regarded as its founder. As defined in all the contemporary dictionaries, the general study of good and the general study of proper practice constitute the main opus of morality (The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 1955, p.244). Without discerning between good and bad, the notion of morality collapses. This discernment usually takes on two forms. One form is the characterization of actions or sentiments, motives, dispositions etc., as good or bad. If one loves, either in his actions or his dispositions or intentions, then it is something good always according to the prevailing morality whereas if he hates, it is regarded as something bad. This is how the general principles of morality arose and always analogous to the cultural, religious, philosophical etc. prerequisites of every era and every society. The other form that the discerning between good and bad takes is the characterization of Persons as good or bad. In the Anglo-Saxon morality of recent years, which also influenced the mentality and the culture of our own societies, this form of discernment between good and bad people led to the appearance of the notion of character. The character is the subject, on which are engraved certain qualities good or bad ie., it is the subject of morality. The notion of character is especially implemented in art in fact, in literature, in stories, the theatre etc., (for example, we call characters the heroes of a literary work). Both at a level of general principles of morality, as well as of characters, Dostoevsky persistently refuses any discernment between good and bad; in other words, he denies the very basis of morality. At the level of general principles Dostoevsky regards love as the supreme moral value: The main thing is to love others like yourself; that is everything nothing else is necessary, he had written at one time. And yet, it was impossible to separate it from hatred. He writes characteristically in the Underground one of his early and soulstirring works: I went so far, as to reach the certain conclusion that love literally consists of the strange right to torment the one you love. During my musings in the Underground I imagined love like a fight that begins with hatred and ends in moral subservience. For this reason, the strange conclusion is for Dostoevsky the amazing truth which he expresses with the complaint: In my hatred for the people of our land there is always a nostalgic agony: why cant I hate them without loving them?... and in my love for them was a nostalgic sorrow: why cant I love them without hating them? These words come like a bulldozer, that tears down any clear discernment between good and bad even at the level of the highest moral value, which even for Dostoevsky himself is love. What can one say thereafter about the other moral values, which are relative and change from era to era? Good and bad never become disconnected; they never part, under any circumstance. To Dostoevsky, this applies not only at the level of moral values, but also with persons. All of Dostoevskys heroes are simultaneously good and bad. The notion of a moral character is nonexistent in Dostoevsky. We need only to pause at his most important and extensive work, the Brothers Karamazov, which involves a wide range of characters, from every social stratum and psychological type: from the old debauched father Karamazov to the ascetic son Aliosha, the other son, Ivan the intellectual atheist, to the monk Zosima, the masochist Lisabeta, to the carnal Grushenka. The underlying cause for the unfolding of this story was the strange circumstances behind the murder of old Karamazov, which proves that morally guilty are practically all of his sons not only the actual murderer, but also those who albeit de facto innocent had let their hearts develop criminal intentions. In this work, almost every main character commits some crime or other perhaps not in actions, but certainly in

thoughts. Even Aliosha is not lacking in guilt, given that he didnt succeed in averting or preventing the crime. For Dostoevsky, the problem is not a moral one, but a profoundly existential one. Man every man is a mixture of cunning and simplicity, chastity and lust, kindness and meanness. Dimitri says: I was a scoundrel, and yet, I loved God Good and evil are in a monstrous coexistence within man. The Grand Inquisitor is impressed by this contradiction in people: corrupt people are often good-natured; criminals are tender and sensitive, puritans and moralists are callous and crueleveryone is equally capable for good and for evil. This realization, that each person is bad and simultaneously good, abolishes Morality and presents Dostoevsky as a nihilist: this is human nature, it cannot be healed with anything, evil permeates goodness, non-being traverses existence. Thus, Nietzsche will find in the person of Dostoevsky his great teacher, the prophet of his nihilism. But we need to pause here carefully. Is Dostoevsky truly a nihilist? What is the deeper meaning beneath his anti-moralist anthropology? The first significant observation is that by demolishing morality which differentiates people into good and evil, Dostoevsky undermines the arrogance of humanism, which believes that with morality, it can eradicate evil from the world. In this manner, Dostoevsky theologizes Patristically: the salvation of man cannot come from man himself, but only from God. Secondly, by recognizing in every person the coexistence of good and evil, Dostoevsky invites everyone to refrain from censuring other people and concentrate their interest and their care on their own sins. That way, they simultaneously attain repentance and love. Dostoevsky thus moves within the spirit of the Gospel, but also of the neptic Fathers (grant me, O Lord, that I might see my own trespasses, and not pass judgment on my brother a prayer by Saint Ephraim) Thirdly and most importantly, the mixture of good and evil that characterizes human nature does not necessarily lead to nihilism. Most revealing are the details that Dostoevsky describes in his work The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. In there, after realizing that everything in a persons life is a mixture of opposites (good-bad, logical-illogical), the hero of the story becomes deeply shaken and his very faith in existence is also shaken: Suddenly, he says, I felt that I was totally indifferent if the world existed, or if it never existed; I began to feel with all my being that nothing existed. At first I thought that many things had existed in the past, but then I realized that nothing had ever existed in the past either only that I had imagined it existed, for some reason. I slowly came to understand that neither in the future will anything exist. This nihilism could only lead to suicide. The hero of the story indeed decides to kill himself. However, just when he was about to execute his plan, a scared and trembling little girl that seemed desperate for some reason, asked for his help; and that ridiculous man changes his plan. That which made him find some meaning to his otherwise senseless existence was his meeting with the Other. It is the Other who provides him with the transcendence of nihilism. Dostoevsky takes us to the edge of the precipice, but doesnt leave us in the void. That which cannot be doubted is the existence of the Other. This existence of the Other which gives meaning to existence is neither the virtues nor the malices of the Other (that is, his morality); it is his existence, and his existence alone. Morally speaking, the Other is an illogical thing a mixture of opposites of good and evil. It would be ridiculous to approach him as a moral hypostasis. Only his existence bared of every moral characteristic gives meaning to our own existence also. If there is any worth in our existing, in not committing suicide, in not making fools of ourselves, it is because the Other exists.

But for Dostoevsky, the Other (as presented in the Dream of a Ridiculous Man) is not a mere hypostasis, a being. It is a suffering existence. That is the particular characteristic of Dostoevskyan existentialism. For Dostoevsky, the transcendence of nihilism which is what gives meaning to our existence is the acceptance of affliction. For Dostoevsky, there is one and only one choice for man, instead of suicide. Ivan Karamazov expresses it, with the dilemma: either the cross or the noose. Tomorrow he says the cross, but not the scaffold. No, I shall not hang myself. I could never commit suicide. And as the devil said to Ivan people suffer, but they live; they live an actual life, not an imaginary one, because it is life when you suffer. For Dostoevsky, suffering and passion have a metaphysical content; there is a kind of metaphysics of suffering. Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment kneels before Sonya and kisses her feet, saying: I have kneeled, not before you, but before all of suffering mankind. And Zosimas explains that he kneeled before Dimitri Karamazov, with the following words: Yesterday, I knelt before all that he (Dimitri) was going to suffer. This metaphysics of suffering gives rise to a question: Could it finally be - for Dostoevsky that the Cross is the ultimate, the loftiest Good? Is it possible that we have here a morality of the Cross, in which suffering is given an eschatological hue, itself becoming a part of the Kingdom of God or even the life itself of the Holy Trinity something like the Suffering God by Moltmann? A trend such as this appears to exist in the Russian tradition and is even perhaps a part of the Russian soul itself. We find this in the theological thought of Bulgakov or even in the reposed Elder Sophrony of Essex. Could this be true of Dostoevsky also? Others, better versed in Dostoevsky, will have to answer that question. Personally speaking, it is my opinion that while the Cross and suffering are, to Dostoevsky, the only, real and undoubted reality in human existence, the only antidote to the absurdity of the morality which ignores the illogical coexistence of good and evil within the same person, nevertheless, to the Russian author, this is not the ultimate metaphysical good. The ultimate metaphysical good is for him the transcending of suffering, and not suffering itself. The Cross is the only true reality in existence, but it is not also the ultimate one. At the end of the section titled The trials of a soul in the Brothers Karamazov, Dimitri sees a terrifying dream. In the charred remnants of a burnt-down village, a peasant woman is trying to flee and save herself, and by her side is an infant that is suffering from hunger and is trying to breastfeed from its mothers dried-up breast. Then Dimitri writes Dostoevsky felt a sudden pang of pity, that he had never felt before, rising into his heart and making him want to cry, to do something for all those people, so that the infant would cry no more, its somber, bony-thin mother no longer weep, and so that tears would no longer exist from now on. That is how Dostoevsky envisages an ultimate good, beyond the suffering. The Cross must be overcome, by the Resurrection. Pain has no place in the Kingdom of God. Love embraces suffering, not to give it any metaphysical content, but in order to convert it into joy. Dostoevsky doesnt state it, but he implies it: the Divine Eucharist is the foretasting of joy, not sorrow not even of joyous sorrow. We mentioned earlier that Dostoevskys heroes are a mixture of good and evil and that we would be searching in vain to find someone morally perfect among them. Suffering is the only truth, by which (upon accepting it in the person of the Other) we transcend nihilism and comprehend that it is worth existing. But beyond all that, that which gives meaning to existence is the Resurrection. So, does our religion truly say that all of us will rise up from the dead and live again, and see each other again? -Without a doubt we will be resurrectedand we shall joyously, happily tell each other everything that happened Aliosha replied.

- Oh, how wonderful it will then be, Kolia blurted out. - And now, let us be done with words, and lets sit at the table of the condolence meal here we go, going hand in hand. The Resurrection, the table of the Eucharist, the communion of love: behold Dostoevskys noblest good. That was the culmination of his last and greatest work. Perhaps if he had lived longer, he would have described the Kingdom with the same eloquence as he had described the Cross in human existence. The problem of freedom If good and evil constitute a combination within human existence, it is attributed to one and only reason, according to Dostoevsky: that the greatest power which governs and directs human existence is freedom. How, therefore, did all those wise men ever imagine asks the hero of Underground that a person has the need to desire something in a logical and beneficial manner? Man needs only one thing: for his will to be entirely independent, regardless what that independence will cost him and regardless how many negative consequences that will entail. Dostoevsky links that thirst for freedom by man directly to the problem of morality. Says the hero of Underground once again: I think the best definition of man is the following: a two-legged, ungrateful being. But that is not all. That is not his greatest flaw. His greatest flaw is his persistent immorality. A persistence ever since the Deluge and up to our time. Immorality, and subsequently irrationality; because we have known for years and years now, that irrationality is born only out of immorality. Just take a look at History there is only one thing that you cannot assert: that man is governed by logic And behold what one encounters every time: people appear in the world who are very moral, sensible, wise and philanthropical, whose goal in life is to become if possible prudent and moral. One would say they want to be useful as an example to their neighbour and to show him that we can actually live morally and prudently as people. But what happens afterwards? It is a proven fact that sooner or later, many of those philanthropists at the end of their life disprove themselves and leave their selves behind them as material for anecdotes very detrimental ones sometimes. For Dostoevsky, logic and morality are interlinked, and both of them together conflict with freedom: Oh gentlemen, asks the hero of Underground, what kind of will can I therefore have, when everything is just a chart, mathematics, and two and two equals four? So, whether I like it or not, two and two equals four Can that be called will?. For Dostoevsky, the subservience of freedom to logic and morality is not only impossible; it is also useless and detrimental for man. That two and two equals four is not life any more; it is the beginning of death, says the hero of Underground. For Dostoevsky, freedom is that which distinguishes man from animals. Ants have an amazing infrastructure unique in kind: the anthill. Those formidable ants began with an anthill and will surely finish there a fact that affords them great honour for their perseverance and their positive spirit. But a human beingwhich, like a chess player that loves only to play and not the purpose of the game... is only interested in life itself, and not its purpose. It is worth pausing here a little, because these last words reveal something important to us: the difference between ontology and morality. If we replace the word life with the word being or existence, then for one to be interested in the "being" and not in the purpose of "being", is equivalent to regarding the "being" as the loftiest and ultimate good, and not as

the means towards some moral purpose. If we place this in the framework of theology, the opportune question as to the purpose of the divine incarnation is whether Christ came to make us better people, moral etc., or to make us exist. All of Western tradition sees the Incarnation as a means towards the moral perfection of mankind, whereas the Greek Fathers of the Church focus the purpose of the Incarnation on the transcendence of death as a threat to mans being (Athanasius). Freedom is to Dostoevsky an ontological and not a moral issue: man is not interested in how he will utilize his existence or how he will improve it, but only in his very existence itself. That is why (like in the case of Kyrilov in the Demon-possessed but also in other instances) Dostoevsky pushes the matter of freedom to its existential extremes: freedom means to either accept existence as a gift by Someone (God), or deny your own existence (commit suicide), if you want to not accept God (in other words, by making yourself God). Everything in Dostoevsky is played out at an ontological and not a moral level. Man does not want to sacrifice the "being" for the sake of a "well-being". And by Christ giving him freedom not bread or power or easy living and thus scandalizing the Grand Inquisitor in the familiar scene of the Brothers Karamazov he shows respect for that God-given desire of man. But even with the Fathers of the Church for example Saint Maximus the purpose of existence is not merely being; it is well-being. Freedom includes the rejection or the acceptance of being - of existence itself. However, if by exercising his freedom man chooses being instead of non-being (that is, suicide or nothingness), what he does choose is for Dostoevsky nothing more than the ultimate irrationality; in other words, suffering and passion. He mentions again in the Underground: so why are you convinced that man only needs that which is normal and positive and that only bliss is useful for man? You say that man loves only bliss? But he may love pain just as much. And pain may be just as useful to him as bliss Pain? But pain is also the only cause for awareness Awareness is far above the two and two equals four As backward as that may seem, surely it (pain) is worth more than the nothing. To avoid that nothing, that non-being or suicide, one must choose pain in lieu of being. Dostoevsky gives one the impression that he is a masochist: Is pain really a good thing? The notions of good and evil have no place. That which interests Dostoevsky is whatever is real, not whatever is moral. The truth is, all of existence is permeated with pain. What preoccupies Dostoevsky intensely is the existence of pain and in fact unfair pain, the way we see it in little children who cry and despair, without being culpable in any way. This is the pain that man is called upon to embrace and make his own, if he does not wish to choose non-being, or nil. But, when man does choose pain in lieu of being, he does not make a compulsory choice. Then, and only then, is he truly exercising his freedom. And then, only then, does freedom identify not with nil but with love. Dostoevsky thus becomes the theologian of love. According to the words of the Elder Zosimas, true love is to make yourself responsible for all human beings and for the entire world. It doesnt take much effort for one to discover these ideas by Dostoevsky in the Person of Christ. Dostoevsky theologizes without saying he does and he theologizes in an Orthodox way, in accordance with the tradition of the martyrs and the saints. Let us summarize his thought, in the light of theology. Dostoevsky fights against morality for one reason alone: because, like logic, it deprives man of his most significant characteristic thanks to which he differs from animals that is, freedom. This is mans in the image of God an image that cannot in any way be erased. Man will always yearn for freedom, regardless how many benefits logic and morality may offer him.

Freedom is not for Dostoevsky that which prevailed as a definition in western philosophy, namely, the choice between good and evil. A choice like that is ridiculous in Dostoevskys mind, because good and evil are both mingled in the human existence. Freedom is an ontological thing; it is to reject that very existence of ours. If man, by exercising his freedom rejects existence, he has no other choice except suicide. If, on the other hand, he accepts existence, then he has no other choice than to accept it the way it is: that is, as an (irrational) suffering, as a Cross. That is exactly what happened with the Incarnation of the Lord. Acceptance of the Cross signifies identifying with all those who suffer, an undertaking of responsibility for all of the pain in Creation and identifying thus, to the death. Only then does redemption come from evil, and not through morality and logic: only with selfsacrificing love. It is not about masochism, because it is not about the self-satisfaction of a sacrificed one. It is the realization that the only path to defeating evil and death itself is for one to voluntarily sustain them both, and even then, for the sake of the others. Thus, Dostoevsky not entirely perchance chooses as the frontispiece of his great work the Gospel quote: If the grain of wheat that falls to earth does not die, it will only lay there; but if it dies, it will bear much fruit. The Cross is not an end in itself. The ultimate purpose is the Resurrection. But one doesnt reach there except only by passing through the Cross. In this manner Dostoevsky exercises the most profound and convincing critique to western tradition, which had believed that through proper words and proper praxis (morality) and an effective organizing of the world it would eradicate evil. The entire 20th century with its wars and the horror of its inhuman behaviour proved how right Dostoevsky was, with this critique of his. His message was a prophetic one, and continues to be. Dostoevsky is, above all else, a theologian. He draws from the monastic mainly tradition of our Church, but also exudes the aroma of the Eucharistic Communion. However, we need to confess regrettably that some in our contemporary Orthodox Church with their theology often prove to have a preference for the logic and the morality of the Grand Inquisitor.

(*)Amoral means 'not concerned with morality' while immoral means 'not conforming to moral standards' or 'evil'.

2. Theology and Providence (Oekonomia) in Western thought Comments on Western mentality Institution and History Introspect Institutions and revolutions Romanticism Pietism and Moralism Experience and Sacraments Otherness in theology History and Theology Creation and Oekonomia Anthropomorphism due to Oekonomia Apophatism as the solution to anthropomorphism Dionysus the Areopagite misconstrued in the West

The experience of every people Phobia of Theology Confusing Theology and Oekonomia The 'Filioque' is the confusing of Theology with Oekonomia

2. Theology and Oekonomia in Western thought We examined the roots of Western thought, which are linked to Latin - to Latin-speaking theology. Latin-speaking theology made its appearance with the North African authors. First and foremost was Tertullian, followed by other, equally predominant ones, such as Cyprian and later, Augustine. The appearance of western theology is therefore linked mainly to the appearance of a language - a form of expression. This form of expression, this language, was not a simple matter of words; rather, it carried with it an entire mentality. And we have already pointed out those characteristics. The first characteristic is the concern for morality, for the praxis that was linked to the Roman perception in general, which always judged every single thing on the basis of its usefulness mostly on the basis of the result that its presence will incur - and not like the ancient Hellenes, who chiefly focused their interest on the principle of each thing that would explain its existence ontologically. We mentioned characteristically that the difference between a Roman and a Hellene - when in the presence of a table - will be for the Hellene to seek the nature of the item like a scientist (because science has its beginnings in Hellas), and to discover what makes it what it is, and not something else. He will pose the ontological question of "why is it?" or "Why is it not?" and "Why is it this, instead of something else?" These concerns do not preoccupy the Roman. (The distinction between Roman and Hellene is mine). The Roman will pose the question "Of what use is this table?" The reason/logos of its being is not sought in its nature; it is sought in its utilization. When we use this table, we can write on it, or we can combine it with other tables, in order to somehow organize its existence so that it will incur or render a certain result. To the Westerner therefore, the result is what is more important. As well as an overall faith in God. In Christ, in his entire religious experience, everything in his thought is linked automatically to usefulness - whether it is the subjective kind for the individual, or the objective kind, more broadly, for society. [RELATIVE COMMENT BY O.O.D.E.: We must again make a distinction here, about which 'Roman' we are referring to. The Roman identity - according to fr. John Romanides - had merged with the Hellenic one. The "Rhomioi" were nothing more than Hellenic-speaking and Hellenic-mannered descendants of the Romans. An image that helps to better understand this is that Romanity had the Roman as its "Father" and Hellas -the Hellenic civilization- as its "Mother". Thus, the antithesis that the Reverend John of Pergamon has presented here is essentially an antithesis between the Latin-speaking (but also Frank-influenced) 'Roman' and Romanity's 'Roman'. The former is merely a remnant (in name only) of the actual and dynamically evolving Roman identity. It is a "back-stepping" towards the idolatrous Roman identity. Apart from the aforementioned, it is worth noting that the question of usefulness but also of practicality has certain positive results in Theology also. The Psychotherapeutic nature of Orthodoxy, as stressed by fr. John, was one of the reasons that the Faith was adopted by the Romans: i.e., precisely because it also led to the improvement of conditions in society.] In the framework of this perception, we have the second element that characterizes Western thought, and that is the huge emphasis that it places on institutions. An institution is definitely the guarantee that one has for the usefulness of a certain object, and naturally, the notion of institution also embodies the notion of organization. When this table is placed within a framework combined with other objects, with another table, or a chair, then an

organized whole is created, and that is the beginning of institutionalizing - especially when one can extract a useful result from that whole. An institution therefore acquires central importance in Western thought. We need to also stress, that because of his practical placement and his interest in praxis, the Westerner, with his Roman, western mindset, looks to History as well as to the developments of History, in order to find the significance even behind religious experience and faith. History thus becomes extremely significant. Morality, institution, History, are the three basic elements that the Roman spirit carries inside it, from the beginning. It does not have to do with the Franks; it is far older. Western thought goes through a critical phase during the 5th century, precisely when the [OODE Note: WESTERN] roman empire collapsed; along with it, the [OODE Note: WESTERN] roman institutions also collapsed, and naturally, together with the people's trust in institutions. That was precise, critical moment that Augustine appeared. And Augustine made his mark on the course of Western thought, with the help of neo-Platonism. That is, he proposed that what is of importance is man's about-face, towards his inner self, towards the underlying self; that is, self-examination, introspect, and consequently the discovery of one's self, of one's underlying self, which thereafter leads Western thought to this day to its major accomplishments, its major characteristics. Psychology - chiefly with the form it took with in-depth psychology, is Historically unthinkable without Augustine. As we said, Augustine is the first in the West, but also the only one, because in the East there is no-one like him, who writes Confessions (because he sees the relationship with God through the prism of personal self-awareness). Conscience acquires a central significance - the meaning of 'person' has now become in the West the underlying self, which can think and has an awareness of others and of the self. Self-awareness now begins, which develops very quickly, even after the Enlightenment. In fact, all the in-depth psychology is the fruit of that new trend that Augustine started, which however also rescued the Westerner because he hinges on institutions. But institutions continue to survive - but still as a typical characteristic of Westerners - except that now, whenever institutions disillusion them or are depreciated and the people naturally lose their footing (because all institutions are subject to deterioration), they have the potential to seek a new form of institution, a new institution. They create revolutions and they change institutions. Revolutions are also a characteristic of Western man. It is characteristic, that revolutions in Europe take place wherever institutions are unable to survive. For example, in England there are no revolutions. England has a certain way of changing its institutions before they deteriorate and she thus survives - she does not undergo any revolutions. Revolution is a characteristic of the trust placed in an institution; in other words, we want to rely on the institution; we aren't satisfied with this one, so we make another; but we would never consider abandoning it altogether. Nevertheless, in the West there is also another outlet - the one provided by Augustine. And that outlet - of turning towards our inner self, into the dark compartments of the self, of the underlying element gave rise to Western thought to cultivate even greater achievements, which are familiar to us. And when we say "westerners", let us not fool ourselves! They are none other than us! We need only look at our literature, our poetry, our music: everything is western, because everything is linked to those achievements that the West has been drawing over the ages, because of the re-orientation that Augustine gave them. The topmost of those achievements (apart from politics, which we said was precisely the changing of forms and structures and institutions through revolutions) is of course Romanticism, which is also a major achievement of the West. Romanticism is that juxtaposing of a subject opposite Nature. The awareness of a preponderance of the one or the other is of no importance. Romanticism can produce admiration of the subject - man- and a subjugation, a depreciation of Nature. All these things infiltrate the Westerner's blood and theology is also carried away by them. Therefore, Romanticism, psychology, mysticism are the [OODE Note: WESTERN] Christian characteristics, which again are linked to a psychological impact, a psychological experience. Note again that we are Westerners here also to a large degree, because this suggestion by the subject's emotional experience has infiltrated our religious experiences. And it has infiltrated

mainly in the form of pietism, which again is the offspring of western thought, and which pietism -in the form of sentimentality- is the placing of man's relation to God at the level of the heart, i.e. of emotion - of the experience in this sense. The experience that we Orthodox stress so much is also an invention by Westerners. By studying all Westerners, that is what one can discern, and is able to see that the experience springs from there and is greatly linked to pietism. So the issue is what kind of experience we mean and also what we mean by the term 'experience', in order to juxtapose the Orthodox perception of 'experience' as compared to the Western one. Now, this mystical experience is, precisely, the result of the turnabout to Western thought which Augustine had introduced. This examination of my own self, the awareness of experiences and pietism, can take on the form of moralism, to which the experience and the praxis of the individual is always linked. What the individual does is what determines everything. That is why the West eventually took certain dilemmas to a theological level - why they are perpetually within a theological speculation. One dilemma for example would be whether the experiential or even the moral experience and reality of mankind or of one person has an effect on objective reality in religion. For example, how much unworthiness or moral worthiness or conscientious application of the minister affects the sacrament - the objective reality of the sacrament. As we have said, our Church has already solved this, by placing the principle of 'ex opero operato'; ie., that the sacrament is performed regardless of the worthiness of the officiator. In spite of this, Western mentality has not abandoned us entirely, which is why the issue is always raised inside us, if not in the form of doubt, then certainly in the form of a question: How is it possible for an unworthy clergyman to perform sacraments? How can we accept such a thing? Of course we do reach the point of doubting the sacrament itself, because the dogma we mentioned hinders us; however, what does preoccupy us, is precisely the dilemma that perpetually preoccupies Western theology. And it was Protestantism naturally that posed the dilemma very acutely, with faith in the form of a prerequisite for ecclesiastic reality. Faith was always understood in the West in that form of a personal experience - a personal, conscientious stance. Consequently, if someone, either for various reasons, or because in certain circumstances they cannot consciously live their faith, the question is immediately posed: "What now?" Let's say for example that we have a Eucharist community, in which everyone is absentminded at the time, and no-one is praying, no-one has a conscious stance; absentminded, because as we mentioned, a person cannot always focus consciously- either because of circumstances, because the priest is illiterate and everyone is illiterate and are unaware of what the texts are talking about - then where is the reality in the sacrament? For a Westerner, this is actually an immense problem. But why doesn't it constitute a huge problem for an Easterner? That is one of the questions that has never been answered. These dilemmas are all based on the dilemma that Augustine had created, with the intensity that he gave to the subject, and ever since then, if one wishes to see what is Western and what is not, they would have to pose all these questions together. But we should not believe that we Orthodox are rid of Western influences. When characteristics such as the ones mentioned acquire with us a sense of criterion, then we most assuredly are subservient to the Western spirit. From here on, we will embark on a more specific application of these characteristics, in various sectors of theology. These sectors we can describe, approximately as follows: One is the sector of Western Theology in the ancient classical sense of the word pertaining to God. How does the Westerner tend to render the word pertaining to God, and how does an Easterner? In practice they can't be told apart - they are blurry. But at any rate, we can say that in the Hellenic Fathers we do not have a Western spirit. In the contemporary Orthodox however, I believe we cannot assert this. The word pertaining to God is one chapter; the word pertaining to Christ is another chapter, which is closely linked to the word pertaining to God; in Ecclesiology it is another chapter and of course another one in morality and in practice, in everyday life. We shall begin with a brief examination of the word pertaining to God. And first of all, the

meaning of the term "theology" - the word pertaining to God - is per se a meaning that can be utilized in two ways. Naturally, we cannot speak of a word pertaining to God outside of a revelation by God, which is given to us 'in Christ'. And when we say 'in Christ' we mean within History, within the incarnate Logos, the incarnated Son. Consequently, one could say that the starting point is always the observation of the acts, the energies of God within History and chiefly the act and energy of God in History which is the incarnation of the Son. Thus, theology begins from History. One could say that this matches the characteristic that we already mentioned, of the western man, who always looks to History in order to find God, to find the meaning of all things. It is therefore a characteristic of western man, that he gives the Person of Christ - of the historical Christ - the importance of a central and a starting place for theology. We should not have serious objections at this point, but we should observe the subtle difference that immediately appears when we wish to speak of God beyond History, beyond the historical Christ. Straight away here we have the problem that became known during the Patristic era, through the discernment between theology and providence (oekonomia). "Providence" is of course God's making provision with His acts within History, and especially with the mystery of the Incarnation. When we say oekonomia (providence), we mean the Son's providence, to which the presence of the Holy Spirit is of course also linked. But all these take place at a Historical level, and History in the broader sense includes Creation, from the time that the world was created; ever since the appearance of that "something else" which is not God, it is from then on that we have providence. Within providencewe have Creation, as well as all the beyond-God occurrences by God. It brings into existence all of Creation, which has been given one sole purpose by God: to come into communion with Him - to attain that relationship with God, that will allow the creature to acquire divine properties, not by its nature, but from that relationship that it has with God. From the moment that the purpose God had instilled in His creation was shaken and disorganized on account of Man's fall, it was from that moment on that oekonomia (providence) took on a specific form, leading to the Incarnation, the Sacrifice, the Cross, the Death and the Resurrection of Christ, the advent of the Holy Spirit and pursuantly of the Church - through to the End of Time and throughout the entire course of History, of salvation; this is what we call "oekonomia" (providence). We can of course go beyond this oekonomia and speak of God, not without any reference to this oekonomia, but as something else, which doesn't entail oekonomia. In oekonomia, God manifests Himself to us in a manner that "imposes" upon God certain restrictions and certain special relationships with His creations. The Incarnation itself is one such special relationship. It entails a self-vacating; in other words, God "suffers" the consequences of being a creation; the consequences of History that He does not suffer by nature. He doesn't hunger, He doesn't get tired, He doesn't thirst, He doesn't die. And yet, in the case of oekonomia, the word pertaining to God -Theology- contains ideas that are truly scandalous: God dies, God eats and drinks, God gets weary. This Theology (that is based on oekonomia) is obliged to fully cover the word pertaining to God, within that cadre of historical reality in which God has inserted Himself - or even before the Incarnation - given that it is God Who speaks and Man listens and obeys. All of the Old Testament presents God as speaking, becoming enraged, and so many other things. Given that God has involved Himself in His creation in whichever manner, either from a distance or with the Incarnation, it is necessary for the word pertaining to God to use these anthropomorphic references and expressions. But, to what degree is this legitimate and to what point can we take it? Because the danger here is for theology to end up anthropomorphic and for us to transpose into the word pertaining to God those categories and situations that belong to creations. This danger had been foreseen by Patristic theology in its Hellenic aspect, and had proceeded to do two things that the West had never comprehended correctly. The one thing was that which Dionysios the Areopagite had done, and all that apophatic tradition. In other words, he wanted that apophatic tradition to stress that the word pertaining to God that was drawn from oekonomia (providence) is always defective and cannot be extended into Theology

proper. Of course, what Hellenic Patristic tradition did before anything else, was to distinguish between oekonomia (providence) and theology. It made that distinction, and it alone was a very important thing. But if it were to remain devoid of any content, it would be meaningless. What was the content that they gave it? One content is that of apophatism, with which Hellenic Theology demonstrates the deficiencies and the dangers of the word pertaining to God, which is based solely upon oekonomia (providence). Thus, apophatic theology is not only a challenge for us to go beyond what the presence of God gives in oekonomia (providence) and in Creation, but to actually presuppose that God exists and the word pertaining to God must take place even before any reference is made to oekonomia (providence), and independent of oekonomia. In other words, God is Who He isn't, and that there can be a word pertaining to Him in a manner that does not include those elements that oekonomia (providence) gives us on God. In Western theology, this negativism - this apophatic theology - took on the meaning of negative theology. This is obvious, from the utilization by Dionysios the Areopagite. His writings were given a central place in Western Theology during Medieval times. They were translated and developed by the Scholastics. It was with this dilemma almost - ie, between the obscure object, the spirit, on the one hand and objective reality on the other - that Dionysios the Areopagite was placed in the ranks of the mystics, in the sense of Western mysticism. And the sense of Western mysticism includes the characteristic of the unknown in the manner that psychology also perceives clearly as obscure - as that which does not come to light. These are in essence the Augustinian roots. Thus, we have the appearance of the apophatic tradition of the Dionysian works as though they were a mysticism of the unknown, of the obscure, in which we place God and assert that is where He is - inside that unknown, that obscurity. That is not what we are talking about. That is not the intention of the Hellenic Patristic thought. Lossky, with all his polemics against the West, presented this to us in his most important book, titled "Mystical Theology". Naturally this sold millions of copies in the West of the Eastern Church, because they immediately took it in the sense of mysticism as understood by them. However we do wonder, because Lossky indeed has information in there, which allows for such an interpretation of Dionysios. And those subtle distinctions are those that escape us. Nowadays, 95% of the Orthodox are influenced by Lossky. I am not indulging in polemics against Lossky, nor do I share their views on everything they impute to him. It is that generally speaking, the meaning of apophatism was wrestled with and eventually put aside. Behind this misconstrual was hidden a misunderstanding of Dionysos, which sprang precisely from the influence of Western mysticism and Western thought. One more parenthesis. We must eventually embark on an in-depth study of Slavic theology, in order to see what Slavic characteristics of Christianity differ to the Greek ones, and to the [OODE note: Western] Roman ones. We must not forget - it is extremely important that we be aware - that catholicity of the Church is nonexistent, if tomorrow there develops an African theology - or needs to be developed - with its own particular characteristics. Each peoples contribute their own way of thinking, when experiencing and expressing the mystery of God. Thus, Lossky sought to identify apophatism with that unclear - that unknown element which nowadays leads many Greeks who, on account of a lack of intellectual gratifications, see it as: "don't talk about God - we shouldn't talk - we should keep our mouth shut". Does that mean all the Fathers who spoke about God were mistaken in doing so? Or, there is the other, safer argument: "They were Fathers; they spoke up. Now, we shouldn't." And there are many who use Lossky for that apophatism, in the sense that: "we do not talk about God, we do not talk about the meaning of the Trinity, or the Person of God. All these are an abyss, they are obscure topics." These are not at all in the spirit of Dionysios, however, but we do at least enter the Christian mentality precisely through that window of the obscure compartments of the soul, which Augustine had inserted in the thought centre. However, this is something that cannot

possibly be conceived by a Hellene, as Kanellopoulos observes very astutely in the section of his "History of the European Spirit" that deals with Augustine; a Hellene would hasten to bring everything to the light; things cannot remain in the dark; he does not stress this kind of view, or the preoccupation with the subconscious and conscience - he wants to bring everything out in the open. Dionysios is naturally not along those lines. But he is placed there - we place him there - precisely because the Westerner interprets apophatism as that dark, secret thing - a thing about which we know nothing. Matters like this need careful attention. Our theology today has been distorted by things like these. It is not that unknown thing - that non-essential thing - that theology desires to lead us to contradict oekonomia (providence). [RELATIVE COMMENT BY OODE: It should be noted that it is not a matter of whether the Fathers or we nowadays can speak of God; that is, it is not a matter that has to do with Time, inasmuch as they could then, but we can't now. It is first of all a "qualitative" matter. We need to examine WHO it is that speaks of God. The one who speaks of God must have attained enlightenment and theosis (deification), in order to have the necessary experience of what he speaks of. If a blind person were to speak of the Sun, then whatever he may say cannot be reliable. As Saint Simeon the New Theologian says: "For what could there be more unclean tell me - than to teach with arrogance and pride, attempting things of the Spirit without the Spirit? What could be more profane than the one who is unrepentant and has not cleansed himself previously, but having put this aside, and with only his pseudonymous knowledge and external wisdom, has endeavoured to theologize, and to audaciously discuss things that be, and likewise that eternally be?" (Theologikos, 1,271-277, S.C. 122, 116) This, therefore, is the direction that Western thought takes, when it wants to bypass the factor of oekonomia (providence) in its word pertaining to God. The other one is the reverse - the opposite - (and it is what Western theology is also suffering from nowadays), ie., to draw oekonomia (providence) overall into its theology. We will mention some of the characteristics of today's Western theology, which however have their roots far deeper, and again, in Augustine. Strangely, what is observed in Augustine is the composition of antitheses, and for this reason [.....original Greek text missing).....] the projection into the eternal God of the realities of oekonomia (providence). Characteristic of today's Western theology is - for example - Rahner in the Roman Catholics' sphere, who begins with the following postulate: In oekonomia (providence), God reveals His genuine self, therefore, God - the Triadic God - the Holy Trinity of oekonomia (providence) is the same as the eternal Holy Trinity. And this is reversely true, says Rahner: that the God of oekonomia is the eternal God. What does this signify, and what are its consequences? The consequences here are that the Triadic relations that we observe in providence (oekonomia) are exactly the same as those that exist in the eternal God; in theology, even before oekonomia (providence). From this, another important consequence can be discerned, which separates East and West. It is the renowned "Filioque". The Filioque is based precisely on this confusion between theology and providence (oekonomia). In other words, it is clear to us that in oekonomia, the Spirit is given to us by Christ. Latin theology renders the meaning of the term "proceeding from" with the same word that it used when translating the verb "giving" and "sending", ie : "procedere". This can be seen in Ambrosius, but without any heretical hue. Westerners quite simply were not able to distinguish between two meanings, ie.: the meaning of providentiallly "sending" and "giving" (in oekonomia) on the one hand, and the eternally "proceeding from" on the other. This was a distinction that was made by the Hellenic side. Cyril of Alexandria had also said certain things that rather clearly contained the notion of the Filioque. Theodoretus stood up and said that they were heretical words. If Cyril had implied that in oekonomia (providence) the Spirit is dependent on the Son, then it was alright. If he implied it in the eternal sense, then we do not accept it. What has to be stressed however, is that the West always had the tendency to project the experiences of the reality of providence in its theology - its word pertaining to God. Perhaps in the past because it couldn't do otherwise, but later on, after things had been elucidated, it is clear that Western theology had clung to that tendency.

There is yet another form, by which the Filioque again supports itself; by which this confusion between oekonomia (providence) and the psychological experiences that come from the energy, the presence of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in History (in oekonomia) is brought on, and which (confusion) it has transferred intact into the eternal Trinity and thus once again supporting the Filioque, in there also. Rahner, therefore, is also basing the Filioque on the same syllogism, hence the entire West's inability to rid itself of this confusion. It persists in History; it persists in transfusing historical realities into the eternal God. Another one who is doing this in the Protestant sphere nowadays (and unfortunately, many Hellenes haven't noticed it as much as they should) is Mortman, who has gone as far as projecting into the eternal existence of God even those situations of anguish, of passion, of the Cross - as seen in oekonomia (providence). And that is how he speaks of the suffering God. The word pertaining to God must definitely NOT be the same as when we speak of God beyond oekonomia (providence). God must be free in His nature, in His existence, of all those things that He has willingly desired to undertake by means of providence (oekonomia). Western theology is always taking risks by depriving God of that freedom, by asserting that all the things that happened through providence (oekonomia) were the natural consequences of God's existence. God revealed Himself to us, the way He has always been. That is the power behind the logical postulate. Since He reveals Himself the way He is,and since what we see is what we see, therefore what we see is both what was, and what is.

G. WESTERN THEOLOGY 2.b Sickness and healing in Orthodox Theology

How does Orthodox Theology imply - and how should the Church understand - "sickness" and "therapy", if not with the use of idealistic, physiocratic or psychological-utilitarian forms and notions? In our attempt to provide a reply to this question, let's borrow the following fundamental principles from Patristic theology: 1. Sickness - every form of sickness - is the consequence of man's Fall. This means sickness is linked to sin, and not to human nature and as such, it is not "natural" for man to become sick; it is in fact unnatural - it is "contrary to nature". At first glance, this appears to lead us to the state that we named "physiocratic" (ruled by nature) or "ideocratic" (ruled by ideas), where "therapy" and "cure" would seem to imply a conforming to nature. And yet, certain clarifications can draw us far away from every physiocratic perception. Given that man's origin is ex nihilo, his nature per se is convertible - in other words, it is prone to deterioration and death and consequently to sickness. However, even nature itself can transcend this tendency - not with any innate powers of its own, but only if united with the imperishable and eternal God. The transcending of this convertible and corruptible state which is intrinsic to human nature has been given to man as a "reason", as a final destination whose realization has been allocated to man's freedom as a person: the first man as a free person was called to direct nature - either towards itself or beyond itself, towards God. Adam - the first man - freely chose the first of the two (to turn nature towards itself), thus sickness as a natural possibility became a natural reality. It is no longer possible for human nature to not become sick; sickness became a "natural" phenomenon, not because it was an

unavoidable thing, but because that is where human freedom led matters. The consequences of this stance in the matter of therapy we hope will become apparent, further along. 2. Sickness - like sin - has now become a general and worldwide reality, which human freedom cannot retract, despite the fact that its appearance and its consolidation are attributed to it. And the reason for this is because with death (which entered existence and from a natural possibility became a natural reality), human nature was segmented and was no longer borne by each person in its totality, in its fullness. Thus, the personal freedom of one person does not influence human nature overall; consequently, not only do sinners become sick, but saints also. 3. Final, actual therapy - as a complete elimination of the sickness - is impossible and cannot be achieved by human nature, nor by human freedom. Deterioration and mortality are bequeathed biologically from generation to generation, and together with them, sickness also. To break that vicious circle, we believe -in theology- that external intervention was necessary; an intervention that for us was realized, in the Person of Christ, in Whom the joining of human nature to the divine (which was the first man's calling and destination) was realized without the passage through biological birth, which perpetuates deterioration and death and is something that is impossible for every post-Fall human. Christ is the only truly "healthy" Person - not because He is also God (as the notions of "healthy" or "sick" do not apply to God) - but because of His human nature, which is unaffected by any inherited deterioration, and permanently joined (voluntarily and freely) thanks to the hypostatic - the personal - union with God, He has transcended deterioration and death. Consequently, no therapy (as a true and radical elimination of sickness) can be considered without Christ. Therapy is possible, only as an incorporation in Christ - the only truly healthy human. It is not without significance that - for the Church - the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist has such a central importance for therapy, and the ascetic endeavours of human freedom do not suffice for one to become cured. 4. Nevertheless, human freedom continues to be the key to the proper understanding, both of the meaning of sickness and of therapy. Given that sickness passed into existence through human freedom, therapy and healing cannot but likewise pass through the same gateway. This was a secret that the ascetic Fathers of the Church were well aware of, which is why they placed so much importance on the exercising of human freedom as a liberating of oneself from passions. At this point, it is especially important to note what Saint Maximus has to offer us. Therapeutic axioms of Saint Maximus According to Saint Maximus, the quintessence of morbidity is found in self-love. Self-love is not simply a passion; it is the generative cause of all passions: Do you want to be free of passions? Then cast out the mother of all passions: self-love (Chapters on Love, II, I). As Photios faithfully analyzes Maximos' thought (Library of Codices 192 G 103, 637), selflove - which replaced the love towards God - gave birth to hedonism; but because hedonism was mingled with grief, man became entangled in an interminable and desperate attempt to hold on to hedonism and cast out the grief. It was from within this agonized attempt that the multitude of passions was born. And Photios explains Maximos' thought: That is, if we renounce the hedonism in self-love, we give birth to gluttony, to pride, to avarice, and to the things that hedonism provides by whichever means; and if we only flee from the grief in selflove, we give birth to anger, to envy, to hatred, to despair and to whatever else the grieving predisposition lacks. From the mixture of both are born: hypocrisy, flattery deceit, and quite simply, all other malicious things that are the fabrications of this mixed wiliness. In other words, if we renounce hedonism but retain self-love, we provoke gluttony, pride, avarice and everything else that provides hedonism in any way; and if we were to renounce and avoid grief but again preserve self-love, we provoke anger, envy, hatred, despair and

whatever else contains a deprivation of hedonism. If again we were to mix both of these together and avoid them (ie, both hedonism and grief) but still preserving self-love, we land in hypocrisy, flattery etc.. The conclusions are important. a. Cure from passions cannot be achieved through any direct struggle against the specific passions. On the contrary, as we noticed in the passage that I just read: in view of the fact that the problem per se of spiritual sickness is born of the deprivation of hedonism - always in conjunction with self-love - the more deprivation that we provoke, the more the passions that we give birth to. What does this mean? That, in order to be cured of passions, we need to allow passions to exist and to function? Of course not. But, it does mean that as long as self-love is being prolonged, the excision of specific passions is not only unattainable, but that even when it is achieved, it can be dangerous, because with the deprivation of hedonism that is entailed, it will give birth to other passions. Thus it often happens that those who rid themselves of carnal passions may develop the passion of avarice or pride etc.. Therefore we are not speaking of therapy, when only specific passions are eliminated. The sole therapy is found in the elimination of self-love, which is the root of all those passions. b. Given that grief is an inseparable element of hedonism in man's post-Fall state, it is an erroneous perception of "sickness" : the one that we named earlier, as utilitarian; it is an analgetic approach, and it appears to prevail in the contemporary philosophy of medicine. Grief is not eliminated by removing it, but by embracing it. Therapy comes with the invitation and the experiencing of grief. Of course it often happens that grief is unbearable, and experiencing it can be exhaustive. That is why every therapeutic treatment needs to be adjusted to the patient's tolerance (oikonomia). But in no way should we regard the patient cured, just because he is psychologically "comforted" or does not suffer. The tragedy of existence lies within the Cross of Christ, and no therapy can bypass the Cross. We often forget that hedonism is not only carnal, but psychological also. By extracting grief from therapy we are only providing hedonism, which constitutes an escape from reality and true therapy. c. The proper cure for passions presupposes - according to Saint Maximus - three basic distinctions. He describes them in the following passage, taken from the chapters on love: The mind of a God-loving person does not fight against things, nor the notions thereof, but against the passions that are coupled to those notions. That is, he does not fight against woman, nor against the one who sorrowed him, nor against the imaginations of them, but against the passions that are coupled to those imaginations. All the struggles of a monk against the demons are about separating himself from the passions of the notions; for otherwise, he is not able to see things impassionately. An actual thing ("object") is one thing, "notion" is something else and "passion" is also something else. For, an "object" is - for example - a man, a woman, gold, and the suchlike. "Notion" is -say- the memory of one of the aforementioned. And "passion" is -say- an unreasonable befriending or an uncritical hatred of one of the aforementioned. A monk's battle - therefore - is against "passion". We regard these distinctions by Maximos to be extremely important for the matter of therapy. First of all, they point out that the fight against "objects" - of beings per se - is an erroneous method, because they give rise to temptations and difficulties. For statements like these to have been uttered by a monk like Maximos - who had departed from "objects" and had distanced himself from the world - reveals that escaping from "objects" is not a solution, nor does remaining close to "objects" (as with those who live in the world) constitute a cause for sickness. For example, to recommend divorce to someone who is suffering psychologically in the presence of their spouse does not constitute therapy for that person. Divorce may remove that person's grief for a time, but the problem itself remains intact. That is how the current perception (that a monk leaves the world in order to be "cured" of passions by avoiding temptations) should be regarded as erroneous. The entirety of ascetic tradition stresses that temptations become even more powerful when one departs from the "objects" that provoke them, because the "notions" of those "objects" - which test the person - remain.

But the same applies to the "notions" of "objects". The memory and the re-presentation of beings is not per se discommended. Contrary to what Maximos writes, there are many who oppose art, culture, and whatever else the function of human imagination entails, for the sake of being liberated from passions. This is an Origen- and Evagrios-like spirituality that Maximos surely had in mind and opposed, because ideas like those were, at the time (and I am afraid they continue to be) prevalent among monks. Maximos stresses that monks' struggles are neither against "objects" nor against the "notions" thereof, but against the passions that are coupled to them. A proper therapy demands such distinctions. Otherwise, spiritual freaks are produced: mentally sick patients, who are in need of therapy more than anyone else. d. But, how can one distinguish between "passion" and "objects" and "notions"? The answer is provided by Maximos, in the paragraph that follows immediately after the previous one, mentioned above: The impassioned "notion" is a composite thought, consisting of "passion" and "notion". When we separate the passion from the notion, what remains is merely a subtle thought. And we can separate them, through spiritual love and continence, if we so wish. The separation of "passion" from a "notion" cannot be done, except by means of love, continence (=self-control) and free will. However, these elements require more analysis. Love as freedom, and freedom as love Albeit keys for a proper therapy, the meaning of the term "love" as well as "freedom" are likewise subject to their own pathologies. Thus, "love" can, in essence, be a form of narcissism; that is, a love of one's self through the image - the mirror - of another. Narcissism is considered a disease; however, its forms are so many and indiscernible that it usually cannot be confronted at its root cause. In reality, every erotic love contains elements of narcissism - the kind that we previously called "self-love", in the words of Maximos. The "passion" of erotic love consists of the demand for exclusivity that it contains; hence, all of existence is built upon the two persons, as though no other beings exist around them. Deep down, eros is an egocentric form of love, which can lead to numerous pathological situations (dependence, separation anxiety, etc...) The same applies, in the case of freedom. Freedom, as a liberation from the other, can signify the crudest form of self-love - a pathological independence from others - which can lead to depression or even suicide, when one discovers that the others are necessary for him, but not desirable. Thus the problem arises as to which way love and freedom can not only liberate us from our passions, but also liberate themselves of their own pathology. At this point, theology could offer the following positions: a. The transcendence of exclusivity in love. If you hate some, or, you neither love them nor hate them, and you love some but only with measure, while you love others intensely, then know that you are far from the perfect love, which is supposed to love every person equally. Exclusivity negates love, because underlying it is some form of self-love. We love our friends, our children, our relatives, our "lovers" etc. more than the others, because we expect some sort of reciprocation from them, or because some kind of need - psychological or biological - bonds us to them. The love of those close to us conceals the passion of selflove. b. The love of enemies. No form of love is freer than this, and no form of freedom can relate more, than the form that is the love of one's enemies. If you love those who love you, what is the grace in you? [...] for even sinners do the same (Luke 6:32). A love that expects reciprocation is sinful; it is pathological. A love that does not expect any reciprocation - or, better still - is directed towards those who harm us, is truly "grace" - that is, freedom. Loving God "in Christ", "while we are still sinners", as well as loving God's enemies (ie., love

towards sinners) is the only liberated love. In conclusion, it is only when love coincides with freedom that we have therapy. Love, without freedom, and freedom without love, are pathological conditions that require therapy. But, how can these two coincide in practice? It is easy for one to opine on that which should be done, but what does theology have to say, about how to do that which should be done? The Church as a "therapeutic clinic" We now come to the crucial point of our homily: in what manner can the Church cure man in practice? First of all, we need to clarify a misunderstanding that is broadly prevalent. The Church does not cure so much with what She has, but rather, with what She is. This detail is extremely important. As a rule, we all seek the means for salvation inside the Church, but salvation lies in the very event called "Church", and our incorporation in Her. The difference is huge, and it has a practical significance, in regard to therapy. The Church has spiritual fathers and the mystery (sacrament) of Confession (which should more correctly be called Repentance). Much emphasis and significance has been placed on this element, when it comes to therapy. The perfect spiritual father-confessor and a perfect method of confession etc. are sought out, but what is overlooked is that it is not the spiritual father who heals. He might be tired during the hour of confession, or, he may not have the appropriate knowledge: quite usual things. Therapy will not occur during the hour of the Mystery, quite simply because the Mystery has man's incorporation in the Church as its objective, and only in there will therapy occur, slowly and in the long term. How will that happen? The Church is a therapeutic clinic, because She provides man the potential to transit from the state of an "individual" to that of a "person". What is the difference? And how does that occur in the Church? "Individual" is an arithmetical notion, which springs from one's isolation from other individuals - which simply is what it is, because it is not something else. Deep down, "individual" is a negative notion. When man exists and acts as an individual, he fences himself off psychologically; he "excises" himself from others. This is a pathological condition, which constitutes a host of morbid phenomena and perhaps is the very source of all sicknesses - it is that which Maximos calls "self-love". "Individual" does not only comprise a problem of a moral or psychological nature; it also has ontological dimensions. It is linked to death, which is the par excellence "feeder" and simultaneously disintegrator of the individual; death is that which highlights individualism, by separating it finally from other individuals (each one of us dies individually), and eventually disintegrating it, into decomposition and nonexistence. Individualism is a carrier of sickness or sicknesses, precisely because deep inside it lurks the fear of death - the ontological nihilism - if this bizarre albeit true contradiction may be permitted. The same applies, for the body. If, like Maximos, they link self-love to the body, it is not because the body is evil, but because it expresses par excellence the fortress of individualism where lurks the potential for excising ourselves from the others and where death eventually sets its sights and succeeds. Individualism is the first pathological stage that man goes through, when he is need of therapy. The second stage is that of communion. For man to be cured of individualism, he needs to move on, to his relationship with others, with any form whatsoever, even if a negative one: to get angry, to beat or even kill someone. What is usually known as "defusing" is a form of transcending individualism - a form of "therapy" according to psychiatry. This is not about the notion of "person"; it is however a form of relationship and communion which appears as

therapy, without actually being. The stage that the Church aspires to bring mankind is beyond this stage, and to the stage of "person". What is the "person"? The Church borrows the notion of "person" from Her faith in the Trinitarian God and, after taking it through Christology and Pneumatology, applies it inside the Church. In the Holy Trinity, "person" is a positive notion - an affirmative notion - and not a negative one. The three Persons of the Trinity differ between each other, not because they are isolated and excised from each other, but on the contrary, because they are joined together inseparably. The more inseparable the unity, the more it will give birth - produce - otherness. This fact secures ontological completeness and stability, absence of death, and true life. The "other" not only is not an enemy, but is the confirmation of my own identity and uniqueness: it is the You that makes me a "Me" and without which, the "Me" is nonexistent and inconceivable. And something more. In the Holy Trinity personal otherness and uniqueness are not justified psychologically, but ontologically. The characteristics that distinguish between the three Persons are only ontological: each Person is what It is, and nothing else. The person is not judged by its characteristics, but by the simple affirmation of its identity as a unique and irreplaceable being. The person is not a personality - that is, a coordinate of characteristics (height, beauty or ugliness, virtue or malice, genius or stupidity etc.); the person is free of characteristics and is not judged by them. This perception regarding the person is passed into the Church in the form of God's love and freedom towards the world, the way it was expressed "in Christ", with His love towards enemies and sinners. The Church is the place in which man is not judged by his characteristics (that is what forgiveness means, which he receives with Baptism and Repentance), but by the fact that he is who he is. Forgiveness and acceptance of someone as a person, as a unique and irreplaceable identity, within the community of the Church, is the quintessence of ecclesiastic therapeutics. The Church heals, not with the things She says, but by that which She is: a community of love, a love that is not a sentiment (so that we might seek it in the inner self and the disposition of the individual), but a relationship, which demands coexistence and acceptance within a specific community - a community of love, without exclusivity and conditions. The Church heals, by being such a community, in which the incorporated person becomes freely addicted to loving and being loved; where, in the words of Saint Maximos, perfect love does not split the one nature of humans... but, forever aiming at it, loves all people equally... That is why our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, in displaying His love for us, suffered for all of humanity... (chapters on love, I, 72). The practical and relentless question however, is: Is the Church a community of love, a place where one passes from "self-love" to "brotherly love"? From sickness to healing? To the degree that the answer is affirmative, one can refer to the Church as a therapeutic clinic. Otherwise, She is a pharmacy, which provides people with analgesics, without transforming them from individuals to persons. Because the term "persons" has the prerequisite of "relationship", and "relationship" entails "community"; otherwise, they continue to be isolated individuals with an "illusion of sanctity". Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (there is no salvation outside of the Church) not because that is where the means for salvation exist, but because in there is where the Trinitarian mystery of the inter-embracing of persons is manifested. Most people in The Orthodox Church have, to a large degree, lost the awareness of "community", and if today they speak of a "therapeutic clinic", they probably mean it as a pharmacy. But the Church continues to be the true Ark of Salvation, because She has preserved unadulterated not only the faith in the Personal Trinitarian God and the Christ of

all-encompassing love, of the Cross and of the Resurrection, but also because She continues to be the genuine eucharistic ("thanksgiving") community, in which are offered those loving relationships that can heal man, by transforming him from an individual to a person. It is this faith, this synaxis and community that we must preserve genuine and active, if we want to regard the Church as a therapeutic clinic. Going over what I tried to say, I feel that I must point out the following: For the Church and theology, therapy is not a psychological or moral matter, but an ontological one. The aim of therapy is not to provide relief for the symptoms of man's sickness, but to ensure his rebirth, by transferring him from the space of self-love where passions are born, into the space of brotherly love, where true therapy through love is found. This passage from the one space to the other is painful, because it has the Cross as a prerequisite, or, in the words of Saint Maximos, the experiencing of the pain that coexists with pleasure. It is a passage that must be guided with care and philanthropy, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather, be healed (Hebr.12:13). In this attempt, the Church and theology can provide, not so much the technique, the specialization, but rather the faith in the personal God, from which springs the faith in man as a person, an image and a likeness of God; also the love of Christ which has no boundaries and exclusivities, and the Church, as a eucharistic (thanksgiving) community which actualizes that love, as a personal existence and relationship. The battles against passions and their riddance do not constitute an end in itself for the Church. They aspire to the surfacing of the true person from within them, to the re-joining of fragmented nature, and for man to rediscover his proper relationship with God, with other people and with material nature. Health, for us, is the proper relationship of man with these three factors (God, fellow-man and nature), which comprise the definition of the human being. "Sickness" is the upsetting of this triple and three-dimensional relationship. Perhaps this is what hugely differentiates theology from psychiatry - or perhaps not; you will be the judge. What is certain, is that both the Church and medical science must coincide in this basic discovery, should a dialogue develop between them.

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From the Minutes of a Meeting on Theology and Psychiatrics in Dialogue Minutes published by the Apostoliki Diakonia pages 141-156, (extract) Source: http://www.pemptousia.com

G. WESTERN THEOLOGY 3. The problem of the "Filioque" Limitations that lead to misconstruals The history of the Filioque The psychological view of Triadicity by Augustine Augustinian psychological support of the Filioque Discerning between Theology and Oekonomia (Providence) in the East Protestantism's entrapment inside Oekonomia (Providence) Precedence of the Essence in the West Relating God to the Father in the East Monarchy and Monotheism

Relating Father and Essence by the Eunomians The one God as the one source

3. The problem of the "Filioque" The association between God and the world, and the problem of association between theology - literally - and oekonomia (providence) have already been discussed; in other words, the association between the word pertaining to God when applied to the energies, the acts of God in History and Creation in part, and the existence per se of God, independently of History. Western theology has always been captivated by an interest in providence. Given that it is a natural characteristic of Western thought to have a keen interest in History, this is also the reason it was impossible for Western theology to unshackle itself from oekonomia (providence) - from God's acts within History. We shall now examine more specifically how its shackling to providence had also led Western theology to a certain stance towards the dogma regarding God; a stance which had caused the rift between Western and Eastern theology: the familiar Filioque issue. The Filioque had been created for two reasons. One reason was the inability to convey into the Latin language the more subtle meanings that the Hellenic language possessed. This inability became especially obvious in the case of the (Greek) verb (pron.: ek-porvetae, proceeding from, proceeding out of). The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father; but the inability by Latin-speaking Christianity to convey this subtle meaning into the Latin language was also accompanied by the other characteristic we mentioned - the shackling of Western thought's interest to History. In other words, it was unable to separate the presence of the Holy Spirit in History, from the presence - the hypostasis - the manner of existence (of the Holy Spirit) in eternity - in the eternal God. These two issues go hand-in-hand: the (Latin) vocabulary's inadequacy and -in a sense- an intellectual deficiency, given that the very same term that they used to translate the verb (ie, the Latin verb "procedere"), was also applied in reference to the eternal existence of the Holy Spirit, and not only in oekonomia (providence). Hence their inability to distinguish any difference. The fact that they could not see the difference is indicative of a deficiency in thought, which does not imply a lack of intelligence, but rather a fixation on certain interests - an interest in History mainly. It never occurred to them to seek anything beyond the limits of History - to show an interest in the eternal status of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if within History -within oekonomia (providence)- it was uncontested that the Spirit was provided by the Son, and of course the prerequisite of the Father being the source of all, it was quite easy for the Westerner to generate such a confusion, by using the same verb in the instance of pre-eternal procession of the Holy Spirit and His providential presence within History. Thus, it sounded reasonable that, even though the Filioque was not heretic to begin with, it is also not necessarily heretic or necessarily something different to what the East would have asserted. Despite all the above, its roots still have to do with that difference between Western and Eastern mentality. The crucial point lies in distinguishing between oekonomia (providence) and theology; in the avoidance or not of that confusion; in the question or not as to how it differs, and in whether the eternal status of God differs from the manner that God reveals Himself to us in oekonomia (providence). The West never had this sensitivity, and that is the main reason the Filioque was favoured in principle. It would have been impossible for the Filioque to get started, if that prerequisite didn't exist. So, we see that the Filioque was already expressed as early as the 4th century in Ambrose, without having a heretical inference. And it was in that sense that it was also used later on, especially in Spanish theology. It was inserted in the Creed, in Spain, in the 6th century -

again out of an inability to distinguish between oekonomia (providence) and theology because as we know, the Filioque was embodied in the Creed during the 3rd synod of Toledo, when king Reccared - a former Arian - who, like all neophytes and proselytes, extremely fanatic about his new faith and eager to support Christ's Divinity (in retaliation to Arianism which he had believed in until then), thought he was "reinforcing" that Divinity, if he asserted that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also. By making that move, he obviously did not take into account the distinction between oekonomia (providence) and theology; he was unable to somehow contemplate on the matter, that the place of the Holy Spirit is different within the pre-eternal God and different in oekonomia (providence). So, we again notice the existence of an obvious weakness. The Filioque had now become a part of the conflict between Franks and Byzantines with Charlemagne, who used it as a banner against the Byzantines. For political reasons (he did not want to support that campaign by Charlemagne), the Pope did not allow the inclusion of the Filioque in the Creed. At the beginning of the 11th century, it was officially included in Rome and thereafter became generalized throughout the West. Up until that time, various theological fermentations - which directly had to do with Western theology - had been taking place, the basic one being Augustine's assimilation by the West. Augustine's theology is clearly Western, in the following points: He too had trouble distinguishing between theology and oekonomia (providence), and furthermore (given his keen interest in psychology), the experiencing of Man's relations with God. He struggled to comprehend the mystery of God - and to formulate it - with the help of psychological portrayals. And those portrayals are familiar. They are borrowed from Platonic philosophy, but are adapted to the mindset of the post-Augustine Westerner. Augustine had taken Platonism's notion of the "Nous" and applied it to God - ie, God was the par excellence Nous - then, by handling this meaning in a psychological manner, he reached the conclusion again with the help of Platonism - that the Nous embodies three basic elements: Memory, which is the source from within which thought and knowledge are drawn; Knowledge, which springs from within memory and is the logos (the means) by which the Nous recognizes itself. And the third element is Volition or Love, with which the Nous loves itself, because that Nous - God - also identifies with Plato's absolute good, which that Nous attracts towards itself. This attraction is an imperative element in the definition of good - in the notion of good. Attraction is the eros/love that the good, the benevolent inspires, and consequently, given that there is nothing else beyond its own self, the benevolent or the good loves itself. Memory, therefore, as the source of all existence, and the logos as the knowledge of itself with which the Nous is understood - and love, as the bond that joins and makes the Nous love itself by means of the logos - these form the basic lattice of inter-relations, with which the Holy Trinity could be comprehended. Thus, psychological experiences were transfused into the Holy Trinity, and that was the immense slip-up of Western theology with Augustine which -again- is linked to that blurred distinction between theology and oekonomia (providence). Energies and psychological situations were therefore projected within the eternal God, which had basically been borrowed from Historical experience. This immediately gave rise to the following question: If the logos is the knowledge of God - the means by which He knows Himself - and the Spirit is love - by which God loves Himself - is it possible for God to love something that He does not have previous knowledge of? Immediately arising is the question of the priority of knowledge vis--vis love. This is a very decisive question. Augustine had already posed it, and had provided the answer, which Thomas Aquinas later repeated, in his argumentation in support of the Filioque. Augustine had posed the following question: Is it possible for someone to love something that he has no previous knowledge of? The answer according to him is negative: in order to love something, you must know it previously. If that is indeed how things are, then by loving Himself through the Holy Spirit Who is the Nexus Amores (the bond of love), God cannot possibly act - cannot love - without the intermediary element of knowledge, which is the knowledge by the Logos and Son. It is through the Son and Logos that God knows Himself.

Consequently, the love of God (which relates to the Spirit) can only come after knowledge; or, only if the knowledge of God (through the Son and Logos) has been realized beforehand. Therefore, the Logos has priority, and the Spirit can only come from that relationship between Father and Son. The Filioque was thus based on the principle that knowledge precedes love. In the Scholastics who analyzed all these things even more, all the above have the form of logical thoughts - of relationships between opposites - and this signifies that because persons are seen as relationships and the Spirit is likewise a relationship, a relationship cannot originate from a person; instead, for a relationship to occur, it must originate from another Father-Son relationship, in order to show the Spirit as a relationship. What is important, is that throughout the attempt to justify the Filioque, Western theology worked on the principle that the individual's psychological experiences can be transferred into the existence of God. In other words, it was unable to work with complete apophatism with regard to psychological experiences - something that we can observe, in the East. In the East, psychological experiences could not be transferred into the eternal existence of God. It was for this reason that the Hellenic Fathers had never given a definite content to the Persons of the Holy Trinity, except only to say that: The Father is the Father, because He is not a Son (for the Father is unbegotten); the Son is not a Father (for a Son is begotten); the Spirit is likewise not a Father (for the same reason) - but He is also not a Son (because the Spirit is not begotten, but proceeds from). Now, what that "definite content" is, and what it means to "proceed from" and "not begotten", the Fathers never permitted themselves to be preoccupied with these details. They did not allow any other content to be given either, because if they had, they would have been obliged to borrow analogies from psychological experiences (the way Augustine had) and subsequently ascribe anthropomorphic situations to God. The Fathers therefore of the East had limited themselves to this simple discernment regarding the Triadic existence of God, and they discerned between the relations that the Triadic existence of God has eternally, and the relations that He embarks on with us, during oekonomia (providence). With Augustine - and later on with the Scholastics - the West created this confusion, for lack of that sensitivity to discern between oekonomia (providence) and theology. This was one of the problems which had been created - and it was a characteristically Western one, because we can see that it was continued, even after the period of Scholasticism in the West, when the Reformation placed new bases for the subject of God. The Reformation returned to the Bible and refused to speak of God - outside the cadres in which the word pertaining to God appears in the Bible - because the Bible speaks of the acts and the energies of God within oekonomia (providence) - within History. Thus, Protestant theology made oekonomia (providence) its starting point, and had now justified the Filioque in another manner, because it was unable to conceive any other Triadic relations, except for the ones that it saw within oekonomia (providence). And what it saw within oekonomia (providence) was of course the dependence of the Holy Spirit on the Son, because it is the Son Who sends forth the Spirit. So, since the Son sends forth the Spirit in oekonomia (providence) and since everything that we can comprehend about God are those things that exist in oekonomia (providence), Protestantism was led to the conclusion that the Filioque was a necessity and therefore did not reject it. Thus, it was for different reasons (albeit in essence, deep down, because Protestantism is Western and the fact that it is Western is linked to its beginnings in oekonomia (providence) and it could not abandon it when approaching God) that Protestantism also remained attached to the Filioque. This becomes obvious, when one studies contemporary Protestant theologians. The Filioque in this way had revealed certain basic peculiarities of Western thought. Within these peculiarities (with regard to the Filioque) the overall problem of monotheism also became apparent. Given that the Triadic relations were conceived mainly by Augustine, then, with the help of psychological meanings, what was left as a means of expressing God's

transcendence was now basically God's essence. Thus, essence was linked to God, and psychological experiences to the Holy Trinity, following which, the Holy Trinity was rendered a secondary element of God's existence; that is, the one God was the one essence, which was precedent to the Trinity. This greatly facilitated Western theology in regard to the Filioque, because by preserving the Filioque, it was allowing it to also preserve monotheism . This could not possibly happen in Eastern theology, because Eastern theology identified the one God with the Father and not the essence. The monarchy was the Father, and consequently, if Eastern theology had accepted the Filioque, it would have accepted two principalities in God - that is, two Gods. In all of the conflicts over the Filioque from the 9th century onwards, this problem has been constantly resurfacing. How can someone accept the Filioque without accepting two Gods? But for the West there is no such problem, because the one God is the essence; he is not the Father, therefore, the "level" - so to speak - of the Persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one step below. Monotheism is not affected. Consequently, the conclusion is that the Filioque poses an opportune question: as to who the one God is; as to monotheism; as to whether the one God was the essence or if He is the Father (Who is a Person and not an essence). From the time of the Eunomians and thereafter, it was no longer possible for the Orthodox to identify the Person of the Father with the essence, according to the grand argument of the Eunomians who were opposed to the divinity of the Son. Given that the Eunomians identified essence and Father, they would assert that since the Son is not the Father, He must logically also belong outside the essence of the Father, of God, because the essence of God, when identified with the Father, exhausts its meaning in the Father. Therefore the Son is not only outside the Father, but - because the Father relates to the essence - He is automatically outside the essence also. This matter must be an opportune one for Patristic theology; discerning between Father and essence is opportune. Thus, since the Father is not the essence and the essence is not the Father, it is extremely important for one to state that "one God" identifies with the Father and not the essence. With regard to what? Mainly with regard to monarchy. So, which is the principality, the one principality, the monarchy in God, or the source? The one God as the one source: If it is the Father, then the Filioque cannot remain standing unless one introduces two principalities - and subsequently two Gods. If God is not the Father, but is the essence, then there is no risk to monarchy by the Filioque. Consequently, Western theology was able to avoid the obstacle of dual deity by keeping the Filioque, because it gave precedence to the essence . If we do not pay attention to these discernments between the essence and the Father, and do not insist that the Father is the one God - as the source and not the essence, the one source of Divinity - then we will be westernizing Orthodox theology in a dangerous way. That, then, is the greatest difficulty that the Filioque presents to the Orthodox. And that is the clarification - historical and cultural - of the reasons that the Filioque found such a response in the West and why it became so deeply rooted. The West truly feels that its very identity is threatened, if the Filioque is removed from it. And this is not a mere stubborn adherence to their tradition; it is something that touches on the psychosynthesis of the Westerner. Its interest in psychology and in History, to the point of transfusing them into the pre-eternal God, is what really supports the Filioque in the West, and from a dogmatic point of view, poses mainly the following question for us: How is it possible to preserve monarchy in God, if we accept the Filioque? We Orthodox insist that the one God is the Father. It is impossible for us to accept the Filioque, for that basic reason. To summarize, this means that the source of Divinity - the utmost point of reference in God is, for the East, the Father, not the essence.

4. The existential repercussions of the "Filioque" Western priority to the Essence and not the Person (hypostasis) Eastern causal, or Western psychological Hypostatic qualities? Predominance of Essence is a restricting of God's freedom Subjugation to the laws of nature The problem of being delivered from death and existence The problem of the person's dependence on characteristics Characteristics abolish the Person (hypostasis) and introduce elitism The problematic precedence of knowledge before love in the West The precedence of knowledge restricts the freedom of love The precedence of Love by Christians, as opposed to knowledge by idolaters QUESTIONS Placing love first, in defiance of knowledge Placing knowledge first is not necessary, but it is also done When love towards God precedes knowledge about Him God's condescendence takes precedence Transcendence of every necessity, by man's freedom Causal and teleological knowledge

4. Existential repercussions of the Filioque We have talked about the basic principles, the basic prerequisites in which Western thought moves. Now we shall examine the existential repercussions of the Filioque. The mainly existential repercussions will of course become apparent when we examine ecclesiology. We shall now begin with a few general observations, which have to do with anthropology more than ecclesiology directly. To comprehend the repercussions that the Filioque will have on human existence (which may sound strange, how it is possible for consequences to reach that far), we need to remember the basic principles upon which the Filioque rests. When we say basic principles, we mean the principles that were used in order to theologically support the Filioque, especially with the help of (or rather, with the initial source being) Augustine's thought and theology. The first basic principle is what we could call the priority of the Essence and not the Person (hypostasis). We mentioned in the previous lesson just how important this was, in order for the Filioque to be supported, because without it, we would be looking at a "bi-theism" (dual divinity). That Western theology has preserved monotheism despite having the Filioque is clearly attributed to the fact that it has not ascribed an ontological precedence to the Person, otherwise there would definitely have been a case of dual divinity, because if the sources the ontological principals - of the Holy Spirit are two: the Father AND the Son (Who are Persons), then we would definitely have two Gods. This was one of the chief arguments of Photius and the other post-Medieval Easterners against the Filioque, but the Westerners -as we said- have bypassed this, inasmuch as they have no need to relate the one God to the Father; instead, they relate Him to the Essence. If the Son loved, it would be as though He is depriving the Holy Spirit of His hypostatic characteristic (which is love). Characteristics, therefore, are the things that supposedly determine the Persons definitely. In the East, in Patristic theology, this view is unacceptable.

As we said, the names "Father", "Son" and "Holy Spirit" are not the names that denote an energy. They are not names for the Essence of course - but neither are they for an energy. And all those attributes of knowledge, omniscience, love - all those things - are common attributes of all three Persons; they are energies of all three Persons. Therefore, even though they may all have the Father as their source - as every energy has the Father as its source, and He is the cause of everything - nevertheless these energies do not identify with the Father. The only hypostatic attributes that each Person (hypostasis) has, are: unbegottenness and causality for the Father, begottenness and cause for the Son and Logos, and procession for the Holy Spirit. In the East, the "problem" of hypostatic status is projected through the cause. For Western theology, the Persons are not the decisive basis for these hypostatic attributes - which are all ontological attributes on the one side, in the East and pertaining to relationships - but rather, are attributes of psychology; and what is more important, is that we shall see that they are also axiological. And it is precisely this axiological element that is the next element, which, in regard to that second principle (that the Person (hypostasis) is determined by its attributes) can be confined to the evaluation of those two attributes, such as knowledge (for the Son) and love (for the Spirit). These two are evaluated, and precedence is given to knowledge. We shall therefore examine those principles upon which the Filioque is based, the repercussions that they have on human existence, and what their existential significance is. And first of all, the precedence of the Essence and not the Person: This implies a deprivation of freedom in existence, an acceptance of necessity within existence, because if the Essence is the cause of God's existence (and not the Father), then the Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Who are free Beings as Persons) will come second and as such would be subject to the necessity of nature. Existentially, this is interpreted as exactly the same kind of state that our experience as created beings daily confirms, in a tragic manner, because it is precisely we -as created beings- who are subject to the necessity of essence. And this is apparent, firstly from the fact that in us, it is the essence that is precedent - it is human nature that precedes the separate individuals, the persons.... John, George, Costas.... because when they come into existence, they find human nature already there, so consequently they, as persons, are not the causes of their essence, their existence. And of course it becomes obvious from the manner of reproduction, the birth of people, that this takes place by means of existing natural laws from which no man can escape. Thus, with regard to birth, with regard to the emergence of man, necessity does exist, because the essence is precedent. The same applies, with regard to necessity, in man's ending, death. There again, it is the essence, it is nature that determines the outcome of man's existence. The fact that we die is already predetermined from the moment of our birth; it is not as though it is an event that appears suddenly, later on in our life. Death does not come at a certain point in our life; it is present from the day we are born. It is inherent, from the moment of our birth, precisely because the laws of nature - the rules of the game that nature has imposed - also include death. Immortal beings are not born in this manner. Consequently, the entire issue with existence is the problem of the person's disengagement from the laws of nature. Because I do not want my beginning to be imposed on me by someone, nor do I wish my ending to be imposed on me by someone, by a law of nature, by a certain nature. If I am immortal by nature, and am immortal out of necessity, then that would be a very fundamental challenge to my freedom. It may be, that I do not wish to be immortal; however, if nature is precedent, then existence itself is predetermined by nature. Thus, if we were to pose the question: "Why is God immortal?" one reply could be: "because He is immortal by nature - because nature determines God's immortality". That would mean we are looking at a compulsory immortality of God, and its corresponding item would be a compulsory immortality of our own. One could ask why that would be problematic, existentially speaking. Of course not everyone has existential concerns, and in fact in this form - of freedom. And there indeed are those who aren't preoccupied with it. Naturally everyone is preoccupied with the matter of death. However, there are also people who aren't

concerned with the matter of death; in fact those who have received a strong dose of the Christian faith are those who can become entirely indifferent. People die, and they are not in the least concerned; thus, that ultimate enemy that bothers Paul, that preoccupies all of the Holy Bible, and whose vanquishing was the Resurrection of Christ, is made to look as though it is of no significance. But death is precisely the thing that preoccupies man, because of his non-acceptance of nature. If he does accept nature, he does not worry about death. He also does not worry about his own existence - the beginning of his existence... he is in the state of an animal. An animal is not preoccupied in this manner; it adapts to the laws of nature. The difference with man is that he is existentially preoccupied with these matters and refuses to accept death, however he also refuses compulsory existence when he reaches the point of freely choosing between living or not living. These are the characteristics of man. He cannot avoid being preoccupied existentially, if he wants to be a human and does not want to be an animal. Thus, if it is an existential problem if I am to exist or not exist freely, then it is an existential problem if the Essence does or does not precede the Person. We therefore have serious repercussions here, in the event of a theological vindication of the Filioque. Now let us go to the second characteristic - to the attributes, and in fact the psychological ones. If the identity of a Person (hypostasis) is dependent on the psychological, the natural attributes, then, in the event that those attributes (or, we could say - the abilities of the individual) are absent, then we must also have an absence of the Person; in other words, the Person (hypostasis) collapses and also disappears. If my par excellence hypostatic attribute is to be logical, to have reasoning and knowledge, and supposing that for whatever reason my reasoning, my logicality and my knowledge do not function, do not exist any more, then I will also be losing my personal identity. The same applies reversely - which is equally interesting nowadays, following Darwin's theory (which we must admit has basically become accepted, otherwise we cut ourselves off from biology and biologists), this truth is common. Thus, if -according to Darwin's theory- logicality also exists in animals, then man loses, because if man is judged on the basis of logic and his cognitive ability, he loses his characteristic of a Person. If my characteristic as a Person (hypostasis) were dependent on my logicality, then when I lose my logicality, I lose my Person (hypostasis) also. This is of tremendous importance in everyday existence - in man's existence. Intensely discussed nowadays, is at which point in time a human becomes a person, and at which point he is a person. Westerners maintain that an individual becomes a person, when he acquires a conscience. The more his conscience develops, the more the Person (hypostasis) develops. This definitely creates huge problems, because in this way, we risk seeing as less persons - or even not at all as persons - those individuals who are mentally challenged and incapable of the more subtle and profound and lofty processes of the conscience. Consequently, in our existence, an elitism is thus created and the Person (hypostasis) identifies with his abilities - and not with what he is, regardless of his abilities and in spite of them. Take for example the hypostatic element of the Holy Spirit which (according to the Westerners) is love: If love is that which renders someone a person, then one who hates cannot be a person. And yet, Satan - the one who par excellence hates - is a person, because he is free. Therefore, it is other things that characterize and make the Person (hypostasis) into a person, not these attributes. From the moment that we identify the Person (hypostasis) by those attributes, then we indeed create problems for existence and especially the problem (again) of freedom, because the Person (hypostasis) is thus determined definitely, by objective values. Thus, the priority of the Essence on the one hand and this axiological stance on the other, both lead very clearly to an evaluation by the theoreticians - the classical ones - of the Filioque in the West, which has formidable repercussions on our existence. Evaluating between knowledge and love. The placing of knowledge before love is one of the basic excuses that Augustine and Thomas Aquinas give for the Filioque. If the Son is knowledge and the Spirit is love, then the Spirit must originate from the Son also (Latin, Filioque), because knowledge precedes love. This is a basic postulate which we observe in

Augustine and is repeated in Thomas Aquinas. But this precedence of knowledge versus love creates huge existential problems. First of all, we cannot ensure that everyone is capable of knowledge, because we subsequently risk degrading them as persons if they do not possess knowledge, and secondly, if knowledge precedes love, then again the objective reality that knowledge will perceive through the intellect will determine and restrict the freedom of love - in other words, it will be "I love because I know". That was the basic position of the ancient Hellenes: We love, because we recognize what is benevolent and good. Socrates also believed that if all people acquired the knowledge of good, then no-one would be bad in this world. To know does not signify that your freedom to do or not do something is curtailed. Freedom, precisely, is about will and love; to love or to hate someone is not subject to the objective data of knowledge, because then we would be loving only those who are good and that would definitely be one of the consequences, i.e., the reason we love would now become the necessity that makes us love. If you read Sykoutris' Introduction on Plato's Republic, you will notice that he provides an excellent analysis - he compares the Platonic notion of love -"eros"- to the Christian one and he shows that, although for the ancient Hellene, in order to love there must be a reason, one cannot (supposedly) love sincerely and properly if it is only done without any reason, nor can it be justified. As he states therein, if Satan were to ask God why He loves mankind, it would put Him in a tight spot to answer. And that is precisely where God's love for sinners is found. How is that possible? An ancient Hellene would never love a sinner, because a sinner is by definition abhorrent. An evil Person (hypostasis) is repulsive, and he therefore lacks an objective sense of knowledge. Objective knowledge takes precedence there: you know that a Person (hypostasis) is good, you know that he is "advanced" in knowledge, you know of his virtues, you know all these things and that is why you come to love him. And when they ask you WHY you love that person, you have an answer ready, because that reason is already there, and because that reason implies an objective knowledge. But when you love WITHOUT a reason, then knowledge does not precede love - love precedes knowledge... Knowledge is cast out. Now, the question is whether in human existence it is worth paying attention to these things and preserve them, or not. To be concerned about them or not be concerned, The entire Gospel - the essence of the Christian Faith - hinges on these things. Well, the Gospel actually liberates us precisely from that necessity. And if we read it in that spirit, we will see that it is nothing more than a proclamation of our liberation from necessity and from nature (because of the transcendence of death), but also from knowledge - in the sense of the logic that gives knowledge priority and compels love to be pursuant to it. The Filioque cannot be justified philosophically and theologically, if we pull the rug from under it with all the things we said. It will collapse. That is why I place so much importance on the existential repercussions and inevitably on theology, and I believe that both are intertwined and both influence each other. If someone were to ask me what had precedence in Western theology - an erroneous theology or an erroneous existential placement - it will be difficult for me to answer... and I might perhaps be inclined to reply that it was the latter.

QUESTIONS Q: We mentioned earlier that love does not constitute knowledge... A: Knowledge as a prerequisite, yes. Love can contain knowledge and it can lead to knowledge, but knowledge is not a prerequisite for love. Love does not function within the necessity of knowledge.

Q: But doesn't the relationship between two persons demand knowledge, in order for them to proceed to love? : No. That is exactly the point that we are stressing: that knowledge does NOT lead to love. When a mother loves her child, what does she "know" about the child? When a child loves its mother, what does it "know" about its mother? Of course these are natural loves, but that is not important. What is important, is that this knowledge - the knowledge that is developed by the mind - first of all is not necessary and secondly, it is dangerous if regarded as a prerequisite, because it confines love, ie., to love or to not love a Person (hypostasis) based on his characteristics. There is of course the perception that "the more two persons get to know each other, the more they love each other". These, in my opinion, are foolish things. Because if this principle applied, then absolutely no marriage could break up and no divorces could exist, inasmuch as the progress of years would mean that couples would know each other more and more and they would necessarily have to love each other even more. These things aren't even found within natural law - much more so within the realm of freedom (which freedom must have the potential to love, in defiance of knowledge), where, by "knowing" the other, you might discover that he is evil. What would happen with love in such a case? If love continues or increases in defiance of this knowledge, then that knowledge will not have led to love; obviously love will have ignored that knowledge. Q: Exactly, but isn't knowledge an element that will hinder us from loving? : Yes, if it becomes a condition for loving, it will surely hinder us from loving. That is to say, if it actually becomes a condition - that loving depends on knowledge - then knowledge definitely has been given precedence. But it may not necessarily constitute a condition per se, in which case, it doesn't hurt. But in the Filioque, knowledge definitely constitutes a prerequisite for loving God. These things may have seemed far-fetched, but if one stops to think what would have become of the Filioque if we were to remove those principles, then it would become obvious that it isn't that far-fetched. Q: What we have said so far, pertains to "horizontal" communication - that is, in the personal relations between people - and not to "vertical" communication. Can we say that the exact same things apply in vertical communication - the love of God? : We certainly can. Q: The Fathers have spoken somewhere about "two faiths and two knowledges". Does that mean there are two kinds of faith? And two kinds of knowledge? The first is the faith in something that you know nothing about. Then comes the faith where you learn something naturally, through nature around you etc.. Later on comes the faith by which you have acquired full knowledge of that thing, and finally, the knowledge of God and of man. I think Maximus somewhere has given a quartet of correlations... By following up on that line of thought: in the case of a theumen (a "deified" person), who has delved far into a profound spirituality, can we say that the experience which he has undergone is the outcome of his knowledge or his love? In other words, he has a knowledge of God and therefore loves Him or does he love God because he has attained knowledge of Him? : No. It is because he loves God that he has come to know Him. The principle that underlies the entire course of ascesis and theosis (deification) - which we should not confine to this form alone - is, for Eastern monasticism, the forsaking of our own will and our obedience to God's commandments. And that is where knowledge takes a beating; because, if you examine matters with logic and with knowledge, you will never be able to give a reason for that kind of obedience - and especially to God's law, which, for all ascetics is the greatest of irrationalities one could say - as it totally transcends human powers. That is why so many pose the question - even nowadays - people who want to put knowledge first and ask for example "Why do you fast?" What can you say to them? There are of course apologetics that pertain to

fasting; hence someone might reply that it is good for his health, another might say he strives to renounce the flesh and cultivate the spirit, etc... All of these reasons that are given - these examples of knowledge - are totally irrelevant to the true explanation behind fasting. I have used fasting as an example, because everything is a form of fasting; everything about ascesis defies every form of logic when accepting God's law, Whose law asks irrational things of you. When you are told to "turn the other cheek when slapped on the one...", what kind of logic supports that demand? And certainly no ancient Hellene could ever accept such a thing. Knowledge says that if I turn the other cheek, the offender might kill me. But here, we are told "No, go ahead, and jump into God's mercy". Show trust, in defiance of every objective knowledge: that yes, you might even be killed, you might even reach the point of the Cross as Christ had, but there is always the Resurrection. And that is the most irrational thing of all. Q: But God's condescension towards man is always precedent. In other words, doesn't God descend first? Doesn't He come first, with some kind of an Energy? : Of course, in order for you to reach the point of proceeding to that irrational love, it is absolutely certain that God and the Holy Spirit will cultivate it. But that doesn't negate your freedom - you are still free to say yes or no. God helps, the Holy Spirit collaborates, but you are not deprived of your freedom. They do not make you forcibly say "yes" to an Elder, or say "yes" to God's law, or say "yes" to death, "yes" to sin"... That is your free choice. Man's selfgovernment is by no means abolished by God. Q: Older apologetes used to say (and this is what seems strange to me) that "no-one has lost his senses, so that although they can see the light, they still pluck out their eyes". The way the matter is being placed now, we could say that we could pluck out our eyes, if we wanted to... : Of course we can! There is no greater truth than that. For example, Socrates would never have accepted that it could be possible for one who knew the value of light to pluck out his eyes. And this kind of priority to knowledge -according to their perception- prevailed for entire centuries. The power of freedom was ignored. It is rooted within the Bible, but in our own time, if one were to notice how much it was exalted - how much it had been brought to the fore (for example by Dostoevsky) - it would become obvious that man's freedom is far greater than every kind of necessity that originates from knowledge and reasoning; and that man in fact can do - and in fact does - the most irrational things. And that, precisely, is the majesty of man... Don't let it seem strange to you, because in essence, man is saying "no" to his existence (and thus also introducing "death"); it is by means of that very freedom that he also says "yes" to God, and God has no intention of depriving him of it. Q: Apart from knowledge being the cause for someone to love (which is something that we reject), I would now like to add the option of objective knowledge" that is, its purpose or the quid pro quo it may aspire to. In other words, I love someone, not only because I know them, but also because I anticipate receiving something that they can offer; I love them, because there actually is a purpose to this activity - this action of mine. : To be precise, it does not exist, because knowledge has two aspects: the causal and the teleological aspect. The teleological aspect however is causal, because its aspiration becomes the cause for which something takes place. Thus, if we say that by pushing this table here, a result will ensue; but this is a knowledge, not only with regard to the pushing but also to the result thereof; and it is on the basis of this knowledge (of the result) that I judge and place myself respectively, therefore the cause can also be teleological.

5. Ecclesiology, Christology, Pneumatology The unity of nature and the manifold persons (hypostases)

Unity and manifold status in ancient Hellenic philosophy Augustinian precedence of the Essence, based on ancient Hellenic heritage The one and the many Churches The West's prioritization of the universal Church The conflict between the 1st and the 2nd Vatican Councils The consequences in Ecclesiology of the prioritization of History The participation of the Holy Spirit in the history of the Incarnation Orthodox reactions, with an over-stressing of Pneumatology, and fermentations The significance for Papism, of the prioritizing of History by the West The unity of the Church with Christ, in the Holy Spirit The role of the "healed" saints The ecclesiological dimension of Papists and Protestants The "historizing" of the Divine Eucharist Unimaginable for ancient Hellenic thought the...remembrance of the future The element of Future in History The Eucharistic advent of End Times, in the Spirit

5. Ecclesiology, Christology, Pneumatology We shall now speak of the ecclesiology of Western theology, on the basis of what we have discerned. We shall revert to the first principle - the principle of precedence of the Essence. The precedence of the Essence signifies a precedence of objective - of the general - reality. The Essence happens to have just such characteristics: that on the one hand it is objective (ie., in this case, that it precedes the person/hypostasis) and on the other hand it is general, while the person is specific - the same). We again mention here the example of human nature and specific human persons: The "persons" (hypostases) are John, George, Costas. "Nature" in this case is human nature, which points to something general, while the persons point to something more specific. Furthermore, "nature" always implies a unity, whereas "persons" points to something manifold, a plurality. As mentioned earlier, one "person" equals no person. There cannot be a "one person". On the contrary, "one nature" means one nature; "one essence" is one essence. Thus, when we have a priority of both essence and nature, a priority is also created in the unity with regard to plurality. The issue of the "one" and the "many" is one of the basic issues of both philosophy and theology, but also of ecclesiology and in fact with existential consequences, because it is a serious problem: Let us begin with ancient Hellenic philosophy, because that is where our mother is - our roots... that is where our thought is rooted. When we say "our", we aren't referring to Greeks alone, but at least all Europeans - the Westerners, to whom we too now belong as Hellenes as descendants of classical thought... So, in ancient Hellenism, the "One" always had precedence over the "many". It is characteristic, that from Heracletus (who is one of the first to shape ancient Hellenic thought), from Parmenides and all the pre-Socratic philosophers, the "One" is especially stressed: ie., that all the world is a unity. However, this unity is not pursuant to something; it comes before all else. The "One" is that which has the leadership, and plurality must compromise with the "One" in order to exist correctly. That is the meaning of the term " " (common reason) in Heracletus; that is the meaning we observe, with all its tragic consequences, in ancient tragedies and in Plato also, when he says: "You should be careful, as you - the segment - exist because the whole and the One exist, and you must conform to the whole". Precedence is therefore given here, whereby, in neo-Platonic philosophy the said "One" with its "effluences" becomes "many". But this plurality (the "many") is, consequently, not only secondary as regards the One, but is also a form of deterioration, a worsening of the One. And that is why eventually, throughout all of neo-

Platonic soteriology, man must -by means of the soul- re-unify the many and restore them to the One. That is the only way that the cycle of salvation could be achieved: by collecting the "many" into the One. Hence, plurality -the "many" - is something secondary, something derived, and a deterioration of the One. This was all in ancient Hellenic philosophy. Unfortunately, in Western theology (and again, because the roots of Western theology in its theoretical form are found in Augustine, who is influenced by neo-Platonism) this scheme this system of placing the One before the many - is also transferred into Triadic theology, and the Essence is thus placed (as already mentioned) before the Persons (hypostases). It is precisely because this way of thinking is prevalent and determinant of Western theology, that this mentality is carried over to Ecclesiology as well. And that is where we shall see analytically the consequences that it brings about. We shall begin with a basic principle. The Church is one; this is an ecclesiological principle that we all accept. However, the Church is simultaneously many Churches. So, what comes first? Logically - that is, theologically and axiologically - what comes first? Which is the true Church? The one, or the many Churches? Western theology has clearly taken the stance that the one Church in the entire world - the universal Church, the ecumenical Church - is logically precedent. The individual, local Churches follow and they must conform to the one Church. This took on a specific form in Western Ecclesiology, and reached the point of regarding the universal Church, the ecumenical, one Church in the world, as something that has its own structure, its own existence, above all the local Churches. This structure is a familiar one. It is expressed precisely by the function of the pope, who is not just a bishop of one, local Church, but an ecumenical bishop; a bishop who is the head of the entire Church - the one, worldwide Church. Ratzinger, together with Rahner had published a book some years ago, in which the distinction that Rahner makes (and is a very subtle and profound one, between the essence and the existence of the Church) hints exactly that the essence of the Church is found in the ecumenical Church, which exists in the form of the individual, local Churches. But the question is (just as we have the question in Triadic theology "whether the Essence precedes the Persons/hypostases", we likewise have the related question): Does the one, ecumenical Church precede the several, local Churches, or not? And the answer given by Western theology to this question is YES. Even Rahner, who tries to take a few steps forward with his distinction between the essence and the existence of the Church, is attempting to say that for the one Church to exist, it must definitely have the local Churches; that it cannot exist without the local Churches. And yet, despite all this, it is regarded as being logically precedent. This concept of "logically precedent" took on a specific form in ecclesiology, mainly during the Vatican II Council, with the infallibility of the pope and the principle that all bishops must agree with the pope. This is not a legalistic issue. Its roots are found precisely within the principle of the precedence of the One and the Essence, versus the many and the several. We need to delve deep into theology, not superficially - the way we see things at first glance. In the end, everything leads to common, deeper roots. This ecclesiology of precedence of the One versus the many - and the essence versus the several - as officially decided by the Vatican I Council, was somewaht amended by the Vatican II Council. And here is the crucial point that we find ourselves today: Did the Vatican II Council in fact amend the Vatican I Council on this point regarding the precedence of the ecumenical Church, or didn't it? Everything hinges on this, because if Roman Catholic theology reaches the point of accepting that the local Churches are NOT second to the one, ecumenical Church, then it will automatically reach the conclusion that the pope is similarly NOT precedent to the other bishops but is himself a bishop, and that the local Churches who express themselves through their own, local bishops, are equally determining factors for the unity of the Church. In other words, the multiplicity of the Churches is the determining factor for the unity; it is not the unity that is the determining factor for the multiplicity, or, rather,

that the two should somehow coincide. This, therefore, is the crucial point that ecclesiology is at. All those who study the Vatican II Council can see that it did NOT amend the Vatican I Council, but that instead, it introduced a new ecclesiology, which must now compromise with the ecclesiology of Vatican I. This new ecclesiology bestows a "catholicity" (universality) to a local Church, and that is where the well-timed problem resides. Up until that time, the Roman Catholic Church identified the catholic Church with the ecumenical one. Influenced by Orthodox theologians in the West, Western theology began to acknowledge that each and every local Church is "catholic" (universal) and complete, under its bishop. This too was inserted in the Vatican II Council. But the catholicity of the local Church conflicts with the catholicity of the ecumenical one and consequently, we have here once again the problem of precedence of the One or the many, and the need to find a way out of it. If one were to carefully study Roman Catholic theology today, they would see that it is in a state of confusion. From the moment that it allowed that Orthodox current to enter, new possibilities for approaching Orthodoxy in ecclesiology were created - possibilities that were of extreme importance. On the other hand, dilemmas were created within Roman Catholic theology, which are discerned today among Roman Catholic theologians: they must either shift towards the guideline that Orthodoxy has somehow introduced, and acknowledge the catholicity of a local Church (with all the consequences that this entails, especially with regard to the pope's primacy), or, they must back-step and re-acknowledge the Vatican I Council's decisions, where the authorities of the pope above local bishops are once again given priority. This is the dilemma that Roman Catholic theology and its "Church" are suffering from today. Attempts have been made by the Roman Curia to legalize by means of a law that they have named "Lex fontamentalis" the authority of the pope versus the bishops; the reactions that arose within the Roman Catholic family were indeed impressive... There are many who can foresee - and Lossky has already pointed out - the consequences of the Filioque on ecclesiology, mainly because the Filioque with its prioritization of the essence as opposed to the Person (hypostasis), has placed nature first. Lossky proposes a form that lies between Christology and Pneumatology; he places Christology before Pneumatology and identifies Pneumatology with the "many" - with multiplicity - and Christology with unity. This is a form that requires much discussion, but it does also have many truths inside it. We will eventually move on to all of the consequences in our forthcoming lessons; meantime, we have only set out the basis that this whole story of prioritizing the essence versus the person/hypostasis(which we also link to Triadic theology and especially with the matter of the Filioque) has direct consequences for ecclesiology. In Western theology, we have examined until now the prerequisites, we have seen what the characteristics of Western thought are, and then we moved on, to see how all these characteristics are expressed in theology - in specific topics of theology. We examined the difference between Theology and Oekonomia (Providence). We also had a look at the matter of the Filioque and its consequences, and now we shall move on, to other aspects of theology - which will pertain purely to Oekonomia (Providence). On the matter of God's existence itself, we said what we had to say on Western theology: first of all, that it does not make any clear distinction with respect to Oekonomia (Providence); that it confuses the issue; that it places these Trinitarian relationships that we see in Oekonomia into theology, and that the Filioque is a consequence of this, etc... In Western theology, a trend is observed where Christology is overemphasized to the detriment of Pneumatology, and this of course has an effect on ecclesiology. This is attributed to the fact that Christology is mainly preoccupied with historical realities - with the Incarnation, with the Life of Christ. And as we mentioned earlier, Western thought has the

tendency to be interested in History. The Holy Spirit - Pneumatology - on the other hand is the exact opposite. The role of the Holy Spirit in Oekonomia (Providence) is to free the Son from the bonds of History, because with the Incarnation, the Son took upon Himself all the consequences of man's Fall. He became Adam, and then penetrated History with all the negative meaning that the Fall had given it. He entered spatial-temporal History; the Son was (physically) born in Nazareth of Palestine; He was born during the reign of Augustus Caesar, at a specific point in Time. He was crucified during the time of Pontius Pilate... in other words, He took History exactly as it is experienced by us, and became a part of that History. However, History -as we have lived it- contains negative existential consequences, because inside it is Death. My history for example -as I experience it- has within it the fact that once upon a time I didn't exist; that my father used to exist but he no longer exists now; and that I shall not exist after a number of years. Death is intertwined with historical existence - with Time. And this is the situation that the Son entered, in His Incarnate form. The Spirit did not become incarnate, nor did the Father of course become incarnate. The Father does nothing more than condescend - because He is the source of every gift of God... just like when we say the words "the Father of Lights" in the prayer that is offered behind the pulpit (which priests inappropriately cite before the Icon of Christ, as the prayer is addressed to the Father and the Persons should not be confused between them; it is a dogmatic slipup). Therefore, we have the words "...from You, the Father of Lights...". This is the role that the Father has: He condescends - to the Incarnation and to the advent of the Spirit. It is the Son Who becomes incarnate. The Spirit does not become incarnate, and as such, is not subject to the consequences of History, which contains the Fall and Death. However, the Spirit does have His own role: it is not that He merely doesn't become incarnate; the Spirit is precisely the One Who stands by the Son during the entire period of His Incarnate state, liberating Him from the negative consequences of the Incarnation. We have here an extremely significant detail, which we Orthodox continuously forget, and it is at the point of the Resurrection, which is the Son's release from the state of Death. The Son - when deigning to put on flesh - also deigned to undergo Death along with it, as a part of History, and by doing this, was crucified and subjected to the pain of the Cross and Death. However, He was freed in the end. In the end, He does not undergo Death - He is not conquered by Death - He overcomes Death, with His Resurrection. Many people forget that the Resurrection of Christ occurred through the Holy Spirit. The Father raises the Son from the dead, through the Holy Spirit. Instead of this, the idea that prevailed was that Christ's divine nature somehow conquered Death. That is not correct - not even Scripturally (because we have clear testimonies that the Father raises the Son through the Spirit), nor from the Patristic point of view is it correct (because the natures do not act on their own). These were ideas by Leo I - the pope who introduced to the 4th Ecumenical Council the so-called "reciprocation by the characteristics of the natures", however, Cyril insisted more on "hypostatic union". Whatever takes place in Christology is a matter of Persons (hypostases), and is not simply a matter of natures. So, we should not forget that the Spirit has a very significant role to perform within Christology - that role being His constant presence at the side of the Son during the adventure of His Incarnation. The Spirit stood by Him in the desert where He went to fast; the Spirit stood by Him in Gethsemane where He was to make the big decision... The Son was NOT on His own when He did those things; He did not make those decisions on His own. No, it is not perchance that the Spirit followed Him in all these instances. The Spirit therefore had a very important role to perform: the role of opening History towards End Times - the liberating of History from the boundaries, the limitations of createdness. And that is why the Spirit is also linked to Theosis (deification) and all the rest... When one transcends the boundaries of createdness and death, then it is the Spirit Who is present and playing the leading role. However, because the Spirit has no links to History - that is, He did NOT lead Christ towards His subjugation to History but instead, caused Him to be liberated from it that is the reason, when someone has tendencies like the Westerners have towards History

(and examine everything through the prism of History), that they find something more interesting in Christology. And that is why they developed Pneumatology (theories dealing with the Holy Spirit); or, when they developed Pneumatology, why they did not link it organically to Christology. One of the basic consequences that this wrought on Ecclesiology was that they saw the Church as a historical reality - basically, as the body of Christ in which the role of the Holy Spirit was somehow a decorative role ("let's add a little bit of Holy Spirit to liven it up" as they said in Western theology, "and make the Holy Spirit the soul of the Church"). In other words, we build the edifice of the Church with a Christological-material body of Christ - a historical community which has its historical form - and then deposit the Holy Spirit inside it, to act accordingly. In this way, the Holy Spirit is not placed within the foundations of the Church, and as the One that builds the Church - that the Spirit is in the basis of the Church. And that is how we can see the deviation in Western theology: it is always towards Christology and sometimes even towards "Christ-only-ness" - that is, the highlighting of Christ only, and forgetting about the Holy Spirit altogether. This was the situation that the Orthodox theologians had reacted against. This detail was focused on, mostly during the previous century in Russia by the Slavophiles with Khomiakov, however they now reached the other extreme, by regarding (as Orthodox and anti-Western) that the Church should be seen basically as a communion with the Holy Spirit, and not as the body of the historical Christ. This immediately creates an antithesis which is a very serious one and which we Orthodox are faced with to some degree in our day: the antithesis between the charismatics who have the Spirit and the ordinary successors of bishops who have Apostolic succession. And we tend to say that these are the historical matters, while the Holy Spirit deals with the charismatics. This is precisely the result of that over-stressing; in fact, there are many nowadays who assert that the Church is essentially a community of charismatics. If so, then what are the simple Christians? Doesn't the Spirit have anything to do with them? They claim that Baptism does not impart the Spirit. How can Baptism NOT impart the Spirit, given that it is the mysteries (sacraments) that impart the Spirit? As opposed to what the West did, we Orthodox took Ecclesiology from its historical basis and placed it on a Pneumatological basis. And the first to teach this view were the Slavophiles in Russia, with Khomiakov. Florovsky opposed Khomiakov's position, however, he leaned far more heavily towards the other extreme and made Ecclesiology a mere chapter of Christology. So, in reacting against Khomiakov and -justifiably- reproaching him for having made the Church a communion of the Spirit, Florovsky gave more of a sociological meaning to the Church and underrated History, thus somehow falling into the same Western pitfall. Then there were others who followed him (Lossky, Nisiotes), also over-stressing Pneumatology in Ecclesiology, by dwelling in this precise antithesis with the West: that in this way, you supposedly become more Orthodox - you are more Orthodox - always in the good sense; that you have gone to extremes, but have differentiated yourself from the West. And so, this form of Orthodoxy is placed first: the Holy Spirit to the detriment of Christology in Ecclesiology. Even so, the stressing of Christology continues to be a Western phenomenon. Therefore, when we say "Western theology" we must always keep in mind that: together with (and because of) the over-stressing of History, we also have an over-stressing of Christology, to the detriment of Pneumatology; that Pneumatology has only a secondary and decorative role. In Roman Catholicism this is made obvious in their Ecclesiology, by the fact that they also over-stress historical succession and the historical privileges of the hierarchy. Furthermore, their entire Ecclesiology - the Papist one that gravitates around the notion of the Pope - is justified precisely by means of the argument of historical privileges. In other words, they attempt to prove that the Pope has a historical succession to Saint Peter... this aspect matters very much to them. If they prove historical succession -the historical linkthen the Ecclesiological argument is -to them- a convincing one. From the Orthodox point of view, this is not sufficient. But even if it were proven (which it cannot be), again it is not

enough, because for us, the Church is not simply a community that is perpetuated historically through Time; it is the charismatic element that penetrates the foundations and the institutions of the Church. Consequently, with regard to our association with Western theology, we always have -and must have- this problem in mind: how to have a proper synthesis of Christology and Pneumatology within Ecclesiology. By giving precedence to Christology, Western theology created the following situation with regard to the Church: The Church basically became the Body of Christ for the Roman Catholics; for the Protestants, it became a community which follows Christ and His teaching and listens to His Word -the Gospel- and thus, one could say that between Christ and the Church, a relationship of distance is created. The head and the body do not coincide; they are not fully joined, because the Holy Spirit has not entered it from the very first moment in order to create the kind of community that the Spirit does, by freeing beings from their separateness, from the boundaries of an individual. The Holy Spirit creates persons; He creates a community. When we place Pneumatology at the basis of Christology, then we won't have Christ in the lead and a group following behind Him; instead, we have Christ as a Person, Who includes all of us inside Him. The Church, therefore, is made in this manner: it is a community which has its identity not in itself but in Christ Humself, because She is so joined to Christ that there can be no mention of Her being, without a reference to Christ. This, for example, is how we Orthodox speak of the sanctity of the Church: that it is part of Her very nature; that it is the very being of the Church. Why is that? (given that She is Holy)... Where does the Church draw Her sanctity from? Well, we provide the answer in the Divine Liturgy, every time we say "One is Holy, one is Lord: Jesus Christ". The "saints" to which the precious Gifts are given are the members of the community. The members of the community are sinful; and yet, they are called "saints". But, in their awareness of not being saints, they respond to the aforementioned words by saying: "One is Holy..." If the being - the identity - of the Church - "ecclesiology" - were the community per se, in contrast to Christ, then it would be scandalous to say that the Church is holy. In the ecumenical movement nowadays, we continuously confront that problem. The Protestants rebel and consider it blasphemous to say that the Church is holy, and they always respond with this position: "Are you out of your minds? How can the Church be holy? Can't you see the sin that prevails? In a Pneumatology that the Orthodox lean towards - one that acts to the detriment of Christology - the answer to this would be that the few saints, the charismatics, are the Church and therefore, when we say that the Church is Holy, we are implying the saints. Well, no. That is not the answer that the Liturgy at least gives us. In the Liturgy, when we say "the precious gifts, to the saints", the answer is not that it implies "to a few saints" and as such, those few provide the note of holiness. Christ is the One Who provides the note of holiness. "One is Holy" - there is none second. Even if all the saints gather together before Christ, they are sinners. Therefore, the answer to the Protestants who say: "can't you see? How can you call the Church holy, with so much sin in there?" it is not because we have our saints and that is where we base our position that the Church is holy. No! The answer is that the Church - Her being - the "I" of the Church - is Christ. As the Chrysostom says, the union of head and body is so tight and impenetrable, that if one were to even think of making such a distinction, they would risk leading the body to its death. Because that which gives life to the body is the head. And it is the union with the head that ensures life and holiness to the body. Consequently, the Westerners are constantly drawing us into traps. And everything depends on the correct relationship that we ascribe to Christology and Pneumatology... God forbid

that we separate the two! Because they have been separated, in the West. And quite often, this notion of the few and charismatic is also reminiscent of the West: the idea that this is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in History, to choose a few individuals, be preoccupied with them, and leave all the others to Christ, to History. Thus, Pneumatology is for the Saints, it is about the Saints, and Christology is about History - about that general, main corpus in which the Church moves. So, if we Orthodox were to regard Pneumatology in its proper relationship to Christology, we must forget all these notions of an elite of saints, of Spirit-bearers. Pneumatology - when linked organically with Christology - affects the entire corpus of the Church, and not just a few individuals. For Orthodoxy, there are no charismatics in this sense. This, therefore, is the characteristic of Western thought, which the East had fallen into from the beginning with the Slavophiles, and continues to fall, up to this day. [Note inserted by OODE: It is a fact, that we do not speak of an "elite of Saints", just as the Rev. John of Pergamon says. The notion of any kind of elite has its roots in Frankish chauvinism/racism. We instead speak of the Healed (and therefore the enlightened and Godbearing ones). Saints are those members of the Church - the pieces of Her flesh - who have completed their therapy. And having been healed, they are able to help other members be healed. Hence, God does not preoccupy Himself with an "elite" only, but uses those who have been cleansed by His Grace to heal the rest. He uses them, because only they are better informed about matters of God, given that they alone have cleansed their spiritual eyes. Of course this is not elitism, because all of us have been called to become Saints. It is a matter of personal choice if we want to or not. The fact that one is a member of the Church through Baptism - does not mean that he can know about God or theologize, because, how can someone blind from birth describe the Sun? By only having heard of it? Is that possible? It is also meaningless for us to try to discover "what the Church is" segmentally. The "Church" is Christ, and if the theumens (deified ones) are of some value, it is precisely because they express His Will, and not because they are worthy on their own. They are not self-luminous; they are illuminated by others. All of us can and must become Saints - that is the basic purpose to the existence of the Church.] Going back now, to Western theology, we shall see that this distinction - this distance (in actual fact a splitting apart) - between Christology and Pneumatology has led the West to an internal speculation, between Roman Catholics and Protestants; a speculation that they also wanted to positively drag us into, as of the 17th century, with the Confessions - a speculation that has the following content, more or less: Can the Church relate to the historical community - does She relate to the historical community, or not? If She does relate to the historical community, then She relates to Christology. The Roman Catholics said yes, the Church absolutely relates to the historical community. The Protestants reached the point of developing the idea of an invisible Church; that is, that the actual essence of the Church is NOT in the historical community. So they would ask us Orthodox: "What do you say?" If one were to read the confessions, they would see that essentially we are not saying anything, and in essence we have embraced a speculation that is not Orthodox, because to us, the historical reality of the Church becomes mainly connected (within the Divine Liturgy, the Eucharist), with the eschatological reality, through the notion of imagery. With us, everything is depicted. And this precise depiction is created by the Holy Spirit, Who brings together (in an organic and dialectic relationship, but also in a relationship of unity), History and all things eschatological. Consequently, for us Orthodox it is not a matter of whether the Historical or the Eschatological Church is "the" Church. We Orthodox bypass all this, only if we place the Divine Eucharist as the centre of Ecclesiology. And so, we now arrive at another crucial point. The West was never able to place the Divine

Eucharist as the centre of Ecclesiology, because first of all, it looked upon the Divine Eucharist clearly through the prism of History. It isolated it from Eschatology, just like it did to all of the mysteries (sacraments). And the West once again dragged us into its own speculations. During the Reformation and the anti-Reformation, the question was posed whether the Divine Eucharist is a "repetition of the sacrifice on Calvary" or not. If one were to read the confessions of Peter Mogilas and the others that had appeared, it will become obvious that we too have embarked on this discussion, because the West was intent on seeing the Eucharist as the continuation of an historical event. But for us - if we study the Divine Liturgy carefully - we can see that the Divine Eucharist is a combination of an historical and an eschatological event. "Remembrance" for us is not necessarily the remembrance of an historical event of the past. That is why we see that paradox in the Divine Liturgy, which the Westerners truly cannot "swallow" or understand. Recently, they drafted a very beautiful English translation of the Liturgy of John the Chrysostom, but they just could not accept the wording of the prayer that precedes the citing of "Thine own, of Thine own, do we offer unto Thee, by all and for all..." and "Keeping therefore in mind the salvific commandment [...] and of the Second and glorious Coming...". They would say: "What is this? How can one say this in English - in the Western manner - that we should remember the Second Coming? Remember an event that hasn't taken place yet? What kind of remembrance is that?" This is truly a scandal, for Western thought. It is not just the Western mentality here; it is also Hellenic Philosophy behind this whole story. And for Hellenic Philosophy, "remembrance" likewise implies a remembrance of the past. This is the crucial point of conflict - the complete overturning of Hellenic thought. It is simply impossible for an ancient Hellene to state "a remembrance of the future". Whatever an ancient Hellene remembers is an unfolding of the Past. Well, this is what the Westerner also sees, in his own historical conscience. Up until the 18th century, the notion of "History" was not as developed as it is nowadays - not even in the West; however, it is not that historical conscience was not developed in the West. Historical conscience - historism - is to go and find the events the way they occurred, but essentially without their meaning - which may quite possibly be eschatological. It is truly a betrayal, not only of History, but also of human logic, when the Westerner confuses these. It is a disrespect for the truth on his part, when one states all sorts of un-historical things (for example in the Bios of Saints). If one were to take such a Bios and examine it with a historical conscience, it will create problems. History, historical conscience, means to actually locate the time and the place in the Past, to perceive it as an event that the mind can perceive and confine within intelligible boundaries, and that is what they call History. In which case, what role can the Holy Spirit play? It is Christology that prevails here, because it again is perceived as a series of events of the Past. As mentioned earlier, "...in remembrance of the Cross, of the Tomb, of the third-day Resurrection, of the ascent to the heavens..." all these are located, and are placed within a timeframe. "...during Pontius Pilate...", "...after three days..." - so far, so good. But when we interpose the element of the future, the remembrance thereof, then that is where we part ways with the West. Do you see how deep all these things go, even with regard to the general perception (which is also the mentality), but also with regard to Christology and Pneumatology, because the element of Future also penetrates History. Christ introduces God into History, while the Holy Spirit brings the endmost events into History. "...In these final days I shall pour forth from My Spirit upon every flesh..." Christians saw the Pentecost as the arrival of the endmost events. The Westerner sees the Pentecost and the Holy Spirit as something that illuminates so that he can understand and strengthen him to understand historical events. But that is not what it is. I am taken into another dimension altogether - I am transported to another dimension, which is the dimension of the Future, and it is He Who places me there. History and Time are also placed

there, thus freeing me of the confinement, the boundaries that Time and Space entail, which are expressed mainly with death. And that is also why the Spirit is simultaneously life-giving, while bringing the endmost events into History. We experience all these things during the Divine Eucharist. To us, the Eucharist is the advent of the endmost times, and not a repetition. We do not have that concern, which they had during the Reformation (whether it is or isn't a repetition of Calvary). But unfortunately, if we open up our Dogmatics books, that is what we will read. It is something however that does not preoccupy us; it is a Western concern, because for us it is not a repetition, nor is it the continuation of a certain past. It is the penetration of the Future inside Time, which of course creates a new event each time. And that new event is the Eucharist. The Divine Eucharist is a new incarnation each time; a new Crucifixion, an new Resurrection, a new Ascension and at the same time a new Advent once again and a new Judgment. That is why it (the Eucharist) has all the "trappings" of Judgment that the Divine Eucharist always had, and hence the reason that one cannot approach it unworthily. It is not perchance so. The world is being judged. "Now is judgment upon the world". The word "now" of the 4th Gospel is referring precisely to the Divine Eucharist, because the experience that envelops the Gospel is eucharistic. Thus, we have new events, but of course without a rift with History involved. Therefore, for us there is a historic continuum, except that the dimension of the Future - the dimension of the endmost events that liberates History from its confines - enters into it. With all of the aforementioned, one can perceive how easy it is for us Orthodox to succumb to Western thought, Western theology, with realizing it. That is why we should always have that special sensitivity as Orthodox, whenever we hear theological positions. And we should always place them under that criterion in the case of the West. The West does not have the eschatological approach embodied in History. It has separated History and Eschatology, so either the endmost events are an entirely separate chapter of events that are to take place afterwards (like it also is in our own, Orthodox Dogmatics), or, it is regarded as a charismatic experience of a few, which is to be separated from History. But that is how we dissect Ecclesiology: we split it into the Church of Saints and the Church of the historical community. Two different things. If we also refer to the historical community as "Church", it is likewise a Western trait. The eschatological approach must be incorporated into the historical one, and for us, that actually does take place, during the Divine Liturgy the Eucharist - and nowhere else. Outside the Divine Eucharist, we can easily result in the aforementioned dissection.

= End =

Transcript into Greek: Erasmia Papaioannou Proof reading (Greek): Stavros Yagazoglou Typing (Greek): . . Webpage format: N. M. Translation by A. N.

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