Salvation and the Other

Saint Antony the Great: He also said, 'Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.'

Abba John the Dwarf said, 'A house is not built by beginning at the top and working down. You must begin with the foundations in order to reach the top. They said to him, 'What does this saying mean?' He said, 'The foundation is our neighbor, whom we must win, and that is the place to begin. For all the commandments of Christ depend on this one.'

Saint Anastasios of Sinai:  Therefore, I pray you; let us flee this wicked and unpardonable sin (of remembrance of wrong).  And if you want to learn that the darkening from the remembrance of wrong is worse than any other, then listen.  Every other sin takes a brief while to commit and is soon over, as when someone commits fornication, and afterwards remembers the enormity of this sin and comes to consciousness of it; but remembrance of wrong has a passion that never ceases to burn...  where remembrance of wrong has taken root, nothing is of any avail; not fasting, or prayer, or tears, or confession, or supplication, or virginity, or alms, or any other good thing.  For remembrance of wrong towards our brother destroys everything.

I often hear people saying, 'Alas, how shall I be saved?  I haven't the strength to fast, I don't know how to keep vigil, I can't live in virginity, I couldn't bear to leave the world- so how can I be saved?'  How?  I will tell you how.  Forgive and you will be forgiven...  here is a short cut to salvation.  And I will show you another, what is that?  Judge not, it says, and you will not be judged.  So here is another path without fasting 0r vigil or labor... He who judges before Christ's coming is Antichrist, because he abrogates the position that belongs to Christ...

Orthodoxy and the Economic Crisis

 The following is an excerpt from an article by B. Kostakiotis, for the complete article-

English- http://www.oodegr.com/english/koinwnia/politika/confronting_crisis_spiritually.htm

Greek- http://asian-aroma.com/?p=1966

The answer to the crisis is, I believe, one.  I don't know any other.  It is to change the meaning that we have given to our existence.  This means:

Firstly, there is the remembrance of death; and immediately, the whole world is overturned - our entire world view collapses - and everything acquires its proper dimensions. There is one fact: the biological end. After which, everything that the aforementioned model professes, and all those things after which we struggle and agonize lose their glamour. They are futile and transient. You come to realize that this life of agony, of anxiety, is one purposeless madness.  The biological end will come, so why are we spending our short life span inside that madness?  My brothers, I have heard of many who committed suicide because they suffered financial ruin and lost their houses and the material wealth that they had, and this was regarded as absolutely normal by many - even by us.  Madness is considered a normal thing. To commit suicide over losing money!  You know, I have never heard of anyone falling apart because he hated his fellow-man, or because his neighbor died on account of his indifference. Much more so, because he lost Christ - the Eternal and the True.  Absolute madness...

Anyway - to get back to the subject - when we speak of the remembrance of death, we don't mean a passive memory that brings on inertia, despair and desperation.  Nor do we mean a nirvana.  We mean an active state which activates every corner of the mind, the heart and the body.  Realization sets in, and your existence begins to pulsate. But your passion for life now turns towards the real life; I am referring to the One Who is Life itself.  And Who is that?  It is the One Who is not ephemeral but eternal.  The One Who does not give us cause for agony, but joy.

Let me tell you something personal. When I was a "failure" family-wise, professionally and financially, when I had nothing at all and was an absolute zero according to the criteria of this society, I acquired only one thing: the remembrance of death.  And I felt fuller than I ever had before, because I had the One Who fills everything.  I would leave my one-room apartment where I lived, without locking up behind me and without any anxiety whatsoever, because I had nothing.  What I did have, no-one could steal from me.  So I would walk the streets, encounter acquaintances - many of whom pretended they hadn't seen me - but that didn't bother me. Because the One Who is omniscient knew me.  Later, I became a judge and was a recognizable individual, with fame, titles, money, material wealth... and I lost that remembrance of death. I lost everything, because I lost the Lord of all. When did I feel joy? Then, or now?  When was I going through a crisis?  When I possessed nothing, or now that I have possessions?

Let me return to the subject.  Who is Life?  Who gives meaning to my brief life?

To reply to this, one question suffices: Who is the conqueror of death? The One Who conquered death is the only One Who can show us the way to true life. No-one else.  And I no longer accept substitutes.

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling death by death… So, Christ comes along and vanquishes death. And what does He say?  "I am the Truth and Life". And what does Life tell us? "Whosoever wants to follow Me, let him renounce himself and follow Me..."

Hence, the first prerequisite : "Renounce one's self".  The absolute "me" of our cultural system becomes a full renunciation of our self, on the path to Christ.

Then: "Let him follow me". No clarifications. He asks for our complete surrender.  He asks us to trust Him. You either trust Him and follow Him, or you go your own way - the way of individualistic agony that our civilization invites you to.

And I ask myself, brothers: To what end is all that agony? We know that He feeds all the fowl of the sky, will He not take care of us? Could that agony finally denote an egotism and a lack of trust on our part?  Of course you will probably ask why people are dying of hunger - is it because they didn't trust Him? Gentlemen, we don't have answers to every question.  But trust: we either have it or we don't. That's it.  When we were children and our father told us that something had to be done this way, we didn't know why he said it, but he knew. So we trusted him, because we knew he loved us.  So, either we have a deep conviction that Christ loves us and will not abandon us, and that no matter what befalls us, He Who is Love has allowed it and therefore it is welcome, or, we follow the path of our personal self-sufficiency.  Trust also means that we surrender ourselves to Him.  A saint once said:  "Lord, I want to be with You, even in Hell".  That says it all.  I deposit my existence with Him Who is Life, and may He do whatever He sees fit.  Then an incredible calm overwhelms you... the agony that dominates our culture becomes a joy of encounter, because I have encountered Him and have associated with Him Who is Life.

Apart from trust, what else are we told?

No possessions. Acquire nothing.  Because the desire for personal property differentiates us ontologically from Him, Who keeps nothing for Himself.

What else has He told us?

That whoever has two garments should give away the one. Our culture tells us that whoever has 2 ships should acquire 1000. Who agonizes, and who, really, is happy?  Have you ever seen any extremely wealthy people - who comprise the social model - appear peaceful and calm?  Or do you perhaps see them permanently sullen, bent over numbers?  Then the antipodes: Can you ever imagine Elders Paisios or Porphyrios (and other monks of the same calibre) agonizing because they possess only one, frayed cassock?  And yet, we who have so many things, agonize so much over acquiring even more... plus, we also lose the joy of offering.

What else does the Conqueror of death tell us?

"Give us this day our daily bread..."

Who of us, my brothers, doesn't have that bread? Is that what we are agonizing for?  Let's be honest... We don't care about the bread, even though we thunder out the Lord's Prayer every Sunday... We care about anything material that the social model dishes out.  But if we did follow Christ, would we have any agony?

He Who conquered death tells us many more things, which of course can't fit into a brief introduction.  But, everything that He does say is summarized - I believe - in one and only statement:  "Love your neighbour". But what is far more compelling is: "Love your enemy".  Brothers, the stories that we're taught in school write about a whole lot of revolutions, and yet there is not a single mention of the most earth-shaking revolution: Love your enemy.  Honestly, can you imagine a world that would simply listen to what the One Who is Joy and Life told us?  Can you imagine a world where all people would love one another?  Would any of the things that we described as "crises" exist?  Or would we be talking about another world altogether?

Brothers, our cultural model does not stand up to repair. Its problem is ontological. As I mentioned earlier, all the problems that are born of the system we live in are not attributed to a pathology; they are its very physiology. Another manner of co-existence is imperative.  And that path has been pointed out, by the Victor of death: it is the manner of His existence - the Trinitarian, loving manner of existence. This means that Man, who was fashioned according to the image of God, can also become God by Grace, in order to conquer death (not the biological death, but death per se), and that he should attempt to experience in all these agonies - as much as humanly possible - a loving, Trinitarian communion.  In other words, attempt to co-exist lovingly with all his fellow-men, both friends and enemies.  Absolute fullness.

Even in this other manner of existence, all of us are invited: the worthy and the unworthy. Because God is Love.  God doesn't choose. Man chooses, freely: either he attempts this, and actually lives, or he chooses to be dead, even though he survives biologically.  Of course, given that man chose to be fallen - both as a person and as a member of an established collective group - he is unable to attain that way of existence perfectly.

But, even if that isn't entirely feasible, the way of life of the Saints surely is - when we  refer to a personal level, and the life of the Church is, when referring to a collective level. There can be no excuses here.  The Saints were the same as us. So, if they were capable of living a different life, so can we.  So let us follow their example and the example of the Church.

And in the end, why don't we just resort to the greatest potential that He granted us in order to associate with Him and our fellow-man? Prayer.

During the most solemn point of the Divine Liturgy and man's life, we hear the following words:

"Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all, and for all..."

That is the whole meaning.  Lord, everything is Yours.  Nothing is ours.  And it is You Who has granted everything to us.  Just as You granted Your Self to us.  Without anything in exchange and without discriminations.  To the poor, as well as to the rich; to the beautiful and to the ugly; to the young and to the old.  And we now offer what is Yours, to You: that is, our existence.  Do what You want with it, because it is Yours.  Because You are Love, Life and Joy, and we want to partake of Love, Life and Joy.

For further information go to the following link to watch a remarkable presentation from Dr. Christos Yannaras  http://petrakosfilmsblog.com/2012/professor-christos-yannaras-in-san-francisco-filmed-by-kostas-petrakos/ 

Christos Yannaras: Fasting & Asceticism

Christian asceticism is above all an ecclesial and not an individual matter. It is the changing of our nature’s individual mode of existence into a personal communion and relationship, a dynamic entry into the community of the life of the body Of the Church. The aim of asceticism is to transfigure our impersonal natural desires and needs into manifestations of the free personal will which brings into being the true life of love. Thus the instinctive need for food, the greed for the individual’s independent self-preservation, is transfigured if, the context of the Church’s fasting: submission to the common practice of the Church becomes paramount, turning it into an act of relationship and communion. The Christian does not fast in order to either subjugate matter to the spirit, or because he accepts a division of foods into “clean” and “unclean.” He fasts because in this way he ceases to make the intake of food an autonomous act; he turns it into obedience to the common will and common practice of the Church, and subjugates his individual preferences to the Church rules of fasting which determine his choice of food. And obedience freely given always presupposes love: it is always an act of communion.

Nevertheless, the Church’s fasting rules do not express a fortuitous or arbitrary division of foods, but summarize a long experience of human nature on the part of the saints who laid down these canons. This experience knows well the rebelliousness of our nature, and understands how to distinguish what use of foods invigorates the autonomous impulse for self-preservation and what weakens it. In this sense, we can accept the connection between fasting and the subjugation of matter to the demands of the spirit, as an image or a figure of interpretation. All that need be made clear is that asceticism in the Church is not in conflict with matter itself, but with the rebellion of material individuality, the rebellious drive for self-subsistence. Asceticism checks the rebellion of our material nature and does not allow nature to become an end in itself— a second purpose within creation, different from that unique end which is the personal hypostasis of life, our participation in the life of Trinitarian communion.

Flowers & Faith

Faith is a rich tapestry in which every particle is entangled and a cosmic dance in which every part of creation participates... even the flowers of the field.

http://phenomenalogos.blogspot.com/2012/11/flowers-faith.html

The Eucharist as a Place of the Truth

by Metropolitan John of Pergamon

How does the Eucharist reveal the Christ as the truth? What does the allegation, that the Christ is the truth, concerning the life and the structure of the Church under the light of its Eucharistic experience? Here is where we will make the following observations:

a) The Eucharist reveals the Christ-Truth as a "visit" and "residence" (John 1,19) of God in the history and the creation, so that God will be able to be met in the glory of His truth and that one can take part in the communion of His life. For this reason the Church has no other reality or experience of the truth as experience of the truth as communion as perfect as the Eucharist. In the Eucharistic gathering the word of God meets man and the creation not superficially, as it happened in the Old Testament, but as "flesh", that is, the most internal part of our existence, as part of creation. In this way, the word of God does not inhabit in the human mind as reasonable knowledge or in the human soul as internal mystical experience, but as communion in the internal of a community. We must emphasize categorically, that in it the understanding of Christ as truth, Christ reveals Himself as the truth not in a community but as a community. Thus the truth is not an expression or a meaning, it is not a truth either, which should be confirmed or proven, but as an ontological truth it is something, which exists: the community itself becomes truth.

Christ as the truth is not only revealing but also realized in our existence as communion to a community and so the truth is not forced upon but distinguished among us. Therefore, the truth is not an authority in the sense of "auctoritas", but is much more grace and love, which surrounds us in the same way it is included in us existentially. At the same time this truth is not the effect of a sociological experience or a tem experience; it comes clearly from another world and as such is not produced by us.

b) This kind of truth does not come to us as a result of a historical transition. At this point the problem becomes too delicate and demands a diligent examination.

It is certain, that Christianity is based on a historical fact and the Fathers of the Church were the Christians of their time, who certainly thought about the dimension of history, if we compare them to the heretics, who they were fighting against (to the Fathers heresy is "innovation"). Besides, history, understood under the light of the Eucharistic experience, is not the same with history, as we usually understand it. Here it is probably presented limited through the memorial and summoning character of the Eucharist, which transforms time from its alienation and fall into communion and life. Thus history is no longer a succession of facts, which expands linearly from the past to the future; it rather receives a future and vertical dimension. History thus is transferred into charismatic facts, into facts of the Pentecost. In a history understood in such a way, truth does not come to us just through the mission (Christ-the Apostles-the Bishops, in a linear evolution). It comes as a fact of Pentecost. Through this, linear history receives a charismatic present. The ordination of a bishop takes place exactly for this reason in the Eastern Church, exclusively during the Eucharist (and in the Liturgy of the Eastern Church the holiday (as holy-day) of the Pentecost is celebrated in each ordination of a bishop).

These enlighten our understanding on the "unerring" of the Church and the way, with which this unerring is expressed through particular principles. Eirinaeus already links the office of the bishop to a particular "charisma veritatis" and the ancient Church developed the idea of an apostolic succession of the bishops as well as the application of the Holy Synod, also for the bishops. But why did this correlation of the bishops with the "veritas" result from the very beginning? In the opinion we presented, this cannot concern a mission of the truth in particular carriers of offices. Each bishop receives the "charisma veritatis" in the Eucharistic community only and as a fact of the Pentecost and this shows that the apostolic succession is transferred necessarily from communion to the community. The bishop is in is duty an heir of the Apostles for as long as he is the image of Christ in his community. These two sides (Christ, Apostles) the ancient Church could not have imagined them separately[i]. In the same way the synods was the expression of the truth, precisely because the bishops were the leaders of their community and for this reason they could take part in the synods only the bishops with an episcopate. Unity in the identity of the communities is the base for the synodical infallible.

c) Similar observations can be made on the matter of the formulation of the truth in the Church. The dogmatic terms can be understood in two different ways: 1. As systematic interpretations of the truth, so as to lead to a better knowledge of God, or 2. As marks and sign posts towards Christ as the truth, through historical and cultural forms in each peculiarity of place and time. If we preserve the basic principle, that the truth cannot be "understood", then we must reject the first way of understanding the dogmatic terms. If we accept the second one, then the whole problem of doctrines finds its place in the perspective of truth and communion along with all the other ontological sequences of the truth, as they have been presented so far in relation to the synthesis of the Greek Fathers. If the truth as communion is not to be separated from the ontology of life, then the doctrines are mainly confessions concerning salvation; their purpose lies in releasing the original image of Christ as truth, from the perversions of certain heresies, in order to help the community of the Church in preserving the right understanding of Christ as truth and in living in it and through this presence of the truth in history. All intends, in the end, to lead to the communion of the life of God and in acting in such a way, so that the truth can be communion and life. For this reason the ancient Synods did not finish their stipulations with excommunications, so that it will be obvious, that the basic purpose of a Synod is not created so much by the stipulations, as much by the anathema. The excommunication had a pastoral basis, which is to protect the community from perversions of the image of truth, so as not to be put in danger the content of the truth leading to salvation. If after a certain stipulation and an anathema communion was taken away, then this happened because of the fact, that the Eucharist demands a common viewing of Christ. The purpose of the Synod was the Eucharistic communion and when one formulated and accepted faith confessions, it did not want with this to provide them with material on theological thought but give to the Eucharistic communities the right orientation. Thus can one say, that the symbolic terms do not hold upon them the relation with the truth, but only during the realization of the glorifying mention by the liturgical community.

These "terms" possess at the same time a particular characteristic reality. What is the relationship with the truth that these formulations bring to the light of the Eucharistic viewing of the truth? This is where we can investigate another delicate problem.

In the course of this essay we have shown, that the truth cannot be understood and in this way not be made objective and defined. But how can one understand the doctrines, when these are not viewed as "formulations" or "terms" of the truth in order to preserve it under the various historical and cultural?

If we start our syllogism from a historical understanding of the truth, that is, from the doctrines in their belief and salvation character, mentioned previously, then these doctrines present a kind of acceptance, consecration and at the same time excess of history and civilization. It looks like the Eucharist, which receives elements from the creation and everyday life of the people and transforms them into communion. In a similar way in the synodical and charismatic procedure of the doctrinaire formulation become certain historical and cultural elements (language, meaning, and others) carriers and marks of communion. They enter into the way of thinking of different communities, from which they are used in the Eucharistic communion and thus become these historical and cultural elements structural elements of the communion and acquire in this way a sacred character and permanence in the life of the Church. History and civilization become acceptable but at the same time are put under the eschatological expectation so as not the truth to be subordinated into the historical and cultural incarnation. As an example to this could prove to be useful certain terms and senses, which the Church adopted on its dogmatic formulations from the Greek civilization, as for example the terms catholic or person or hypostasis. Concerning the historical and cultural heritage, these are Greek words. But would Aristotle have understood their meaning if he was given the symbol of Nice-Constantinople to read it? If these words are connected to history and civilization alone, he should understand them. But if, as we can estimate, he wouldn't be able to understand them then something very important must have happened with these historical and cultural elements through the fact, that they were connected to the thought and the life of the Church. In this direction we would like to understand the faith in doctrines. Their sense does not lie in the fact that they present certain truths or the Truth reasonably, but that they have become the expression and marks of communion inside the Christian community. Because communion describes a relationship, it falls inevitably into the order of incarnation and in this way it realizes the truth «hic et nunc», by incorporating history and civilization. At the same time lies in the truth as communion a prophetic and critical element. This appears in the acceptance and not in the rejection of the historical forms. Christ as the truth is the judge of the world because he embraced the world in himself.

This means, that each breaching of the link between dogma and community, owes its existence to the breaching of the link between truth and communion. The dogmas, like the office, cannot survive as truth outside the fact of the created from the Holy Spirit communion. A sense of formulation cannot incorporate the truth in itself, because then one would end up once again to the Greek viewing concerning the truth. The academic theology can of course take up teaching, but only the communion of the Church contributes to making theology be the truth[ii]. In such an understanding of the dogmas the defense of the Greek Fathers is held against a theoretical conceivement of the idea of truth without withdrawing the historicity of the truth.

d) In the Eucharist seems, that the truth does not concern the human existence alone, but that it has deep cosmical dimensions. In the Eucharist Christ reveals Himself as life and the summary of whole creation. One of the basic difficulties in the Greek understanding of the truth lies in the fact that the truth cannot be understood and presented with human word alone. Of course, in the entire creation, man is the only one endowed with reason and this reason of his sets him, according again to the understanding of the Greek fathers, master of creation. The Eucharistic experience reveals in this way, that this reason of man should be understood as an element, which unites the creation in order to connect it with God through the hands of man, so that God -and not man- can be "everything in everyone". This Eucharistic or priestly function of man connects the created nature with the continuous existence and thus releases it from the enslavement of necessity by allowing it to develop its abilities to the extent. If, according to the basic principle of this essay, communion id the only way, in which the truth as life can exist, then nature, which does not include person or communion, should "grieve and worry" with the expectation of man's redemption, who can place it in the fact of communion created by God. It is man's duty to let a Eucharistic reality be distinguished, meaning to make the very nature capable of communion. If man can do that, then the truth receives meaning for the entire world. Christ becomes a cosmic Christ and the world in its sum becomes a residence of truth, which is nothing other than the communion with its Creator. Thus truth becomes the life of being.

With these thoughts we are led much further from the theological truth, with the narrow and common sense of the word theological, and in this way meet the truth in the space of natural sciences. For a great period of time natural sciences and theology were presented as having in research different viewpoints on the truth, like the truth was not only one in the sum of existence. This was the result of the fact, that the truth was subordinated in the dissection of a supreme and existing in the fact that, in a final analysis, the theological and the scientific viewing of the truth have been estranged from the understanding of communion. They viewed it from the viewpoint of the relationship of subject-object alone in the confines of the analytical method of research. The radical upset that Einstein caused to science, led to a complete reorientation of scientific research in the understanding of the truth[iii]. The results that were extracted should be studied in their entire extension; but what seemed clearly, is that the Greek understanding of the being was influenced decisively on this, on which the Greek Fathers remained on a philosophical level[iv] and in this way the ability to talk of a unique truth in the world is given, which one can approach both scientifically and theologically. If one uses creatively in theology the synthesis of truth and communion of the Greek Fathers and courageously applies it inside the Church, then the dissection between Church and science would be able to be overridden. A scientist, who is a member of the Church, would be able to realize, that he is executing a very important para-eucharistic work and this could lead to the liberation of nature from the slavery in the hands of modern day technological man. The Eucharistic viewing about the truth can in this way release man from his despotism on nature and make him realize, that Christ as truth us here for the life of the entire world and that the divination, coming only through Christ as communion to the divine life (Peter 2^nd, 1,4), is not only referring to man, but to the «whole of nature»[v].

e) Finally, the Eucharistic understanding of the truth makes clear, that the truth becomes freedom (John 8,32). As it has already been mentioned concerning the question on the fallen existence, freedom lies in this reference in the change between different abilities: between the denial and the affirmation, between good and evil. This ability of choice is based on the individualizations and the dissections of the being, and from these comes as a result, that man mentions intensely his whole being to his very self. The excess of these dissections are exactly that which we characterize as "catholicity" (authenticity) of the existence of Christ in His body, in the Catholic Church. This concerns this kind of authenticity in the existence, as presented by the Eucharistic community in its very structure[vi]. Freedom, which gives to the creation Christ as truth, is this liberation precisely from the division and the individualization and in this way the ability of discernment is created in the communion.

But if the truth as freedom has its basis in the Church, then a new viewing concerning the truth emerges, which cannot be defined form the freedom of choice, but from the movement of permanent affirmation, the continuous "amen". The congregated in the Eucharist people of God realizes this freedom in the form of this affirmation alone: it is not the "yes" and the "no" together, that God offers to Christ, but "yes" alone, which correlates to the eucharistic "amen" (Corinthians 2^nd, 1, 19-20)[vii]. It is therefore clear, that the Eucharist include an understanding of the truth, which is not of this world and which appears perhaps as unreal and unsuitable in relation to life. But as we have already shown concerning our thoughts on Christology, the ontological content of the truth is not emptied, when none links it to another action other that the fallen. The individualization of being through the fall makes us look for security in different among them things, but the truth of communion does not offer to us such a kind of security. Much more it liberates us from the slavery of the objective «things» by placing all these things and us in the fact of communion. For this reason the Holy Spirit is both freedom and communion (Corinthians 2^nd, 3,17; 13,13).

It is in communion alone that man is liberated. If the Church wants to be the place of freedom, then it much place all "objects" it possesses -whatever they might be (Scripture, Mysteries, offices, and others)- in the fact of communion so as to make them "real" and liberate its members against such objects, even though in these and through these become channels of communion. Christians must know, that they should not rely on "objective truths", guarantees on the truth, but that they should live in a summoning way, meaning to rely on the fact of communion, into which the structure of the Church imports them. The Truth liberates by placing the beings into communion.

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[i] This is particularly clear in Ippolytos, Αποστ. Παραδ. 3 (prayer of the bishop's ordination).

[ii] This is how the fact that the ancient Church expressed its faith officially through the Synods of the bishops, meaning the leaders of the eucharistic communities and not the theologians.

[iii] See T. F. Torrance, Space, Time and Incarnation, London, New York, Oxford 1969.

[iv] As above.

[v] See Athanassius, Προς Σερ. I,23.

[vi] With more details on this point see J. D. Zizioulas, La communaute eucharistique et la catholicite de l'Eglise, in: Istina 14, 1969, pp. 67-88.

[vii] In the thought of the Greek Fathers, as we tried to show in this essay, the truth s placed over what we characterize as moral truth. The ability of choice, which the moral truth defines, originates from the individualization, as it is connected to the fall (see further above, III,1). At this point lies a true confinement of the truth, because choice refers to granted and consequently compulsory abilities. If God is placed over will (Athanassius) or beyond affirmation and denial (Maximus) (see further up, II,3 and 4), the Greek Fathers wanted at the same time to place freedom over the confinement of choice and granted: God is truly free, for He has nothing, which would be «granted» for Him and in this way exists beyond affirmation and denial. But this should not be just a negative statement. God is completely free with a much more positive sense and whatsmore, in His eternality, that is, cannot be compared to anything else, that, as any other being, has a beginning. He defines positively His existence through a fact of communion: He is the Father, for He has eternally a Son, through which he is self-defined as the Father (see further up, footnote 77). In this way the existence of God is presented truly free against something «granted» with a discernment, which is not enslaved to individualization. A freedom of this sort is offered to man in Christ as the eschatological glory of the children of God. The Holy Spirit is giving already a foretaste for as long as it is directing the community of the Church throughout history. In this sense the Eucharistic communion, as the completely special eschatological fact of the Church, is an affirmation (confirmation), an «amen». It reveals a situation of existence without denial, being itself free of every denial of the being and life, meaning death. Freedom, which lies in the affirmation through communion, is a freedom from individualization and death, an affirmation of being. Of course this is not some moral, but the ontological freedom, which originates from the identification of being and the truth through communion.

Five Icons of Saint Dimitrios

The Face of Christ Through the Ages (20 Icons/ 2,000 Years)

4th C. Catacomb of Commodilla

6th C. Sinai

6th C. Sinai

6th C. Ravenna

11th C. Daphne

Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

8th C. Ireland

11th-13th C. Cappadocia

12th C. Cyprus

14th C. Monastery of the Chora

12th C. Kurbinovo

13th C. Panselinos, Mt. Athos

Sopocani

13th C. Χιλανδαρίου, Chilander, Хиландар

Mt. Athos

15th C. Novgorod

16th C. El Greco

20th C. Fotis Kontoglou

20th C. Christ described by Elder Paisios

20th C. Fr. Stamatis Skliris

Apocalypse & Mystery

God always remains a Mystery. He expresses

His natural hiddeness in such a way that

He makes it the more hidden through revelation.

-Saint Maximos the Confessor

"Sudden" is that which, contrary to expectation, and out of the, as yet, un-manifest, is brought into the manifest. But with regard to Christ's love of man, I think that the Word of God suggests even this, that the Super-essential proceeded forth out of the hidden, into the manifestation amongst us, by having taken substance as man. But, He is hidden, even after the manifestation, or to speak more divinely, even in the manifestation, for in truth this of Jesus has been kept hidden, and the mystery with respect to Him has been reached by no word nor mind, but even when spoken, remains unsaid, and when conceived unknown.

-Saint Dionysios

 

Please visit my other Blog Phenomena & Logos if you are interested in exploring the Paradox of God's Mysteries and Theophanies.

 

  http://phenomenalogos.blogspot.com/2012/10/apocalypse-mystery.html

Truth and the Redeemer

 By Metropolitan John Zizioulas

When Christ says, that He is the truth and the life of the world at the same time, then he gives to the truth content with ontological extensions. If the truth saves the world, then this happens because it is life. The mystery of the Christology, as it is accepted by the term in Chalcedony, indicates, that the salvation as the truth and the life is made capable only on a true person and through it, that is, something to which nature, as we have seen, cannot offer because of its individualization. The only ability for a true person exists when the being and communion coincide. The triadic God offers this unique ability for an identification of the being with the communion in Himself; He is the revelation of the true person.

The Christology relies exactly on the presupposition that only the Triad can offer to the created being a real base on the person and thus, salvation. So, Christ has to be God to be a Savior; but this means something even more: he mustn't be an individual, but a true person. In the experience of the individualized existence is completely impossible for any analogy to be found with a being, which is entirely, and even in an ontological sense personal. Our experience on the person through communion and love transfers to us an idea of such an existence, but offers no ontological change. True life, lacking death, is not to us as persons possible without shaking the very foundations of our existence. Through the analogy of love we can reach to understanding the Christology from the viewpoint of the cross (a person, who loved us so much, died for us), but we cannot follow it to the point of the Resurrection (a person, that defeated death), the Christology does not contribute ontologically to that at all. Christ is the truth exactly because in himself does not show only the being, but the permanence, meaning the survival of the being. Through the resurrection, Christology shows, that the created being, is at such a grade real, so that not even the human freedom can wipe it out[i], as we tried to do on the cross. In the resurrection of the Christ existentially truth and being are identified and His freedom relieves from the fall and is no longer a threat for the being.

So it is, that Christology translocates the question concerning the truth from the place of the individual and nature to the level of the person. It would then be pointless to understand Christ, the truth, as "nature"[ii] or as an individual personality. In Him we can much more see a person, in which the division of "natures" has been transformed into dissimilarity and communion[iii]. Therefore, if the Christology is translocated from our own individual existence, this seems to lead to an image of the Christ, which is no more "human" and at the same time results from that has been said, that, even though such a "lift of the individualization" of Christ takes place in Christology, the existential sequences have no more any ontological importance.

If the individualization of the Christ creates in the Christology unsurpassable problems and if we link it to the allegation, that Christ is the truth, then this should be examined more thoroughly in reference to Ecclesiology. If the being of Christ takes place with the way of an individual, that is, as an individual situation, which lies above or below us, then the question that appears before us inevitably is this: how can man and the sum of creation be connected to this individual existentially, that is, not only with a psychological or moral way, but ontologically[iv]. This problem is closely connected to the relation between Christology and Pneumatology. We should then take a glance on it first; before we can then see what position the Church took in the presentation of the Christ as truth and communion.

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[i] Dostoyewskie reveals the ontological sequences of freedom, when he characterizes the effort of human freedom to be validated. With the words of Kirilov in «Demons», he can prove that there is a God, that is, the ultimate reference of existence, only when he can put an end to his very existence by committing suicide. The fact, that life goes on even though the ability of man to kill himself, constitutes the ontological proof on that man is not the ultimate cause of existence, even under the threat that he puts regarding the being by having the ability to destroy the beings through death. One should observe the importance of this thought on the ontological sequences of the cross and the resurrection of the Christ

[ii] D. M. Mackinnon, defends the use of the term «nature» in his Christology, «Substance» in Christology...(see above, footnote 58). The purpose of this defense is to suggest the immediate and direct presence of God in Christology and to answer to the basic question: «How can a particular action of him, who is connected to the Father, be identical to the Father, without it being in the nature of his relationship?» These words should be evaluated positively in the relevance of the western thought, which has the tendency to separate the being or the substance from the relationship or the person. However, that which we had wanted to indicate here, based upon the thought of the Greek Fathers (see above, Part II, 3), is the fact, that the being and the relationship have to be identified with one another, and that «nature» or the «substance» only in the «way of existing» are true.

[iii] The paterical term of the hypostatic union, as developed mainly by Cyril of Alexandria, creates by the person (hypostasis) and not by the natures the base for the existence of Christ. At this point exists a delicate but characteristic difference concerning the idea of a notification of idioms, which thought approaches, that the two natures could have by themselves an ontological situation.

[iv] The problem has certain difficulties of Reason and experience, which Christology cannot solve for modern day man, for as much as it perceives Christ as an individual. How can an individual, which lived in Palestine so many years ago have something to do with me «hic et nunc»? If we insert the Holy Spirit as some sort of «deus ex machina» to solve this problem, it creates more problems than the ones it solves and in no case does it seem convincing at an existential or an ontological level. The only reasonable alternative solution in the relevance of such an individualized Christology is to understand our relationship with Christ as an Imitatio (imitation) Christi or through the substituting theories of redemptology. All efforts to describe this relationship, as ontological, leads necessarily into quitting from an individualistic understanding of Christ (see the biblical sense «person-body»).

Truth and Person

by Metropolitan John Zizioulas The place in which in a completely direct way the overcoming of the fallen existence, as described previously, is the reality of the person. The importance of the person lies in the fact, that it states at the same time two things, which at first glance seem to contradict: the particularity and communion. Being a person is something completely different from being an individual or a "personality", because a person cannot be observed onto itself, but only in its relationship. Under the accusations of the fallen existence, we usually identify the person with the «ego» and in this way with all the characteristics and the experience that it holds. The philosophers remind us justly, that this is not what distinguishes a person. But what is the relationship of the person with the truth and especially from the view of the particularity as much as the society? The substance of the person lies in that the being is a revelation of the truth of being and rather not as "substance" or "nature", but as a "way of being"[i]. This deep perception of the Cappadoceans[ii] indicates, that the real knowledge is not knowledge of the substance or the nature of things but of the way, with which they refer to the fact of the communion. We saw previously, that the matter of ecstasy has a function-key in the understanding of the truth of the Greek Fathers. If one transfers it to the sense of the person, then it should be added from another matter, that of hypostasis. Ecstasy means that the person is the revelation of the truth and even more, by being in communion (relationship); hypostasis on the contrary means, that the person in communion (relationship) and through it validates its identity and individuality, "lies under its very nature" (hypostasis) in a special and unique way. In this sense the person is the horizon, on which the truth is revealed of being and not just a simple nature, subject to the individualization and the combination, but as a unique image on the completeness and "universality" of being. So, if we see a being as a person, then we see in it the entire human nature; but destroying a human person means reversibly a murder against the entire humanity, in a final analysis, against the truth of the human being. The mystery of the person lies in the fact, that in it differentiation and communion do not contradict but one encounters the other. The truth as communion does not lead to an abolishment of dissimilarity of the beings in the infinite ocean of being, but in its confirmation in love and through it. The difference between that and the truth of "nature itself" lies in this: Nature is subject to dismemberment, individualization, perception and understanding, etc.; love on the contrary is not it. Thus, in the relevance of communion, the opposite of difference is division[iii]. Naturally, this identification of difference and unity is incompatible with the fallen existence, in which we are born as beings with the clear tendency to perceive, dominate and possess the being. This individualized and individualizing Adam within us is our forefathers' sin and at the same time the cause for the fact that the "other", meaning each individual being next to us, becomes in the end our enemy and our "forefathers' sin" (Sartre)[iv]. If the human existence remains released into itself, then it cannot be a person. The ecstasy of the being towards the human or the created leads to the "being towards death"[v]. All efforts to define the truth as the "being towards life", should demand at the same time the sense of the being beyond the created being.  [i] On this subject see Chr. Yiannaras, Το οντολογικό περιεχόμενο της θεολογικής έννοιας του προσώπου, 1970. The differentiation he presents between substance and presence (ουσία and παρ-ουσία) is particularly illuminating. [ii] See above, Part II, 3. [iii] Maximus developed the discernment between «difference» and «division» on the base of the Christology of Chalkedon. On these terms and their synthesis on Maximus see L. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological Anthropoogy of Maximus the Confessor, Lund 1965, p. 54 and on. See Yiannaras, as above, p. 73 and on. [iv] J.P. Sartre, L' etre et le Neant, 1949, p. 251. [v] This observation by M. Heidegger has a great importance on the ontology of the world in the exact situation in which it is, that is, without a reference to something more.

Truth and the Situation of the Fallen Existence

by Metropolitan John Zizioulas

The importance of sin for the understanding of the truth can be summarized in the following general observations.

By considering the self as the ultimate being, that is, having the demand to be God, man created a circle of existence, whose center is he. Thus, every being refers ultimately to man, who perceives it, surrounds it and understands it with his own mind, his own will and desire. In this way the creation becomes incompetent to get out of itself because it has to be self-confirmed in man and through man, that is, in a created being and through it. The relation of man and nature is overridden and «the entire creation grieves and aches (suffers along with him) to this day», waiting its salvation through the salvation of mankind (Romans 8,22). This overthrow of the relationship of man with nature, leads man to moments of weakness, when he admits the excellence of nature over him and identify existentially the truth to the existence of nature (idololatry). If he chooses to be released from that, then he has no other choice than return into himself and accept as the ultimate truth his ability to perceive and understand reality. This is how truth identifies itself to this, to which human reasoning cannot doubt: the «adequatio rei et intellectus» becomes the basic definition of knowledge and the truth has to be adapted to it[i].

The term «nature» in the sense of the substance or the thing appears in this way as the utmost form of truth[ii]. Because the human viewing of things becomes the key to knowledge, should the truth be objective to be understood or at least for man to be able to meet it[iii]. This meeting creates a correlation between the subject and object of knowledge and the truth then relies on the mutual proximity of the two «contracting parties»[iv]. This meeting or correlation between the subject and the object of knowledge has important results on gnoseology.

Another consequence can be discerned in the relation of truth and love. If the truth is connected to nature or the nature of things and therefore to the relevant understanding of this individualization of the being, then man can inevitably end up into a relation of communion with love under the presupposition, that he acquired the knowledge of the «object» of his love. The «other» -either it is a «person» or a «thing», it is presented as an object of knowledge, before a relationship of communion takes place. One can love only what he knows, because love comes from knowledge, according to Thomas of Aquinas[v]; of this is valid just on our own situation of fall and should not become an element in our own metaphysical anthropology and even less in our occupation with the theology regarding the Triad, as it happened with the Aquinate. The bisection of love and knowledge includes a distance not just between person and nature, but also between thought and action in the internal of the very human existence.

If now the ability of knowledge precedes the action of communion (love) and is independent of it, then man can separate his thought from his action and falsify the validity of truth. Man then becomes a hypocrite and, honestly, only human nature is capable of hypocrisy.

In the question on the relationship of truth with action, the practical, the consequences are clear. To «act the truth» is a biblical point. But this is exactly what for man is impossible, because in his fallen existence faith and action can only coincide for "one moment" and this "moment of existence" is no other than the revelation of that, which existence should basically be, but isn't. Kierkegaard revealed the authentic moment of existence and added in this way, into the relationship of subject-object of the truth the greatest strike in the West; but this led only to the identification of the truth with doubt[vi].

To the fallen man thus remains open as an only alternative, the identification of the truth with action, as it happened to Marxism; in this way the truth identifies with the activity of man in society[vii]. The problem of Greek ontology reappears in this way in its Aristotle form of dynamism and relevant evolution of the being (a "historical Darwinism", as one can characterize Marxism). This is rather encountered in the Judean perception of history as a development towards the future; through the new-testament understanding of the truth, however, it cannot harmonize itself. The inevitable collectivism in the Marxist understanding of the truth as action indicates clearly, that the whole problem concludes in this, which in this chapter we characterized as individualization of being. This happens because the being is cut into pieces and individualized, before it refers to the truth. The connection and the gathering of people is used as a form of an altered community and the truth effuses from this collectivistic confrontation of the being.

We can enumerate a lot more consequences on the truth coming from the individualization of the being in our fallen nature; the most tragic between them is the understanding of death. In the ontological level of the truth there is no more obvious falsification than the word concerning a «dying being». It is an exceptionally irrational contradiction of terms. The problem of death is connected to the truth in existence particularly through the identification of the truth to nature itself and at the same time with individualization and subdivision of this nature. If this means, that Adam had to die, because he had fallen with divinate himself, then this means exactly, that "self-divination", meaning the utmost reference point of being is not just a psychological thing, but something ontological. Death does not come as a resulting punishment on disobedience, but as a result if this individualization of nature, to which the whole world subordinates. In other words: there is an internal relationship between death and individualization. In this relationship we were all born through our current form of reproduction and this is exactly what means, that we have a life, which is not «real life».

Attaining salvation from fall actually means, that the truth is fully connected to being and in this way leads life to being real, meaning not to die.

This is why in the fourth Gospel eternal life, that is, a life without end and death is identified to the truth and knowledge. But this can only be done, if the individualization of nature is transferred to the community, if, in other words, community is identified to being. Therefore, community has to be the truth, in order to be life.

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[i] The cartesian philosophy gives a very good example on this subject. When Kant defines the «adaequatio» as an «agreement to the laws of the mind» (Kritik der reinen Vernuft, B 350) inserts the exceeding dimension of the truth. This, of course, does not eliminate the sense of truth from it, which we characterize as a situation of the fallen existence, because according to Kant the synthetic unity of the human experience at a final analysis defines that which truth is (as above, B 197).

[ii] See above, footnote 13.

[iii] E. Brunner, as above, wants to surpass the structure «subject-object», inserting the term «meeting». The problem certainly wants to exist for as long as the sense «communion» is not used decisively. The same observation can one make in the matter of the structure «I-You», which M. Buber processed.

[iv] See the extended use of the «theory of correlation» in modern day gnoseologies.

[v] See Thomas of Aquinas, Summ. Theol. I, II, 4. This returns to Augustine (De Trin. 10,1).

[vi] According to Kierkengaard the truth is the action of a person and its base is the being, but «acting the truth» is an existential paradoxology, which makes faith and Christianity a sum incompatible to the word.

[vii] According to Marx (see for example, the second position on Feuerbach) the truth emerges from action to its evolution along with society.