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.

---

[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.

---

[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.