Liturgy: The Kingdom which is to Come

The Kingdom which is to come—the cause and archetype of the Church

Metropolitan John Zizioulas

Amidst the wealth of patristic evidence for a connection between the Eucharist and the Kingdom, we may single out one truly important passage from St. Maximus the Confessor which, so far as we know, has not yet received the attention it deserves from our theologians. This passage indicates not only the unbreakable connection between the Eucharist and the Kingdom, but also the radical overturning of the ancient Greek notion of causality. Apart from anything else, this demonstrates how unjust and far from the reality is the very prevalent notion that Maximus was influenced by ancient Greek philosophy, Platonic and Aristotelian. First we shall set out this passage in its entirety, so that we can go on to comment on it in relation to our theme. In his Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite’s work On the Church Hierarchy, Maximus writes:

“[The Areopagite] calls images (εἰκόνες) of what is true the rites that are now performed in the synaxis. . . . For these things are symbols, not the truth. . . . From the effects. That is, from what is accomplished visibly to the things that are unseen and secret, which are the causes and archetypes of things perceptible. For those things are called causes which in no way owe the cause of their being to anything else. Or from the effects to the causes, that is, from the perceptible symbols to what is noetic and spiritual. Or from the imperfect to the more perfect, from the type to the image; and from the image to the truth. For the things of the Old Testament are the shadow; those of the New Testament are the image. The truth is the state of things to come.”[1]

In this passage, St. Maximus interprets in his own way the concept of the Eucharist as image and symbol in relation to the concept of causality. What takes place in the Divine Eucharist is an “image” and “symbol” of what is “true.” Reading this passage up to a certain point, one seems to be moving in an atmosphere of Platonism. The things “accomplished visibly” are images and symbols of the “unseen” and “secret”: perceptible symbols are images of what is “noetic and spiritual.” In accordance with the Platonic view, the perceptible and visible world is an image of a stable and eternal world which, being noetic and spiritual, is the truth, the true world. In consequence, one would say that what is accomplished in the Divine Liturgy is an image and reflection of the heavenly Liturgy which is accomplished eternally and which is the “archetype” of the earthly Eucharist. That would indeed be a typically Platonic understanding of the Eucharist.

But Maximus has a surprise in store for us at the end of this passage. The Divine Eucharist is for him an image of the true Eucharist which is nothing other than “the state of things to come.” The “truth of what is now accomplished in the synaxis” is to be found not in a Platonic type of ideal reality but in a “reality of the future,” in the Kingdom which is to come. The crucial element which overturns the Platonic relationship between archetype and image is the category of time. To get from the image to the prototype we do not have to go outside time, but we certainly have to pass through the expectation of an “event” or state which lies in the future. This changes the whole mentality from a Platonic to a biblical one. For while it is impossible in Platonic thought to pass from the image to the archetype through time, as if the archetype were to be found at the end of history, in the biblical understanding it is essential. On the biblical understanding, as in that of St. Maximus, what is represented in the Eucharist is what is to come, He who comes, and the Kingdom which He will establish.

But this passage is important also because it poses the problem of causality, thus overturning not only Platonic but also Aristotelian notions of “entelechy” and causality. Causes, says Maximus, are those which do not in any way owe their cause to anything else. In ancient Greek and Western thought, as in common sense, a cause is logically but also chronologically prior to its effect. In the thought of St. Maximus, however, the further back we go in time, the further we get away from the archetype, from the cause: the Old Testament is “shadow,” the New Testament is “image,” and the “state of things to come” is truth. In other words the archetype, the cause of “what is accomplished in the synaxis,” lies in the future. The Eucharist is the result of the Kingdom which is to come. The Kingdom which is to come, a future event (the state of things to come), being the cause of the Eucharist, gives it its true being.

This is what comes out of a careful reading of Maximus. Later on we shall look at its existential significance—because this is what concerns theology in the final analysis, and not the historical or philosophical curiosity in which the theologians of our own day usually expend all their energies. For the time being, we note that the biblical connection between Eucharist and Kingdom, far from losing its force in the Patristic period, was securely established on an ontological basis: the Eucharist is not simply connected with the Kingdom which is to come, it draws from it its being and its truth. Liturgical practice formed, and continues to form, the language in which the Church expresses this thesis. And we should pay attention to it.

[1] PG 4:137.

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The Annunciation of the Theotokos, A Homily of Saint Nicholas Kavasilas

Follow the Link for the Homily-
http://www.synodinresistance.org/Theology_en/E3d7050Cabasilas.pdf

Romanian Elder Arsenios Papacioc - True Fasting

Who are You?

Χιλανδαρίου, Chilander, Хиландар

I ask a sensual man: "Who are you? And he replies: "I am I".- and is thinking of his body. I ask a thinking man: "Who are you?" And he replies: "I see two sides in myself, and I make my way between them, associating first with one and then with the other." And he is thinking of his instinctive and conscious soul. I ask a spiritual man: "Who are you?" And he replies: "There is someone in the depths of my soul. I stretch out my hand to grasp him, but see that, to do so, I would need arms longer than the universe. Ask Him who I am."

– St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Fr. Nicholas Loudovikos and Metropolitan John Zizioulas

I would agree with just about everything that Fr. Nicholas Loudovikos writes in his article PERSON INSTEAD OF GRACE AND DICTATED OTHERNESS: JOHN ZIZIOULAS' FINAL THEOLOGICAL POSITION… if, in fact, his characterizations of Zizioulas were true.  I think that these characterizations come from a profound misreading of Zizioulas.  Where I see Fr. Nicholas’ misrepresentations of Zizioulas’ thought most clearly are the accusations that Zizioulas

1)  Equates nature with the Fall

2) Disconnects personhood from nature

3) Confuses grace and personhood

4) Is,” pouring scorn on marriage, he identifies it with natural law …” (pg.5)

 5) Preaches that generation (of the Son) and spiration (of the Holy Spirit) have nothing to do with essence

 6) Is an Arian (Fr. Nicholas’ not so subtle accusation of pg. 9)

 1)  I don’t believe that Zizioulas equates nature to the fall.  What he does teach is that there is nothing in nature to enable its survival.  Creation ex-nihilo apart from the intervention of the uncreated is destined to return to nothing.

2) This accusation is clearly in contradiction to Zizioulas’ thoughts concerning Chalcedon (see quote #1).

3) I think that Fr. Nicholas is the one confused about grace here.  For some reason when people read Palamas’ teachings on the Energies of God they accept his claim that they are natural energies but ignore that St. Gregory, as did the Cappadocians before him, taught that these energies were en-hypostatic.  

4) This comment is both polemic and ridiculous.  Zizioulas has the highest regard for marriage.  I assume what Fr. Nicholas is commenting on is where Zizioulas speaks about the relationship between death and pro-creation.

5) See quote #2

6) I don’t think that Zizioulas’ position on the Father as cause differs from what Thalassios writes in numbers 99 & 100 of his Fourth Century (Philokalia Volume II)

Quotes are from the notes that were taken from the lectures of Professor I. Zizioulas at the Poemantic Division of the Thessaloniki University’s School of Theology, during the academic year 1984-1985.

Quote 1:

 Nature, therefore, is not that which determines the persona. It is the persona that assumes a nature. Consequently, the persona 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 isn’t demoted or diminished, but is in fact elevated to the personal degree that divine nature has. In other words, it is elevated to God’s 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 persona, is the existence of certain presuppositions, such as: a) that a nature must have its own persona, 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 Christ’s 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 persona, 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 persona is one. Furthermore, it is always the persona that expresses these characteristics; they do not express themselves on their own.  Given that we are dealing with only one persona 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 Personae of the Holy Trinity.  That it is transposed thanks to the hypostatic union (on account of the persona 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 Personae 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 example- that “this is happening only to the Persona 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 Man’s 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 wouldn’t 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 Persona 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 Christ’s identity – His personal identity.

 Quote 2:

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 isn’t 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 persona. The more we regard someone a persona, 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 persona 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 man’s very existence.

 An interesting article and wonder how someone who was a student of Zizioulas could be responsible for such characterizations.  I cannot imagine that Fr. Nicholas actually believes some of the things that he has written in this article. 

Micah

The Mania of Love

What could be equal to that affection? What has a man ever loved so greatly? What mother ever loved so tenderly (Is. 49:15), what father so loved his children? Who has ever been seized by such a mania of love for anything beautiful whatever, so that because of it he not only willingly allows himself to be wounded by the object of his love without swerving from his affection towards the ungrateful one, but even prizes the very wounds above everything? Though these prove not only that He loves us but also that He greatly honors us, yet it belongs to the greatest honor that He is not ashamed even of the infirmities of our nature but is seated on His royal throne with the scars which He has acquired from human weakness. -Saint Nicholas Kavasilas

READING THE BIBLE FROM THE ORTHODOX CHURCH PERSPECTIVE

Πέτρου Βασιλειάδη

Ecclesial, liturgical and personal

The “Orthodox perspective” on reading the Bible is therefore first and foremost ecclesial and liturgical. The “eucharistic and trinitarian” approach to all aspects of theology and mission is the approach most widely followed by Orthodox today. Eucharistic theology gives preeminence to the local communities and—believe it or not—to the contextual  character of Christian life. Trinitarian theology, on the other hand, points to the fact that God is in God’s own self a life of communion and that God’s involvement in history aims at drawing humanity and creation in general into this communion with God’s very life.

The implications of these affirmations for the proper way  of reading the Bible are extremely important. The Bible is not primarily read in order to appropriate theological or doctrinal convictions or to set  moral, social or ethical norms; rather it is read in order to experience the life of communion that exists in God. Historically, this is how the Bible was approached by monastics and ascetics in the Orthodox tradition: as a means for personal spiritual edification, as a companion to achieve holistic personal growth, to reach deification (theosis), in other words to share the communion that exists in God. This means that the Orthodox Church’s attitude to the reading of scripture is in addition personal. The faithful consider the Bible as God' s personal letter sent specifically to each person.

Nevertheless, while the words of scripture are addressed to us human beings personally, they are at the same time addressed to us as members of a community. book and ecclesial community, Bible and Church, are not to be separated. In the West the authority of the Bible was imposed or rediscovered (in the Protestant and Roman Catholic tradition respectively) to counterbalance the excesses of their hierarchical leadership, the authority of the institutional church. In the East this task—not always without problems—was entrusted to the charismatic and the spiritual. In the West, where more emphasis was given to the historical dimension of the Church, this solution was inevitable; in the East, where the Orthodox theology has developed a more eschatological understanding of the Church, the true guardian of the faith is the people, the members of the eucharistic communities. A dynamic encounter of the East with the West—and with the South—will not only enrich both approaches to the Bible; it will also enhance and broaden the different understandings of catholicity.

This interdependence of Church and Bible is evident in at least two ways. First, we receive  scripture through and in the Church. The Church tells us what is scripture. In the first three centuries of Christian history, a lengthy process of testing was needed in order to distinguish among what is authentically “canonical” scripture, bearing authoritative witness to Christ's person and message, what is “deutero-canonical” or “apocryphal,” useful perhaps for teaching but not a normative source of doctrine, and what is “non-canonical”. It was the Church which decided which books would form the canon of the New Testament. A book is not part of Holy Scripture because of any particular theory about its date and authorship, but because the Church treats it as canonical.

Second, we interpret  the Bible through and in the Church. If it is the Church that tells us what is scripture, equally it is the Church that tells us how  scripture is to be understood. We read the Bible personally, but not as isolated individuals. We read it as members of a family, the family of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We read it in communion with all the other members of the body of Christ in all parts of the world and in all generations of time. God does indeed speak directly to the heart of each one of us during the scripture readings, but this is always done within a framework and with a certain point of reference. The framework is the Kingdom of God, “realized” proleptically in eucharistic Divine Liturgy (cf. again the custom of singing the gospel, as well as the apostolic readings), and the point of reference is the Church.

Because scripture is the word of God expressed in human language, there is a place for honest critical inquiry when reading the Bible. The Orthodox Church has never officially rejected the critical inquiry of the Bible. We make full use of biblical commentaries and of the findings of modern research. In our attempt to grasp the deeper meaning of the word of God we make use of a wide range of methodologies. In our struggle to make it relevant to our time we can easily even accept the contextual approach to the Bible, believing that “every text has a context,” which is  not merely something external to the text that simply modifies it but constitutes an integral part of it. Therefore, certain biblical sayings, which clearly show the influence of the cultural and social environment of the time of their writing (for example, those referring to women and slavery), are valued according to, and measured over against, the ultimate reality of the Gospel, the inauguration of the Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). Even  inclusive language can be legitimated, so long as it does not contradict the fundamentals of the Christian faith, not to mention of course that any idea of rewriting the Bible can hardly be accepted. It is quite interesting that in its long tradition the Orthodox Church has never decreed any dogma or doctrinal statement not clearly rooted in the Bible.

However, we submit our individual opinions, whether our own or those of the experts, to the Church, not in the form of a juridical or scholarly magisterium, but always in its communal dimension and with the view of the eschatological character of the Church  as a glimpse and foretaste of the coming Kingdom. In other words in the Orthodox Church objectivity and the individual interest are always placed at the service of the community and of the ultimate reality of God’s Kingdom. It is of fundamental importance that the Orthodox approach the Bible as the inspired word of God, always in a spirit of obedience, with a sense of wonder and an attitude of listening.

Christological

In addition to the ecclesial perspective in reading the Bible, in the Orthodox Church the christological perspective in reading the Bible is also affirmed. Scriptures constitute a coherent whole. This wholeness and coherence lie in the person of Christ. He is the unifying thread that runs through the entirety of the Bible from the first sentence to the last. Jesus meets us Ôn every page. "In Him all things hold together" (Col.1:17). Without neglecting the “analytical” approach, which breaks up each book into its original sources, the Orthodox pay greater attention to how these primary units have come to be joined together. We see the unity of scripture as well as the diversity, the all-embracing end as well as the scattered beginnings.

In reading the Bible the Orthodox prefer for the most part a "synthetic" style of hermeneutics, seeing the Bible as an integrated whole with Christ everywhere as the bond of union. This christocentrism, however, has never developed into a christomonism, which led Christian mission early this century to a kind of “christocentric universalism” which created many problems, frustrations and deadlocks in making an authentic and effective Christian witness among people of other living faiths. In the Orthodox Church, with few exceptions, Christology has always been interpreted through pneumatology. In other words, Christology was always understood in a constitutive way by reference to pneumatology. It was this “trinitarian” understanding of the divine reality and of the Church’s missionary attitude that prevented the Church from intolerant behaviour, allowing her to embrace the entire  “oikoumene” as the one household of life.

This christological and therefore "incarnational", perspective on reading, understanding and interpreting the Bible has given rise within the Orthodox world to the legitimacy of a pictorial presentation of the Bible and at the same time to a witnessing to the gospel through icons. This form a witness to the gospel especially through icons using Byzantine art and technique is exceptionally efficient and effective for disseminating the profound meaning of the Christian message, by stressing its transfigurative and  eschatological dimension. For in the Orthodox Church icons are not only "the book of the illiterate", but also "a window to the heavens". What they actually express is not a dematerialization, but a transfiguration of the world, human beings and nature alike. For in icons the material and cosmic elements which surround the holy figures (divine and saint alike) are also shown transformed and flooded by grace. The Byzantine icon in particular reveals how matter—in fact the whole of creation, human beings and nature alike—can be transformed: not just to the original harmony and beauty they possessed before the fall, but to the much greater glory they will acquire in the Kingdom to come. For icons, though depicting worldly schemes,  are not concerned with the world we live in but foreshadow the coming Kingdom of God. As in the Eucharist, so too in icons, the same interaction of past, present and future is manifest, and the same anticipation by this world of the world to come is present. 

Bishop Athanasius Yevtich Concerning Liturgical Practice

Chalcedon’s Christology

Chalcedon’s Christology:
Theological, Historical and Cultural Significance

Bishop Maxim

Preface

Chalcedonian Christology is a quintessential ingredient of the continuing liturgical-dogmatic-ethical life of the Church. Ever since then, the Church has constantly re-received and transmitted this Christological truth—“one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ”.   In fact one can go even further and make the point that the Chalcedonian definition of Christ entailed not only a vertical perspective (consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead), but also a horizontal perspective of the people of Israel to which Jesus belonged as Man (consubstantial with us according to Manhood).  Without any doubt, Chalcedon brought about a helpful integration of ‘theology’ and ‘economy’, of transcendence and immanence.  Being God, and belonging to a certain historical era and generation, Christ accepted what was the de facto human context as his own context .  Thus Christology inevitably implies Ecclesiology and even Sociology.

For these reasons I propose to deal with my subject in the following way: First, I will try to point out Chalcedon’s major theological issues in the historical life of the Church.  Second, we will look at the present day situation and see what opportunities these issues provide for the Churches and society.  Finally, we will also try to identify ways in which the Chalcedonian Christology can operate today with its theological, historical and cultural dimensions.  Without going into the subtle, nuanced formulations of Chalcedon’s Definition—for this is the most beautiful dogmatic/doctrinal text of all Ecumenical Councils—we will attempt to present the significance of Chalcedon in a way that is accessible to a wider audience.  

I A Quick Look at History

It is not possible for this presentation to offer a detailed historical analysis of the Concilium universale Chalcedonense (=Fourth Ecumenical Council), which, given its importance, deserves a separate monograph.  That Council, held in the city of Chalcedon, near Constantinople, in 451, is one of the seven ecumenical councils accepted by the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and many Protestant Christian churches.  However, it is the first Council not recognized by any of the Oriental Orthodox churches, in spite of the fact that it was designed to heal the growing Christological division.  The Chalcedonian creed was written amid controversy between the western, eastern and oriental churches over the meaning of the Incarnation.  We must, however, know a few historical facts.

1. The Council of Chalcedon was a courageous and quick response to the “Robber Synod” of 449, and was aimed at overturning its decisions.  That gathering, dubbed the “Robber Synod” by Pope Leo of Rome, had articulated an extreme Alexandrian Christology.  The bishops at Chalcedon disclaimed the council of 449 and deposed Patriarch Dioscorus of Alexandria for his role in that gathering.
2. It is commonly held that the Council of Chalcedon was more or less a ‘Cyrillian’ Council; it followed his theology and thus continues the Third Ecumenical Council.
   The Chalcedonian Definition includes the main expressions from the Formula of concordance in 433.  It also uses Flavian’s homologia, and the Tomos of Pope Leo.  So it is a synthesis of Alexandrine, Antiochean and western Christological elements in the Definition, but this synthesis was produced completely within the framework of Cyril’s Christology.
3. However, we must not forget that Chalcedon’s principal aim was to condemn monophysitism and to exclude the possibility of an asymmetrical  monophysite interpretation of Cyrillian Christology.
   The Fathers of the Council could have chosen either the formula ‘out of two natures’ (ἐκ δύο φύσεων) or the formula ‘in two natures’ (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν), and they chose the latter.  The reason for this was that the Cyrillian formula ἐκ δύο φύσεων did not clearly indicate the existence of a full humanity after the union.
   In addition, Dioscorus had used this formula at the Council of 449, which had rehabilitated the monophysite Eutyches.  Thus, when the Fathers of Chalcedon had to choose between ‘Dioscorus, who denied the two natures in Christ, [and] Leo, who argued that there are two natures’, they unanimously chose the latter, and this led them to adopt the expression ἐν δύο φύσεσιν.
4. But the latter developments have also made the entire matter even more complicated for the following reason:
   The distinction between φύσις and ὑπόστασις, affirmed at the Council, was too new and revolutionary in the theology of incarnation to not provoke different interpretations and misunderstandings. The Council’s definition thus gave rise to a couple of persistent questions, which have bedeviled theologians up to the present day. One of the problems lied in the fact that Eastern Mesopotamia did not posses Greek conceptual tools. They could not understand what the Council’s distinction was between nature and person/hypostasis.

Those who rejected Chalcedon—namely, the anti-Chalcedonian ‘monophysites’— thought that the Christologies of Cyril and Chalcedon were incompatible.  According to them, there was no distinction between nature and person/hypostasis, at least on the level of economy, hence their dismay at the Council, which had ostensibly restored the heresy of Nestorius by attributing two natures to Christ.  

We cannot now investigate their reasons for opposing the Council in details.  We know that when the Definition was to be signed, unfortunately the bishops from Alexandria—although they accepted the faith—did not put their signatures.  They simply stated “we don’t have our patriarch”.  He should sign it first and then us.  When we come back to Alexandria we will elect one and let him sign it first.  There were those who were disingenuously hiding behind this in order to avoid signing the definitions of Chalcedon.  When they got back to Alexandria, the schism occurred because the Orthodox elected their own bishop Proterius, while the other party elected another.  That’s how the schism took place, and how the monophysite Church emerged.  It happened initially in Alexandria, then in Antioch, Jerusalem and Ethiopia.  These are the four Churches: the Coptic in Egypt, the Ethiopian, the Syrian in Syria and India and the Armenian Church with its roots in Lebanon. 

The creed became standard orthodox doctrine, while the Coptic church of Alexandria dissented, holding to Cyril’s formula of the oneness of Christ’s nature as the incarnation of God the Word (μια φυσις του Θεου Λογου σεσαρκωμενη) .  This church felt that this understanding required that the creed should have stated that Christ be acknowledged ‘from two natures’ rather than ‘in two natures’.  This miaphysite position, often known as "Monophysitism", formed the basis for the distinction of what we call the Oriental Orthodox churches – the Coptic church of Egypt and Ethiopia and the "Jacobite" churches of Syria and Armenia. Over the last 30 years, however, the miaphysite position has been accepted as a mere restatement of orthodox belief by the Eastern Orthodox Church and by the Roman Catholic Church.  

II Theological significance

So to the question: what is the existential meaning of its Christology—related to the problem of the overcoming of death—we can answer by analyzing the four adverbs of the Definition: ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως. 

Fr John Meyendorff holds that these “four negative adverbs, while they condemned the two contrary heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, excluded any pretention to explain fully in human terms the very mystery of the incarnation”. It is true that this Creed, being an extraordinary theological and philosophical achievement, does not exhaust the whole truth; neither does it detract from the personal character of this revelation.  These verbal confessions refer to the living Person of Christ, and the Church through them ‘receives’ above all a Person and not ideas.  However, beyond this apophatical aspect, they offer a solid basis for further theological meaning. Metropolitan John Zizioulas, in his lucid study, “’Created’ and ‘Uncreated’: The Existential Significance of Chalcedonian Christology” elaborated the meaning of two of these words: ἀσυγχύτως (without confusion) and ἀδιαιρέτως (without division). 

Let us try here to see the significance of ἀτρέπτως, unchangeably and ἀχωρίστως, inseparably.  The first of these adverbs ἀτρέπτως means that, in Christ—theologically, anthropologically, cosmologically and ecclesiologically—there was no change between the two natures, per se.  The essence of the natures (so to speak) did not change.  Their otherness is completely respected and preserved.  So, anthropologically, man remains completely man, and not god, and vice versa; cosmologically, the created nature remains created, and not uncreated, and vice versa.  On the other hand, ἀδιαιρέτως refers to such a union, being perfect and absolute, where nothing can separate them because of the hypostatic union (as opposed to “union of natures”).  By preserving the two natures after the Incarnation, Chalcedon safeguarded the precious concept of otherness! We shall see below how important this aspect is for us today.  Speaking existentially in terms of person and nature, Chalcedon affirmed both unitatis and alteritas, communion and otherness.  This is the accomplishment of these apophatic formulations.  

Chalcedon provided the Church with a terminology capable of protecting the faith from both Nestorian and monophysite aberrations.  By stating that the one person of Christ is one hypostasis, it demonstrated its determined opposition to Nestorianism.
On the other hand, by saying that this hypostasis is known in two natures, not only in a divine but also in a human nature, it showed that it is unacceptable to confuse Christ’s natures, to jeopardize his consubstantiality with the Father and with us, or to undermine the fullness and integrity of his humanity after the union. The Theanthropic “bogocovecanska” reality of Christ does not represent a mere episode of human history but the ontological basis of its salvation.

III Postmodern Cultural and Existential Significance

Chalcedonian Oros [Definition] presents Christ as the Savior of the world, as a cosmic Christ.  However, it is not because Jesus Christ brought a model of morality or a teaching for humanity; it is because He himself incarnates the overcoming of death, because, in his own Person, the created from now on lives eternally.  This was a profoundly eucharistic approach to the Chalcedonian Christology, since the reception of Christ by the people of God always takes place in the event of communion.  Eucharist was not of course the focus of Chalcedon.  But it is widely admitted that the Eucharist occupies the central place in Christology .

1. So, we deal here with the existential meaning of Chalcedon: Who is Christ? What is Christ for me (per me).  It is critical for the theology to regain its existential meaning and purpose, and to cease from being alien to the agonizing questions of contemporary man.

The problem lies in the fact that, because of alien theological terms that we have adopted without much discernment, contemporary man’s answer to the Lord’s question: “what do men say about who I am?”, is either, A) that Christ is of no interest to him because He cannot help him out of his miseries, or, B) that Christ has placed upon him an unbearable burden which has completely weighed him down.  Very few are those who recognize Christ today as “meek and of a humble heart”, or as the good Samaritan—being “consubstantial with us according to Manhood”—who “pours oil and wine over man’s wounds”.  Maybe Christ loved sinners ‘more’ than others.  

Our ecclesial communities should expand Christ’s prayer at Gethsemane to the whole world, offering themselves to the world instead of imposing themselves on it .

We live in an age of individualism.   In our so-called civilization, everyone thinks only of himself; this attitude is not limited to the “secular” world, but is also present among Christians.  Individualism has crept in and each one of us tries to be reconciled with God by himself, on his own.  He forgets his brother or looks at him as an object of his criticism and blame and forgets that the meaning of the spiritual life, the fulfillment of our salvation, exists in this receiving of our brother. 

2. CHALCEDON AND THE INCULTURATION OF THE GOSPEL. But in spite of this general wisdom of Chalcedon’s Christology—which we must always bear in mind—its theological content acquired, over the course of history, a very important sense.  This sense is mainly associated with the life of the Church as manifested in culture, in arts (iconography, architecture), and in parish life (cf. Yannaras on transformative power of this truth)… One can go even further and conclude that Chalcedonian (and of course Post-Chalcedonian) Christology influenced the whole process of the inculturation of the Gospel.  One can speak about the “cultural” epistemology proposed by Chalcedon which has an indisputably “incarnational” basis.
3. CONTEXTUAL MANIFESTATION.  So, what is the contextual manifestation of the eternal Christological/dogmatic content(s) of Chalcedon? History has offered various responses to it, and we note just a few: the Russian Christology of kenosis, so evident in iconography; the Theanthropic Christology of fr Justin Popovic, the “asymmetrical Christology” of George Florovsky, or the “Pneumatologically conditioned Christology” of John Zizioulas… On the basis of this Christology, for instance, St. Gregory Palamas develops an authentic and real hesychast anthropology. Only Christ is the key which enables us to come to God without losing ourselves—our otherness. He enables human self-realization without destroying the God in us and without abolishing the human. The Mystery of Christ is not just a dogma of our Faith but also a great gift of God—the Way in which God, as the Land of the Living (Psalm 26:15), gives Himself to man and accepts man in Himself, without abolishing either.
   As St Maximus stated, “for the Word of God (Christ) and God wants always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of His embodiment.”  All the above mentioned Christological expressions are faithful to Chalcedon, because they are also grounded on the four adverbs (ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως).  Inculturation inevitably involves the Incarnation of Christ, be it in forms other than, and in addition to, the historical one.  “Always and in all things” (continuously and everywhere) indicates that there is no race and no culture to which the Word of God can be unrelated.  It is critical for the Logos (both the eternal Word and the theological word) to regain existential meaning and purpose.
4. LOGOS INSEPARABLY CONNECTED WITH PNEUMA.  Yet, what makes this “true God and True Man” (qeo\j a)lhqw½j kaiì aÃnqrwpoj a)lhqw½j) an inclusive corporate personality, that is, Someone who takes part in all human agonies and weaknesses.  It is another divine person, about which Chalcedon doesn’t speak—the Holy Spirit who works with Christ.  Christ relates to people’s culture by the Holy Spirit, because Logos is inseparably connected with Pneuma.  For now, we can say that “the Spirit allows Christ to enter again and again in every culture and assume it by purifying it, that is, by placing it in the light (or one might say under the judgment) of what is ultimately meaningful as it is revealed in Christ.”  Theology must not simply speak about God, but invite people to His Body, for Christ is not an individual, conceivable in isolation: He is “the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom 8.29).
   So, communion with the personal being of God through Christ in the Spirit is the primary service which the Church can render to every person and to all humanity in the modern world.
5. AN “EXISTENTIAL” CHRIST.  With the help of these theological principles, drawn from a study of Chalcedon’s Christology, we can make the following points in regard to the arts. We should emphasize that Orthodox iconography depicts Christ as a full man, as opposed to the monophysite depiction! This God-man realism was also applied in architecture, as Hagia Sophia  in Constantinople testifies. Within this broader theological and existential context, Christian art went beyond the dilemma of anthropological maximalism or minimalism or beyond any symmetry in Christology! This is expressed throughout Byzantine architecture and iconography (Hagia Sophia, Pantokrator, Hora ton zoonton etc.).
   So, a Byzantine icon of Jesus Christ always indicates Christ’s eternity (as the Pantocrator, “the Same through all Ages”), but, at the same time, the expression in Christ’s face (gaze, eyes…) reveals his participation in human agonies and weaknesses.  Gazing at Him we might say that this is an “existential” Christ Who, having become man, lives through the antinomies of human existence, through time and difficulties, through passions and suffering.  This is a Christ Who does not wish to be separated from human beings; He is descending to their level, taking upon Himself all human troubles and conditions (la condition humaine—the human condition) —everything except sin.  In the Orthodox iconographic depiction of Christ’s face (eyes), we can see a complete sympathy for us humans, which culminated in the Cross and in the Resurrection. 
6. TRUE SENSE OF BEING HUMAN.  Our postmodern time demands a respect for otherness (personal distinctiveness and identity)! However, this otherness remains in tragic isolation; nothing is as dreadful as the “other” without the inseparable union with somebody else.  How can the Chalcedonian dogma help in this situation?

Respect for otherness is ‘covered’ with four Chalcedonian terms: ἀσυγχύτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀτρέπτως (unchangeably) and ἀχωρίστως (inseparably).  Being inseparably united with us, Christ of Chalcedon identifies Himself with all of us.  Not only does He simply bear man’s infirmities but also He takes on responsibility for all these.  He took this responsibility on the Cross exactly because He was the one who was paying for the sins of others.  He did not simply bear the infirmities of others but He paid for them.  And, what is valid for Christ is valid for all of us.

This leads us to the next important aspect of this unchangeable and inseparable unity. We, too, are invited to ‘receive one another.’ What does it mean to receive our brother? Simply to tolerate him? Because this is the point where many times we stop.  This is not the meaning of ‘receiving.’ Receiving means I receive him within me and I become one with him–like receiving food. And what happens when we receive food? One element of its nature becomes part of our body.  It is assimilated by our body, transformed and becomes one body with us. I tried to make this section a bit more succinct.  A definition of ‘receiving’ and an example of human relations might help.
 

7. Chalcedon doesn’t address the ecclesiological dimension of the Mystery of Christ. However, Christ is inseparably connected with the Church, which is supposed to be the body of Christ, the very presence of the Divine gift to the world in each place. In our particular situation today, our divided Churches are called to receive from one another and indeed to simply receive one another.  This raises all sorts of fundamental ecclesiological questions, since the highest point of unity in this context is that of mutual ecclesial recognition and not simply agreement on doctrine.
   It now seems only to be a matter of when, rather than of if, the restoration of full communion between our Churches, which has been sadly interrupted for centuries, will occur.

Concluding Remarks

In this presentation, we tried first to identify ways in which the Chalcedonian Christology could operate today. It is obvious that there are different Christological approaches among the Churches today concerning the application of this Chalcedonian model.  Yet, there are positive developments which allow us to hope that this model can be of use today.  In concluding, let me be more specific.  There are so many fields in which Christology can be realized, in order to curtail the prevailing individualism in society, to overcome Hindu-inspired spiritualism,to curb the growing psychologism, to transform the culture, and to answer questions of bioethics and modern biotechnology.

I believe that the Chalcedonian Christology is holistic and not totalitarian.  Christ appeared with his “parousia” (presence, visitation), and not with his ousia , by springing from an event of communion.  The consequences are really astonishing.  It is Triadic Grace in action: when we say Χριστός, we mean the “anointed one”, anointed of the Father by the Holy Spirit.
Where can this Christology be helpful? Pluralism is a tremendous opportunity.  Instead of having one uniform Christology (e.g. patristic), we should cultivate a vision of the Christological transformation of the world in a Neopatristic way; that is what Neochalcedonianism offers in order to fulfill and clarify the Fourth Ecumenical Council.  The Chalcedonian view of Christ contains many elements that can be helpful for our situation, if we view them theologically and make proper use of them.  I believe these are the crucial points where this vision can help modern man:

1. Individualism.
2. Instead of Spiritualism we have a Theanthropic realism Богочовечански реализам; Christ as the Church, Hora ton zoonton: to see, hear, feel, touch, and know Him! (The first epistle of John, which contains this eschatological orientation, begins with the triumphant proclamation that "the life was made manifest, and we saw it…," "that which we have seen and heard," "that which we have looked upon and touched with our hands," etc.)
3. Psychologism.
4. Cult, ritual, Sacrus and sanctus = Liturgy.  Hagia Sophia as a master work of Chalcedonian Christology.  There are aspects of Church life that are so deeply bound to this Christological Definition that they cannot operate without reference to the Chalcedonian vision, such as hymnography, iconography, architecture…
5. Cosmic ecology: The central point of our Faith is Christ as the Land of the Living, as the Living Space, which God was well pleased to give us in order that we may live eternally in Him, with Him, around Him, before Him, together with Him, and with one another. In our times, humanity faces many problems, including greater and greater ecological problems, which threaten human living space. Thus, this topic of Christ as the Land of the Living is very pertinent for today.
6. Asceticism: self-denial (αυταπάρνησις). Nobody is as personal, nor as unique as Paul who said: ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2,20)
7. Prophesy: Christ’s presence is always a judgment, “krisis of this world” (Gospel of John).

The word of the Church ought to be the word of love, of the “kenosis” or “self-emptying” of the Cross, and of understanding.  It is a Christological message that should strike the existential “chord” of man, of which he has so much need in the tragic dead-ends of this life.  Beyond biochemistry, He existentially strikes our inner chord, our genes, the logoi of beings, as St Maximus says (beginning with Chalcedon, he developed an amazing Christology). Modern man, our neighbor, is fiercely tried and gripped by anxiety in the face of an uncertain future. He needs an outstretched hand; he needs to be opened toward communion and community. This opening of man to God—the opening of history to the Future, of earth to Heaven – is the message of Chalcedon. It should also be our message and our faith.
 

source: http://blog.westsrbdio.org/2009/04/23/for-discussion-the-theological-historical-and-cultural-significance-of-chalcedons-christology/