Orthodox Theology in the twenty-first century

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleOrthodox Theology in the twenty-first century
3. Language term English
4. lemma author Tampakis, Kostas
5. lemma category Orthodox Anthropology - Orthodox theological tradition and practice
6. Publication date 25-10-2018
7. lemma work Orthodox Theology in the twenty-first century
8. lemma manifestations Orthodox Theology in the twenty-first century
9. Keywords Mediation-Mediator - image and likeness - Orthodox anthropology
10. Lemma body

    1. This is a fifty-two pages long book, published under the auspices of the World Council of Churches with the express purpose to concisely discuss the current status of Orthodox theology. It consists of an 8-pages foreword by Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, who is the editor of the series and the Director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies in Volos, Greece and of five chapters. The first chapter is titled ‘Looking to the past: Our chief task in the twentieth century’. It has its goal to discern and discuss the dominant theme of Orthodox theology in the past twentieth century. The author sees it to be ecclesiology, in a world where national churches have been radically transformed. The second chapter is named ‘The challenge of the new millennium’ and, as its name implies, it aims to discuss what an Orthodox theology of the twenty-first century will focus on. Metropolitan Kallistos identifies Orthodox anthropology as the main issue, for four reasons. The first is the advancing urbanization and globalization. The second is the machine-dominated current technology. Thirdly, there is the ethical challenge of biological and genetic engineering. Finally, the fourth is the looming ecological tragedy. The third chapter is titled ‘Apophatic anthropology’ and sets out to discuss some basic traits of the Orthodox anthropology. He proposes three ways to do so, firstly that human being are a mystery to ourselves, secondly that the decisive element of personhood is that we are created in the image and likeness of God and thirdly, that each of us is called to be a priest of nature and mediator. The fourth chapter is called ‘Living Icon of a living God’, which aims to further explore the second way of Orthodox anthropology more fully. The main idea is that the idea of human cannot naturally be conceived apart from God, and that ‘the Trinity assures our existence as persons’. The fifth chapter , ‘Proest of Creation’ develops the final third way towards an Orthodox anthropology, following points made in the 1987 article of Metropolitan Kallistos ‘The Unity of the Human person according to the Greek Fathers’ in the Peacocke and Giller book Persons and Personality. He proposes an image of the human as mediator, as megalokosmos and as microtheos, which redefines his relationship with the environment.