Being as communion: Studies in personhood and the church

  1. Lemma
  2. Being as communion: Studies in personhood and the church
  3. English
  4. Tampakis, Kostas
  5. Key thinkers - Ecumenism and dialogue - Orthodox theological tradition and practice
  6. 1985
  7. Zizioulas, (Metropolitan) John [Author]. Being as communion: Studies in personhood and the church
  8. Being as communion : Studies in personhood and the church
  9. communion - Eucharist - eschatology

    1. The book Being as Communion by the Metropolitan of Pergamos John Zizioulas is one of the most influential texts written in the last three decades regarding the Orthodoxy and science dialogue. It has been the focus of several papers and doctoral theses and is widely cited in most relevant texts. It has 262 pages, an index of 6 pages, a two-page foreword by John Meyendorff and one-page preface. It is divided in seven chapters, usually containing two to four sections each.

      The book begins with an Introduction of 12 pages. The Introduction situates the book as a work in relation to current Orthodox and Western theology. It makes the case that early Christian ontology was captive to the ancient Greek monism. Instead, the ecclesiastical ontology became relational, in which communion becomes an ontological category that makes being possible. Furthermore, only an hypostasis, a free and concrete person, can be an ‘image of the being of God’. In such a context, the eucharist becomes fundamental in Orthodox ecclesiology, since it allows the realization of its eschatological mission. Finally, the introduction ends by discussing the similarities and differences of this book’s project with the Eucharistic ecclesiology of Fr. Nicholas Afanasiev and states its two basic concerns: to detach Western theology from the confessional mentality in which it approaches Orthodoxy and to provoke a synthesis of Western and Orthodox theologies.

      The first chapter is called ‘Personhood and Being’ and is 38 pages long. It aims to show how the concept of person is deeply rooted in theology.  The first section is titled ‘From mask to person: The birth of an ontology of personhood’ and indeed it traces the historical evolution and emergence of the concept of person from ancient Greek classical thought to modern existential philosophy. It then shows how a relational ontology, in the context described above, emerges within Orthodox thought. The second section is titled ‘From biological to ecclesiastical existence: the ecclesiological significance of the person’. It contrasts the biological existence of man, itself a tragic event which ends in death, to the eucharistic and ecclesiastical existence which starts with baptism. The author makes the point that these unite in portraying man’s hypostasis in the Church.

      The second chapter is called ‘Truth and Communion’ and it is 65 pages long. It is divided in four sections. The first and shortest section serves as in introduction and is titled “The problem of truth in the Patristic era’. It brings on as the central question of the book the following: How can we hold at one and the same time to the historical nature of truth and the presence of ultimate truth here and now? Or, in other words, how can truth be viewed simultaneously from the viewpoint of the ‘nature’ of being (the classical Greek mentality), from the viewpoint of the goal or end of history (the Jewish mentality) and from the viewpoint of Christ, while preserving God’s otherness in relation to creation? The second section, itself divided in six subsections, is titled ‘Truth, being and history: The Greek patristic synthesis’ and starts to formulate a possible answer to the introduction’s question. The first such approach is the focus of the first subsection and it deals with the Logos approach, which the author identifies with Clement, Justin and Origen. The second subsection deals with the Eucharistic approach to truth, as something related not strictly to epistemology but to life in general. This approach the author credits to St. Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus. The third approach is the trinity arian, which came about in opposition to Arianism and which identifies the logos with the the Son in the Trinity. This approach is seen as coming about from St. Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers. The fourth subsection deals with the apophatic approach, as first articulated by Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor, in which transcendence becomes the way to break the closed Greek ontology. The fifth approach is the Christological, which is based on the thought of Maximus. Christ is seen as the logos of creation, and one must find him in all the logoi of created beings. In such an approach, communion and participation are fundamental. The sixth subsection deals with the homonymous approach which Zizioulas terms the approach through the “Eikon”. In it, iconological language harnesses its apocalyptic roots to liberate truth from objectification and manipulation, and identified it with communion. The third section of the chapter follows, titled ‘Truth and Salvation: The existential implications of truth as communion’. It encompasses three subsections, the first titled ‘Truth and fallen existence: the rupture between Being and Communion’, in which the author describes how such a rupture results automatically when the truth of being acquires priority over the truth of communion. The second subsection is titled ‘Truth and the person’, in which it is argued that the essentiality of a person is that his being is a revelation of truth as a mode of existence rather than as a substance. The third final subsection is named ‘Truth and the Savior’ and argues that Christ must be seen not as an individual but as true person, and , as a result, Vhristology transposes truth from the realm of the individual to the realm of the person. Finally, the fourth and final section is titled ‘Truth and the Church: ecclesiological Consequences of the Greek patristic synthesis’ and has two subsections. The first has the title ‘The body of Christ formed in Spirit” and aims to clarify the Christology that is implied when identifying Christ with truth. It is twofold Christology, one understabding Christ as a historical and objective individual realized with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and the second as a Christology essentially conditioned by Pneumatology. The second subsection has the title ‘The Eucharist as the locus of Truth’ and makes five observations. Firstly, that the Eucharist reveals that Christ-truth is not only revealed but realized through a community with communion. Secondly, that the community’s unity in identity is the foundation of conciliar infallibility and not historical transmission of truth. Thirdly, that the formulation of truth In chuech follows a similar truth and that dogmas are soteriological declarations. Fourthly, that the eucharist shows truth to have cosmic dimensions, allowing the split between science and theology to be cured, as scientists are doing para-eucharistic work. Finally, eucharistic truth shows that truth becomes freedom.

      The third chapter, titled ‘Christ, the Spirit and the Church’ is somewhat short, spanning 20 pages and consisting of four sections. The first section is a short, three pages long introduction, in which the author poses the problematic of a positive Pneumatology of the Orthodox Church, and discusses relevant views, especially that of Vladimir Lossky. The second section is titled ‘The problem of the Synthesis between Christology and Pneumatology’. It discusses the question of the synthesis of Christology and Pneumatology vis-à-vis two questions, the question of priority and the question of content. It is suggested that Pneumatology should be constitutive of ecclesiology, and that eschatology and communion should be necessary components of a synthesis. The third section is titled ‘Implications of the synthesis of ecclesiology’. In it, the author attempts to apply such a synthesis to the concrete existence of the Orthodox Church, following four axis: The importance of the local Church in ecclesiology, the significance of conciliarity, the Bishop and the community and the iconic character of the ecclesial institution. The final ‘Conclusions ‘section is four-pages long, in which the points of the chapter are summarized and discusses how much of this in fact exists and what can be done to further it.

      The fourth chapter, ‘Eucharist and Catholicity’ is 27 pages long and is divided into four sections. At first, there is a brief introduction, in which the chapetr’s aim to discuss catholicity in an eucharist community is stated. The first section, titled ‘The One and the Many in the Eucharist conciosuness of the early Church’ discusses the development of the Eucharistic community in the early Christians. Catholicity meant wholeness, fullness and totality. The second section is titled ‘The composition and structure of eucharistic community as reflections of catholicity’. It discusses how early Christian communities, in their structure and composition, enabled their Eucharistic character. The third section, ‘The Eucharistic community and the Catholic Church in the World”, disassembles the paradox between the locality of the eucharistic community and the idea of a catholic local church. The fourth section, offers five general conclusions, Firstly, that the primary content of catholicity is Christological and not moral. The second, that there is pneumatological dimension to catholicity, which is itself dynamic and a result of revealing Christ’s body to history. Thirdly, that the ultimate essence of catholicity is the transcendence of all divisions in Christ. Fourthly, that a Christological understanding of ministry transcends categories of priority and segregation, and that all ministry is to be understood in the context of community. Finally, apostolic succession is not to be understood in absoluto but as a continuity of the life of the Church in history.

      The fifth chapter, ‘Apostolic continuity and succession’ is 38 pages long and has four sections. The first is "The two approaches, historical and eschatological, to apostolic continuity”. The historical approach is about the apostles representing a link between Christ and Church, with a historical and normative role to play. The ecclesiological function is about the convocation of the apostles, as those who surround Christ. The author suggests that if the Church is to be truly apostolic, it must be both historically and eschatologically oriented. The second section is called ‘Towards a synthesis of the historical and ecclesiological approach’, which expans upon the final point made in the previous section. The arguments are that the event of Christ must be seen as constituted pneumatologically, that the history of the Church is identical to that of the world as a whole, that the Church asks to receive from God what has historically been received in Christ and that the sacramental nature of the Church is an epicletical conditioning of history stemming from the synthesis of its historical with the eschatological character. The third section is called ‘Concrete consequences for the life of the Church’. It identifies two main elements, continuity through the apostolic kerygma and continuity through the apostolic ministry. The fourth and final section is titled ‘Conclusions from the Ecumenical debate'. Its aim is to present some concluding remarks on the eschatological approach to apostolic succession that the author has presented in the chapter.

      The sixth chapter is ‘Ministry and Communion’ and has a length of 38 pages, divided into five sections. The first section is ‘The theological perspective’, in which it is shown that the only ministry in Church is Christ’s, conditioned pneumatologically. This is followed by ‘The relational character of the ministry’, which grapples with the following questions: Is there anything that can be said to precede or cause ordination in Church? Is there a source and a generic principle of ministry? How does it come about? The third section is titled ‘The sacramental character of the ministry, in which the relational character of the ministry is shown to affect an anthropological point of view, based on communion as the basis of existence. The subsequent section ‘Ministry and Unity’ , in which the previously discussed relational mode of being is expanded across space and time, so that it is defined across all other communities that exist or have existed. The final fifth section, ‘The validity of ministry’ argues that the ‘validation’ of a ministry is not be found in isolated norms but in its relation to the community it belongs. Thus communities acquire an existential status.

      The seventh and final chapter is twenty-three pages long and is titled ‘The local church in perspective of communion’. It has two main sections, the second of which has three subsections. The first section is ‘The historical and ecclesiological background’ which discusses the role of the local church according to the catholic nature of the eucharist and the geographical nature of the eucharist. It also considers the complications of calling a parish a local Church arising from the considerations of the ecclesiological principle of identifying the Church with the eucharist and of the episcopical ministry. The second section is called ‘Questions concerning the Theology of the local Church today’ and is divided in three subsections. The first is ‘Ecclesiality and loyalty’. It tackled the question of what makes a Chuch local and what makes a local body a Church. The second subsection is ‘Locality and Universality’. In it, three elements are identified for a Church to be in communion with other churches, firstly that the problems of all local Churches should be the objects of prayer and active care by a partcylar local Church, that a certain common basis of the vision and understanding of the Gospel and the Church must exist and that certain structures be procided that would facilitate this communion. The third and final short subsection is called ‘The local Church in the context of division’, which raises two questions, when has a confessional body per se the right to be regarded as Church and whether can a local Church be regarded as truly local and truly Church when in a state of confessional division.