Orthodoxy and Political Theology PDF

A trenchant critique, a hopeful vision—
KALAITZIDIS
Why has Eastern Orthodoxy not developed a full-throated political pantelis kalaiTzidis
theological voice?
ORTHODOXY&
While known for its robust ecclesiology and rich doctrinal and liturgical
identity, Orthodoxy has not strongly advanced political theology. Yet, for
our time of momentous change and tumult, maintains Pantelis Kalaitzidis,
POLITICAL THEOLOGY
such a vision is crucial. Here, for the first time in an ecumenical context,
ORTHODOXY AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY

is a careful analytical assessment, well informed in historical work, of the
theological stance and public witness of Orthodoxy in the political arena.
Key to developing a distinctive political theology and public witness,

Kalaitzidis contends, is eucharistic community and renewed eschatology,
the deep faith in and expectation of God’s active re-creation of personal,
social, and even cosmic possibilities. A faith grounded in the risen Lord, he
writes, can offer a powerful vision, not reducible to a nostalgic idealization of
a theocratic past nor to a simple modern programme of social betterment.
Pantelis Kalaitzidis, editor of the DOXA & PRAXIS series, is Director of

the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Volos, Greece. He has published
or edited such works as: The Church and Eschatology; Gender and Religion:
The Role of the Women in the Church; Orthodoxy and Modernity; Turmoil
in Post-war Theology: The Greek “Theology of the ’60s”; and Orthodoxy and
Hellenism in Contemporary Greece.
Doxa & Praxis Orthodox Christianity/Theology
Gunther Gerzso, Orange-Blue-Green, 1972

ORTHODOXY
AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY
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Doxa & Praxis
Exploring Orthodox Theology
Dr Pantelis Kalaitzidis, series editor
In light of the current challenges faced by global Christianity, Doxa & Praxis,
a collaborative effort of the Volos Academy and WCC Publications, invites
creative and original reflection that reappraises, reappropriates and further
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Board of Editorial Consultants
Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas, Ecumenical Patriarchate

Metropolitan of Mount-Lebanon Georges Khodr, Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate of Antioch
Rev Dr Emmanuel Clapsis, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of
Theology, Boston
Dr Tamara Grdzelidze, Program Executive, Faith and Order, WCC
Dr Alexei Bodrov, Rector, St Andrews Biblical Theological Institute,
Moscow
Dr Angeliki Ziaka, Assistant Professor at the School of Theology,
Thessaloniki University
Dr Peter Bouteneff, Associate Professor, St Vladimir’s Theological
Seminary, New York
Dr Radu Preda, Associate Professor of Cluj-Napoca University, Director
of the Romanian Institute for Inter-Orthodox, Inter-Confessional,
Inter-Religious Studies (INTER)
Julija Vidovic, MTh, Member of the Central Committee of the Conference
of European Churches (Orthodox Serbian Church)
Aikaterini Pekridou, MTh, Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College,
Dublin, and The Academy for Theological Studies, Volos

PANTELIS KALAITZIDIS
ORTHODOXY AND
POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Doxa & Praxis series
Translated from the Greek by Fr Gregory Edwards
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To His All-Holiness
The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew,
For the Anniversary of His 50 Years of Ministry
And 20 Years of Patriarchal Diakonia,
For His Fervent Ecumenical Commitment,
And His Actions and Public Addresses
On Behalf of the Environment,
Social Justice, and Religious Tolerance

CONTENTS
PREFACE .......................................................................................................................... 9
PART I
Chapter 1
THE THEOLOGY OF POLITICS ............................................................................ 15
Chapter 2
the POLITICS OF THEOLOGY ............................................................................ 45
Chapter 3
WHY HAS ORTHODOXY NOT DEVELOPED
A POLITICAL OR LIBERATION THEOLOGY? ................................................. 65
Chapter 4
THE PUBLIC ROLE OF THE CHURCH AND THEOLOGY ......................... 81
PART II
ESCHATOLOGY AND POLITICS
Chapter 5
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL DIMENSION ............................................................. 89
Chapter 6
THE CHURCH AND POLITICS, MINISTRY AND POWER ....................... 113
Chapter 7
ESCHATOLOGY OR THEOCRACY? GOD OR CEASAR? ............................ 135
INDEX ........................................................................................................................... 141
7

Preface
O ne of the main features of Eastern Orthodox theology and

liturgical experience is its vision of the catholic/holistic
transformation and salvation of the whole creation, of the cosmos
and humankind, and therefore the transformation of history,
which has been assumed in the deified flesh of the Son and Word
of God. Just as Christ assumed the whole human person and the
entirety of human nature, so should the church seek to assume
‒and then to transform and save‒ the whole human (body and
soul, spirit and matter), as well as every aspect of his or her life
(including the political, social, and economic aspects of this life,
not just the spiritual or religious).
But this is not always the case when we come to the Orthodox
Church, which, primarily for historical reasons, could not provide
an adequate public witness of its eucharistic and eschatological
self-consciousness, of its experience of the active expectation of
the reign of God, and of the implications this expectation has for
the “political” realm, viz. the Gospel commandments for social
justice and solidarity with the poor, the marginalized, and the
victims of history.
The aim of this book, therefore, is to study the relationship
between Orthodoxy and political theology. Taking as its starting
point the invention of “political theology” by the German
conservative philosopher of law Carl Schmitt, followed by the
leftist turn in political theology initiated by theologians such as
Johann Baptist Metz, Jürgen Moltmann, Dorothee Sölle, and Latin
American liberation theology, this work proposes to examine the
reasons for which Orthodoxy ‒with few exceptions‒ has not
developed a “political theology,” in the liberating and radical sense
9

PANTELIS KALAITZIDIS
of the term. It looks also to understand why prominent Orthodox

theologians have underestimated, or even misunderstood,
the meaning and content of political theology, or why the idea
of the “theological or Christian left” has not developed in the
Orthodox milieu, as it has in many countries of Western Europe
and America. This book then tries to gather the elements and
premises of an Orthodox approach to political and liberation
theology, based mainly on the eschatological understanding of the
church and its eucharistic constitution, on the biblical texts and
the patristic tradition, and on the works and major contributions
of contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians, especially those
of the Diaspora.
The two main parts of the present book were initially published
separately, but constitute a continuum of thought which has been
reviewed and edited in order to suit the present work. The first text
(“Orthodoxy and Political Theology”1) was originally presented
in the framework of an international graduate student seminar
entitled: “Biblical Liberation Theology, Patristic Theology, and
the Ambivalences of Modernity.” This seminar was co-organized
by the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, the Faculty of
Theology of Heidelberg University, and the School of Theology
of Thessaloniki University, and was hosted by the Volos Academy
for Theological Studies in Volos, Greece, on May 28-30, 2009.
A collective volume resulted from this seminar, and has been
published in Greek by “Indiktos Publications” in Athens, in 2012.
My text appears here for the first time in English, translated with
solicitude and thoughtfulness by Fr Gregory Edwards. The second
text of the present book (“Eschatology and Politics”), also initially
1. Sections of this text were initially translated by Dr Haralambos Ventis.
10

orthodoxY AND POLITICAL theology
appeared in Greek, as my personal contribution to the Festschrift

volume dedicated to Elder Aimilianos of Simonos Petras (on
Mount Athos).2 It appears here for the first time in English in this
fine translation prepared by Fr Gregory Edwards.
Before closing this Preface, I would like to extend my warmest
thanks to the many people who helped me develop and prepare
this book, particularly Fr Gregory Edwards, Dr Ulrich Duchrow,
Dr Petros Vassiliadis, Dr Stelios Tsompanidis, Dr Norman Russell,
Dr Daniel Ayuch, Dr Aristotle Papanikolaou, Dr Haralambos
Ventis, Matthew Baker, MTh, and Nikos Asproulis, MTh. Special
thanks are due to my Lebanese friend Amal Dibo, from the
American University of Beirut, for her warm hospitality in Beirut
during the Bright Week of Easter of 2012, when this book was
finished.
I dedicate this book to His All-Holiness, the Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew, for his fervent ecumenical commitment,
and his active engagement on behalf of the environment, social
justice, and religious tolerance. It is our very humble attempt to
recognize what he has done over many years for the witness and
presence of Orthodoxy in the changing contemporary world.
Volos-Beirut, Easter 2012

Pantelis Kalaitzidis
2. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Eschatology and Politics,” in: Synaxis Efcharistias,

Festschrift volume for Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Athens: Indiktos
Publications, 2003, pp. 483-527 [in Greek].
11

Part I
Orthodoxy and Political Theology

Chapter 1
The Theology of Politics
A lthough political theology seems to be the chief means by

which Christians understand their role in the larger world,
it has not always had an illustrious history. To my knowledge, the
term “political theology” was first used in Carl Schmitt’s work of
the same title, which was published in 1922. This is not to imply
that elements of political theology are absent in the preceding
scholarship, or that traces or examples of political theology
cannot be discerned throughout the history of the church, earlier
as well as more recent. In his small but now classic book Political
Theology,1 the conservative Roman Catholic German philosopher
of law, Carl Schmitt, who adhered to National Socialism and whom
Jacob Taubes called the “apocalyptician of counterrevolution,”2
held that “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the
state are secularized theological concepts.” And this “not only
because of their historical development ‒ in which they were
transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for
example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver
‒ but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition
of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these
1. C arl S chmitt , Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of

Sovereignty, trans. by George Schwab, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
1985 (1st German edition 1922, 2nd 1934); Greek translation with notes
and postface: Panayiotis Kondylis, Athens: Leviathan Publications, 1994.
2. Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul, ed. by Aleida Assmann and
Jan Assmann, in conjunction with Horst Folkers, Wolf-Daniel Hartwich,
and Christoph Schulte, transl. by Dana Hollander, Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2004, p. 69.
15

concepts.” For example, when referring to “emergencies” (that

is to a deviation or aberration, as Schmitt would have it, from
institutional normalcy), he maintains that “the exception in
jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology.”3 Hence,
Schmitt consistently upholds a structural analogy between the
fundamental concepts of a state based on law, on the one hand,
and theology as well as metaphysics, on the other.
This leads Schmitt to insist rather doggedly on accord
between the social structure of any particular era and its meta
physical worldview. In his own words, “the idea of the modern
constitutional state triumphed together with deism,4 a theology
and metaphysics that banished the miracle from the world. This
theology and metaphysics rejected not only the transgression of
the laws of nature through an exception brought about by direct
intervention, as is found in the idea of a miracle, but also the
sovereign’s direct intervention in a valid legal order.” According
to Schmitt, “the rationalism of the Enlightenment rejected the
exception in every form. Conservative authors of the [French]
counter-revolution who were theists could thus attempt to
support the personal sovereignty of the monarch ideologically,
with the aid of analogies from a theistic theology.”5
3. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, English translation, p. 36.

4. According to the idea of deism, God, having created the world and
then instituted natural determinism, no longer intervenes in its function.
Theismus, on the contrary, assumes this kind of intervention. See
Panayiotis Kondylis’ notes in his Greek translation of Carl Schmitt’s,
Political Theology, p. 117, note 51.
5. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, English translation, pp. 36-37. Cf. Gior-
gio Agamben’s critical remarks in his essay: Stato di eccezione, Torino: Bol-
lati Boringhieri Editore, 2003.
16

the theology of politics
Carl Schmitt, in fact, goes so far as to argue that “in the theory
of the state of the seventeenth century, the monarch is identified
with God and has in the state a position exactly analogous to that
attributed to God in the Cartesian system of the world. According
to [��
Frederic] Atger, ‘The prince develops all the inherent charac-
teristics of the state by a sort of continual creation. The prince is
the Cartesian god transposed to the political world’.”6 In line with
this perspective, Schmitt gladly extends René Descartes’s syllo-
gism, according to which “the works created by several masters
are not as perfect as those created by one. ‘One sole architect’
must construct a house and a town; the best constitutions are
those that are the work of a sole wise legislator, they are ‘devised
by only one’; and finally, a sole God governs the world.” Thus, for
obvious reasons, which are connected to his opposition toward
parliamentary democracy and the spirit of dialogue, Schmitt
rushes to adopt Descartes’s position, which says that “It is God
who established these laws in nature just as a king establishes laws
in his kingdom.”7 Schmitt, moreover, does not fail to pinpoint
the contradiction between the tendency ‒ already established in
the 19th century ‒ for dialogical participation and other similar
democratic institutions on the one hand (which he is quick to
attribute to a theology of immanence, while deliberately skip-
ping any references to Trinitarian theology and its vision of inter-
penetration), and the 17th-18th century understanding of God, on
the other hand, which upholds “his transcendence vis-à-vis the
world,”8 just as to that period’s philosophy of state belongs the
6. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, op. cit., pp. 46-47.

7. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, p. 47.
8. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, p. 50.
17

notion of the transcendence of the sovereign vis-à-vis the state.

As Schmitt famously wrote at the beginning of Political Theology,
“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”9
Among the multitude of concepts that built up and lent sup-
port to Schmitt’s theory, such as sovereignty, decision, exception,
state of emergency, ruler, sovereign, sovereign dictatorship, pre-
scribed dictatorship, friend-foe, etc., a key concept which directly
concerns us here is that of Representation, which is intimately
related to the theory of the ruler and the concept of “decision.”
According to Schmitt, because God is no longer visible, he has
resolved to transfer, permanently and completely, the supreme
authority for decision–making on all worldly and spiritual affairs
to his human representative on earth. This idea, which is so cen-
tral to Schmitt’s work, renders even more obvious his affinity for
9. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, p. 5. On all these issues, see also the fol-
lowing works of Carl Schmitt: The Concept of the Political, transl. by George
Schwab, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007; Theory of the Parti-
san: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political, transl. by G.
L. Ulmen, New York: Telos Press, 2007; The Leviathan in the State Theo-
ry of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol, transl. by
George Schwab, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008; Political Ro-
manticism, transl. by Guy Oakes, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1986;
La dictature, traduit de l’allemand par M. Köller et D. Séglard, Paris: Seuil,
2000; La valeur de l’état et la signification de l’individu, traduction et notes
par Sandrine Baume, Genève : Librairie Droz, 2000; State, Movement, Peo-
ple: The Triadic Structure of the Political Unity, transl. Simona Draghi-
ci, Corvallis: Plutarch Press, 2001; Constitutional Theory, transl. by Jeffrey
Seitzer, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008; Legality and Legitima-
cy, transl. by Jeffrey Seitzer, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004;
Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, transl. by Ellen Kennedy, Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2000.
18

monarchical/authoritarian regimes, and for a kind of “theology

of empire” or a theological justification of monarchy similar to
what was first worked out by Eusebius of Caesarea, as we shall
see below. It is noteworthy that Schmitt remained fundamentally
anti-Trinitarian and exclusively monarchical in his theology, be-
cause he considered the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity to
be both problematic and threatening for the status quo. This is
because, notwithstanding its parallel commitment to safeguard-
ing the unity of God, the concept of the Trinity introduces differ-
ence and dialogue among the three divine persons, which are not
conducive to a pro-royalist perspective. In his rejection of Trini-
tarianism as a threat to the monarchy, Schmitt follows along the
lines of Hobbes’ pro-Arian theological standpoint. Such a radical
absolute monotheism, which subordinates the Son to the status
of a creature, is inherently absolutist as well as arbitrary. In light
of these attributes, it is far from accidental that radical mono-
theism was immediately adopted by both the Western and the
Eastern emperors of the Roman Empire, who readily saw them-
selves as substitutes for a created Christ. It is believed that this
particular version of “political theology,” which was worked out
by the equally pro-Arian bishop of Caesarea Eusebius ‒ regarded
by many as the founder of church history ‒ served as the corner-
stone of so-called Byzantine caesaropapism since, in the political
ideology which sprung from it, the emperor was looked upon as
God’s representative on earth, and as an “equal to the apostles”
who exercised a political function.10 It should be kept in mind
10. For analysis and evidence, see Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and
Byzantine Political Philosophy. Origins and Background, Washington, DC:
The Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Trustees for Harvard
19

that Byzantine theocracy and synallelia (mutual cooperation)

which, according to many contemporary Orthodox theologians,
is the appropriate model for church-state relations, is inconceiv-
able apart from this significant theological shift.11
In light of all the above, it should hardly be surprising that
Schmitt was acutely hostile to eschatology, inasmuch as it im-
plies an openness to the future, a hope and an expectation for
a renewed and more just future, and a world of forgiveness and
reconciliation; likewise, there is no paradox in the fact that he “as-
sociates... liberal/social democracy and the notion of progress in
general with the Anti-Christ.”12
University, 1966, especially, v. II, pp. 614ff.; Gerhard Podskalsky, Byzan-

tinische Reicheschatologie, München: Fink Verlag, 1972; Hélène Ahrweil-
er, L’idéologie politique de l’empire byzantin, Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1975; Steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy, Cambridge-New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1977. See also the recent work of John
Anthony McGuckin, The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to its Histo-
ry, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008, pp. 380-
398, where we see a more cautious and balanced approach to the question
we deal with here. See also Savas Agourides, “The Roots of the Great Idea,”
in Agourides, Theology and Society in Dialogue, Athens, 1999, pp. 15-22 [in
Greek]; Thanos Lipowatz, Political theology and modernity, in Thanos Lipo-
watz-Nikos Demertzis-Vassiliki Georgiadou (eds), Religions and Politics in
Modernity, Athens: Kritiki, 2002, pp. 122-124 [in Greek].
11. The term synallelia draws its origin from the Byzantine political model,
and serves, especially in the Orthodox context, to designate the special
relationship between Church and state. It refers to the loyal and mutual
cooperation between these two distinctive institutions for the sake of the
people, who are simultaneously members of the Church and subjects or
citizens of the state.
12. Thanos Lipowatz, “Political Theology and Modernity,” pp. 122-123.
20

In this ultra-conservative, pro-royalist vision of his, which

ultimately resulted in the theoretical justification and even es-
pousal ‒ for a time ‒ of Nazism and dictatorship, Carl Schmitt
incorporated the ideas of major French Catholic apologists of the
counter-revolution, such as de Maistre and Boland, as well as the
Spanish conservative Catholic theorist Donoso Cortés.13 For all
these figures, the Enlightenment, as well as modernity and the
whole notion of human rights, represent an absolute evil and hu-
manity’s fall, indeed the “original sin” of modern democracy.14 It
is from these intellectuals that Schmitt borrows the identification
of “royalism” with “theism” and Christianity, as well as his over-
all militant opposition to democracy and political liberalism.15 In
13. Schmitt dedicates the fourth and final chapter of the book to these
thinkers; see “On the Counterrevolutionary Philosophy of the State,” (pp.
53-65). See also Panayiotis Kondylis’s comments in his “Postface,” in the
Greek edition of Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, pp. 166ff. Cf. also, Thanos
Lipowatz, “Political Theology and Modernity,” pp. 119ff. [in Greek]; Jacob
Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul, pp. 67-68.
14. Thanos Lipowatz, “Political Theology and Modernity,” p. 119 [in
Greek]. A study is needed on the relationship between the work of the
Russian philosopher of the diaspora Nicholas Berdyaev (with his well-
known Christian and revolutionary sympathies) and these philosophers
(particularly de Maistre). On this point, Hugo Ball’s critical approach to
Schmitt’s political theology is of some interest; Ball is well known for his
interest in Byzantine Christianity and patristic thought. See H. Ball, “La
théologie politique de Carl Schmitt,” traduit et annoté par André Doremus,
Les Etudes Philosophiques, janvier, 2004, pp. 65-104. See also André Dore-
mus, “La théologie politique de Carl Schmitt vue par Hugo Ball en 1924,”
Les Etudes Philosophiques, janvier, 2004, pp. 57-63.
15. For an initial survey, see among many others Panayiotis Kondylis, Postface,
in the Greek version of Carl Schmitt’s, Political Theology, pp. 166-169,
21

line with this commitment, Schmitt went so far as to declare, as

late as 1962 (in the context of a series of lectures that he gave
in Pablona and Saragosa, under Franco’s reign), that the Spanish
civil war was “a war of national liberation sponsored by the inter-
national communist movement.”16
Here I should mention, however, that Carl Schmitt’s active in-
volvement in Nazism and National Socialism (initially as a legal
advisor to the National Socialist Party and subsequently to the
Nazi regime, as an advisor to the state and as an official theorist of
right during the first years of the Nazi regime, but also as president
of the Union of National Socialist Attorneys, editor-in chief since
1934 of the Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung and last but not least, as lead
organizer of anti-Jewish congresses that sought to purge German
laws of every trace of the Jewish spirit), represents an enormous is-
sue that far exceeds the scope of the present study. Suffice it to say
simply that his involvement was not so much the result of racial
prejudices but was spawned rather from a religiously motivated
note 22, which contains extended quotations from the works of these and
other thinkers.
16. Carl Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan, p. 56. The two lectures he de-
livered in Spain are published here in a more developed form. From the
above, it should be obvious why Carl Schmitt became ‒ and continues to
be ‒ a source of fascination in right, far-right, and pro-monarchy environ-
ments. What was, perhaps, not anticipated ‒ but which can be explained
(although we cannot delve into it here) ‒ is the allure that his thought
and political theory seem to have also in far-left, usually anti-parliamen-
tary, environments, as well as among the ranks of the New Left. For an in-
troduction to this discussion, see Jean-Werner Müller, A Dangerous Mind:
Carl Schmitt in Postwar European Thought, New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 2003.
22

opposition to Judaism. This subtle distinction may help explain

why, as early as 1936, the Nazi regime, skeptical of the sincerity
of his anti-Semitism, denounced him as an opportunist, removed
him from a number of important positions, and stripped him of
several titles and distinctions they had bestowed on him.
With regard now to the whole issue of modernity, it should
be sufficiently evident, I believe, that both Schmitt’s political
theology, and his theory concerning the state of emergency, are
inconceivable outside the context of modernity and seculariza-
tion (in the sociological sense of the term), even if only in terms
of a reaction or a staunch denial of modernity and secularism.
Schmitt’s political theory, relying as it does on arguments drawn
from the philosophy and theory of right ‒ while also speaking on
behalf of Christianity, theology, and even metaphysics ‒ reflects a
clearly anti-modern standpoint. Here it is worth mentioning that
Schmitt faced serious criticisms of his work, initially from Hans
Kelsen,17 and some decades later from Hans Blumenberg,18 both
of whom took a more positive approach to Christianity’s relation-
ship with secularization and modernity. Likewise, his pro-Arian,
17. Hans Kelsen, “Gott und Staat,” Logos, 11 (1922-23), pp. 261-284, and
a new edition: Hans Kelsen, Staat und Naturrecht: Aufsätze zur Ideologie-
kritik, hrg. E. Topitsch, Munich: Fink Verlag, 21989, pp. 29-55. Cf. Jacob
Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul, pp. 66-67.
18. Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, transl. by Robert
M. Wallace, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983. Cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg’s
remarks in “Christianity as the Legitimacy of the Modern Age: Thoughts
on a Book by Hans Blumenberg,” in W. Pannenberg, Basic Questions in
Theology, v. 3, London: SCM Press, 1973, pp. 178-191; and Thanos Lipow-
atz, “Political theology and Modernity,” pp. 137-141 [in Greek]. Cf. also,
Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul, pp. 68-69.
23

anti-Trinitarian view, which as we saw was directly related to his

royalist, anti-democratic proclivities, was bound to be refuted
both theologically and politically by the German theologian Erik
Peterson ‒ a convert to Roman Catholicism from Protestantism
who was well-known for his studies on early Christianity and pa-
tristic thought ‒ in his 1935 classic Monotheismus als politisches
Problem,19 in which he emphasizes that Christianity does not per-
mit belief in the Trinity to provide a moral rationale or theoretical
justification for authoritarian politics of domination and control.
The preceding, rather introductory, portrait of Schmitt and his

political theology was aimed at highlighting what strikes me,
at least, as an important point. My analysis, despite my radical
disagreement with the ideas supported by the German theorist
of right, was meant to draw renewed attention to the often ne-
glected, but real, correspondence and analogy between theologi-
cal and political concepts, and in the last resort between theo-
logical and political concepts and structures.20 As I see them, the
numerous sides of Schmitt’s positions can, for our purpose here,
be summed up in the following points: (a) the structural analogy
between God and the sovereign, between Christianity and mon-
archy or empire, and Schmitt’s consequent preference for oligar-
chies and dictatorships, as is indicated by the analogy between
19. Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum, Leipzig:
Henger-Verlag, 1935.
20. For a model and typology of the whole variety of such relationships
between theological and political frameworks, see Kathryn Tanner, The
Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice, Minneapolis, MN:
Fortress Press, 1992.
24

miracles and states of emergency; and (b) his systematic animos-

ity toward and denial of modernity and individual human rights,
in other words, to his clear-cut predilection for the medieval,
pre-modern context of social organization. This last dimension
of his thought suggests that, right from the outset, his discourse
on political theology had been seriously handicapped (from the
democratic perspective) by its commitment to an authoritarian,
medieval past, and a militant call for a return to it, and by denying
modernity’s achievements, such as the vital distinction between
the public and the private spheres (a topic which will occupy us
in the fourth chapter of this book).
What one realizes, after a close reading of this conservative German

Catholic philosopher of law, is that there is a nearly universal ten-
dency among religious intellectuals to lean toward the far right and
authoritarian ideologies in general. Of course, the Greek Orthodox
are habitually dismissive of all this on the pretext that this tendency
is almost exclusive to western Christendom. This is a popular idea
particularly among those Greek Orthodox who trace their roots
back to the early ’60s, when the consensus emerged that Orthodox
Christianity, as a result of our Byzantine past and of our Turkish
captivity, was not affected by these developments and is thus largely
innocent of the sins of its Western counterpart. Nevertheless, this
popular belief, misleading as it is in its simplicity, cannot survive
critical scrutiny and, upon closer inspection, we shall see that the
East is also mired in similar tendencies.
Going back now to the structural analogy between theology
and law as well as theology and politics, in the way that it was set
up by Schmitt, we ought to acknowledge, as I just stated, that it
is hardly absent in our own tradition. To give but one example,
25

in the well-known hymn in the second tone from the Christmas

Vespers service, which liturgical texts attribute to the nun Cas-
siani, one clearly sees the structural analogy between theological
and political concepts along the lines just noted, linking demo
cracy and polytheism on the one hand, and monarchy, monothe-
ism, and Christianity on the other:
When Augustus reigned alone on the earth, the many kingdoms of

mankind came to an end; and when you became man from the pure
Virgin, the many gods of idolatry were destroyed; the cities of the world
passed under one single rule; and the nations came to believe in one
single Godhead; the peoples were enrolled by decree of Caesar; we the
faithful were enrolled in the name of the Godhead, when you became
man, O our God. Great is your mercy, Lord; glory to you!21
On this topic, the observations made by the late Greek Professor

Savas Agourides are highly enlightening. Building on Gerhard
Podskalsky’s work on Byzantine secularized eschatology, to which
we have already referred,22 Agourides makes a specific reference
to Eusebius of Caesarea and his attempt to link Christianity and
monarchy/empire. As Agourides writes:
In order for us to get an adequate grasp of what this is all about, we need
to take note of the following: Byzantium, besides inheriting Hellenistic
culture and the Roman experience in administration and law-making,
was also heir, through Christianity, to the Hebraic, biblical notion of
21. English translation by Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash) at: http://www.

anastasis.org.uk/25decves.htm
22. Gerhard Podskalsky, Byzantinische Reicheschatologie, München: Fink
Verlag, 1972, p. 41.
26

the chosen people. Above all, Byzantium incorporated the belief that
as a result of Christ’s nativity during the reign of Augustus, the bibli-
cal hope of Christ’s eternal Kingdom had been actualized, as it had been
predicted by the prophets; however, it was not in the form of a final
Jewish kingdom but in the kingdom of the Romans. It is this religious-
political ideology that remains dominant throughout the Byzantine and
post-Byzantine periods ‒ never openly or fully declared as such but fre-
quently alluded to in several Byzantine texts. All Byzantine commentary
on chapters 2 and 7 of the book of Daniel, in interpreting the four king-
doms which according to Daniel would precede the Kingdom of the Mes-
siah, identified the fourth kingdom with Rome, and declared Augustus’
rule, and the Byzantine empire that followed it, to be the Kingdom of the
Messiah, Christ. In certain exegetical passages by Eusebius that Nikitas
Heracleias preserved in catenae on Luke’s Gospel, Eusebius uses the book
of Daniel to lump together Roman monarchy, the birth of Christ, and the
fourth kingdom. For Eusebius, it was crucial ‒ from the Byzantine and
Christian perspectives ‒ that Rome had abolished all democracies and
multiple authorities and had instituted a “single sovereign state,” a political
image that conforms to Aristotle’s view of the republic. Subsequent writers
simply went one step further in identifying Roman rule with the rule of
Christ, just as an anonymous interlocutor in Anastasius of Sinai’s Quaes-
tiones et Responsiones puts it: “Christ brought together all nations and all
languages and made a nation of devout Christians, a new and proper name
held in the hearts of those called Romans.23
23. Savas Agourides, “The Roots of the Great Idea,” in Agourides, Theology
and Society in Dialogue, op. cit., pp. 16-17 [in Greek]; cf. idem, “Religious
Eschatology and State Ideology in the Byzantine Tradition, the Post-
Byzantine Era, and the Modern Greek State,” in Agourides, Theology and
Current Issues, Athens: Artos Zois, 1966, pp. 53-54 [in Greek].
27

This particular example, which correlates theology and politics ‒ re-

versing Schmitt’s course, namely moving from politics to theology
rather than vice versa ‒ should cause us to think seriously about the
diachronicity, catholicity, and even ‒ dare we say it ‒ the “ortho-
doxy” of certain parts of Byzantine and Orthodox hymnology in
general. And the previously cited example is not a rare occurrence
in the course of Byzantine theology and political ideology. Rather,
it corresponds to the Byzantines’ secularized political eschatology,
which has its roots in theology. We now know, following the work
of many respected historians and theologians (for example, Francis
Dvornick, Gerhard Podskalsky, Hans-Georg Beck, Hélène Ahr-
weiler, Georges Florovsky, Savas Agourides), that the Byzantines
believed that their state and their society were the materialization
of the kingdom of God on earth. Runciman states this quite explic-
itly at the outset of his classic study The Byzantine Theocracy, which
he describes as an attempt to give an “account of an Empire whose
constitution… was based on a clear religious conviction: that it was
the earthly copy of the Kingdom of Heaven.”24 In this seamless po-
litical-theological vision, the emperor stood “in the place of Christ,”
and his kingdom was a reflection of its heavenly counterpart. As
Agourides notes, “the Byzantine state, particularly from the Justin-
ian era forward, following as it does along the lines of Jewish apoca-
lyptic literature […] sees itself as the final actualization of Christian
hope, as the eschatological prelude to the kingdom of God.”25 In
24. Steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy, Cambridge-New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 1.
25. Savas Agourides, “Religious Eschatology and State Ideology in the
Tradition of Byzantium, of the Post-Byzantine Era and of the Modern
Greek State,” in Agourides, Theology and Current Issues, p. 53.
28

this perspective, we are clearly facing a peculiar form of “realized

eschatology” (of the political or secular sort) which seems to have
largely lost the tension between the “already” and the “not yet,” that
is, between the first and the second coming of Christ, his resur-
rection and the expectation of our own resurrection and the reca-
pitulation of history, which will signal our personal incorruptibility
and the end of the reign of death. Such a perspective loses sight of
the “in between” and the “till then,”26 of the vital interim period
set between the two major Christian milestones, the resurrection
of Christ and the awaiting of our own coming resurrection. This
serves as the criterion for the choices and values of every Christian,
whose priorities are determined on the basis of the eschaton. Chris-
tians are “aliens and exiles” (1 Pt 2:11), moving continuously to-
ward the eschaton27, in accordance with the biblical injunction to be
“in the world, but not of the world.” Again what we lose, as Chris-
tians, is our focus on and our orientation toward the anticipated
new world, from which the present takes its identity and hypostasis,
its meaning and its purpose. In light, then, of this absence of bibli-
cal eschatology and active anticipation and openness toward the
future, even the second coming of Christ itself is reduced to a mere
confirmation that the kingdom of God has been already realized
with Byzantium. Hence we are faced here with a peculiar politi-
cal theology, a political eschatology, or an eschatological ideology
concerning the state.28
In the case of Byzantium, to recall Carl Schmitt’s exegeses, we
26. Savas Agourides, “Religious Eschatology,” p. 53.

27. Cf. “but our citizenship is in heaven” Phil 3:20; and “for here we have
no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” Heb 13:14.
28. Savas Agourides, “Religious Eschatology,” p. 53.
29

have a religious form of eschatology, an image of the final form

of history, which is identified with a historical political entity, that
of the Byzantine empire. Eusebius of Caesarea is considered the
founder of this peculiar political theology, but he seems to have
been antedated by Christian writers such as Justin, Tatian, Theophi-
lus of Antioch, Athenagoras, Melito of Sardis, Origen, Tertullian,
Lactantius, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and later the chroniclers George
the Monk (also known as George the Sinner), Leo Grammatikos,
Theodosius Melitenos, George Kedrenos, and John Skylitses.29
As Runciman notes, “it is significant that Eusebius was Subordi-
nationist in his theology of the Trinity. It was easy for him to stretch
his Subordinationism to include the Emperor as a sort of earthly
emanation of the Trinity.”30 For Eusebius ‒ who provided the theo-
logical justification for the idea of a Christian empire and the divine
mission of the emperor ‒ the political unity and the religious unity
of the Roman/Byzantine Empire are directly connected; the great-
ness of the empire and the triumph of Christianity go hand in hand.
In this perspective, Christ is seen as “the Lord of the world” and
“the ruler of the nations,” whose icon on earth is the emperor as
the servant of God: according to Eusebius’ Arian/Subordinationist-
inspired vision, God the Father has given leadership of the world to
the Son-Word, who in turn transfers it to the worldly king/emperor,
whose kingdom reflects the kingdom of the Son-Word. This explains
why in the course of an honorary address to Constantine the Great,
Eusebius declared that Constantine was an icon of the universe, an
imitator of Christ the Word, and a reflection of the relationship be-
29. Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, v. II,
pp. 611ff.; Savas Agourides, “The Roots of the Great Idea,” p. 16.
30. Steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy, p. 24.
30

tween God the Father and the Son and Word of God.31 Here the
sanctification of secular authority and the idolatrous divinization
of the state is obvious, as is also the incorporation of pagan Helle-
nistic and Eastern models into the Christian worldview. Erik Peter-
son, in his classic work, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem
(1935), argued that this politico-religious ideological construct was
not, in fact, Christian, and, as I already mentioned, he explicitly
opposed Schmitt’s theories, which interestingly enough, Peterson
pejoratively terms “political Arianism.”32 Peterson not only con-
nects the emperors’ sanctification with the influx of non-Christian
influences (Hellenistic, Jewish, and Roman), but also, on the basis
of Trinitarian doctrine, goes so far as to dispute the very founda-
tions of Schmitt’s political theology. In essence, Peterson suggests
that the authentic political teaching of Christianity ‒ based, as it is,
on the Trinity ‒ should actually undermine the unholy union of
religion and politics, instead of providing it with theological sup-
port. According to Peterson, the Christian belief in the Trinitarian
God leads to the denial of every sort of political domination and
ultimately shatters all illusions about “political theologies” of Carl
Schmitt’s sort.33 It is to be noted, also, that the Eusebian perspec-
31. Savas Agourides, “The Roots of the Great Idea,” p. 16.

32. On this connection between the Byzantine political ideal and Arianism,
represented primarily by Eusebius, cf. particularly the study by A nn
Elizabeth Millin, Byzantine Political Theology and Arian Christology,
Vanderbilt University, 1985.
33. See Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im Imperium Romanum, Leipzig:
Henger-Verlag, 1935. See also the English translation: Erik Peterson, “Mono-
theism as a Political Problem: A Contribution to the History of Political The-
ology in the Roman Empire,” in his: Theological Tractates, edited, translat-
31

tive met, time and again, with resistance in the Eastern part of the
empire, where church Fathers and monastics, without denying the
sacralization of imperial power and its Christological basis, op-
posed the imperial demands for the church’s subjugation to secular
authority and, more importantly, the imperial attempts to inter-
vene in theological and doctrinal issues. And we must not forget
that, alongside the cooperation of the church and state in Byzan-
tium, a continual dialectical tension seems to pervade the relation-
ship between spiritual and secular authority, as exemplified by the
patriarch and the emperor, or the church (mainly monasticism)
and the empire.34
But to return to Schmitt’s thesis and its kinship to fascism, the

far right and similarly authoritarian or oligarchic models of gov-
ernment, we ought, besides Byzantine political theology, to make
an additional reference to a widespread Greek “pro-Orthodox
movement” which, while it certainly lacks full ideological consis-
tency, still exercises a considerable influence in Greece and ‒ as
ed, and with an introduction by Michael J. Hollerich, Stanford, CA: Stan-

ford University Press, 2011 and the French translation: Le monothéisme: un
problème politique et autres traités, traduit de l’allemand par Anne-Sophie As-
trup avec la collaboration de Gilles Dorival pour le latin et le grec, Paris: Ba-
yard, 2007. Cf. J.-C. Monod, La querelle de la sécularisation: théologie politi-
que et philosophies de l’histoire de Hegel à Blumenberg, Paris: Vrin, 2002.
34. On this particular point, see the penetrating analysis by Georges
Florovsky, “Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert,” in
Christianity and Culture, Vol. 2 in the Collected Works of Georges Florovsky,
Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1974, pp. 67-100, which highlights the complexity
and ambivalence in the relationship between imperial power and Christian
imperatives, and more generally of church-state relations in Byzantium.
32

far as I know ‒ in other Orthodox countries as well. This move-

ment is comprised of a number of significant figures from theo
logy, the social sciences, literature and the arts, and is, at least
in part, related to the spirit of the theological generation of the
’60s and the so-called neo-Orthodox movement (a return to the
tradition of the Fathers, a return to the people, Greek uniqueness,
and a radical critique and rejection of the West, the Enlighten-
ment, modernity, etc.). Well-known representatives of this Greek
“pro-Orthodox” movement include, among many others (and
despite serious divergences among them), Kostis Bastias, Panayi-
otis Christou, Metropolitan Dionysius of Trikis and Stagon,
Dimitrios Tsakonas, Dimitrios Thiraios-Koutsoyannopoulos, Fr
John Romanides, Fr Theodore Zissis, Athanasios Angelopoulos,
and others (not to mention the late archbishop of Athens Hiero-
nymus Kotsonis or the former rector of the Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki and former professor of its Theological School
Evangelos Sdrakas, neither of whom, however, shared the same
concerns with the above mentioned pro-Orthodox scholars or
the generation of the ’60s). A common thread uniting these in-
dividuals is their affiliation with the far right and particularly
with the dictatorial regimes of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-1941) and
Georgios Papadopoulos/Dimitrios Ioannidis (1967-1974), and
their ideological descendants. Of course, a thorough examina-
tion ‒ both on a historical level and a theological one ‒ of this
movement’s special links to the far right and related authoritar-
ian regimes is still pending. By contrast, the more “popular” and
visible manifestation of the phenomenon in question, mainly
the steadfast loyalty of the pietistic religious movements (mainly
“Zoe”) to the monarchy, the far right, and the post-civil war po-
lice state in Greece, has been widely discussed in the autobio-
33

graphical works of Christos Yannaras,35 George Ioannou,36 and

more recently Dimitrios Pallas.37 Also pending is a theological
study ‒ as opposed to the historical and sociological work that
has already been done ‒ on the difficulty traditionally Orthodox
countries seem to face in incorporating the principles of political
liberalism, democracy, and human rights, as well as their contin-
ued yearning for pre-modern/medieval forms of social stratifica-
tion. Some churches, such as the Church of Russia, have openly
pro-royalist sentiments (which even went so far as to canonize
the last Tsar and his family), as do many of the Orthodox people
and their leaders in the Balkans (for example, Romania, Bul-
garia, Serbia). We Orthodox prefer to keep silent on these issues
rather than talk openly about them, thereby avoiding the pain-
ful and difficult ‒ from a theological point of view ‒ question
of whether this is due to accidental, unfortunate choices on the
part of historical Orthodoxy, or, in contrast, whether this ten-
dency reflects an intrinsic problem lying at the very heart of the
Orthodox Christian tradition, which makes it incompatible with
democracy and political liberalism, and which encourages and
facilitates this permanent nostalgia and yearning for pre-modern
authoritarian regimes.38
35. Christos Yannaras, Ideas as a Refuge, Athens: Domos, 1987, and the
new edition published by Ikaros, 62001 [in Greek]
36. George Ioannou, “And Christ Our Commander…”: The Refugees’ Capital,
Athens: Kedros, 1984, pp. 113-181 [in Greek].
37. D imitrios P allas , Orthodox Christianity and Tradition: An
Autobiographical Essay. With an Appendix on the April 21, 1967 Dictatorship,
Edited, with an introduction and notes by Olga Gratziou, Heraklion:
University of Crete Press, 2005 [in Greek].
38. See the interesting analysis of Nikolas K. Gvosdev (Emperors and Elec-
34

Apart from the sincerity and the willingness for self-criticism

that must accompany our approach to these sensitive, and indeed
painful, questions, what is most needed for them to be answered is
a thorough theological analysis, although not simply of the “reli-
gious” kind. I contend that this much-needed theological analysis
must include those elements that make up the backbone of Chris-
tianity ‒ the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the Incarnation.
As we know, traditional societies, in both East and West, were
based on the sacralization of the mechanisms of authority and dom-
tions: Reconciling the Orthodox Tradition with Modern Politics, New York:
Troitsa Books, 2000), who, while perhaps idealizing some elements, believes
that Orthodox Christianity’s social and political values, as well as the theolog-
ical notions of conciliarity and person, not only do not prevent democratic
institutions and the democratic modern culture which continue to emerge in
the traditionally Orthodox areas, but actually favor them. For a radically dif-
ferent assessment, see Samuel Huntington’s classic work, “The Clash of Civi-
lizations?” Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no 3, Summer 1993, pp. 22-49. Cf. also the
sometimes stinging criticism of Sabrina P. Ramet, “The Way We Were ‒ and
Should Be Again? European Orthodox Churches and the ‘Idyllic Past’,” in:
Timothy A. Byrnes-Peter J. Katzenstein (eds), Religion in an Expanding Euro
pe, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 148-175. Cf. Pantelis Kalaitzidis,
Orthodoxy and Modernity: An Introduction, Athens: Indiktos Publications,
2007, pp. 102-103 [in Greek; English translation (by Elizabeth Theokritoff)
forthcoming by St Vladimir’s Seminary Press]. For the origins and the ide-
ological background of the Greek far-right and its authoritarian-paternalist
regimes and their interpretation of Christianity, Byzantium, and the conser-
vative traditional values (homeland, religion, family, work, order, discipline,
security, national unity, etc.), as well the tri-partite conspiracy of Commu-
nism, Zionism, and Freemasonry, see Despina Papadimitriou, “The Far-Right
Movement in Greece, 1936-1949. Origins, Continuity, and Fractures,” in
Hagen Fleischer (ed.), Greece ’36-’49. From Dictatorship to Civil War: Breaks
and Continuities, Athens: Kastaniotis, 2003, pp. 138-149 [in Greek].
35

inance, on the authoritarian version of a mingling of the religious

and the cultural/political, and on a particular understanding of a
sacred narrative, a sacred text, law, or even sacred tradition ‒ in this
case, the Christian tradition. They thus internalized the element of
authority and heteronomy to such an extent that they made it an
inseparable part of the static and established theistic/theocratic,
hierarchical, medieval model. The (largely willing) acquiescence
of the church and theology in this process, where there was obvi-
ously a reciprocal negative influence between theology and society,
often led to a theology of authority and heteronomy, which in turn
bolstered the sacralization of power and the corresponding under-
standing of religion in terms of power; the church was imposed on
society externally and from above, and social prohibitions of all
sorts were made sacred. All this basically rolled back the hard-won
“gains” of Trinitarian theology and the Incarnation, and negated
the scandal of the Cross and the mystery of the empty tomb. The
fundamental implication of Trinitarian theology was thus forgot-
ten: the notion that the very being of God is communion and love,
that the Trinitarian God himself exists only as an event of commu-
nion and love.39 Reference to God the Father, instead of pointing to
liberating and loving Fatherhood,40 ended up referring to a divine
policeman upholding the established order, a punitive and vengeful
God in the mold of Freud’s “sadistic father” syndrome.41 Theology
39. Cf. John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and

the Church, Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985.
40. Cf. O livier C lément , Conversations with Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I, trans. Paul Meyendorff. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1997, p. 117.
41. On the “sadistic father” syndrome, see the theological analysis of Olivier
36

and spirituality have thus lost their paradoxical and antinomic char-
acter and regressed to the “religious” authoritarian models which
preceded the New Testament. Meanwhile, Christian morality came
to be linked conclusively to a spirit of law, to “other-determinism,”
and to “virtue” imposed from without. In the Christian, incarna-
tional perspective, however, God does not impose himself as an
external authority or through legal coercion. Instead, God comes
in the person of Jesus Christ ‒ the incarnate, crucified and risen
Son and Word of God ‒ as an inner presence, as kenosis and the
self-offering of eros, and as love and freedom, granting humans rec-
onciliation with God through adoption, and eternal life and union
with God, calling them into communion and relationship with
him, and offering them the possibility of participating in the mode
of life (τρόπος ζωῆς) of the Holy Trinity. This Trinitarian mode of
life is, as Jesus Christ revealed to us, the love and communion of
divine Persons who are equal in honor, interpenetrating each other
in mutual love. Here we have a perspective determined by the new
reality in Christ, the reality of sonship by adoption, and by the call
to a relationship and communion with the Trinitarian God which
is constitutive of the person, God being at once both the “Other”
(Allos) par excellence and intimately close to human beings through
Christ Jesus. And in this perspective, the demand for autonomy is
not circumscribed by self-reference and an egotistic, narcissistic
self-confidence, but, to borrow from Thanos Lipowatz, relates to
the allonomy of the finite subject.42 In other words, it relates to the
Clément, Theology After the Death of God: Essays Toward an Orthodox Response
to Modern Atheism, Athens: Athena Publications, 1973, pp. 53 ff. [in Greek].
42. See Thanos Lipowatz, “Modernity and Secularization” [in Greek], in P.
Kalaitzidis (ed.), State and Church, Volos Academy for Theological Studies,
37

subject’s free relationship with God, the infinite and absolute “Other,”
which gives rise to relationality and the ek-static character of the
person, to a transcendence of individualism, by the opening up the
self-sufficient subject and a relationship with every “other” who is
the image of the “Other” par excellence, the primary “Other.”43
However, as important and fundamental as Trinitarian and
incarnational theologies are ‒ inasmuch as they are the most
decisive hermeneutical keys for working out an authentically
Christian response to contemporary political challenges ‒ we are
unfortunately forced to admit that even these cannot automatically
prompt their social enactment. For, if a correct Trinitarianism
‒ clearly differentiated from the Arian counterpart of Eusebius
of Caesarea or Schmitt’s anti-Trinitarianism ‒ constituted the
necessary theoretical precondition for the emergence of a society
based on love, justice, democracy and freedom, then the victory
of ecclesiastical Orthodoxy and catholicity in the Ecumenical
Winter Program 2005-06 (under publication), and already in the journal

Nea Hestia, issue 1837, October 2010. On the way in which adoption relates
to the heteronomy-autonomy polarity, see Lipowatz, “Political Theology
and Secularization,” op. cit., pp. 138-140 (including extensive references
to Wolfhart Pannenberg’s “Die Christliche Legitimität der Neuzeit,”
Gottesgedanke und menschliche Freiheit, Göttingen, 1978). Cf. also the paper
by Konstantinos Agoras, “Sacramental Christology, Cultural Modernity,
and the Eschatological Gospel,” in Kalaitzidis-Ntontos, Orthodoxy and
Modernity, Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Winter Program 2001-
02, Athens: Indiktos Publications, 2007, pp. 263-291 [in Greek].
43. The above was inspired by my analysis in: P antelis K alaitzidis ,
Orthodoxy and Modernity: An Introduction, op. cit., pp. 79-82 [in Greek;
English translation (by Elizabeth Theokritoff) forthcoming by St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press].
38

Councils that concerned themselves with Christology and Trinity

should have been translated into social progress and change for
Byzantium. Certainly, ecclesiastical Orthodoxy should have paved
the way for the spirit of dialogue and self-critical reflection as well as
to more democratic and liberal political institutions. True as it may
be that, in comparison with the medieval West, Byzantium enjoyed
a more democratic political organization that was alien to the feudal
system and the system of closed inherited succession, it would still
be very difficult to argue for the existence of dialogical processes,
much less of democracy and political liberalism in Byzantium. It is
not a secret, after all, that the Fathers and theologians who argued
for Orthodoxy in the Ecumenical Councils were not widely known
for having personally exemplified the spirit of dialogue, liberalism,
or tolerance toward other voices. My point is that textual truth
does not necessarily result in social renewal, which means that all
facile attempts to move, on the basis of certain texts, from theology/
ecclesiology and worship to the realm of culture/politics and state
should be treated with suspicion, both methodologically and in
terms of their substance.
One could perhaps rightfully retort to my previous analysis
that such expectations of correspondence between theory and
reality constitute an arbitrary form of political anachronism, a
projection of contemporary realities to a distant and very different
era. But if we turn to modern Orthodoxy, we will see that it faces
similar problems and deficiencies. For example, the wonderful
Trinitarianism and personalism of Metropolitan John Zizioulas of
Pergamon, as formulated in his now classic Being as Communion,44
44. John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the

Church, Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985. See
39

did not prompt any radical social activity or even awareness either
by himself or by other Orthodox clergymen and theologians (with
the exception, perhaps, of the response to the ecological crisis, which
has occupied both Zizioulas45 and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of
Constantinople). The same deficiency can be observed in Christos
Yannaras, the other great contemporary Greek theologian and
founder of the theology of the person (cf. his Eros and Person)46:
not only does his theological ontology and personalism (both based
on sound Trinitarian and Christological grounds) not lead to social
activism, or to a struggle for the protection of human dignity, and
to solidarity with the victims of history, but, on the contrary, it
often encourages, as we shall see below, a flight from history and an
undermining of social activity and collective struggles. Zizioulas may
have been wise to at least avoid the social and political idealizations
of his theology, never identifying it with particular states and
cultures. The same, however, cannot be said about Yannaras. Not
only does he idealize, socially and politically, the theological texts
he sets out to interpret ‒ not only does he glorify entire cultures
and societies, such as the Byzantine and the Greek society under
Turkish rule, while whole-heartedly condemning other societies
such as the medieval West ‒ he can be taken to task, I think, for
also Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness. Further Studies in Personhood

and the Church, London-New York: T & T Clark, 2006.
45. See, among many others, John D. Zizioulas, “Preserving God’s Creation:
Three Lectures on Theology and Ecology,” King’s Theological Review, 12
(1989), pp. 1-5, 41-45; 13 (1990), pp. 1-5.
46. C hristos Y annaras , Person and Eros, transl. by Norman Russell,
Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2008; Proposals for a Critical
Ontology, Athens: Domos, 31995 [in Greek]; An Ontology of Relationship,
Athens: Ikaros, 2004 [in Greek].
40

drawing a direct connection between texts and social reality. In

other words, Yannaras habitually jumps from the realm of theology/
ecclesiology and liturgics to the realm of culture/politics and state
‒ to such an extent, in fact, that he presents the Byzantine state and
its political vision as the embodiment of the doctrinal formulation
of Chalcedon, that is, as an example of the assumption of history
and the world by the church in the manner of the Chalcedonian
adverbs “without confusion,” “unchangeably,” “inseparably,” and
“indivisibly,” as the following lengthy passage clearly demonstrates:
Historically, it is true, the widespread influence of the Church’s

communal ethos ‒ the social dynamism of the eucharistic community
‒ does indeed seem to have been bound up exclusively with the rural
or early urban stages of communal life. As a historical example of such
influence, we probably have only Byzantium. Medieval western societ-
ies, dominated by the feudal system and with extremely sharp class dis-
tinctions, make it impossible for us to speak of the eucharistic commu-
nity as dynamically extended throughout social life and culture. They
were certainly societies organized on a religious basis, but had little or
nothing to do with the primacy of personal distinctiveness and freedom
which constitutes the eucharistic ethos of communion. In Byzantium,
by contrast, we have a popular culture which reveals in its every expres-
sion and manifestation the absolute priority of the truth of the person,
and a way of life which is articulated liturgically, becoming an event of
personal communion.
This is not the place to show how, in Byzantine civilization, art, econom-
ics, politics and legislation all expressed the attitude of life and the com-
munal ethos of the Church; how they preserved the liturgical understand-
ing of the world and history and the creative “word” or reason in man’s
relationship with things, a reason which follows from the subordination
of individual arbitrariness to the harmony and wisdom in the world.
41

We may simply state the conclusion that, for a thousand years, Byzan-
tium put into action the dynamic operation of eucharistic communion
in the dimensions of the inhabited earth, the oikoumene. In Byzantium,
the oikoumene takes on the mystical depth and dynamic meaning of the
word proslemma, “that which has been assumed,” as this term is used in
the Christology of Chalcedon. The conceptual center of the oikoumene
is the Church, the supreme manifestation of the Wisdom of God which
created the world, the fulfillment in history and dynamic continuation
of the event of God’s incarnation, where He assumes the irrationality of
natural man so as to transform it into a rational principle of relationship
and communion, into the archetypal city, the kingdom of God.
Within this process, there is a hard and fast distinction between the
beauty of personal life and communion and the irrational impulses of
natural barbarism. But at the same time its scope is unlimited in that the
rudeness and disorder of the hordes who are outside this communion
have to be assumed and grafted into the liturgy of life. In every aspect of
its historical and cultural life, Byzantium brought about the assumption
of whatever is natural, irrational or common, transfiguring it into com-
munion and sacred history and God-manhood ‒ into the Church.
With the fall of Byzantium, the social dynamism of the eucharistic com-
munity did not disappear; it simply contracted from the bounds of the
inhabited world to those of the social and cultural life of Romiosyne,
the Christian people under the Ottoman yoke. For four whole centu-
ries, local government, local justice, business and credit, associations
and guilds in the Greek East under Turkish rule, functioned in a way
that revealed a liturgical structure in the community, the priority of per-
sonal relationships and the pursuit of communal virtue. The liturgical
structure of the enslaved Greek community was expressed with equal
clarity in hospitality, popular song, dance, folk costume, architecture
and iconography. All these manifestations of life and art serve to reveal
a cultural level and ethos unattainable in later times, a real paradigm of
42

social organization, and a rare sensitivity among the people, despite the
absence of formal education.
It is the ethos of personal life and relationship, the total exclusion of any
impersonal, rationalistic organization, which provides the basis for all
aspects of social life. Nowadays we need to be exceptionally cultivated,
and perhaps even to undertake special studies, in order to appreciate
or even just to follow the amazing level of culture in that humiliated
Hellenism. Yet we know that, at that time, this was not the level of a few
experts but a general manifestation of popular sensitivity, down to the
last village and monastery. The way community life operated during the
Turkish occupation was born of the people’s need and their virtue. It was
the product of the people’s ethos, not of theoretical, cerebral principles
and axioms. Equally a product of the people’s ethos was their completely
original and genuine art, their song, their dancing, their costume and
their festivals.
The free ethos of enslaved Romiosyne remains ultimately a model for a
social realization which respects personal uniqueness and manifests the
liturgical unity of human coexistence. The high point of this unity is the
festival. The life of the community becomes part of the eucharistic cycle
of feasts in the Church’s life, the daily triumph of the Church over the
irrationality of time and corruption. The traditional Greek festival al-
ways centered on the Church’s commemoration of a saint; it was always
a feast-day. Round this ecclesial event, the people joined in fellowship,
singing and dancing and eating together. Differences and misunder-
standings melted away; people declared their love, and the foundations
were laid for new families. To this day, no form of socialism nor any ra-
tionalistically organized popular movement has been able to restore this
genuine dimension of the popular festival, or to respond fully to man’s
deep-seated need for festivals.47
47. C hristos Y annaras, The Freedom of Morality, transl. by Elizabeth
43

After the exaltation and glorification of Byzantine civilization

and of the period of the Ottoman yoke ‒ in other words, after the
idealization of the theological dimension of politics, characteris-
tically represented by Yannaras ‒, let us now move to explore the
political dimension of theology.
Briere, Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984, pp. 220-
223. See also Yannaras, “The Challenge of Axionov,” The Modern Greek
Identity, Athens: Grigoris, 1978, especially pp. 205-209 [in Greek]. The
above extended quotation from the Freedom of Morality prompted Yannis
Spiteris (La teologia ortodossa neo-greca, Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane,
1992, pp. 305-306, n. 51; see also p. 321) to talk about Yannaras’ one-sid-
ed anti-western stance and his idealization of Byzantium, furnishing pas-
sages from other works of this author as well (such as Truth and Unity of
the Church, Athens: Grigoris, 1977, pp. 129-181 [in Greek; French transla-
tion by Jean-Louis Palièrne: Vérité et unité de l’Eglise, Grez-Doiceau: Ax-
ios, 1989, pp. 75-107]; Elements of Faith [Alphabitari tis pistis], pp. 223-
243 [in Greek; English translation by Keith Schram, London-New York:
T & T Clark, 1991, pp. 149-164]). For a critique of Yannaras’ antiwestern-
ism cf. also Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Greekness and antiwesternism in the Greek
Theology of ’60s, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, School of Theology,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2008, pp. 398-403 [in Greek]; idem,
“The Image of the West in Contemporary Greek Theology,” Paper present-
ed at the International Conference: “Orthodox Constructions of the West”
Fordham University, New York, June 28-30, 2010 (under publication by
Fordham University Press).
44

Chapter 2
The Politics of Theology
W ith these last observations, we have left the realm of politi-

cal theology as Carl Schmitt defined it ‒ as a structural
analogy between the fundamental concepts of a state based on
law on the one hand, and of theology and metaphysics on the
other ‒ and we have moved to a perception of political theol-
ogy in which the dominant position is the call for the implemen-
tation today of the political dimensions of the Gospel and the
liberating social aspects of the Christian faith. This theological
tendency “gives priority to the revolutionary attempt to recreate
the social structure, in which social injustice, the manifold forms
of political and economic oppression, and ingrained biases im-
pose the urgent need for theological thought to be renovated first
and foremost through this association with these conditions. The
relationship is a given, because God, as he revealed himself in
Christ, acts through these things for a new creation, a new world
that is constantly being renewed by change, that is, through the
activity of those unjustly persecuted.”1 This new perspective on
political theology first appeared in the 1960s, and the broader
political developments and revolutionary changes of this decade
undoubtedly contributed to it, such as the French May 1968, the
German student revolt, and the anti-Vietnam war movement in
the United States, as well as the meeting and dialogue between
western theologians and neo-Marxist philosophers and thinkers.2
1. Nikos Nissiotis, Apology for Hope (reprint from the journal Theologia),
Athens, 1975, p. 54 [in Greek].
2. On this last point in particular, see Apostolos V. Nikolaidis, Socio-
45

The intellectual and theological legacy of resistance theologians

who struggled against Nazism, such as Karl Barth and Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, must also be taken into account in the emergence of
this movement.3
There were also other versions of political theology besides Carl
Schmitt’s or, to put it more accurately, other versions which devel-
oped in opposition to Carl Schmitt’s, such as, for example, that of
the German Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz, who saw es-
chatology not simply as expectation, but as critical vigilance and
creativity, and put forward the idea of a critical political interpreta-
tion of the Trinity as well as a reconsideration of the relationship
between the church and the world in the direction of transcending
the fragmentation that the Enlightenment had imposed on the-
ology.4 There was also the German Protestant theologian Jürgen
Political Revolution and Political Theology, Katerini: Tertios, 1987, pp. 95

ff. [in Greek].
3. For Karl Barth’s political engagement, see, among others: Karl Barth
and Radical Politics, edited and translated by George Hunsinger, Philadel-
phia: The Westminster Press, 1976; Frank Jehle, Ever Against the Stream.
The Politics of Karl Barth 1906-1968, transl. by Richard and Martha Bur-
nett, Grand Rapids, MI-Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2002. For the politi-
cal dimension of the theology of Bonhoeffer ‒ the martyred German theo-
logian and pastor ‒, which is inextricably linked with his theory of a “non-
religious Christianity” and a “world which has come of age” (secularism
and modernity), apart from the classic Letters and Papers from Prison (new
greatly enlarged edition, edited by Eberhard Berthge, transl. from the Ger-
man by Reginald Fuller, Frank Clark and John Bowden, Touchstone, New
York, 1997), I would also point to a few pages from my work: Orthodoxy
and Modernity: An Introduction, op. cit., pp. 85-92 [in Greek; English trans-
lation forthcoming from St Vladimir’s Seminary Press].
4. See, among others, Johann Baptist Metz, Zur Theologie der Welt, Mainz-
46

the politics of theology
Moltmann, who preached the theology of hope and the political

dimension of eschatology, and who recalled theology’s public role
even in a secularized society ‒ to the extent that theology articu-
lates a critical and prophetic word, and to the degree that it is a
function of the kingdom of God.5 And then there was the German
Protestant theologian Dorothee Sölle, who combined mysticism
München, 1968; «“Politische Theologie” in der Discussion», in the volume:

H. Peukert (ed.), Discussion zur «politischen Theologie», München-Mainz,
1969, pp. 267-301; J. B. Metz-J. Moltmann-W. Oelmüller, Kirche im Pro-
zess der Aufklärung. Aspekte einer neuen «politischen Theologie», München-
Mainz, 1970. For a more extensive analysis of Metz’s political theology, see
Rosino Gibellini, The Theology of the 20th Century, Greek translation from
the Italian by Panayiotis Yfantis, Athens: Artos Zois, 2002, pp. 371f.; Apos-
tolos V. Nikolaidis, Socio-Political Revolution and Political Theology, op.
cit., pp. 114-117.
5. On Moltmann’s political theology and theology of hope, see, among others:
Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of
a Christian Eschatology, London: SCM Press, 1967 (original German edition:
1964); idem, Hope and Planning, SPCK, London, 1971; idem, “Toward a
Political Hermeneutic of the Gospel,” Union Theological Quarterly Review,
23 (1968); idem, The Experiment Hope, edited, translated with a Forward by
M. Douglas Meeks, London: SCM Press, 1975; idem, God for a Secular Soci-
ety: The Public Relevance of Theology, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999;
idem, “A Public Reminder of God: Theology is a Function of the kingdom of
God,” transl. Athanasios Vletsis, journal Kath’ Odon, issue 13, 1997, pp. 73-79
[in Greek]; J. B. Metz-J. Moltmann, Faith and the Future. Essays on Theology,
Solidarity, and Modernity, Introduction by Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Con-
cilium Series, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1995; see also Rosino Gi-
bellini, The Theology of the 20th Century, op. cit., pp. 348f., 375f.; Apostolos V.
Nikolaidis, Socio-Political Revolution and Political Theology, op. cit., pp. 125-
126. Cf. George Tsananas, Hope, Ministry, Salvation: Christianity’s Dynamic
Engagement Today, Thessaloniki, 1976 [in Greek].
47

with resistance, and who made the idea of co-suffering with vic-
tims throughout history a conceptual key of her feminist liberation
theological synthesis and “political hermeneutic.”6
It is obvious, from the above, that we are dealing here with
a political theology of “the left,” whose chief characteristics are,
on the one hand, a turning outward and an opening up of the
Gospel to the outside world, combined with an effort to update
and implement today the evangelic and Christian principles, and
on the other hand, a dialogue and an assumption (perhaps in the
Chalcedonian sense of the term?), an evangelization and a trans-
formation of the world. A basic element among the most eminent
theologians of this movement is, among other things, an affirma-
tion of modernity, and a meeting with philosophy and secular
disciplines: Metz’s theology, for example, is inconceivable without
the Frankfurt School (especially Walter Benjamin and Theodor
W. Adorno), while Moltmann’s theology of hope is in constant
dialogue with Ernst Bloch’s work.
No study of political theology today can ignore liberation the-
ology, which promises the liberation ‒ spiritual as well as social/
6. See Dorothee Sölle, Politische Theologie, Stuttgart-Berlin, 1971; idem, Suffer-

ing, transl. by Everett R. Kalin, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975; idem, “Père,
puissance et barbarie. Questions féministes à la religion autoritaire,” Concilium,
163, 1981, pp. 105-113; idem, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, transl.
by Barbara and Martin Rumscheidt, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001; idem,
Essential Writings, Selected with an Introduction by Dianne L. Oliver, Mary-
knoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2006. See also Henry Mottu, “Dorothee Sölle:
Mystique et résistance,” Dieu au risque de l’engagement. Douze figures de la théo-
logie et de la philosophie au XXe siècle, Genève : Labor et Fides, 2005, pp. 121-
134; Rosino Gibellini, The Theology of the 20th Century, pp. 377-378; Apostolos
V. Nikolaidis, Socio-Political Revolution and Political Theology, pp. 118-119.
48

political/cultural ‒ of all humans and peoples. This theological

trend appeared in an early form in Latin America among progres-
sive Catholics as early as the 1950s, and achieved definitive form in
1971 with the publication of the book by the Peruvian Dominican
Gustavo Gutiérrez: Teología de la liberación,7 which was followed by
the publication in 1976 of Leonardo Boff ’s work Teologia do Cat-
iveiro e da Libertação.8 If the urgent need to struggle against pov-
erty and exploitation was the first and most fundamental impetus
behind the emergence of this trend, its theological tenets were no
less important. These tenets can be summarized as the position that
political action and revolutionary activity against the unjust struc-
tures and mechanisms of the capitalistic system ‒ which, in certain
cases, such as in the case of the Columbian priest Camilo Torres,9
who was an associate of Che Guevara, can include armed violence ‒
are not only an extension and update of the long Christian tradition
of solidarity with the poor. They actually spring from the very core
of the Christian faith and its Gospel, which denounces and combats
7. Gustavo Gutiérrez, Teología de la liberación. Perspectivas, Lima: CEP, 1971;

English translation: A Theology of Liberation. History, Politics, and Salvation, Re-
vised Edition with a New Introduction by the author, translated and edited by
Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books 1988.
8. See also Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology,
translated from Portuguese by Paul Burns, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis
Books, 1988. Especially on the liberation theology (and the related theo-
logical and philosophical issues) according to Clodovis Boff, see the yet un-
published doctoral dissertation of Timothy Francis Taylor Noble, Keeping
the Window Open: The Theological Method of Clodovis Boff and the Problem
of the Alterity of the Poor. De Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 2009.
9. See Camilo Torres, “Prayer Alone Is Not Enough.” People’s Unity, Revolution,
Athens: Mnini, 1974 [in Greek]. See also Athanasios. N. Papathanasiou,
“The Priest Next to Che,” Eleftherotypia, October 23, 2007 [in Greek].
49

every form of injustice and exploitation, and every form of alien-

ation, subjugation, and institutionalized sin. Because sin, as Gustavo
Gutiérrez reminds us, is not only, or even primarily, an individual
affair, but “is evident in oppressive structures, in the exploitation of
humans by humans, in the domination and slavery of peoples, races,
and social classes. [It appears as] the fundamental alienation, the
root of injustice and exploitation. ... Sin demands a radical libera-
tion, which in turn necessarily implies a political liberation. ...This
radical liberation is the gift which Christ offers us.”10 And if in its
first phase this theological trend assumed and used many elements
from Marxist social and economic theory ‒ a fact which provoked a
strong reaction and even condemnation from the conservative theo-
logical circles and mechanisms at the Vatican, particularly during
the 1980s ‒ in recent years, Latin American liberation theologians
have moved more and more toward the movements for alternative
globalization, which are opposed to the neo-liberal laws of the mar-
ket and the global dominance of financial capital. They have also
sought release from the (imperialistic) cultural influence of the West
and a rediscovery of the cultural identity of the countries of Latin
America. A permanent characteristic of this theological trend ‒ in
which we should also include Archbishops Dom Hélder Câmara11
10. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, op. cit., p. 103.

11. See his works available in English: The Church and Colonialism: The
Betrayal of the Third World, Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1969;
The Spiral of Violence, Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1971;
Revolution Through Peace, New York: Harper & Row, 1971; The Desert is
Fertile, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1974; and the relatively recent
collection, Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings, ed. Francis McDonagh,
Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2009.
50

and Óscar Romero,12 Bishop Antonio Fragoso,13 Fr. Jon Sobrino,14

Fr. Ernesto Cardenal,15 ‒ is its direct relationship with the base
communities (which have the Eucharist as their starting point),
and that means not just an academic discussion or theoretical in-
quiry, but a pastoral and theological reality which results form
the particular needs of the people and the challenges faced by the
churches in Latin America.
As we all know, liberation theology’s significance extends far beyond
12. See Óscar Romero, The Shepherd Facing Urgent Challenges, translated
into Modern Greek by Evangelos D. Nianios, Athens: Minima, 1985; idem,
The Church is All of You ‒ Thoughts of Archbishop Oscar Romero, London:
Collins-Fount Paperback, 1985.
13. See Antonio Fragoso, Evangile et révolution sociale, Paris: Cerf, 1969.
14. Jon Sobrino , Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Ap-
proach, transl. by John Drury, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1978;
idem, The True Church and the Poor, transl. from the Spanish by Matthew
J. O’Connell, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1984; idem, Spirituali-
ty of Liberation. Toward Political Holiness, transl. from the Spanish by R. R.
Barr, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1988; idem, The Eye of the Nee-
dle: No Salvation Outside the Poor: A Utopian-Prophetic Essay, transl. by
Dinah Livingstone, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2008. See also
Ignacio Ellacuría-Jon Sobrino (eds), Mysterium liberationis: Fundamental
Concepts of Liberation Theology, Maryknoll, New York-North Blackburn,
Victoria, Australia: Orbis Books-CollinsDove, 1993. For an overall evalu-
ation of Sobrino’s work, see the collective volume: Stephen J. Pope (ed.),
Hope and Solidarity: Jon Sobrino’s Challenge to Christian Theology, Mary-
knoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2008.
15. Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, Maryknoll, New York:
Orbis, 2010. See also his well-known poems “The Sanctity of the Revolution”
(1976) and Love: A Glimpse of Eternity, Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006.
51

Latin America. Black theology16 (primarily in America, but also in

South Africa, in both of which places it pertains to the oppression
and ingrained biases suffered by the black people in those com-
munities) is considered to be directly related to liberation theology,
and it has made a significant impact on the renewal of theological
thought and the mobilization of the ecclesiastical communities in
both the South and the North, the Third World as well as the First
World. It is worth noting that for a certain period of time in Greece,
specifically from the fall of the Colonels’ Dictatorship in 1974 un-
til the beginning of the 1990s, Latin American liberation theology
sparked intense interest among progressive Orthodox ecclesiasti-
cal and theological-political groups, who identified themselves as
Christian Socialists, as is testified to by, among other things, the
frequent publications of the weekly newspaper I Christianiki as well
as the publication of books by Dom Hélder Câmara, Camilo Torres,
Antonio Fragoso, Óscar Romero, and Ernesto Cardenal,17 primar-
ily by the publishing house Minima, which had a direct relation-
ship with both I Christianiki and the Christian Socialist movement
16. See, among others, J. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, New York:
Seabury Press, 1969; idem, A Black Theology of Liberation, Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott, 1970; J. Deotis Roberts, Liberation and Reconciliation:
A Black Theology, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971; W. Dantine,
Schwarze Theologie. Eine Herausforderung der Theologie der Weissen, Wi-
en-Freiburg-Basel: Herder, 1976.
17. For an overall appraisal of the phenomenon in the Greek context, see
Andreas Argyropoulos, “Liberation Theology,” in the journal Manifesto,
issue 15-16, 2009, pp. 53-57 [in Greek]; idem, “Greek Editions of Liberation
Theology Books,” Manifesto issue 15-16, 2009, pp. 58-59 [in Greek]. The
above papers are republished in his collection of essays: Liberation Theology
in the Religious Education Curriculum, Chalkida: Manifesto, 2011.
52

of the “Christian Democracy.” We should also note, in this vein, the

monographs and articles that were devoted to this theological cur-
rent by noted Greek theologians.18
Of course, the crucial question, after this brief reference to left-

leaning political theology and liberation theology, is: Why, with
few exceptions, has Orthodoxy not developed a “political theology,”
in this second, liberating, and radical sense of the term? Why have
prominent Orthodox theologians underestimated, or even mis-
understood, the meaning and content of political theology? Why
has the idea of the “theological or Christian left” not developed
in Orthodoxy, as it has in nearly all the countries of Western Eu-
rope as well as America? And furthermore, since we frequently
consider elements of political theology avant la lettre, can we ex-
trapolate from texts written by the Fathers of the church: Is the
denunciation of wealth, property, usury, or economic exploita-
tion enough for us to talk about the Fathers of the church having
a “political theology” or a “liberation theology,” when these fig-
ures lived, worked, and wrote in an era completely different from
our own, an era which clearly lacked democracy and freedom?
18. See N ikos N issiotis , Apology for Hope (reprint from the journal
Theologia), Athens, 1975 [in Greek]; see also, idem, “Ecclesial Theology
in Context,” in: Choan-Seng Song (ed.), Doing Theology Today, Madras:
Christian Literature Society, 1976, pp. 101-124; Marios Begzos, “Western
Thought: The Christian-Marxist Dialogue in the West,” Synaxis, issue 9,
1984, pp. 85-95 [in Greek]; idem, “The Path of Western Theology: An
Overview of Non-Orthodox Europe,” in: Stavros Photiou (ed.), Jesus
Christ, Life of the World, Nicosia, 2000, pp. 521-545 [in Greek]; Apostolos
V. Nikolaidis, Socio-Political Revolution and Political Theology, Tertios,
Katerini, 1987 [in Greek].
53

How far, for example, are the socially sensitive Fathers (who, pre-
cisely because of their sensitivity, are seen as having an affinity
with liberation theology) from Carl Schmitt’s model of political
theology, which not only emphasized the role and the position
of the ruler, but which also promoted a clearly authoritarian and
undemocratic social and political organization as the ideal? Due
to lack of space, let us focus on just the example of Saint Gregory
Palamas, who, on the one hand, preached against wealth and the
wealthy on the basis of the Gospel narratives, and, on the other
hand, identified politically and ideologically with the emperor
John Kantakouzinos over and against the social movement of the
Zealots in Thessaloniki in the 14th century: with which of the two
kinds of political theology is Gregory Palamas more related in
this case? With Schmitt or with liberation theology? I would dare
to say, as a working hypothesis, both. I wonder, however, if ulti-
mately the “political” problem in Orthodoxy ‒ in spite of its dem-
ocratic and conciliar tradition ‒ is not only its social engagement
(which is, certainly, deficient and problematic), but also the lack
of a democratic ethos and a culture of dialogue and deliberation?
Is it perhaps the lack of this ethos and culture which burdens its
distant and more recent past, as well as its political models, which
are connected more with monarchies and empires (the Byzantine
and Ottoman Empires, the Tsarist Russian Empire, the Balkan
monarchies) than with democracy, pluralism, and diversity?
At this point it would be worthwhile to ask what is the “po-
litical” message, for example, of the writings from the end of the
5th or the beginning of the 6th century that are known under the
name of (Pseudo)-Dionysius the Areopagite, which, during the
Middle Ages, exercised great influence in the East and the West
and which, since the work of Vladimir Lossky, especially his The
54

Mystical Theology of The Eastern Church (1944) and thereafter,

were considered the most authentic and representative example
of Eastern Orthodox theology?19 As is well known, the Areopagit-
ic writings, particularly The Celestial Hierarchy and The Ecclesi-
astical Hierarchy, heavily promote the image of a hierarchized/
oligarchic world, to such an extent, in fact, that some maintain
that, in addition to other goals, these texts ‒ which, due to their
attribution, were accorded apostolic prestige and authenticity ‒
were designed to provide theological support and justification for
the imperial institution and for the institutionalization and cleri-
calization of ecclesial communion.20
As for the cautious attitude of many prominent Orthodox
theologians vis-à-vis the progressive version of political theology,
the following passage from the famous Greek philosopher and
theologian Christos Yannaras is representative:
The term “political theology” has, today in the West, a precise meaning:
it signifies a group or a “school” of theologians who seek to explain the
evangelical preaching of the salvation of humanity in categories offered
by contemporary political theories, particularly those of the Marxist
and neo-Marxist left.
This quest of political theology ranges from pure “scientific” research for a
political interpretation of the texts of the Bible to the direct and active mo-
19. On this last point see, among others, the recent well-documented article
by Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “The Reception of Dionysius in Twentieth-Century
Eastern Orthodoxy,” Modern Theology, 24 (2008), pp. 707-723.
20. See, indicatively: Hermann Goltz, HIERA MESITEIA. Zum Theorie des
hierarchischen Sozietät im Corpus Areopagiticum, Erlangen, 1974; Alexan-
dre Faivre, La naissance d’une hiérarchie. Les premières étapes du cursus clé-
rical, Paris: Beauchesne, 1977, especially pp. 172-180.
55

bilization of theologians and clergy in radical sociopolitical movements.

Behind each of the phases of this quest one can discern the classic prob-
lem of Western Christianity: the oscillation between the transcendent and
the secular, between the abstract idealism of a conceptual metaphysics
and the immediate affirmation and pursuit of material goods in life.
And Yannaras continues his critique of “political theology” by in-

troducing a “psychological” or a “psychoanalytical-like” element
into his argument:
In both the texts of political theology and in the concrete activities of its
representatives, it is easy to see that this oscillation, in arousing a certain
inferiority of the faith in the secularized milieu of western societies, is
psychologically at the base of the entire problematic. In a world where
political action permits man to forge his historical destiny and future with
his own hands, the Christian faith is useless and inefficient. Being a Chris-
tian, by the standards of Western Christianity, means transposing the im-
mediate problems of social prosperity and social progress into an abstract
“transcendence,” or opposing these problems with the feeble passivity of
an individual morality that, even if reasonably justified, is nonetheless to-
tally unable to influence historical evolution in its entirety.
It seems, therefore, that for contemporary Christians in the West, po-
litical theology is psychologically counterbalancing this apparent infe-
riority of the faith. Political theology seeks the roots of revolutionary
sociopolitical movements in the Bible itself. The Bible is seen as a text
of political morality, a theory of revolution, which has as its goal a para-
dise-like society ‒ a society without classes. Therefore, being a Christian
today means above all else to engage in an active opposition to social in-
justice and political oppression. A demonstration is a “cultural” [cultic]
act, a revolutionary poster is a symbol of the faith, and unity in political
action is the new form of ecclesial communion.
56

Yet, one could, very naively, pose the question; why isn’t it sufficient for
me ‒ purely and simply ‒ to register myself with a political party or
become a revolutionary? Why is it necessary that I be, in addition, also
Christian? I fear that it is precisely this question that reveals the psycho-
logical motivations of political theology.21
And as the same theologian noted in his classic work, The Free-
dom of Morality, which has been widely read in Greece and abroad
and which has already been translated into at least six languages
(English, French, Italian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Serbian):
It is above all the so-called “political theology,” that synthetic neo-leftism

which is neither politics nor theology, which seems to bear the brunt of
western Christianity’s historical inferiority complex and to serve as a
psychological over-compensation for it. It looks for the roots of the rev-
olutionary socio-political movements in the Bible itself: the Bible serves
as a treatise on political ethics, a theory of revolution whose aim is the
paradise of a classless society.22
In order for us to have a more complete picture of Yannaras’s posi-

tion vis-à-vis political theology, we should add, if briefly, his posi-
21. Christos Yannaras, “A Note on Political Theology,” St Vladimir’s Theo-

logical Quarterly, 27 (1983), p. 53-54. This essay is also available in the new
collection of some of Yannaras’ articles in English: The Meaning of Reality:
Essays on Existence and Communion, Eros and History, edited by Fr Grego-
ry Edwards and Herman A. Middleton, Los Angeles, CA: Sebastian Press and
Indiktos, 2011, pp. 149-152. Cf. idem, The Freedom of Morality, pp. 199-200.
22. Christos Yannaras, The Freedom of Morality, pp. 199-200. See also
ibid., p. 200 and pp. 216-217, n. 19, which also contains a bibliography on
the discussion at hand.
57

tive evaluation of it, how he himself understands political theology

from an Orthodox perspective. He therefore hastens to explain:
However, my intention here is not to judge (above all, in so schematic

a manner) this contemporary “school,” or the political theology move-
ment. My foreword23 was only a prelude: I would like, before all, to pro-
pose a meaning for ‒ or an explanation of ‒ the term “political theol-
ogy” as it is related to the truth of Orthodox ecclesial life and tradition.
I believe that such a meaning, such an interpretation, presupposes not
only the truth and the criteria of Orthodox theology, but also a concep-
tion of politics radically different from the one that is found at the heart
of Western European civilization. I mean by this a political theory and
action that is not limited merely to social utility or to the conventional
rules of human relations ‒even if these are more efficient‒ but that has
as its goal the truth of man and the authenticity of his existence.
The politics that serves social utility and the rational regulation of rights
and desires, or the relations between work and capital, has nothing to do
with theology. It is a priori submitted to individual demands and their
conventional limitations ‒ i.e., to the necessary alienation of men trans-
formed into impersonal social entities or neutralized objects destined
only for economic and cultural development. Politics can be considered
as a chapter of theology ‒ a true “political theology” ‒ when it takes
upon itself serving man according to his nature and his truth; and conse-
quently serving the political nature of humanity ‒ i.e., the power of love,
which is at the heart of existence and which is the condition of the true
communion of persons, the true city, the true polis.24
23. Sc. in his book: Chapters on Political Theology, Athens: Papazissis, 1976,
pp. 9-13 [in Greek].
24. Christos Yannaras, “A Note on Political Theology,” St Vladimir’s Theo-
logical Quarterly, 27 (1983), p. 54; The Meaning of Reality, p. 150.
58

One could, perhaps, acknowledge some truth in Yannaras’s cri-

tique, inasmuch as political theology in Western Europe and
elsewhere has not lacked naïve exaggerations and a certain
one-sidedness ‒ particularly during the 1970s, with its intense
political activism, almost messianic expectations for radical so-
cio-political changes, and Marxism’s nearly absolute ideological
domination ‒ which often co-opted the Christian message in the
service of social and class struggle, thus voiding its universality
and timelessness.25 It is clear that such views negate, or at least ig-
nore, the scandal of the cross and the foolishness of the resurrec-
tion, depleting the mystery of the Triune God of all its depth and
paradox. The problem, however, with Yannaras ‒ as well as other
theologians with an ontological perspective ‒ is that their alter-
native idea for another kind of political theology never translates
into action. Commitment to the powerless and the victims of his-
tory is characterized as altruism and moralism, if not outright
mocked. “For I was hungry and you gave me food” (Mt. 25:35
ff.), which establishes God’s identification with the person of his
fellow man, the poor, and every kind of “other,” does not appear
to find a place in the exalted views concerning the person and
otherness. The moral and social responsibility that stems from
this Gospel identification and command becomes a matter of sec-
ondary importance thanks to the new ontology that Christianity
supposedly inaugurates.26 I ought to note here that Yannaras is
25. Some of these excesses and the overall climate of this particular era have
been well documented by Jean-Pierre Denis in his recent book: Pourquoi le
christianisme fait scandale, Paris: Seuil, 2010, especially pp. 328-330.
26. See also the criticisms by S tavros Z oumboulakis in his text: “The
‘Frontier’ (‘Synoro’) and Christos Yannaras: The Theological Argument
for the Removal of Morality from Christianity,” in the volume: Pantelis
59

not the first Orthodox theologian to deal with political theology

or the social and political aspects of the Bible and the Fathers.
However, he is the most representative voice of a trend ‒ which in
my opinion is still the majority view ‒ and the most characteristic
example of the kind of objections and reservations the Orthodox
have toward political theology and toward an active social and
political commitment on the part of the faithful.27
As early as the Russian religious philosophers of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries ‒ who lived during a time of intense un-
rest immediately before the Bolshevik Revolution ‒ there were
views which in a way foreshadowed “leftist” political theology.
Nikolai Fyodorov had a well-known phrase: “Our social program
is the dogma of the Trinity,” and Sergei Bulgakov and Nicolas
Berdyaev’s commitment ‒ precisely in the name of their Chris-
tian faith and conscience ‒ to the Socialist-Revolutionary Party
is also well known. This movement was aimed at changing the
inhumane structures and laws of the Tsarist regime, but in a very
different manner ‒ with more freedom and spiritual sensitivity ‒
than the methods advocated by the Bolsheviks of the Communist
Party, and everyone knows what happened then. In fact, in 1932,
Bulgakov, who was already an Orthodox priest, dean and profes-
Kalaitzidis-Athanasios N. Papathanasiou-Theophilos Ampatzidis (eds),

Turmoil in Postwar Theology: The “Theology of the ’60s,” Athens: Indiktos,
2009, pp. 315-326 [in Greek].
27. Characteristic ‒ but by no means unique ‒ examples of even more
negative Orthodox criticisms of liberation theology can be found in
D imitrios T héraios , Le malaise chrétien: Archétypes marxistes de la
théologie de libération, Genève-Paris: Georg-OEIL, 1987; Theodoros Zissis,
“Theology in Greece Today,” Epopteia, issue 91, June 1984 (dedicated to
the topic of Modern Hellenism), pp. 581-587 [in Greek].
60

sor of Dogmatics at the newly established St Sergius Institute in

Paris, dedicated a chapter in his book The Orthodox Church (a dog-
matic synthesis of the life and teaching of the Orthodox Church)
to “Orthodoxy and the State,” and another to “Orthodoxy and
Economic Life.”28 As for Berdyaev, a Christian revolutionary and
a representative for the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in the first
post-revolution Soviet parliament ‒ who was later exiled by the
Soviet regime and lived in Paris ‒ his whole life and nearly all of
his rich collection of written work was, as is well known, nothing
but advocacy for a social and revolutionary Christianity, a Chris-
tian voice in defense of the disadvantaged and the oppressed, and
an apology for a Christian socialism and anarchism, all based
on the dominant themes of spiritual and personal freedom. As
Berdyaev himself noted prophetically in the final chapter of his
work The Origin of Russian Communism (1935-1936):
It sometimes looks as though the Soviet government would rather go

on to the restoration of capitalism in economic life than granting free-
dom of conscience, freedom of philosophic thought, freedom to create
a spiritual culture. This hatred for religion and Christianity has its roots
deep down in the past of Christianity...
If it were granted that anti-religious propaganda were finally to destroy
all traces of Christianity in the soul of the Russian people, and annihilate
all religious feeling, then the actual realization of communism would
become impossible, for no one would be willing to make sacrifices, no
one would interpret life as service of a higher purpose, and the final
victory would remain with the self-seeking type who thinks only of his
28. Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, revised translation by Lyd-

ia Kesich, Crestwood, New York : St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988, pp.
156-165, 166-175.
61

own interests. This last type of person, even now, already plays no small
part, and the growth of the bourgeois spirit is due to him...
In the Prophets, in the Gospels, in the Apostolic Epistles, in most of
the Doctors of the Church, we find censure of the riches of the rich and
repudiation of property, and the affirmation of the equality of all men
before God. In Basil the Great, and especially in John Chrysostom, may
be met judgments upon social injustice due to wealth and property, so
sharp that Proudhon and Marx pale before them. The Doctors of the
Church said that property is theft. St. John Chrysostom was a complete
communist, though of course his was not communism of the capitalist
or the industrial period. There are good grounds for asserting that Com-
munism has Christian or Judeo-Christian origins. But there soon came
a time in which Christianity was adapted to the contemporary kingdom
of Caesar...
The problems of communism stimulate the awakening of the Chris-
tian conscience and should lead to the development of a creative social
Christianity, not in the sense of understanding Christianity as a social
religion, but in the sense of revealing Christian truth and justice in rela-
tion to social life.29
Even Fr Georges Florovsky, who was the chief proponent of the

famous “return to the Fathers” ‒ to which we will turn our at-
tention shortly ‒ and possibly the greatest Orthodox theologian
29. Nikolai Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism, transl. by R. M.

French, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004, pp. 170-171,
188. Interesting information and analyses regarding the socio-political
engagement of the thinkers and theologians of the Russian Diaspora in
Paris can be found in the work by Antoine Arzakovsky, La Génération des
Penseurs Religieux de l’Emigration Russe: La Revue La Voie (Put’), 1925-
1940, Kiev-Paris: L’Esprit et la Lettre, 2002.
62

of the 20th century, could not remain indifferent to such issues,

as we can see in his works “The Social Problem in the Eastern
Orthodox Church”30 and “St. John Chrysostom: The Prophet of
Charity,”31 among others.
30. Georges Florovsky, “The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox

Church,” Christianity and Culture, volume 2 in the Collected Works of
Florovsky, Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1974, pp. 131-142.
31. Georges Florovsky, “St. John Chrysostom: The Prophet of Charity”,
Aspects of Church History, volume 4 in the Collected Works of Florovsky,
Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975, pp. 79-88.
63

Chapter 3
Why Has Orthodoxy Not Developed
a Political or Liberation Theology?
I t is paradoxical that all this early interest among Orthodox

theologians and intellectuals regarding issues of “leftist” politi-
cal theology took place before the appearance of the term itself in
the 1960s, when it actually appears to have come to a halt or even
lost ground in Orthodox circles. Meanwhile, political theology
and liberation theology were gaining momentum throughout the
rest of the world. I will attempt shortly to explain why this hap-
pened, but for now let us go back, after this lengthy digression on
patristic theology, modern Orthodox theology, and political the-
ology, to the central question I posed previously: Why, with few
exceptions, has Orthodoxy not developed a “political theology,” in
the liberating and radical sense of the term? Why have prominent
Orthodox theologians undervalued political theology? Why has the
idea of the “theological or Christian left” not developed in Ortho-
doxy? The answer to these questions can be neither simple nor
one-sided, and in the following sections I will try to give some
preliminary answers.
1. An initial response to this question may, perhaps, be re-
lated ‒ as I already hinted ‒ to the traditions which the Ortho-
dox world inherited from the Byzantines. As I mentioned briefly
earlier, Orthodox political theology and eschatology are often
mixed with theocratic and caesaro-papist elements from the
Byzantine political system. In this framework, the church is at-
tached (and dependent) on the state, which claims that it mani-
fests the kingdom of God here on earth, that it protects Ortho-
doxy from heresy (the Orthodoxy of each era from the heresies
65

of its time), from the enemies of the faith. The church, with the
exception of some rare charismatic Fathers and monastics, be-
gan to acquire more and more characteristics of the state and the
empire, gradually overcoming the dialectical tension between
empire and desert, ultimately losing or forgetting its authentic
eschatological orientation and the critical and prophetic spirit
of the Fathers. Theology (and certain Fathers sometimes) fre-
quently became the ideological apologist for this identification
and for the political-theological form that was introduced dur-
ing the Constantinian era, and in any event it would never think
of daring to question this particular form. This tendency was
accentuated during the period of Ottoman domination, when
the church undertook the duties of ethnarch and had to demon-
strate the necessary loyalty to the heathen Ottoman authorities,
particularly when it became, in a way, a part of the Ottoman state
system and an institution in its own right. Such a church, no
longer able to question the state authorities, had to learn to get
along with them, to feel safe with them ‒ and this was true not
just for the sake of the clergy, but also for the sake of the flock,
who otherwise were in danger of falling victim to the wrath of
a heathen conqueror (on the other hand, though, I should men-
tion here the various lay religious movements that sprung up
against the heathen conquerors, culminating in the 1821 Revo-
lution, as well as the clergy’s participation ‒ although not usually
the senior clergy ‒ in them).
2. As is well known, throughout nearly the whole period of
Turkish domination, the Orthodox of the Balkans and the Chris-
tian East preserved a community of peoples with common roots,
common values, and a common orientation, which the Romanian
historian Nicolae Iorga called, in his book of the same name “Byz-
66

why has orthodoxy not developed a political or liberation theology?
ance après Byzance.”1 For this reason, despite the end of Byzan-
tium and the domination of the Ottoman Empire, all the Ortho-
dox peoples (except Russia) still shared a common fate. For the
Orthodox peoples of the Balkans and the Near East, this common
lot was marked by (a) the millet system (of ethnic groups) which
served as the religious basis and which encouraged (although
not always) harmonious coexistence and cultural and religious
diversity within the Ottoman world, thus leading to the creation
of an Ottoman oikoumene; (b) the ethnarch role of the church –
that is, the assumption, primarily on the part of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople, of political responsibility and the
role of representative for all the Orthodox of the former Roman
Empire (not just the Greeks) before the heathen sultan. In this
phase, the church, the only institution in the Orthodox world that
survived the Turkish conquest, attempted to fill the political void
that had been created, and to preserve the language and the tradi-
tion of the Orthodox peoples, to protect them from Islamification
and Turkification. It was perhaps the first time the church was
so clearly forced to abandon its mission and become concerned
with issues foreign to its nature, such as the preservation of race,
language, and ethno-cultural identity. However, the church paid
a heavy price for this, forgetting its eschatological outlook and
its supranational mission, creating distortions in its ecclesiastical
structure and its eucharistic constitution, permanently confusing
the ethnic or national with the religious, changed to a “rule and
authority of this age,” involved in the process of ethnogenesis and
national jockeying. The church, “temporarily” assuming this role,
1. Nicolae Iorga, Byzantium after Byzantium. Trans. into English by Laura

Treptow, Oxford: Center for Romanian Studies, 2000.
67

emptied itself [kenosis] of its primarily spiritual, theological, and

ecumenical mission, opening a parenthesis which it has found
difficult to close to this very day. In any event, the Orthodox peo-
ples’ common course gradually began to be reversed in the 18th
and especially the 19th centuries, under the powerful influence of
the European Enlightenment and the awakening of nationalities
that it engendered. The national fragmentation and divorce of the
Orthodox peoples of the Balkans was completed with the final
dominance of the doctrine of nationalism and the creation of na-
tion states, with their secessions from the Ecumenical Patriarch-
ate and their announcements of autocephalous national churches,
which became appendices of the state and tools for disseminating
national ideology.2
3. In the traditionally Orthodox countries, the church thus
seems to be trapped in a purely ethnocentric dimension operating
exclusively within history, restricting its mission “to the realization
of the fortunes of the race and the nation” (!), and transforming
the preaching about the coming kingdom of God into preaching
about national salvation and the preservation of a glorious ethno-
religious past. A logical and inevitable consequence of this is the
identification of the religious with the national, and ethnic iden-
tity with Christian identity, which is thus regarded as something
unified and indivisible, even if the Christian identity is ultimately
reduced to a constitutive element of the ethno-cultural identity.
2. For a fuller treatment of this issue, see Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Orthodoxy

and Modern Greek Identity: Critical Remarks from the Perspective of
Theology,” in the journal Indiktos, issue 17, 2003, pp. 56-63 [in Greek];
idem, “Orthodoxy and Hellenism in Contemporary Greece,” St Vladimir’s
Theological Quarterly 54 (2010), pp. 365-420.
68

The “Christian” identity here does not refer to participation in the

eucharistic and eschatological community which is the church, or
to the subsequent ethical, social, and political consequences which
result from inclusion in this community, because this participa-
tion remains dynamically intangible, beyond any a priori objective
determination. It refers rather to a pre-determined collective real-
ity whose borders are co-extensive with the borders of the nation
and in which the label “Christian” does not necessarily include any
criteria or ecclesiastical requirements for personal and social life,
but is connected with traditional cultural and historical designa-
tions. That is why, in the established ecclesiastical rhetoric, land-
mark events in the history of the divine economy include not only
overcoming the consequences of sin, the realization of salvation,
and supranational unity, but are also symbolically tied to and emo-
tionally charged by events in the national histories of the Orthodox
peoples, whose realization appears to be the primary goal. We thus
see an important shift, a complete degeneration from the history
of the divine economy to the history of national rebirth, which is
simply the logical outcome of Judas’s temptation to subscribe to a
Zealot version of messianism which expected the establishment of
a kingdom in this world.3
4. For all these reasons, which have to do primarily, but not ex-
clusively, with the church’s historical involvement with the nation
after the fall of Byzantium (the ethnarchy), the church’s activities
3. P. Kalaitzidis, “The Temptation of Judas: Church and National Identi-

ties,” in: Theodore G. Stylianopoulos (ed.), Sacred Text and Interpretation:
Perspectives in Orthodox Biblical Studies. Papers in Honour of Professor Sa-
vas Agourides, Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006, pp. 355-
377, republished in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 47 (2002), pp.
357-379.
69

within history ‒or its involvement with history‒ became identi-

fied with its commitment to the struggles of the nation. Indeed,
the understanding of the church’s mission to the world in terms of
ethnocentrism and collectivities such as people, nation, etc., be-
came dominant, over time, even in supposedly serious theological
texts. According to this view, we assume history ecclesiastically
through the church’s assumption of the nation, and we participate
in history through the nation, which seems to preserve, accord-
ing to this view, its same historical form even in the age of glo-
balization or rather, especially in the age of globalization. For ex-
ample, in a letter by Metropolitan Euthymios (Stylios) of Aheloos
in the journal Synaxis, which was responding to the theological
criticisms of the theologians who contributed articles to the pre-
vious issue of the journal dedicated to the relationship between
nation and church, we read that: “A Church of a primarily agrar-
ian people, which lived with them for thousands of years, cannot
help but Christologically assume the place (the fatherland) and
the time (history) of this people.” According to the same bishop,
“the Church also deals with the cultural structure of the nation
Christologically, because it constitutes a basic element of the con-
sciousness of the people, which the Church has assumed.”4 In fact,
in the same letter, he maintains that even today, when we face the
enormous challenge of a civil society, the church cannot and must
not abandon the nation-state as a pastoral structure (p. 106), and
that, due to the “alienating and secularizing nature of ‘civil soci-
ety,’ the Church leadership, for purely pastoral and soteriological
reasons, must retain the familiar socio-political structure of the
‘nation’” (p. 107). He thus fully adopts here the neo-nationalistic
4. Letter to Synaxis, issue 80, 2001, p. 106 [in Greek].
70

view of the left-wing sociologist Vasilios Filias (as he outlined it

in the previous issue of the journal Synaxis5) according to which
“the nation as a distinct political entity preserves the cups with
which we drink the water of history… If these cups break, we be-
come the dust of history, we cease to be a self-existent and distinct
segment of the pan-human reality.”
5. Thus, it is not simply a coincidence that official church thought
attacks globalization and calls for resistance. Nor is it a coincidence
that it relies not on theological arguments or criteria, but on cul-
tural and national arguments, which have to do with defense of
national independence, language, national uniqueness, and ethno-
cultural identity. In the case of the Orthodox Church in Greece, for
example, we hear from the most official ecclesiastical voice (the late
Archbishop Christodoulos) that “the Church agrees with econom-
ic globalization and disagrees with cultural globalization.” Thus,
the institutional church not only seems to ignore (?) the emergence
and consolidation of a Christianity inextricably tied to a globalized
world, that of the Roman oikoumene, but, more importantly, it ap-
pears to neglect or avoid pointing out and denouncing the negative
effects of globalization on the economic and social level, particu-
larly for the lower classes, the poor and the weak, and the victims
of history, who were so central to the thought and lives of Jesus
Christ and the Fathers of the church. What has happened here is
a complete reversal of the Gospel criteria: the defense of the weak
and the needy ‒ which were an absolute priority in the preaching
of Christ, to such an extent that they were an icon of God Himself6
5. Issue 79, 2001, p. 72.

6. See Mt 25:40: “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of
these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
71

‒ has receded and been put in second place behind defense of an

endangered ethnic and cultural identity ‒ behind, that is, priori-
ties which were in Christ’s eyes matters of secondary importance
or which actually impeded the coming, and degraded the content,
of the kingdom of God, such as we see with the national-religious
Zealot movement to which Judas Iscariot, who ultimately betrayed
Christ, belonged.7 The official and institutional church seems to ig-
nore or bypass that which for ages constituted the Christian ethos
and which Berdyaev masterfully summarized in his famous phrase:
“The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the
question of bread for my neighbours, for everybody, is a spiritual
and a religious question. Man does not live by bread alone, but he
does live by bread and there should be bread for all.”8
6. As paradoxical as this claim seems, I would venture to say
that everything I described above, and which in a single word I
would characterize as “ethno-theology,” constitutes a completely
unique ‒ and probably unconscious ‒ version of contextual theol-
ogy. While it can sometimes go too far, contextual theology high-
lights the close link between the text and context (or its con-text),
and reminds us that we cannot do theology in a purely intellec-
tual or academic way, abstracted from history and socio-cultural
context, from pastoral needs and from the myriad different forms
of human culture and theological expression.9 The objections and
7. For an extensive analysis of this position, see my article “The Temptation

of Judas: Church and National Identities,” op. cit.
8. Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism, p. 185.
9. For a positive and, at the same time, critical approach to contextual the-
ology by Orthodox theologians (with, in some cases, reference to and cor-
relation with political theology), see Nikos Nissiotis, Apology for Hope, re-
print from “Theologia,” Athens, 1975 [in Greek]; idem, “Ecclesial Theol-
72

reservations of many Orthodox theologians vis-à-vis contextual

theology, or more accurately, vis-à-vis the methodology of this
particular theological trend, are well known, to such an extent,
in fact, that the landmark meeting of the Faith and Order Com-
mission in 1971 in Louvain, Belgium ‒ where terminology from
contextual theology was used for the first time in official texts of
the ecumenical dialogue ‒ can be viewed as “a watershed, after
which the Orthodox adopted, as a rule, a cautious or even criti-
cal stance toward the various programs of the World Council of
Churches.”10 However, a careful reading and interpretation of the
ethno-centric and ethno-theological trend within Orthodoxy will
convince us that what we are dealing with here is a peculiar ver-
sion of contextual theology avant la lettre, which, while it rejects
the principles of the latter, has unconsciously adopted and abso-
lutized one of the elements of context (or con-text), the concept
and reality of the people, of the nation. My opinion is that this
peculiar Orthodox contextual theology has, perhaps, the char-
acteristics of an Orthodox liberation theology, although clearly
limited to the ethnic level, with an ignorance, underestimation,
or even denial of the social and the political. But since this is an
ogy in Context,” in: Choan-Seng Song (ed.), Doing Theology Today, Ma-
dras: Christian Literature Society, 1976, pp. 101-124; Emmanuel Clapsis,
“The Challenge of Contextual Theologies,” in: Orthodoxy in Conversation:
Orthodox Ecumenical Engagements, Geneva/Brookline, MA: WCC Publi-
cations/Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000, pp. 165-172; Petros Vassiliadis,
“Orthodoxy and Contextual Theology,” in: Lex Orandi: Studies in Liturgi-
cal Theology, Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, first edition, 1994, pp. 139-156 [in
Greek].
10. Petros Vassiliadis, “Orthodoxy and Contextual Theology,” op. cit., pp.
144-145.
73

enormous subject that requires extensive discussion, I must be

content for the moment to offer only some initial observations.11
7. In everything I said above, which can be summarized as the
unquestionable primacy of the ethnic/national over the theologi-
cal/ecclesial and the social, we must also bear in mind the par-
ticular conditions in which the Orthodox Church lived during
the 19th and primarily 20th centuries. And this has to do not only
with the creation of national Balkan states or with the “Ortho-
dox” Balkan monarchies and the religious nationalisms or ethno-
religious ideologies, mythologies, and narratives that developed
in the imaginations of their peoples. It also relates to the October
Revolution of 1917 (as well as with the so-called “socialist” re-
gimes that ruled in Eastern Europe after World War II) and the
unprecedented anti-religious persecution that this unleashed, the
first victims of which were the Orthodox Churches of Russia and
the other Orthodox countries. And it is related to the atheistic
propaganda and practice that many communist and leftist par-
ties developed and that resulted ‒ particularly in the Orthodox
world, which suffered more than any other in this regard ‒ in
an intense and widespread anti-communism (which was simply
another aspect of the Orthodox Churches’ cooperation with and
11. This issue was examined in the paper by Mihail Neamptu, “Ethno-
theology as a Special Case of Contextual Theology,” at the conference: “Neo-
Patristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology be
Contextual?”, organized by the Volos Academy for Theological Studies,
in Volos, Greece (3-6 June 2010), in collaboration with the Program for
Orthodox Christians Studies at Fordham University (New York), the
Chair of Orthodox Theology at the University of Münster (Germany), and
the Romanian Institute for Inter-Orthodox, Inter-Christian and Inter-
Religious Studies (Cluj-Napoca).
74

subservience to these regimes), as we see in the cautious attitude

of the hierarchy and the Orthodox faithful toward socialist or
even liberal political ideas, as well as toward social and political
changes.
8. The answer, then, to the question of the lack of a radical and
progressive political theology among the Orthodox today would
be incomplete without a brief reference to that which I called in
an earlier text “Orthodox theology’s identity crisis and introver-
sion in the 20th century,” particularly after or in connection with
the famous “return to the Fathers.”12 Indeed, in the First Ortho-
dox Theological Conference, held in Athens in 1936, Fr Georges
Florovsky proclaimed Orthodox theology’s need to “return to
the Fathers” and to be released from its “Babylonian captivity” to
Western theology in terms of its language, its presuppositions, and
its thinking. He would often return to this text with his use of the
term “pseudomorphosis” to describe the long process of Latiniza-
tion and Westernization of Russian theology. His call was quickly
adopted by many theologians of the Russian Diaspora, while he
also gathered fervent supporters in traditionally Orthodox coun-
tries, such as Greece, Serbia, and Romania. The theological move-
ment of the “return to the Fathers” became the hallmark of and
the dominant “paradigm” for Orthodox theology for the better
part of the 20th century, and for many its primary task, to such a
degree that this celebrated “return to the Fathers” and the effort to
“de-westernize” Orthodox theology overshadowed all other theo-
logical questions, as well as all the challenges the modern world
12. See Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need
for a Modern Orthodox Theology,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 54
(2010), pp. 5-36.
75

had posed ‒ and continues to pose ‒ to Orthodox theology. The

consequences of this “return to the Fathers” and the subsequent
over-emphasis on patristic studies were, among other things:
(1) the neglect and devaluation of biblical studies; (2) an ahistori-
cal approach to patristic theology and a subsequent exaltation of
traditionalism; (3) a tendency toward introversion and Orthodox
theology’s nearly total absence from the major theological devel-
opments and trends of the 20th century; (4) the polarization of East
and West, and the cultivation and consolidation of an anti-western
and anti-ecumenical spirit; and (5) a weak theological response to
the challenges posed by the modern world and, more generally,
the unresolved theological issues still remaining in the relation-
ship between Orthodoxy and modernity.13 Specifically with regard
to point 3, it is worth noting that, concerned as it was with the
very serious matter of freeing itself from western influence and
“returning to the Fathers” ‒ dealing, in other words, with issues
of self-understanding and identity ‒, Orthodox theology, with a
few exceptions, was basically absent from the major theological
discussions of the 20th century and had almost no influence in set-
ting the theological agenda. Dialectical theology, existential and
hermeneutical theology, the theology of history and culture, the
theology of secularization and modernity, the “nouvelle théolo-
gie,” contextual theologies, the theology of hope and political
theology, liberation theology, black theology, feminist theology,
ecumenical theology, the theology of mission, the theology of
religions and otherness ‒ this whole revolution that occurred in
the theological work of the 20th century barely touched Orthodox
theology. Rather, during this period, Orthodox theology was con-
13. Ibid., pp. 5-7, 15.
76

cerned with its own “internal” problems; escaping “western influ-

ence” had become one of its priorities. These theological trends,
with the exception perhaps of ecumenical theology, the theology
of mission, and the movement for patristic and liturgical renewal,
do not appear to have been influenced by Orthodoxy, despite the
fact that important Orthodox theologians actively participated in
the ecumenical movement from its inception.14
9. All of this does not mean, of course, that the discussion
about political theology and liberation theology has not affected
the Orthodox world at all. Important theological and ecclesias-
tical figures, such as the former director of the Ecumenical In-
stitute of Bossey and later professor at the University of Athens
Nikos Nissiotis, and Metropolitan Georges (Khodr) of Mount
Lebanon ‒ perhaps the greatest intellectual and theological per-
sonality in Arab Orthodoxy and in the field of the Greek Ortho-
dox Patriarchate of Antioch ‒ have written and spoken fervently
about these issues, responding positively to the challenges of the
times. Metropolitan Georges of Mount Lebanon, in fact, gave a
talk in French in May 2008 entitled “Eucharist and Liberation,”
from the podium of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies,
in the framework of the program “Eucharist, Church, World.”15
In the Greek milieu, we must, of course, mention the late professor

of New Testament at the Universities of Thessaloniki and Athens
Savas Agourides and the “school” which he created. For decades,
Agourides was the most progressive theological personality in
14. Ibid., pp. 18-19.

15. Métropolite Georges (Khodr), “Eucharistie et libération,” Service
Orthodoxe de Presse (SOP), issue 338, mai 2009, and Suppléments 330.A.
77

the Greek milieu, the kind of committed theologian who not only
engaged in productive critical dialogue with the challenges faced
by modern biblical interpretation but could also translate the bib-
lical critique of wealth, injustice, and oppression into a proposal
for a political theology critical of both the institutional church
and the ecclesiastical establishment. This critique extended also
to the unjust structures of the Greek political system, which mar-
ginalized and oppressed the poor and the needy, foreigners and
immigrants.16 Among his students, let me make special mention
of Professor Petros Vassiliadis and the studies he has devoted to
the social aspect of Pauline theology and New Testament theol-
ogy generally.
It is a sign of hope and encouragement that the Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew, in his public addresses and messages,
while demonstrating his spiritual leadership and theological and
eschatological awareness, has also displayed a unique sensitivity
and commitment to burning “political” or global issues ‒ such as
the relationship between religion and politics, racial discrimina-
tion, religious tolerance, peace, social justice, poverty, the econ-
omy, ecology and the environmental crisis ‒ addressing all these
crucial questions not from an ideological standpoint but from the
experience and depth of the Eastern Orthodox tradition.17
16. I presented these aspects of Agourides’ theology in my as-of-yet

unpublished paper: “Savas Agourides and Prophetic Christianity,” at the
conference organized in his honor in Thessaloniki (9 November 2010), by
the School of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the “Artos
Zois” Foundation, and the Greek Biblical Society.
17. See his recent book, In The World, Yet Not of the World: Social and
Global Initiatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, edited and with
an Introduction by John Chryssavgis, New York: Fordham University
78

Two other examples are worth noting regarding political the-

ology in contemporary Greece, which, nevertheless, remains
a minor trend. First, we must mention the Christian-Socialist
movement of “Christian Democracy” (and its youth movement
EXON), which tried to develop a third way between capitalism
and Marxism, promising social change and liberation in the
name of Christianity, and was particularly noted for the coura-
geous resistance of its president, Nikos Psaroudakis, and of its
weekly newspaper I Christianiki during the seven-year military
dictatorship. Second, I also call attention to the so-called “neo-
Orthodox” movement, which in the early 1980s concentrated,
on the one hand, on theologians who were inspired by patristic
theology and the theology of the Russian diaspora and, on the
other hand, on Marxist and neo-Marxist intellectuals who were
interested in Orthodoxy and Greece’s spiritual and cultural heri-
tage. This trend, whose most characteristic representative was
and still is the theologian and philosopher Christos Yannaras, is
perhaps the only movement which earned a wide hearing and
which continues to influence both theological and ecclesiastical
affairs, as well as more general cultural and even political devel-
opments, primarily through Yannaras’s regular Sunday column in
one of the largest and most respected Greek newspapers, Kathi-
merini. The French Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément, speak-
ing about these two very different movements, believed that they
Press, 2010. Cf. also his work, Encountering the Mystery: Understanding
Orthodox Christianity Today, New York: Doubleday, 2008, especially chap.
VI, VII, VIII, pp. 89-228. On the same issue see in addition: Metropolitan
G ennadios of S assima -A rchimandrite E vdokimos K arakoulakis (eds),
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew: Patriarchal Address To Political World
(1991-2011), Athens: Eptalofos, 2011.
79

represent the Orthodox version of liberation theology.18 Person-

ally, I have many doubts about this assessment, but naturally I
cannot complete this discussion here. My reservations are justi-
fied, however, when one considers the results of these movements
(neo-nationalism, neo-conservatism, anti-westernism, denial of
modernity and multi-culturalism). At any rate, I think that one
would agree that we need more time to discuss such controversial
issues that border so close to our own time.
18. O livier C lément , “Réflexions orthodoxes sur la ‘théologie de la

libération’,” Service Orthodoxe de Presse (SOP), issue 92-93, 1984, and in
English translation: “Orthodox Reflections on ‘Liberation Theology’,” St
Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 29 (1985), pp. 63-72.
80

Chapter 4
The Public Role
of the Church and Theology
O f course, any discussion about political theology, in the dual

meaning that we noted, inevitably leads us to the crucial
question of the legitimacy or the possibility of a public role for the
church in the societies of late modernity. In light of my previous
theological analysis, and of the extremely important and lively
discussion taking place today between intellectuals, philoso-
phers, sociologists, political scientists, and theologians (e.g., José
Casanova, Ronald F. Thiemann, Richard Falk, John Rawls, Jürgen
Habermas, Jürgen Moltmann, Emmanuel Clapsis, Jean Baubérot,
Regis Debray),1 I answer this question affirmatively, but under the
following conditions:
1.“Religion,” or rather the church, is a public and not a private

matter, provided that we understand that “public” differs from
“state,” and to the extent that the first is broader than the second
and is not in any way co-extensive with it. This implies a tripar-
tite distinction (between state, public, and private), instead of bi-
partite (state and private), and that the church relates to the civil
society, not to the state.
1. Unfortunately, I cannot recapitulate here this otherwise very interesting

discussion, along with analyses and critical remarks on the public role of
the Church and theology, as I did in my book, Orthodoxy and Modernity:
An Introduction, chap. 8, pp. 127-161 [in Greek; English translation (by
Elizabeth Theokritoff) forthcoming by St Vladimir’s Seminary Press].
Therefore, I will have to be content here to summarize or simply reproduce
some of the ideas developed in that book.
81

2. The church can be involved in the public sphere, provided

that it is aware of the boundaries and conditions of that sphere (its
neutrality in regard to ideology, religion, and values), and to the
extent that it respects the values established in that sphere. Cen-
tral to these values is respect for the fundamental achievements of
modernity and above all for human rights, religious freedom and
tolerance of difference, and the distinct roles of church and state.
3. That the church can exist and act in the public sphere does
not mean that it has authority in this sphere, nor that its public
role can be all-encompassing or deal with the well-known sub-
jects, so familiar in conventional Orthodox rhetoric, of foreign af-
fairs, national issues, ethnic identity, etc., or reproduce the forms
or models of medieval “Christendom” ‒ or Byzantine theocracy
and ethnarchy in the case of the Eastern Orthodoxy. In the public
sphere, in which other religious communities are also involved,
as well as individuals with other religious perspectives or even no
religious affiliation, the church, and every religion, cannot inter-
vene through force, or by declaring new religious wars, but rather
must respect the inalienable freedom of every other, everyone
who is different but who yet does not cease to be an image of the
Other par excellence.
4. The church will also have to understand and accept another
reality of modern society, one that is largely due to secularization:
the division of society into sub-systems or autonomous sectors
of social affairs. According to this division, politics, the economy,
society, culture, science, education, and religion constitute differ-
ent sub-systems with their own inner functional autonomy, and
are governed by the principle of separation, which is considered
the only way of safeguarding democracy, freedom, respect, and
toleration of difference. The modern person does not want reli-
82

the public role of the church and theology
gion to be involved in his or her other sub-systems or activities

or to exercise tutelage over them, because he or she regards this
as a violation of the freedom and autonomy from the power of
the church that was won with such difficulty. Furthermore, the
principle of separation does not apply to religion only but to any
other outside intervention. This division of social affairs into sub-
systems may appear at first sight to shatter and fragment reality
‒ or to go against the holistic vision of Orthodoxy, which looks to
a catholic transformation of the life of the world and of human-
kind, a radical change and renewal of every aspect of life. But it
does not, as I will demonstrate in the second essay of this book,
on the basis of the distinction, on the one hand, between church
and power, church and state, and above all between church and
Caesar, and, on the other, between charismatic diakonia (service)
and worldly dominion or domination.
5. The medieval/theocratic/traditional model elevated the
church into an authority that would give legitimacy and meaning
to whatever regime was in power, thus making it the official ideo-
logical/theological apologist for the power given “from above.” In
this capacity the church had a de facto public role (before there
was any discussion about public and private, which essentially be-
gan with modernity), while participation in its faith and life was
in practice compulsory, part and parcel of obedience and loyalty
to the commands and orders of the state. The model that emerged
from the radical changes that came with secularization and mo-
dernity privatized the church and religion in every form, liberat-
ing the public space and citizens from ecclesiastical tutelage and
from any religion/metaphysical reference, thus reminding the
churches of the voluntary character of Christian communities.
Perhaps the synthesis we seek in today’s period of late modernity,
83

with its tendency to escape into post-modernity and its desecu-

larization, might be a discourse from the church and theology
that relates to the community of citizens, that new element and
new achievement of our times ‒ a discourse that must speak to a
society and a public space that are less and less likely to be identi-
fied with the state and civil power; a discourse that will respect all
the positive achievements of modernity and secularization, that
will not forget the nature of religious associations, a nature pro-
foundly voluntary and grounded in free will, not connected with
the state or the powers that be. This public discourse of the church
and of theology cannot, however, reproduce the forms and pro-
totypes of medieval “Christendom” or Byzantine theocracy. Nor
can it have tendencies toward domination or ambitions in the
world, nor again be possessed by neo-romantic dreams of return-
ing to some sort of pre-modern “Christian” society or “Christian”
empire (whether it be the Byzantine/Roman, or Tsarist Russia,
or indeed the modern Balkan monarchies). The church’s public
discourse must certainly have clear and comprehensive reference
to the idea of the body and communion, with which the church’s
substance and being is identified, though on the explicit condi-
tion that the above has the character of a charismatic ministry of
service, not of an authority or a presence imposed from outside
or from above.
6. The public ecclesiastical role should embody the Cross-cen-
tered ethos of Christ. It should be a witness to the new reality which
the church lives, and a protest against social and institutional evil,
as well as the violation of human dignity and freedom; it should be
a voice defending the “other,” the “foreigner,” the least of our broth-
ers, the needy, the weak, and the victims of history, who are all icons
of “the Other” par excellence, the “foreigner” par excellence.
84

the public role of the church and theology
The Orthodox Church’s first and foremost concern in the present

context cannot be to preserve at all costs the “Christian” or “Or-
thodox” character of the state, nor the utopian and seductive illu-
sion of a “Christian” society or a “Christian civilization.” It must
instead engender the call to repentance, humankind’s prepara-
tion to receive the preaching about the kingdom of God, a cre-
ative, spiritual fruitfulness, and the Christ-centered healthiness
of Christian communities. The paradox of our ecclesiastical situ-
ation is that, while our lives are anything but Christian ‒ making
it difficult for us to worthily bear the name of Christians ‒, we
nevertheless shout and complain about the use of the Christian
name. In fact, we are ready to fight to make sure that this name
denotes not a voluntary and free association or union, as the early
church was, nor new Christian communities which were estab-
lished through witness and mission, but a compulsory union, an
imposed membership, as we find in a state or in a national church.
Thus, the Orthodox Church in Greece ‒as well as the churches in
other traditionally “Orthodox” countries‒ instead of engaging in
a struggle for internal spiritual renewal and reformation, wastes
its resources and its energy on imposing its presence and activi-
ties in the public sphere, not in the context of an open society,
but of yearning for a traditional, closed society. As long as this
paradox stands, the theological voice of the church will continue
to operate in a daydream and will probably remain an illusion,
while its “political” engagement will likely be limited to medieval/
pre-modern models of intervention, rather than witness, solidar-
ity, and justice.
From the Orthodox point of view, at least, we think that the
key to answering the issues raised in the previous chapters of
this book is to be found in eschatology, which is related to the
85

dialectic between the present and the future, the “already” and
the “not yet,” which pervades the Church’s sojourn in the world.
Eschatology introduces, furthermore, an attitude toward life that
maintains a distance from the structures of the world, a refusal to
settle down and identify oneself with the world and history, with-
out however any trace of disdain for the world and history or any
flight from them. For eschatology also entails repentance for the
past, as well as faith in and openness toward the future and the
final outcome of history, while at the same time pointing to a per-
manent suspension of any final and established meaning within
history, to constant doubt and radical criticism of the meaning
of all institutions, and implying instead the notion of movement
without end, unceasingly and constantly gaining in richness.
86

Part II
eschatology and Politics

Chapter 5
The Eschatological Dimension
A ny discussion about eschatology leads ineluctably to the

question of the church’s identity and nature, to that which
the church truly is, first and foremost. But it also introduces an el-
ement of anticipation, which is accompanied by the dimension of
the future and the renewing breeze of the Spirit. These are decisive
for the life and theology of the church, yet they are lacking today,
when the movement to “return to Orthodox tradition” ‒ at least
in the way it has been so far understood and implemented ‒ has
transformed Tradition into traditionalism and turned Fr Georges
Florovsky’s drive to “return to the Fathers” (which went together
in his thought with the quest to move “ahead with the Fathers”)
into an objectification and “museumification” of the Fathers.1 As
the great Orthodox theologian and historian Fr John Meyendorff
wrote, “Without eschatology, traditionalism is turned only to the
past: it is nothing but archeology, antiquarianism, conservatism,
reaction, refusal of history, escapism. Authentic Christian tra-
ditionalism remembers and maintains the past not because it is
past, but because it is the only way to meet the future, to become
ready for it.”2
A certain version of theology, however, turned Tradition into
traditionalism and taught us to associate the identity of the church
mainly ‒ or even exclusively ‒ with the past, making us accustomed
1. For further development of this thesis see: Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “From

the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need for a Modern Orthodox Theology,”
St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 54 (2010), pp. 5-36.
2. J ohn M eyendorff , “Does Christian Tradition Have a Future?” St
Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 26 (1982), p. 141.
89

to an Orthodoxy that is permanently out of step with its time and

history in general. In fact, Orthodox theology often suffers ‒
especially in the traditionally Orthodox milieux ‒ from a kind of
inertia with regard to participating in history and the socio-cul-
tural context. Without a creative and critical relationship with the
past and the present of history as well as with culture ‒ Tradition
having become synonymous with conservatism ‒ the Orthodox
are wont to become mired in a nostalgia for, and even worship
of, Byzantium, Antiochian Christianity, Holy Russia, the Medieval
Kingdom of Serbia, Orthodox Romania, etc., trapped, in other
words, in a perception that limits the church to the role of guard-
ian and guarantor of ethnic continuity and cultural identity. The
Orthodox are thus usually unable to engage in serious theological
reflection and to participate equally and creatively in the contem-
porary world. Speaking about the church’s transforming presence
and activity in society, culture, and politics is reduced to nothing
more than wishful thinking. Hence, the dominant ecclesiastical
discourse in Orthodox contexts usually seems more interested in
preserving the uniqueness of the ethno-cultural ideology and the
national narrative than Christian catholicity and ecumenicity. It
comes across as an authoritarian and state-subsidized organ rather
than serving as a witness to the church’s living and prophetic pres-
ence in the world. The church’s word has thus been secularized,
betraying the fact that politics have invaded the church rather than
society and politics being transformed and sanctified.3
With particular regard to the Greek context, even the hopeful
3. For more on this, see Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “La relation de l’Eglise à la

culture et la dialectique de l’eschatologie et de l’histoire,” Istina, 55 (2010),
pp. 7-25.
90

the eschatological dimension
turn in the theology of the ’60s proved incapable, ultimately, of

resisting a “fundamentalist” approach to tradition. This theologi-
cal trend, which became widely known in the 1980s as a result of
the so-called neo-Orthodox movement, ended up deeply assimi-
lating this line of thought, either because it had problematic theo-
logical foundations (an overemphasis on mysticism, apophati-
cism, and protology at the expense of the historical, biblical, and
eschatological), or because it could not sufficiently distance itself
from a Manichean-like blanket rejection of western modernity or
the temptation to substitute “Greek Orthodoxy” and Hellenocen-
trism for ecclesiastical catholicity.4
Again, the discourse about politics, apart from the obvious ques-
tion about the relationship between the church and the world, and
4. For a more thorough analysis, see Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Greekness and

Antiwesternism in the Greek Theological Generation of the 60’s, PhD Dis-
sertation, School of Theology, University of Thessaloniki, 2008 [in Greek];
idem, “Orthodoxy and Hellenism in Contemporary Greece,” St Vladimir’s
Theological Quarterly, 54 (2010), especially pp. 393-412. On the “neo-Or-
thodox” movement in particular, see Vasilios N. Makrides, “Neoorthodoxie
-eine religiöse Intellektuellenströmung im heutigen Griechenland,” in P.
Antes-D. Paahnke (ed.), Die Religion von Oberschichten: Religion-Orifes-
sion-Intellektualismus, Marburg, 1989, pp. 279-289; idem, “Byzantium in
Contemporary Greece: the Neo-Orthodox Current of Ideas,” in the vol-
ume: David Ricks-Paul Magdalino (ed.), Byzantium and the Modern Greek
Identity, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 141-153. In his works so far pub-
lished in English, Yannaras seems to comment directly on the neo-Ortho-
dox movement only in The Freedom of Morality, transl. by Elizabeth Briere,
Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984, pp. 131-36; and
in Orthodoxy and the West: Hellenic Self-Identity in the Modern Age, transl.
Peter Chaberras and Norman Russell, Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Ortho-
dox Press, 2006, pp. 273-306 (Chapter 19, “The 1960s”).
91

the church and history, leads to a discussion about the origin, na-
ture, and limits of power in its worldly manifestation, and begs the
study of the phenomenon of power as a “temptation” and a “sign”
of the church’s secularization. It also lays bare the major problem of
legalism in the ecclesial and spiritual life, which can be observed in
the way the law and the commandments function within the new
life in Christ, while also providing the opportunity for a theologi-
cal critique of a nostalgic return to a Byzantine-style theocracy or
some ideal “Christian society.” First and foremost, however, the dis-
course about eschatology and politics forces us to seriously consider
the nature, limits, and implications of ecclesiastical catholicity, and
everything required for the realization hic et nunc of the eschato-
logical mystery of unity. If “Christianity... is in a profound sense
the end of all religion,” if “[Christ] has inaugurated a new life, not a
new religion,”5 and if, with the Incarnation of the Son and Word of
God, the distinctions between the profane and the sacred, the mate-
rial and the spiritual, the physical and the meta-physical have been
overcome, as the Orthodox theology of our day is fond of saying it
has, then the issue of politics tests and tries our consistency and fi-
delity to these convictions and to the catholicity of the ecclesial way
of life, that is, to the very fundamentals of Orthodox theology. It also
highlights at the same time the dangers and temptations posed by
the church’s involvement in current political issues without having
a solid eschatological orientation ‒ from its desperate attempt to be
recognized as an integral part of an ethno-cultural identity, to its
support or dread, as the case may be, for raw political power.
Of course, in our time, any discussion about identity, the
5. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 2nd ed. Crestwood, NY:
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973, pp. 19-20.
92

church and power, or the correlation between theology and poli-

tics, conjures up images that ought to be considered foreign to the
theological presuppositions and consciousness of the church as
an eschatological community. Unfortunately, the idealization of
the Byzantine synallelia or symphonia and the ahistorical imita-
tion of the necessarily slavish practices of an Orthodox Church
facing extinction during the Ottoman Occupation seem to have
deprived us of an awareness of Christians’ paradoxical position
within history, of the incompatible and irreconcilable relation-
ship between the church and an authoritative ethos, and between
eschatology and authority, but also of the undeniable links be-
tween the church and service (diakonia) and between eschatolo-
gy and politics. In this work, we have had to forego, primarily due
to space limitations, any further discussion of the problems to
which we have just alluded, let alone offer any kinds of solutions.
Thus, after a brief overview of the eschatological dimension of
Christianity and the relationship between the church and history,
as well as the church and the world, we will move to deal primar-
ily with the issue of the church and politics, while briefly touching
on the issue of authority and the nature of ecclesiastical “offices.”
Of course, this is more of an initial approach to the subjects under
discussion rather than a systematic and exhaustive treatment.
We propose to examine the issue of politics ‒ and the attendant

problem of authority ‒ from the perspective of eschatology be-
cause we believe that the latter is the criterion and the measure of
the authenticity of ecclesial life. Of course, eschatology is a char-
acteristic feature of the Eastern Orthodox liturgical and theologi-
cal tradition. Orthodoxy today has, nevertheless, been noted for
its lack of eschatology. It seems to have forgotten that the original
93

foundation of early Christianity and the ancient church was its

preaching about the coming kingdom of God and the anticipa-
tion of this kingdom, which was identified with the expectation
of the eschaton and the long-desired new world.6
Already in the Gospels, Christ is identified with the Messiah
expected by the Jews, who in the “last” days of history would es-
tablish his kingdom, gathering together in one place the scattered
people of God to become one body centered on his person.7 For
6. Cf. Mt. 6:10; Lk. 11:2: “Your kingdom come;” 2Pt 3:13: “But according to
his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness
is at home;” Rev. 21:1: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;” Rev.
21:5: “See, I am making all things new.” [All biblical quotations are from the
NRSV.] Cf. also Rom. 8:18-25, in which the Apostle speaks at length about the
long-desired, future new world. Cf. also Alexander Schmemann, Our Father,
translated by Alexis Vinogradov, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 2002, p. 36: “For it is enough to read the Gospels once to be convinced
that the teaching of the kingdom of God lies at the very heart of the preaching
and teaching of Christ. Christ came preaching the gospel of the kingdom.”
7. For the biblical foundation of the views in this paragraph, I relied
primarily on the following works: Ioannis Karavidopoulos, “The Church in
the New Testament,” in the collective volume: What is the Church, Seminar
of Theologians of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 1968, p. 31 ff. [in Greek];
Damianos Doïkos, “The Church in the Old Testament,” in the volume:
What is the Church, pp. 10-24 [in Greek]; Petros Vassiliadis, “Church-
State Relations in the New Testament,” in the collection of his articles:
Biblical Hermeneutical Studies, Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1988, pp. 437-
439 [in Greek]; idem, “The Eucharistic Perspective of the Mission of the
Church,” Academic Yearbook of the School of Theology, Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki, New Series, 7 (1997), pp. 26 ff.; John D. Zizioulas, “The
Early Christian Community,” in idem, The One and the Many: Studies on
God, Man, the Church, and the World Today, edited by Fr Gregory Edwards,
Los Angeles, CA: Sebastian Press, 2010, especially pp. 147-150, 153-155.
94

the Gospels and the early Christian community, all the eschato-
logical expectations of the Old Testament are realized in the per-
son of Christ, inasmuch as Christ is identified precisely with the
Messiah of the last days. This is confirmed by the various Mes-
sianic titles that Christ used to describe himself (“son of man,”
“son of God,” “servant of God,” “king,” “Messiah,” etc.), as well as
his actual teaching, which is encapsulated in the “parables of the
kingdom,” which announce that the new world of the kingdom
of God has already been established with his coming. The early
church thought of itself as the community of the last days, which
Christ the Messiah gathered around himself so that it could par-
ticipate in the new life, the new era which had already begun.
The divinely inspired authors of the New Testament presented the
Christian church as the continuation and the reestablishment in
Christ of the Old Testament’s people of God. The church is the
new Israel, the new chosen people of God, the “Israel of God”
(Gal. 6:16), “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
God’s own people” (1Pt. 2:9), “a remnant, chosen by grace” (Rom.
11:5), that is, God’s holy people during the end times, for whom
all the promises of the Old Testament remain valid. The church
is the eschatological community, the eschatological Israel, which,
however, is alien to any claim of exclusivity, and to the spirit of
isolationism, provincialism, and tribalism. It was not founded
on its biological descent “according to the flesh” from Abraham
but rather on the new relationship in Christ of grace and righ-
teousness between God and man. This eschatological conscious-
ness of the church ‒ the fact that it constitutes the people of God
gathered together in Christ ‒ is expressed in the New Testament,
first, with the use of the terms “saints” (Acts 9:32, 41; Rom. 1:7,
8:27, 12:13, 15:25), “elect” (Rom. 8:33; Col. 3:12), “church of God”
95

(1Cor. 1:2; 2Cor 1:1), which in Judaism marked the gathering of

the elect of the last days. But it is also evident, secondly, with the
connection ab initio of the church with Jerusalem, the center of
the Apocalypse of God and the manifestation of the Messiah and
his kingdom, in accordance with the expectations of the Old Tes-
tament, as well as the place where the first Christian community
was formed through the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
and where the name “church” was first given to this community.
Already in the second generation after Pentecost, which was
marked by the decisive contribution of the Apostle Paul, the
church was ever more acquiring a global and universal character.
Everyone could belong to the church ‒ Jews and Gentiles, cir-
cumcised and uncircumcised, those under the law and those with
no law, slaves and free, men and women. The church was seen as a
spiritual race, the new Israel, the “Israel in spirit,” and, according
to later exponents, its truth lies above and beyond earthly nations
and earthly homelands, since these latter are simply attributes of
the flesh, expressions of the old world.8 Christians are therefore
“the third race,” to recall the words of the apologist Aristides,9
neither Jews nor Greeks, and thus, “all believers in Christ are one
people; all Christ’s people, although he is hailed from many re-
gions, are one church,” as Basil of Caesarea writes.10 The church,
8. Cf. Gregory Nazianzen, Against the Arians, and Concerning Himself

(Oration 33), PG 63, 229 A; idem, On the Holy Martyr Cyprian (Oration
24), PG 35, 1188 B; idem, Panegyric on Caesarius (Oration 7), PG 35, 785 C.
9. Aristides, Apology 2:1. Cf. Apology 15:1.
10. Basil of Caesarea, Letter 161, PG 32, 629 B, English translation by
Blomfield Jackson, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series,
Vol. 8, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Buffalo, NY: Christian
Literature Publishing Co., 1895.
96

then, as the eschatological people of God, was called to manifest

and realize in every time and place the eschatological mystery
of unity and the gathering together in one place of the scattered
people of God, the overcoming in Christ of every kind of separa-
tion and division (race, sex, religion, culture, social class, hier-
archy, and office).11 Hence, the church does not simply embody
a geographical universality by uniting territorial divisions,12 but
actually overcomes any kind of separation and anything that
detracts from catholicity, thus leading to a unity and identity in
Christ.13 As St. John Chrysostom brilliantly summarized it: “For
the church’s name (ecclesia) is not a name of separation, but of
unity and concord.”14 Hence, according to St. Cyril of Jerusalem:
“And it is rightly named ecclesia because it calls forth and assem-
bles together all men.”15
11. Cf., for example: Gal. 3:26-29; Col. 3:10-11; 1Cor. 12:12-13.
12. Cf. the prayer of the anaphora of the Liturgy of St. Mark: “Remember,
O Lord, Your Holy and only Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is
from the ends of the world unto the ends thereof, and all Your peoples and
all Your flocks,” in Ioannis Fountoulis, The Divine Liturgy of the Apostle
Mark, 2nd ed., Thessaloniki, 1977, pp. 45-46 [in Greek]. Cf. also idem, The
Divine Liturgy of the “Apostolic Constitutions,” Thessaloniki, 1978, p. 34 [in
Greek].
13. Cf. Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy 1, PG 91, 664D-668C.
14. John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, Homily 1, PG 61, 13,
English translation by Talbot W. Chambers, from Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, First Series, Vol. 12, edited by Philip Schaff, Buffalo, NY: Christian
Literature Publishing Co., 1889.
15. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 18, 24, PG 33, 1044B. English
translation by Edwin Hamilton Gifford, from Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 7, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace,
Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894.
97

The anticipation of the kingdom, however, but did not remain

something suspended in mid-air in the Orthodox tradition. It
was associated with the experience of a foretaste of the eschaton,
of a proleptic manifestation of the coming kingdom that is pro-
vided in the Divine Eucharist ‒ the quintessential mystery of the
church, the mystery which constitutes the church and gathers to-
gether in one place the scattered people of God ‒ inasmuch as
the Eucharist was considered an icon and symbol of the eschaton
in history.16 Indeed, from the very beginning, the first Christian
communities understood that the Eucharist was the gathering of
16. Cf. John D. Zizioulas, “The Early Christian Community,” op. cit., p. 149:
“Faith in the risen Christ involved from the very beginning two apparently
contradictory elements. On the one hand, it involved an encounter with
the risen Lord especially in the form of sharing meals with him. On the
other hand, it involved the expectation of his return, of his parousia, which
would bring an end to suffering, injustice, death, and the persecution of
his followers. This meant that Christian spirituality had to be experienced
as a dialectic between history and eschatology, a firm conviction that the
kingdom of God had come and at the same time a fervent prayer and
expectation that it may come soon.” Cf. also pp. 147-150, 153-155. On the
relationship between eschatology and the Eucharist, cf. also Metropolitan
of Pergamon John (Zizioulas), “Eucharist and the Kingdom of God,” in
the collection of his articles, Eucharistic Communion and the World, edited
by Luke Ben Tallon, London: T&T Clark, 2011, especially p. 41: “But the
most significant point in confirmation of the eschatological character of
the Eucharist is the fact that the roots of the Eucharist are to be found
historically not only in the Last Supper but also in Christ’s appearances
during the forty days after the resurrection. During these appearances, we
have the breaking of bread and the risen Christ eating with his disciples
(Lk. 24; Jn. 21).” Cf. also ibid., pp. 50-82. Cf. idem, “The Theological
Foundation of the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist,” Koinonia 31 (1988),
pp. 103-106 [in Greek].
98

the dispersed, the union of the divided, and participation in the

banquet of the kingdom. As The Didache characteristically notes
in its section on the Eucharist: “Just as this broken bread was scat-
tered upon the mountains and then was gathered together and
became one, so may your church be gathered together from the
ends of the earth into your kingdom.”17 The anticipation of the
kingdom, then, and the vision of another life that is far removed
from injustice, division, decay, and death, marks the rest of the
church’s theology and liturgical practice, as we can see, for exam-
ple, in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed,18 which has been
proclaimed at the apex of the eucharistic synaxis since the end of
the 5th century. It is also reflected in the Orthodox iconographic
tradition, which, contrary to prevailing opinion, does not attempt
to figuratively express certain divine eternal archetypes ‒ the
original, incorrupt, and ideal state of things, that is, a protology
‒ but rather an eschatology, which has in view the transfigured
and renewed world of God, filled with the uncreated light and the
future glory; not the world as it was or as it is now in its present
corrupt and temporary state, but as it will be in the eschaton, in
the kingdom of God. Orthodox iconography is not imitation and
17. The Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), 9.4. Cf. also 10.5.
English translation by J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, edited and revised
by Michael W. Holmes, in The Apostolic Fathers, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1999, p. 261. Cf. The Sacramentary of Serapion of Thmuis, 13.1. On
the eschatological interpretation of the “breaking of the bread” and the
unity of the Church, cf. Justin Taylor, “La fraction du pain en Luc-Actes,”
in the volume: J. Verheyden (ed.), The Unity of Luke-Acts, Leuven: Leuven
University Press, 1999, pp. 284 ff.
18. Cf. “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to
come.”
99

replication of the past, but a mirror of the eschaton, an iconic and

liturgical window onto the eighth day and the coming kingdom
of God, and thus onto a constantly renewed creation.19
The identity of the church, then, according to preeminent
Orthodox theologians ‒ that is, the key difference between the
church and other religions and other communities, that which
allows the church to really be the church ‒ is not the confession
of the faith, moral perfection, the therapeutic approach, or the
psychological support that it may be able to offer, but the Divine
Eucharist.20 The Divine Eucharist is not a sacramentalistic rite or
an individual religious expression of piety, nor is it an opportu-
nity to confirm and emphasize the power and dominance of a
single person or some autonomous “order” (the bishops) at the
expense of the ecclesial Body ‒ simply because of the particular
role they play in the celebration of the mystery of the synaxis ‒ or
even of the presbyters who celebrate the Eucharist in the bishop’s
name.21
19. For the eschatological interpretation of Orthodox iconography, cf.

Dimitris Bekridakis, “The Icon: ‘An Open Window on the Eighth Day’ or
the End of Art?” in the volume: Pantelis Kalaitzidis (ed.), The Church and
Eschatology, Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Winter Program 2000-
2001, Athens: Kastaniotis, 2003, pp. 223-250 [in Greek]; Fr Stamatis Skliris,
“Secularization and Eschatology in Orthodox Iconography,” Diavasi 39,
2002, pp. 3-12 [in Greek]; idem, “Free Creativity and Replication Within
the Orthodox Iconographic Tradition,” Synaxis 85, 2003, especially pp. 21-
28 [in Greek].
20. Metropolitan of Pergamon John (Zizioulas), “The Church and the
Eschaton,” in the volume: Pantelis Kalaitzidis (ed.), The Church and
Eschatology, pp. 29 ff. [in Greek].
21. As Petros Vassiliadis has noted, it was not until the 2nd century AD
100

Even less is the Divine Eucharist offered in order to promote the

role and authority of some secular ruler, of Caesar, who, according
to a convoluted piece of theocratic logic, is seen as standing in the
type and place of the Byzantine emperor, and therefore in the type
and place of Christ. On the contrary, the Divine Eucharist is the
mystery of unity and communion in the Body of Christ, which is
the church. It is the mystery of equality and participation, univer-
sal fellowship between God, our fellow man, and creation, since
in the Divine Eucharist, or rather with the Divine Eucharist as the
starting point, every kind of physical bond and hierarchy, every
sort of created and corruptible division of sex, race, nationality,
language, culture, social class, hierarchy, and origin is relativized
and overcome. The oldest and most representative example of this
is provided by the well-known passages from Acts22 referring to the
worship and life of the early Christian community of Jerusalem,
which connect the Resurrection and radical social transformation,
the Eucharist and voluntary common ownership, the eucharistic
table and the ministry of the tables. According to Acts, the first
Christians to believe in the Resurrection of Christ were dedicated
to the teaching of the apostles and to their communion with one
that special significance came to be attributed to the office of the bishop.

Nevertheless, even Ignatius of Antioch, who is well known for his
episcopocentric ecclesiology, “never imagined a ‘monarchial’ episcopal
office, as was mistakenly believed in the past. Ignatius’ conception of
the Church was purely eschatological.” Cf. Petros Vassiliadis, “Apostoli-
Diakonia-Episkopi: The Contribution of the Book of Acts to the
Development of Early Christian Ecclesiology,” in the collection of his
articles: Biblical Hermeneutical Studies, Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1988, pp.
380-381 [in Greek].
22. Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37; 6:1-6.
101

another, to the celebration of the Divine Eucharist and to prayer,

and had everything in common, with nothing separating them
and nothing distinguishing between them.23 Without this eucha-
ristic and eschatological foundation, common ownership and so-
cial engagement in general lose their sacramental depth and are
reduced to the level of activism and romantic pipedreams, while
the Eucharist, without its social verification and dynamic, ceases to
be the mystery of unity and communion, a foretaste and proleptic
manifestation of the eschaton, an act that transfigures the world
and history, and instead becomes simply a religious gathering, a
sacramentalistic rite, an individual expression of piety. The Divine
Eucharist, on the contrary, in its authentic version, even though it
is celebrated by hierarchs/priests, actually engenders the dissolu-
tion of the hierarchized world, its hierarchical structures and au-
thoritarian stratification, which reflect the fallen world’s status quo.
And this is so, first, because the Liturgy flows into the “Liturgy after
the Liturgy,” the link between the Eucharist and the mystery of uni-
ty, the Eucharist and radical social transformation, and, secondly,
because the celebration of the Liturgy presupposes the catholic
participation of the people24 and the overcoming of the mediatory
23. Cf. Chrysostom’s encomium on the example set by the common

ownership of the early Christian community and his efforts to persuade
the Christians of Constantinople to re-adopt this model: Homilies on Acts,
11, PG 60, 96-98. Cf. Homilies on First Corinthians, 10, PG 61, 85-88. With
the exception of coenobitic monasticism, we have to acknowledge that the
example of early Christian voluntary common ownership has remained
an isolated phenomenon in the history of Christianity, and in history as a
whole.
24. Cf. the etymology of the Greek word λειτουργία from λεῖτον (λαὸς)
[people] and ἔργον [work].
102

(Jewish) priesthood with the charismatic priesthood, as envisioned

by the Epistle to the Hebrews.25 Because if the Eucharist truly is
an icon and foretaste of the eschaton, and if the Eucharist really
constitutes the church and its sacraments,26 then the ecclesiastical
vocations or “offices” that are connected with it need to rediscover
their forgotten eucharistic and, by extension, eschatological foun-
dations, inasmuch as the church, as a proleptic manifestation and
expression of the kingdom of God, did not simply copy the priestly
order or hierarchical structures of the Israelite religion, but, rather,
is oriented around the person of Christ.27 The liturgical (priestly)
offices, in other words, should exist for the sake of the Eucharist,
and their raison d’être should be the celebration of the Eucharist
together with the people rather than instead of the people, serving
as an icon of the eschatological gathering of the people of God in
one place around Christ, with the bishop “in the type and place of
Christ,” and the presbyters as types of the apostles. In this perspec-
tive, the bishop, who “presides in love” at the eucharistic synaxis,
is not the vicar of Christ on earth, but a type of Christ, an icon of
Christ. The same can be said of the other vocations (“offices”) of the
25. For the replacement of the Jewish mediatory priesthood with the
charismatic priesthood of Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews, cf., from the
Eastern Orthodox perspective, the thorough analysis of Nikos Matsoukas,
Dogmatic and Creedal Theology, Vol. II, Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1985, pp.
303-305 [in Greek; Italian translation (by E. Pavlidou): Teologia dogmatica
e simbolica ortodossa, v. II, Bologna: Dehoniane, 1996, pp. 164-165].
26. See, for example, Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine
Liturgy, PG 150, 452 CD: “The Church is represented in the holy
sacraments”; and his The Life in Christ, PG 150, 585 B: the Eucharist
“supplies perfection to the other sacraments.”
27. Petros Vassiliadis, “Apostoli-Diakonia-Episkopi,” op. cit., p. 386.
103

church, none of which can be conceived independently of the eu-

charistic/catholic gathering of the whole people, which turns them
into positions of power and degrees of a separate priestly “class.”
The ecclesiastical “offices” are not above the Body, but a liturgical
ministry within the Body; they are not parallel to or given by Christ,
but are identical with those very same ministries of Christ, reveal-
ing thus that the emphasis, the “ecclesiological focus,” lies in the
eschatological ‒ not the hierarchical (and consequently authoritar-
ian) ‒ nature and structure of the church.28
With all this in mind, we can understand why the Divine Eu-
charist, in its authentic form, represents a foretaste of the eschaton
and a proleptic manifestation of the coming kingdom of God, the
Kingdom of love, justice, and freedom, since it entails “the unity
of all” and reconciliation, victory over the demonic and divisive
spirit of authoritarianism, the overcoming of the law and power,
and the decisive destruction of the power and tyranny of death.
The Eucharist and eschatology, catholicity and universality,
therefore, form the identity of the church and define the con-
sciousness of the first Christian communities. Eschatology, how-
ever, is the fundamental, although largely forgotten, dimension
of Christianity, and particularly of Orthodoxy. Christianity is
inconceivable apart from its eschatological perspective. Escha-
tology is not simply a discourse about the end times or the last
chapter in the textbooks on dogmatic theology (as is usually the
case in the old-fashioned Orthodox textbooks that have been in-
28. Petros Vassiliadis, Orthodoxy at the Crossroads, Thessaloniki: Paratiritis,

1992, pp. 53-54 [in Greek]; John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion. Stud-
ies in Personhood and the Church, Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1985, p. 163.
104

fluenced by western scholasticism). Eschatology is the basis and

the foundation of Christianity, it permeates the whole of theol-
ogy; it is, according to Florovsky, “a ‘subtle knot’ within which all
lines of theological thinking intersect and are inextricably woven
together. Eschatology cannot be discussed as a special topic, as
a separate article of belief. It can be understood only in the to-
tal perspective of the Christian faith”29; or, to recall the words of
Metropolitan of Pergamon John (Zizioulas), eschatology is “an
approach, a ‘methodological’ issue for theology.”30 It is, there-
fore, more of a stance related to the “breaking in” of the eschaton
into the present, through the window which was opened into the
world and history by Christ’s Resurrection; it refers to the new
humanity that was inaugurated by the “firstborn of all creation,”
the “firstborn from the dead.”31 Because if it is true that, with the
Incarnation, “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (Jn.
1:14), and if, with the Incarnation, God entered into history,
he himself embodying history, then, with the Resurrection, the
eschaton “broke into” history, since the Risen Son and Word of
God, the Lord of Glory, is a tangible sign of the life of the future
age, of the eschatological completion of the world and history. Of
course, the fullness of this new life will be revealed to us in the
eschaton, in the kingdom of God, but already now, with Christ’s
Resurrection, we experience a foretaste in the church, “in a mirror,
29. Georges Florovsky, “The Last Things and the Last Events,” in Creation
and Redemption: Volume III in the Collected Works of G. Florovsky,
Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1976, p. 245.
30. Jean D. Zizioulas, “Déplacement de la perspective eschatologique”, in
the volume: La Chrétienté en débat. Histoire, formes et problèmes actuels,
Colloque de Bologne, 11-15 mai 1983, Paris : Cerf, 1984, p. 91.
31. Col. 1:15, 18.
105

dimly” and “in part” (cf. 1 Cor 13:12), of this new, renewed, and
transfigured reality. The “new heaven” and the “new earth” which
the author of Revelation envisions for the future, for the eschaton,
have, for the believer, already begun, and the future Jerusalem is
already present here on earth in the eschatological mystery that is
the church.32 Thus eschatology represents something much more
than concern about “life after death” or the fundamentalist folk
eschatology which inspires fear and awe and thus spiritual sub-
mission; on the contrary, it is a foretaste even now of the life of
the future age and the active anticipation in every aspect of life
‒ including, therefore, also the social and political ‒ of the com-
ing Kingdom.33 The expected Kingdom, however, is not “from
this world,”34 it is not limited to or co-extensive with the forms of
the present age, it does not have here a “lasting city,” but rather
seeks “the city which is to come,”35 since “the form of this world
is passing away.”36 It does not use worldly means ‒ power, force,
32. Ioannis Karavidopoulos, “The Church in the NT,” op. cit., p. 44.
33. For a more complete exposition of these issues, according to Eastern
Orthodox theology, cf. Georges Florovsky, “The Last Things and the Last
Events,” op. cit., p. 245; idem, “The Patristic Age and Eschatology: An
Introduction,” in Aspects of Church History: Volume IV in the Collected
Works of G. Florovsky, Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975, pp. 63 ff.; John
Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes,
New York: Fordham University Press, 1974, pp. 218-220; Nikos Matsoukas,
Dogmatic and Creedal Theology, Vol. II, op. cit., pp. 539-540 [in Greek;
Italian translation (by E. Pavlidou): Teologia dogmatica e simbolica
ortodossa, v. II, p. 301 f.]; Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Tradition,
New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990, p. 95.
34. Cf. Jn. 18:36, “My kingship is not from this world.”
35. Cf. Heb. 13:14.
36. 1Cor. 7:31.
106

and authority ‒ to impose its will and survive,37 and it cannot be

identified with anything that we know from the past. The king-
dom of God comes to us from the future, from the renewed and
transfigured new world of God, free from the authoritarian spirit
of domination, injustice, division, decay, and death. The church
also draws its identity, its true hypostasis, from the future of the
Kingdom, since the church is not defined by the past or the pres-
ent, from that which it was or that which it is, but from that which
it will be in the eschaton, in the kingdom of God.38
We can thus understand why the church, despite all its prob-
lems and failures throughout history, has remained focused on
the vision of the eschaton, the vision of “a new heaven and a new
earth” (Rev. 21:1), of the new humanity and the new creation (2
Cor. 5:17), and why it struggles in its daily practice and prays in
its Divine Liturgy “for the unity of all” and the catholic fellow-
ship of all of us with God and our fellow human beings, striving
continually and unceasingly “that they may all be one,” as Jesus
prayed in his high priestly prayer (Jn. 17:21).
The church in history is not identified with the Kingdom, but
is en route to the Kingdom, presages the Kingdom, and offers the
possibility of participating in it. The kingdom of God is something
broader than the church, thus it is right to stress the dynamic es-
chatological nature of the church on earth and the active march
against, and victory over, evil.39 The life of the church is marked
37. Cf. Jn. 18:36; Mt. 26:52-53. Cf. also Jn. 8:23.
38. Cf., among others, John D. Zizioulas, “The Early Christian Community,”
op. cit., pp. 147-150; Metropolitan of Pergamon John (Zizioulas), “The
Church and the Eschaton,” op. cit., pp. 41 ff.; Petros Vassiliadis, Orthodoxy
at the Crossroads, op. cit., p. 106.
39. See, for example: Nikolaos Matsoukas, “Ecclesiology from the Perspective
107

by a dynamic process of becoming, a continuous transformation,

and in this way it gradually becomes the kingdom of God. The
complete identification of the church with the kingdom of God
not only objectifies the latter and misinterprets the life of the for-
mer, but also turns the church into an authoritarian institution
and traditionalist sect, a petrified organism frozen in the forms
of this world, which absolutizes the significance of the past to the
detriment of the future and also to the detriment of the activity
and presence of the Holy Spirit.40 The life of the church in history,
however, is a continuous and ceaseless struggle to defeat evil, an
active journey toward perfection and spiritual progress, a nev-
er-ending ascent from beginning (ἀρχὴ) to beginning, through
beginnings that have no end (τέλος), to recall the words of St.
Gregory of Nyssa.41 Of course, this journey includes the stigmas
of history, but also the signs (σημεῖα) of God’s gifts, a foretaste
even now of the eschatological good things (ἀγαθὰ) of unity
and freedom, justice and love, and a visible sign of readiness for
repentance (μετά-νοια),42 and openness to the future. This is why
of Trinitarian Doctrine,” Academic Yearbook of the Theological Faculty of

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 17 (1972), pp. 180-192 [in Greek].
40. Cf. ibid, pp. 180-182. For a general overview of views on eschatology
and the kingdom of God, cf. Gösta Lundström, The kingdom of God in
the Teaching of Jesus. A History of Interpretation from the Last Decades of
Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, translated by Joan Bulman, Edin-
burgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1963; George P. Patronos, The Rela-
tionship Between the Present and the Future in Orthodox Theology’s Teaching
on the kingdom of God, Athens, 1975, pp. 11-59 [in Greek].
41. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, PG 44, 401 A-B and 404 D-405 A.
42. The etymology of the Greek word μετά-νοια indicates a shift of the
nous (mind), a complete re-orientation of existence.
108

“the journey means open-mindedness and constantly waiting for

something new,” and “this journey is called ‘eschatology’.”43
The church, therefore, is not the Kingdom, but it is becoming the
Kingdom; the church is a type and icon of the Kingdom, a “type and
icon of God,” according to St. Maximus the Confessor, inasmuch as
it performs, in imitation of God, the same unifying work.44 But this
work is nullified and the anticipation of the kingdom of God cast
into oblivion whenever the church flirts with ideas of worldly power
and dreams of theocracy, whenever the life of the church ‒ as well as
society in general ‒ is ruled by a spirit of authoritarianism, which is
nothing but subjection to the tyrannical dominance of the ego, the
irrationality of the passions, and the power and authority of death.
The church, therefore, is still in statu viae (en route), and Christians
live between two decisive points ‒ the Resurrection and the eschaton
‒ finding themselves “in between,” and this determines their choices
and values. Everything is evaluated in light of the eschaton; the
Christian’s whole life is oriented toward the anticipated new world
from which the present takes its identity and hypostasis, its meaning
43. Nikos Matsoukas, “Charisma and Authority in the Ecclesiastical Way of

Life,” in: Fotios Ioannidis (ed.), Institution and Charisma in the Eastern and
Western Traditions: The Proceedings of the Sixth Inter-Christian Symposium,
Veroia, Greece, 4-9 September 1999, Thessaloniki: School of Theology,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki-Athenaeum Antonianum di Roma-
Holy Metropolis of Veroia, 2006, p. 41 [in Greek].
44. M aximus the C onfessor , Mystagogy, PG 91, 664 D. For extensive
commentary on this excerpt from St. Maximus, cf. Nikos Matsoukas,
Dogmatic and Creedal Theology, Vol. II, op. cit., pp. 356-366 [in Greek;
Italian translation (by E. Pavlidou): Teologia dogmatica e simbolica
ortodossa, v. II, pp. 196-202].
109

and purpose.45 Christians are “aliens” and “exiles” in this world (1Pt.
2:11), refusing to settle inside the world and to be identified with the
hic et nunc, because even though they live in the world, they are not
of this world.46 Without disdaining the world, they refuse to identify
their life and mission with the forms and powers of the present age.
While their faith has cosmic dimensions, they refuse to be identified
with the here and now. Without disregarding history, they refuse
to limit their purpose to the confines of history. Even though they
live within history, they refuse to be absorbed by history. While
Christianity is, at root, historical, it nevertheless is oriented toward
a reality ‒the kingdom of God‒ that is meta-historical, but which,
however, has already begun to affect and illuminate the historical
present, inasmuch as the eschaton is constantly, albeit paradoxically,
breaking into history. Christians do not worship the past, because
they are turned toward the future, the eschaton, from which they
await the fulfillment of their existence. This, however, is not a
denial of the present, because the eschaton does not destroy but
rather transforms history, turning it into eschatological history and
imbuing it with meaning and purpose.47
45. Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Concep-
tion of Time and History. London: SCM Press, 1962, pp. XIX-XXI; Savas
Agourides, “The Orthodox Christian’s Hope: The Relationship Between
the Present and the Future,” Synaxis, issue 52, 1994, esp. pp. 101-103 [in
Greek]; Ioannis Karavidopoulos, “The Church in the NT,” op. cit., pp. 40-
42 [in Greek]; Dimitris Arkadas, “The Liturgical Character of the Escha-
tology in the Gospel of John,” Deltio Biblikon Meleton (Bulletin of Biblical
Studies) v. 17, 27th year (1998), p. 65 [in Greek].
46. Cf. Phil. 3:20: “But our citizenship is in heaven”; and Heb. 13:14: “For
here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”
47. Cf. Georges Florovsky, “Le corps du Christ vivant. Une interprétation
110

All of this dictates an attitude of anticipation and expectation,

a tension between the “already” and the “not yet,” between the first
and second comings of Christ, between Christ’s Resurrection and
the anticipation of our own resurrection and the recapitulation
of history, which will mean our incorruptibility and the end of
death’s power. The bodily resurrection of humankind was one of
the primary goals of the Divine Economy, while the anticipated
general resurrection is not simply about a return to a platonic
protology, or the reclamation of an original, ideal state, but a
new creative act of God, a complete and comprehensive renewal
of all creation.48 Thus, as has been rightly said, the fullness and
identity of the church is not located in the past or the present,
in that which the church was given as an institution or in that
which it is today, but in the future, in the eschaton, in that which
it will become.49 As the scholia attributed to St. Maximus the
Confessor note, regarding symbols in the commentary on the
orthodoxe de l’Eglise,” in G. Florovsky, F-J. Leenhardt, R. Prenter et al.

(eds), La Sainte Eglise Universelle: Confrontation Œcuménique, Neuchâtel-
Paris : Delachaux et Niestlé, 1948, pp. 23-24, 31, 40 ; idem, “Christianity
and Civilization,” in Christianity and Culture: Volume II in the Collected
Works of G. Florovsky, Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1974, pp. 121-130; John D.
Zizioulas, “Eschatology and History,” in idem, The One and the Many, op.
cit., pp. 126-135; Panayiotis Nellas, “Three Biblical Presuppositions in the
Issue of Orthodoxy and Politics,” in: Witness of Orthodoxy, Athens: Hestia,
1971, pp. 169 ff. [in Greek].
48. Cf. G eorges F lorovksy , “The Patristic Age and Eschatology: An
Introduction,” in Aspects of Church History: Volume IV in the Collected
Works of G. Florovsky, Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975, pp. 67-68.
49. Cf., for example, John D. Zizioulas, “The Early Christian Communi-
ty,” op. cit., pp. 147-150; Petros Vassiliadis, Orthodoxy at the Crossroads,
p. 106 [in Greek].
111

Corpus Areopagiticum, “For the things of the Old Testament are

shadow, the things of the New Testament are image, and those of
the future state are truth.”50
50. Maximus the Confessor, Commentary on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, PG

4, 137D (today, most scholars attribute this work to John of Scythopolis,
cf. H ans U rs von B althasar , “Das Scholienwerk des Johannes von
Skythopolis,” Scholastik, 15 (1940), pp. 16-38; repr. in idem, Kosmische
Liturgie, 2nd revised edition, Einsiedeln: Johannes-Verlag, 1961, pp.
644-72; and the more recent, Paul Rorem-John C. Lamoreaux, John of
Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus: Annotating the Areopagite, Oxford/
New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1998). Cf. Gregory
Nazianzen, Oration 31, Fifth Theological Oration, PG 36, 160 D-161 A. Cf.
also Heb. 10:1 ff.
112

Chapter 6
The Church and Politics,
Ministry and Power
“I n the world, but not of the world” must in no way mean

escape from and denial of the world, nor can the vision
of the eschaton and the anticipation of the kingdom of God be
used as an excuse to deny history or to justify an individualistic
understanding of faith and salvation.
As we tried to emphasize above, history, viewed through the
prism of eschatology, is not nullified or disregarded; rather, we
are called to transform history, to change it into eschatological
history, a manifestation of the Kingdom of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit. According to noted contemporary Orthodox
biblical scholars, moreover, Christianity originally had a hori
zontal historical eschatology, which later became interwoven
with a vertical, more personalized conception of salvation.1 In
this original eschatological view, “humankind, society, and the
world move as a unit either toward perdition or toward the new
life of the kingdom of God.”2 As we, for our part, have already
emphasized, expectation of the eschaton is something active, not
passive; it is transformative, not an escape from the world; it is
located in worship and prayer, but also in action, encouraging
1. Cf. among others, the following studies by Petros Vassiliadis, “The

Eucharistic Perspective of the Mission of the Church,” op. cit., pp. 26-
30; “Apostoli-Diakonia-Episkopi,” op. cit., pp. 383 ff.; “Eschatology, the
Church, and Society,” in: P. Kalaitzidis (ed.), The Church and Eschatology,
pp. 46 ff. [in Greek; English translation forthcoming].
2. Savas Agourides, “The Orthodox Christian’s Hope: The Relationship
Between the Present and the Future,” op. cit., p. 102 [in Greek].
113

brave decisions and choices vis-à-vis the world and history, in

what we described above as the state of “in between,” a state which
leads neither to a flat rejection of the world nor to acceptance
of it in its present form;3 it refers to every aspect of our lives ‒
including, therefore, the political and the social ‒ and not just
the “sacred” or “religious.” To recall the words of the late Greek
biblical scholar Vassilis Stoyiannos, “The Church’s estrangement
from political and social reflection stands in stark contrast to the
practice of the apostles and the fathers. Instead, it limits itself to a
conventionally religious and anodyne role vis-à-vis the world. The
Church is a sojourner in the world, but at the same time it is the
leaven that changes the world... While keeping their gaze firmly
fixed on their heavenly homeland, Christians should also take an
interest in the state of things here on earth.”4 We are thus convinced
that approaching politics from an eschatological perspective is
particularly promising for jump-starting the conversation about
the relationship between the church and politics.5
3. Cf. also Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testament, New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956, pp. 4-5.
4. Vassilis Stoyiannos, The First Epistle of Peter, Interpretation of the NT
15, Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1980, p. 255 [in Greek].
5. On the perennial question of the relationship between Church and
politics, cf. particularly: Jürgen, Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground
and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, London: SCM Press, 1967;
John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, Grand Rapids, MI-Cambridge,
U.K.: William B. Eerdmans, 21994; Richard A. Horsey (ed.), Paul and
Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation. Essays in Honor of Krister
Stendahl, Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000. Cf. also on the
same question from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, Georges Florovksy,
“The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church,” in Christianity and
Culture: Volume II in the Collected Works of G. Florovsky, op. cit., pp. 131-
114

the church and politics, ministry and power
If, then, the church is the eucharistic community that experiences

a foretaste of the eschaton and depicts the kingdom of God within
history, and if the church ‒ as a new communion in a dynamic
march toward perfection, transfiguration, and the defeat of evil
‒ provides a “new” way of life, then we should finally be able to
overcome, in practice, the idea of the church as an individual affair,
as well as the attendant theology of individual salvation. Even writers
who do not subscribe to the historical/eschatological perspective
‒ who subscribe instead to the so-called “therapeutic ecclesiology
and spirituality,” such as the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum
‒ even they do not depart from that which is common to both
142; Panayiotis Nellas, “Three Biblical Presuppositions in the Issue of Or-

thodoxy and Politics,” op. cit., pp. 153-186 [in Greek]; Vassilis Stoyian-
nos, Revelation and Politics, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessalo-
niki, 1985 [in Greek]; O. Clément, Orthodoxy and Politics, Athens: Minima,
1985 [in Greek]; Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “A Politicized Ecclesiastical
Space,” in the collection of his articles: Itinerancy and Referentiality: Criti-
cal Approaches to Theological Events, Athens: Armos, 1998, pp. 121-138 [in
Greek]; idem, Social Justice and Orthodox Theology. Athens: Akritas, 2001
[in Greek]; Emmanuel Clapsis, “Politics and Christian Faith,” The Greek Or-
thodox Theological Review, 37 (1992), pp. 99-103; now published in his col-
lection of papers: Orthodoxy in Conversation: Orthodox Ecumenical Engage-
ments, Geneva-Brookline, MA: WCC Publications-Holy Cross Orthodox
Press, 2000, pp. 221-224; Dimitris Arkadas, “Power and the Church: Polit-
ical Aspects of Eschatological Ecclesiology,” Synaxis, issue 79, 2001, pp. 89-
97 [in Greek]; Vassilis Adrachtas, “The Political Dimension of Eschatology,”
in: Pantelis Kalaitzidis (ed.), The Church and Eschatology, op. cit., pp. 251-
262 [in Greek; English translation forthcoming]; Petros Vassiliadis, “Ortho-
dox Christianity [and Politics],” in: Jacob Neusner (ed.), God’s Rule. The Poli-
tics of World Religion, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003,
pp. 185-205.
115

biblical and patristic thoughts: “For a start, let us reverently behold

what is above all characteristic of this, though also of the other
hierarchic sacraments, namely, that which is especially referred to
as ‘Communion’ and ‘gathering’ [synaxis]. Every sacredly initiating
operation draws our fragmented lives together into a one-like
divinization. It forges a divine unity out of the divisions within us.
It grants us communion and union with the One.”6
As Fr Georges Florovsky never tired of saying, following here
the entirety of the ancient patristic tradition, both East and West,
the early Christians’ choice of the term “Ecclesia” to define their
identity underlines their awareness that they belonged to a body, a
community, and a communion ‒ eschatological and, in this case,
also divine ‒ as well as the social, communal, and corporeal nature
6. Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 3.1, PG 3, 424C. English translation by Colm

Luibheid, in Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works, Foreword, Notes,
and Translation Collaboration by Paul Rorem, Preface by René Roques,
Introductions by Jaroslav Pelikan, Jean Leclerq, and Karlfried Froehlich,
New York-Mahawah: Paulist Press, 1987, p. 209. On this inclusion of
the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum in the so-called “therapeutic
ecclesiology and spirituality,” cf. particularly: Petros Vassiliadis, “Eucharistic
and Therapeutic Spirituality,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review,
42 (1997), pp. 11 ff.; Kenneth Paul Wesche, “Christological Doctrine and
Liturgical Interpretation in Pseudo-Dionysius,” St Vladimir’s Theological
Quarterly, 33 (1989), pp. 53-73; cf. idem, St Vladimir’s Theological
Quarterly, 34 (1990), pp. 324-327. Hieromonk Professor Alexander Golitzin
offers a dissenting view in a variety of publications. For an overview of his
argument, cf. his articles: “On the Other Hand: A Response to Fr Paul
Wesche’s Recent Article on Dionysius,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly,
34 (1990), pp. 305-323; “Dionysius Areopagite in the Works of St Gregory
Palamas: On the Question of a ‘Christological Corrective’ and Related Mat-
ters,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 46 (2002), pp. 163-190.
116

of Christian existence, which was encapsulated in the old Latin

saying: “Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus” (One Christian,
no Christian).7 Thus, Christianity, according to Florovsky, “is
essentially a social religion... It is not primarily a doctrine or a
discipline that individuals might adopt for their personal use and
guidance. Christianity is exactly a community, i.e., the church.”8
Florovsky continues: “From the very beginning Christianity was
socially minded. The whole fabric of Christian existence is social
and corporate. All Christian sacraments are intrinsically ‘social
sacraments,’ i.e., sacraments of incorporation. Christian worship
is also a corporate worship, ‘publica et communis oratio,’ in the
phrase of St. Cyprian. To build up the church of Christ means,
therefore, to build up a new society and, by implication, to re-build
human society on a new basis. There was always a strong emphasis
on unanimity and life in common. One of the earliest names for
Christians was simply ‘Brethren.’ The church was and was to be a
creaturely image of the divine pattern. Three Persons, yet One God.
Accordingly, in the church, many are to be integrated into one
Body.”9 Again, according to Florovsky, “The early Church was not
just a voluntary association for ‘religious’ purposes. It was rather
the New Society, even the New Humanity, a polis or politeuma, the
true City of God, in the process of construction... The church was
conceived as an independent and self-supporting social order, as a
7. Cf. particularly Georges Florovsky, “Le corps du Christ vivant. Une in-
terprétation orthodoxe de l’Eglise,” op. cit., pp. 13-15. Cf. Vassilis Stoyian-
nos, The First Epistle of Peter, op. cit., pp. 230-231 [in Greek].
8. G eorges F lorovsky , “The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox
Church,” op. cit., p. 131.
9. G eorges F lorovsky , “The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox
Church,” op. cit., pp. 131-132.
117

new social dimension, a peculiar systema patridos, as Origen put it.

Early Christian felt themselves, in the last resort, quite outside of the
existing social order, simply because for them the church itself was
an ‘order,’ an extra-territorial ‘colony of Heaven’ on earth (Phil. 3:20,
Moffatt’s translation). Nor was this attitude fully abandoned even
later when the empire, as it were, came to terms with the church.”10
The church and politics, then, are not compartmentalized, with the
first relegated to the so-called spiritual sphere of human life and the
second to the material or worldly, as it is often maintained. Rather,
the church desires to transform and save the whole human person
(body and soul, spirit and matter), as well as every aspect of human
life. Hence, Christ, according to the Fourth Ecumenical Council
of Chalcedon, assumed “without confusion,” “unchangeably,”
“inseparably,” and “indivisibly,” the whole person together with
human nature and history in its entirety, and thus also the political,
social, and economic aspects of this life, not just its spiritual
or religious dimensions. Because, as St. Gregory Nazianzen
characteristically remarks: “What is not assumed cannot be healed,
and what was united to God is saved”11; or as St. John of Damascus
explains this position: “But we hold that to the whole of human
nature the whole essence of the Godhead was united. For God
the Word omitted none of the things which he implanted in our
nature when he formed us in the beginning, but took them all upon
himself, body and soul both intelligent [noetic] and rational, and
all their properties. For the creature that is devoid of one of these is
10. Georges Florovsky, “The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox

Church,” op. cit., p. 132. Cf. also idem, “Christianity and Civilization,” in
ibid., pp. 125-126.
11. Letter 101, PG 37, 181C-184A.
118

not man. But he in his fullness took upon himself me in my fullness,

and was united whole to whole that he might in his grace bestow
salvation on the whole man. ‘For what is not assumed cannot be
healed’.”12 Therefore, the idea that the church should only concern
itself with religious/spiritual issues, with the realm of the sacred,
leaving to others the area of the so-called material and profane,
is fundamentally flawed and actually “Manichean.” The goal of
salvation refers to the entirety of human life ‒ as we are continually
reminded by the Greek word σωτηρία, from the adjective σῶος,
which means whole, entire, undivided, non-fragmented.
This is not to say, however, that there is not an important,
fundamental difference between the church and politics. This
distinction, however, is not to be found in the areas of life that
each one claims for itself ‒ and it often happens, in fact, that they
claim the same areas ‒ but rather in the ways in which the church
and politics realize their (political) visions. The ecclesiastical way
is ‒ or, in any event, should be ‒ the way of love, freedom, and
charismatic service (diakonia), a foretaste, glimpse, and witness
of and to another life, which without disdaining or abandoning
history, takes its existence from a meta-historical reality, the
eschaton, and is related to both the “now” of history and the “not
yet” of the Kingdom. The way of power, on the other hand, is
characterized by force, domination, and legal or institutional
coercion, since it is trapped, suffocating, within the box of history,
without the prospect or hope of exit offered by the “not yet” of the
12. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, III.6, English translation by

E.W. Watson and L. Pullan, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second
Series, Vol. 9, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Buffalo, NY:
Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1899.
119

Kingdom.13 The ways and means of realizing the church’s political

vision must never resemble those of the state, but neither should they
resemble the approaches that challenge the state’s authority from a
purely this-world perspective. The church’s involvement in politics
cannot, therefore, entail state-sponsored or revolutionary violence,
let alone the imposition of its “platform” in the state’s political arena.
The church cannot betray its essence and mission by taking on the
form and power of this age, or imposing its views and presence
on public life. What is needed from the church is the renewal and
transfiguration of the world, calling it to repentance (a change of
mind, a re-orientation of its whole existence), and announcing the
good news of the Kingdom: “the blind receive their sight, the lame
walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor
have good news brought to them” (Lk. 7:22). What is not needed is for
the church to be present in the public sphere by any means necessary,
appealing one moment to its contributions to the Orthodox nation’s
struggle for survival, and the next using marketing techniques to
promote its social utility or efficacy, or functioning as the ideological
organ of any particular type of regime “(“Greek Orthodox”/anti-
Communist in the past, in the case of Greece, anti-western/anti-
European in recent times, in many Eastern Orthodox cases).
Therefore, there is a radical difference ‒ or, at least, there should
be ‒ between the church’s version of politics and the worldly or state
version in terms of content, scope, and implementation. Indeed, the
content of the church’s political message is, first and foremost, that
every human being is an icon of God, that each and every “other” is
an icon of the “Other” par excellence, especially the weak, the victims
13. Cf. also N. Matsoukas, “Charisma and Authority in the Ecclesiastical

Way of Life,” op. cit., pp. 34-36.
120

of sin or injustice, and the least of our brothers and sisters in Christ,
which measures our love and, consequently, our relationship with
God and the degree to which the eschatological mystery of unity
has been realized.14 “The Church’s version of politics is to ‘witness’
to another, transformed way of life, that which exists in living
eucharistic communities, where freedom in love reigns, where
‘grace’ transcends the ‘law’, where the ‘first’ act as the ‘last’, where
we see Christ himself in ‘the least of these who are members of my
family (Mt. 25:40). This way of life cannot help but lead to solidarity
with the victims of society and history. And then the Church’s word,
as the breath of the Spirit in history, must become ‘hard’, since the
Church’s role in society is to be prophetic and pioneering, denouncing
reified structures of injustice and exploitation and ministering to the
persons and groups that have been wronged and exploited. This is a
‘dangerous’ Christianity and a ‘dangerous’ Church ‒ for the forces of
injustice, that is.”15 The church’s version of politics, then, is directed
at “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (cf. Mt. 5:6), not
in order to succumb to the temptation that Christ rejected and to
miraculously ‒ or, according to Dostoevsky’s ingenious conception
in The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, in an authoritarian and magical
way ‒ transform stones into bread,16 but to expose the hideous and
tyrannical face of every repressive authority (religious, political,
14. Cf. also Mt. 25:31-46; 1Cor. 13:1-13; 1Jn. 3:11-4:21.

15. Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias, “Authority and Diakonia in the
Life and Structures of the Church,” in: Church, Ecumene, Politics: Festschrift
of Metropolitan of Andrianoupolis Damaskinos, Athens: Interparliamentary
Assembly on Orthodoxy, 2007, p. 78 [in Greek].
16. Cf. Mt. 4:3-4; Lk. 4:3-4. Cf. also N. Berdyaev’s brilliant analysis in
Dostoevsky: An Interpretation, transl. by Donald A. Attawater, London:
Sheed & Ward, 1936 pp. 188-212.
121

economic), to reveal the spiritual depth, the hidden Christological

dimension of social and political action on behalf of our neighbor,
as Berdyaev brilliantly summarized in his famous aphorism: “Bread
for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual
question.”17 In The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, Dostoevsky
explored not only the temptation of power, but also the repressive
authoritarian spirit which, as we never seem to tire of saying (with
a hint of self-righteousness) has, in the institution of the papacy,
replaced Christ himself. But rather this story should serve as a mirror
in which we begin to see the image of our own ecclesiastical self, the
present spiritual and ecclesiology situation of “Greek” Orthodoxy or
even of Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole, and the extent to which our
own ecclesiastical life and piety are dominated by the same spirit
and the same temptation.
The church’s political discourse, then, must never lose sight of
the fundamental importance in Christian consciousness of an active
expectation of the kingdom of God, nor content itself with the now
familiar themes of the defense of the nation and national continuity,
ethno-cultural identity, or the demographic problem ‒ which, of
course, are neither issues nor priorities in the kingdom of God. The
church’s obligation, according to the example set by its founder, is to
voluntarily withdraw from the quest for worldly power and authority;
to fight the temptation to become a power itself or to desire to become
involved in politics in an authoritarian way ‒ to become established, in
other words, within history, forgetting its eschatological orientation.
“The Church does not serve as a religious power acting in parallel
to the state’s worldly power, quite simply because it is not a power at
all, but rather the eschatological and charismatic people of God who
17. Cf. Nicolas Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism, p. 185.
122

are peacefully incorporated into their social surroundings in order to

sanctify them and transform them.”18
The church, then, is in the world, without being of this world;19
it lives and moves within history, without drawing its roots from
history, but rather from the eschaton, inasmuch as it constitutes an
“icon” of the eschaton and a “symbol” of the Kingdom. Thus, not only
should the church not behave in an authoritarian manner, as if it were
Caesar, placing its hope and expectations on its worldly effectiveness,
but, on the contrary, by giving account of “the hope that is in you”
(cf. 1Pt. 3:15), it is called to actualize and proclaim the overcoming
of the authoritarian spirit in its life, structures, and administration, as
well as in the world at large. The church, of course, ought to be open
to the world and dialogue with it, not in order to imitate the Caesars
of the world and to copy the spirit of domination that characterizes
such figures, but in order to preach the good news of salvation, to
infuse the world with its ethos of love, service, and freedom, thus
preparing for and announcing the eschaton. “Caesar belongs to the
objectivized world: he is subject to necessity. But Spirit belongs to the
realm of freedom. The relationships between Church and state have
been, and always will be, contradictory and they present an insoluble
problem... The final victory of spirit over Caesar is possible only in
the eschatological perspective. Until then, men will live under the
hypnosis of authority, and this includes the life of the Church, which,
itself, may turn out to be one of the forms of Caesar's realm.”20
18. Petros Vassiliadis, “Church-State Relations in the New Testament,” op.

cit., pp. 444.
19. Cf. Jn. 18:36. Cf. also Jn. 3:3, 8:23, 17:16.
20. Nicolas Berdyaev, The Realm of Spirit and the Realm of Caesar, transl.
Donald A. Lowrie, London: Victor Gollancz, 1952, pp. 73-74, 80.
123

We could, then, reasonably argue that the measure of the

authenticity and spiritual maturity of the ecclesial life is the
degree to which authority and the authoritarian spirit have
been overcome: when the church realizes freedom in Christ in
its life and structures, and when Christians mature beyond the
infancy of their spiritual life, which is marked by the rule of the
passions and the custodian of the law,21 and approach the stage of
spiritual maturity and perfection, “mature manhood,” and “the
measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), then both the
law and power are overcome through love and freedom. Love, as
an eschatological virtue, as a triumph of freedom, not only “casts
out fear” (1Jn. 4:18), but also, by specifying the manner of God’s
existence, provides the measure and criterion of His presence in
our lives and our nearness to him: “God is love, and those who
abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”22
However, because the church does not exist for itself but
for the world and for the sake of the world, “for the life of the
world,”23 the overcoming of power and the authoritarian spirit in
its life and structures ought to have implications for the life of
the world. Indeed, the more the church transforms the world, the
more the authoritarian spirit recedes from the life and structures
of the world. And the more the church, with this change for the
better (καλή ἀλλοίωσις), works out the renewal of the world ‒
and is not itself changed or alienated from what it is by the spirit
of the world, the spirit of the power of this age ‒ the more the
21. Cf. 1Cor. 13:9-13; Gal. 3:23-25; 1Tim. 1:8-11.

22. 1Jn. 4:16; cf. also the broader context of 1Jn. 3:11-4:21 as well as the
“gospel of judgment” in Mt. 25:31-46.
23. Cf. Jn. 6:51.
124

world becomes the church and not vice versa, the more the spirit
of power and domination withers and in its place blooms love,
freedom, and charismatic service (diakonia), the more the life
of the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
without law, powers, and authorities, is revealed within history.
Conversely, when the church is absorbed by the world, when it
becomes established in it, forgetting its eschatological orientation,
when it conforms itself to the spirit of the world, rather than
inspiring it with the Spirit of the Lord, then the church becomes
more and more authoritarian and bureaucratic, claiming a share
of worldly power, seeking the same worldly goals and objectives,
adopting the language, style, and practices of the latter, either
using the methods of advertising, marketing, and self-promotion,
or expressing nostalgia for a theocracy of the past, or even
declaring all sorts of “holy wars.” With the spirit of untamed
authoritarianism prevailing everywhere today, does this mean that
the spirit of the world has taken over the church and turned it ‒ as
well as its eschatological watchman, monasticism ‒ into a power
and authority of this age? Has the allure and temptation of power
‒ which can be discerned among many members of the church’s
clergy, particularly those who tend to recount or promise miracles
and signs, or who overemphasize the sacrament of confession ‒
ultimately led to a reversal of roles between the church and the
world? Can it be that not only does the church not transform the
world and export its spirit of freedom and love which ought to
distinguish it, but instead the church imports the foreign concepts
of submission and fear, of control and the subjugation of one’s
conscience, of domination and authoritarianism, without its
members appearing to have the wherewithal or spiritual maturity
to prevent it?
125

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be a new phenomenon in

the life of the church. This is why the ecclesial self-consciousness
pointed it out and denounced it right from the beginning, replacing
power with ministry and service, and clearly distinguishing between
the worldly and the eschatological kingdoms: “But Jesus called
them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles
lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It
will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among
you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among
you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”24 From
the very beginning of the gospel of salvation, when Elizabeth met
Mary the Mother of God, the latter’s doxological hymn highlighted
the message of liberation and anti-authoritarianism, the reversal
of values and priorities that was being inaugurated in light of the
Kingdom: “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered
the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the
powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled
the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”25
When the mother of the sons of Zebedee asked Jesus, in their
name, for honor and primacy in the kingdom of God, Jesus replied
with words that resonate throughout time as a radical critique of
power and as praise for humble-mindedness, a complete reversal
of the worldly hierarchy of values, of first and last, masters
and slaves. To the worldly conception of primacy as power, he
responds with the primacy of love and service. In the perspective
24. Mt. 20:25-28. Cf. also Lk. 22:25-27, particularly the final verse: “But I
am among you as one who serves.”
25. Lk. 1:51-53.
126

of the Kingdom, domination and power are transformed into

love and service, into voluntary servitude to others and for the
sake of others, since their persons bear the image of the “Other”
par excellence. This “Other” par excellence, however, does not
just provide us with material for sermons and teaching about
the spirit of love and service, but himself becomes living and
incarnate Love and Service, the incarnate example of sacrifice
and service, whether it be with his kenotic Incarnation, or with
the acts/signs of his earthly life ‒which are types of the new life
in Christ, such as washing his disciples’ feet‒ or, finally, whether
it be with the “extreme humility” of his sacrifice on the cross. The
“Other” par excellence, however, He Who Was, Who Is, and Who
Is to Come, also defines in an “other” way the origin, content, and
means for bringing about and safeguarding his Kingdom. It is not
simply, as we have already noted several times, that his Kingdom
“is not from this world,”26 or that ministry and service replace
authority and power, or simply that his “power is made perfect
in weakness,”27 or that saving one’s soul presupposes losing it.28
It is also that the way to safeguard this Kingdom, in the words
of the King of Glory himself, as a kind of permanent legacy and
reminder to his church against the easy temptation to declare
all sorts of “holy wars,” and against the convenience of being
juxtaposed against worldly power, using the methods and terms
of the latter: “My kingship is not from this world; if my kingship
were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me
from being handed over to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is
26. Jn. 18:36. Cf. also Jn. 3:3, 8:23, 17:16.

27. Cf. 2Cor. 12:9-10.
28. Mt. 16:25, 10:38; Lk. 17:33; Jn. 12:25.
127

not from here.”29 And also to Simon Peter, who tried to defend
his teacher by means foreign to the Kingdom, that is, by using his
sword to cut off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest,
who came to arrest Jesus,30 Jesus said: “Put your sword back into
its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at
once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”31 Hence, the
new world of the kingdom of God, which has already begun and
which awaits completion at the eschaton, is defined by the peace
of God, freedom, love, and service (diakonia). In this new world,
there is no room for fear and punishment, power and oppression,
since these are consequences of sin and expressions of the fallen
world, which are destined to be overcome in the eschaton.
But it is in the classic, late 2nd century Christian text, The Epistle
to Diognetus, with its strong eschatological orientation, that
we encounter the best example of the nexus of the relationship
between eschatology and power, and eschatology and history, as
well as the paradoxical place of Christians in the world, that is,
the tension between our citizenship in heaven (cf. Phil. 3:20) and
the demands of our earthly homeland ‒ the dialectic, in other
words, between the present and the future, between affirmation
and denial of the world, and, as regards our current topic, between
participation in politics (the life of the city) and transcending
politics, between respect for and obedience toward the law and
institutionalized power, and transcendence and abrogation of the
law and power. In this text, we read:
29. Jn. 18:36.

30. Jn. 18:10-11; Mt. 26:51.
31. Mt. 26:52-53.
128

For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by

country, language or custom. For nowhere do they live in cities of their
own, nor do they speak some unusual dialect, nor do they practice an
eccentric life-style... But while they live in both Greek and barbarian
cities, as each one’s lot was cast, and follow the local customs in dress
and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the
remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship.
They live in their own countries, but only as aliens; they participate
in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every
foreign country is their fatherland, and every fatherland is foreign. They
marry like everyone else, and have children; but they do not expose their
offspring. They share their food but not their wives. They are “in the
flesh,” but they do not live “according to the flesh.” They live on earth,
but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws; indeed
in their private lives they transcend the laws.32
In the perspective encapsulated here in this passage from The

Epistle to Diognetus, it is important for us to understand that, in
the ecclesial way of life, no change or progress is imposed from
the outside. The Christian virtues or characteristics described in
the excerpt above cannot be legislated in a worldly way, as if they
were the goals of some political agenda or obligations according to
some code of conventional morality. Rather, they arise voluntarily
as the natural concomitant of the re-orientation of existence
in light of the Kingdom, as a natural consequence of conscious
participation in the ecclesial/eucharistic life and of progress in
the spiritual life. According to The Epistle to Diognetus, Christians’
32. The Epistle to Diognetus, 5:1-3, 4-10, English translation from Apostolic
Fathers, trans. by Lightfoot, Harmer & Holmes, 1999, p. 541.
129

lives are such that they have no need for laws. Christian life, when
it is genuine, leads inevitably to transcendence of the ego and
the spirit of authoritarianism, to the abrogation of the law and
authority,33 to a unique, Christian, and eschatological anarchism.34
All this, however, pertains to Christians, those who choose as
their rule of life the scandal of the Cross and the foolishness of
the Resurrection, those who live in a state “in between,” who base
their whole existence on the eschaton and the anticipated new
world, from which the present takes its identity and hypostasis,
its meaning and its purpose. Thus, any attempt to impose ‒
through political means ‒ biblical, ecclesiastical, or ascetical
standards on public life, and indeed on citizens who are not or
who do not desire to become Christians, is incomprehensible.
Christian ethics are anarchical because they are eschatological
and cross-centered, and because they are ‒ following the example
33. Cf. 1Tim. 1:8-11; 1Cor. 13:9-13; Gal. 3:23-25. Cf. also Vassilis Adrachtas,
“The Political Dimension of Eschatology,” in: Pantelis Kalaitzidis (ed.),
The Church and Eschatology, op. cit., p. 261.
34. We could also include in this line of thought the well-known passage
by S aint M aximus the C onfessor in Mystagogy (PG 91, 709D-712A)
about the three categories of believers (slaves, hired servants, sons) and
the corresponding spiritual degrees or stages (fear, reward, freedom) that
govern them. It is also telling that even the biblical passages which urge
obedience to legitimate authority (Rom. 13:1-7; Tit. 3:1; 1Pt. 2:13-17; Jn.
19:11; Mt. 22:21) either make this obedience conditional on its conformity
to the law of God (cf. “We must obey God rather than any human
authority,” Acts 5:29) and restrict it to the sphere of the created/given
nature of worldly authority, or they seek obedience “for the Lord’s sake” or
“for conscience’s sake,” or, finally, they buttress this obedience with service
and love. This, however, is an enormous issue which we will have to take
up another time.
130

of Jesus Christ ‒ ascetical ethics of the voluntary surrender of the

ego and individual self-sufficiency, power, and authority. Hence,
the church’s every entanglement with power, its every attempt to
establish a Christian state, and its every daydream of returning
to an ideal theocratic “Christian” society or empire, constitute an
aberration, distortion, and contradiction in terms.
When the church forgets this, when its eschatological vision ‒
the vision of the kingdom of God ‒ is usurped by the temptation to
be vindicated within history and to identify with one form or one
period of history (which is deemed “Christian”), then the church
reverts from a symbol of the eschaton, a foretaste of the Kingdom
of love and freedom, to an institutionalized and authoritarian
organization. Then the kingdom of God is conceived in terms of
the political forms of the past and is identified with the vision of
a “Christian ecumene” and Byzantine theocracy, which results in
an authoritarian understanding of the Kingdom realized within
history. The church no longer draws its hypostasis from the
eschaton but rather from history, and instead of a foretaste of the
Kingdom, the church declares itself to be the worldly Kingdom.
The church is transformed from a community that is open to
the future and its challenges into one that yearns for the past
and its political forms.35 It no longer yearns for the eschaton, the
kingdom of God, and the Coming Lord, but instead for a return
to a “Christian” empire and Byzantine theocracy ‒ a theocracy
which, just as in ancient Israel or ancient Rome,36 blurs the line
35. Cf. the excellent analysis by Dimitris Arkadas in “Power and the Church:
Political Aspects of Eschatological Ecclesiology,” op. cit., pp. 89-97, from
which we have borrowed some of the preceding discussion.
36. Cf. the Dictionary of Biblical Theology, transl. from French under the
131

between the worldly and the religious spheres, between the realms
of Caesar and God, and about which Fr Florovsky leveled such a
devastating critique ‒ which we, however, try to ignore:
The “Holy Empire” of the Middle Ages was an obvious failure, both
in its Western and its Eastern forms. It was at once an utopia and a
compromise. The “old world” was still continuing under the Christian
guise. Yet it did not continue unchanged. The impact of the Christian
faith was conspicuous and profound in all walks of life. The faith of the
Middle Ages was a courageous faith, and the hope was impatient. People
really did believe that “this world” could be “christened” and converted,
not only that it was “forgiven.” There was a firm belief in the possibility of
an ultimate renewal of the entire historical existence. In this conviction
all historical tasks have been undertaken. There was always a double
danger involved in the endeavor: to mistake partial achievements for
ultimate ones, or to be satisfied with relative achievements, since the
ultimate goal was not attainable. It is here that the spirit of compromise is
rooted... The story of Byzantium was an adventure in Christian politics.
It was an unsuccessful and probably an unfortunate experiment. Yet it
should be judged on its own terms... Byzantium had failed, grievously
failed, to establish an unambiguous and adequate relationship between
the Church and the larger Commonwealth. It did not succeed in
unlocking the gate of the Paradise Lost. Yet nobody else has succeeded,
either. The gate is still locked. The Byzantine key was not a right one. So
were all other keys, too. And probably there is no earthly or historical
direction of P. Joseph Cahill and E. M. Stewart, London-Dublin: Geoffrey

Chapman, 1973, pp. 37-39; Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testa-
ment, op. cit. pp. 8-10, 52-53; Georges Florovksy, “Antinomies of Chris-
tian History: Empire and Desert,” in Christianity and Culture: Volume II in
the Collected Works of G. Florovsky, op. cit., pp. 70-71, 75-76.
132

key for that ultimate lock. There is but an eschatological key, the true
“Key of David.” Yet Byzantium was for centuries wrestling, with fervent
commitment and dedication, with a real problem.37
37. G. Florovksy, “Antinomies of Christian History,” op. cit., pp. 97,

77, 99-100. Cf idem, “Christianity and Civilization,” in Christianity and
Culture: Volume II in the Collected Works of G. Florovsky, Belmont, MA:
Nordland, 1974, p. 130. There is an interesting theological discussion of
and contemporary engagement with Florovsky’s views on this issue in:
Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “Empire and Desert: The History and the
Antinomies in the Thought of Fr G. Florovsky,” Synaxis, issue 64, 1997,
esp. pp. 38 ff. [in Greek]. For a systematic analysis of the causes and
stages that led to a secularized Byzantine eschatology, cf. Savas Agourides,
“Religious Eschatology and State Ideology in the Byzantine Tradition, the
Post-Byzantine Period, and the Modern Greek State,” in the collection of
his articles: Theology and Current Affairs, Athens: “Artos Zois,” 1996, pp.
49-58 [in Greek]; idem, “The Roots of the Great Idea,” in the collection
of his articles: Theology and Society in Dialogue, Athens: “Artos Zois,”
1999, pp. 15-22 [in Greek]. For the mutation of this phenomenon into
the current ecclesiastical status quo, cf. P. Kalaitzidis, “The Temptation of
Judas: Church and National Identities,” in: Theodore G. Stylianopoulos
(ed.), Sacred Text and Interpretation: Perspectives in Orthodox Biblical Stud-
ies. Papers in Honour of Professor Savas Agourides, Brookline, MA: Holy
Cross Orthodox Press, 2006, pp. 355-377, republished in The Greek Ortho-
dox Theological Review, 47 (2002), pp. 357-379. For a dissenting opinion
from Florovsky, which defends the Byzantine experiment in cooperation
between kingdom and priesthood, cf. N. Matsoukas, Dogmatic and Creedal
Theology, vol. III, Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1997, pp. 298 ff. [in Greek].
133

Chapter 7
Eschatology or Theocracy?
God or Caesar?
G od and Caesar define two distinct realities, two areas with

incompatible ways of life, which are locked in a constantly
dialectical relationship. Jesus Christ revealed love, kenosis, and
service (diakonia)1 as God’s mode of existence (τρόπος ὑπάρξεως).
Indeed, love emerges as an eschatological reality, as the virtue of
the future age, or more accurately, the only virtue that will remain
in the future age, in the eschaton, just as St. Paul seems to indicate
in his famous hymn to love in 1Corinthians.2 The way of Caesar,
on the other hand, is oppression and domination, fear and power.
In our examination of politics in light of eschatology, we are not
trying to incorporate God and his church into the way of Caesar
or his realm, but rather our aim is to shed light on the issue and
liberate politics, opening it up to eschatology. The church can
and should transform politics with its eschatological perspective,
liberating it from subjugation to the spirit of authoritarianism,
turning it into service “with the knowledge that the Lord of
history is Christ. Coming again in glory, he will defeat evil and
injustice; in the meantime, however, in this period of tension, we
are his ‘hands.’ The Church can contribute to the ‘resurrection
of politics,’ but only when it is a ‘Church of the cross,’ that is, of
sacrifice and service.”3
The church is a journey to the eschaton and not a return to
1. Cf., for example, 1Jn. 4:7-21. Cf. also Jn. 15:9-17, 17:24-26.
2. 1Cor. 13:8-13. Cf. also Rom. 8:35-39; Heb. 10:24-25.
3. Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias, “Authority and Diakonia in the Life
and Structures of the Church,” in: Church, Ecumene, Politics, op. cit., p. 79.
135

some particular tradition, to some idealized “Christian” society

or empire. While historical events and disregard of the church’s
eschatological vision may have led to a movement to return to the
past, to romantic or totalitarian-type visions, we must remember
that this represents Orthodoxy’s perennial temptation and not its
true identity, which instead comes from the eschaton, from the
future of the Kingdom.
For the church to be able to speak to us today, to preach the
good news of the Kingdom to the modern world ‒ and not to the
irreversibly bygone world of yesterday ‒ it is more urgent now
than ever that it move beyond its ethnocentric discourse, that
it abandon any illusion of returning to Byzantine theocracy, or
any other romantic, anti-modern idea of “Christian society,” like
“Holy Russia,” the sacralized Balkan monarchies, etc. Theocracy
and neo-nationalism, which are simply secularized forms of
eschatology,4 can no longer be the church’s vision for politics,
standing, as we do, decades after Florovsky’s radical theological
critique of the “Holy Empire” as a miserable failure dismantled
any illusion of Byzantium as the supreme and ultimate stage of
the realization of the kingdom of God on earth.
All of this, of course, will be just hollow words and wishful
thinking if it is not accompanied by our acknowledgment and
acceptance, finally, of the achievements of Western modernity and
the reality of multi-cultural societies, and by serious theological
4. Cf. Nicolas Berdyaev, The Realm of Spirit and the Realm of Caesar, p.
71: “Theocracies were one of the temptations through which Christianity
had to pass. This was not limited to theocracy in the medieval sense of the
word, but included ‘Christian’ states, which were always Christian only in a
symbolic, not a real sense, and which compromised Christianity.”
136

eschatology or theocracy? god or ceasar?
study and dialogue with the fast-approaching (or even already here,
according to some) postmodernity. The church’s identification
with Byzantium, and with traditional and agrarian societies, and
its refusal to accept modernity is the most intractable pastoral and
theological problem today, which makes any attempt at dialogue
between the church and the world utterly futile, for the very
simple reason that the societies which the church is addressing
are inconceivable outside the wider framework of modernity.
We are therefore compelled to admit that Orthodoxy has yet
to really encounter modernity, and that we are still waiting for
a productive meeting and (why not?) even a synthesis between
the two. Orthodoxy seems to be systematically avoiding such an
encounter,5 while modernity appears to just ignore Orthodoxy
5. There are a few notable exceptions to this defensiveness, mainly

represented by the following studies: Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Orthodoxy and
Modernity. An Introduction, Athens: Indiktos, 2007 [in Greek; English
translation by Elizabeth Theokritoff forthcoming by St Vladimir’s Semi-
nary Press]; Pantelis Kalaitzidis-Nikos Ntontos (eds), Orthodoxy and Mo-
dernity, Volos Academy winter program 2001-02, Athens: Indiktos, 2007
[in Greek]; Assaad Elias Kattan-Fadi Georgi, (eds.), Thinking Modernity.
Towards a Reconfiguration of the Relationship Between Orthodox Theolo-
gy and Modern Culture, Tripoli, Lebanon/Münster: St John of Damascus
Institute of Theology, University of Balamand/Center for Religious Stud-
ies, University of Münster, 2010; Assaad Elias Kattan, “La théologie ortho-
doxe interpelée par l’herméneutique moderne,” Contacts, nº 234, 2011, pp.
180-196. See also, Petros Vassiliadis, Postmodernity and the Church: The
Challenge for Orthodoxy, Athens: Akritas, 2002 [in Greek]; Georges N. Na-
has, “Théologie orthodoxe et modernité”, Contacts, nº 234, 2011, pp. 154-
167; Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Ist das orthodoxe Christentum in der Vormo-
derne stehengeblieben? Das Bedürfnis nach einer neuen Inkarnation des
Wortes und das eschatologische Verständnis der Tradition und des Ver-
137

and its deeper truth. If, though, there is anything that we can
learn from a healthy eschatological detachment, it is that the
church cannot be identified with any particular historical era,
or any particular society, or any particular form, and that the
core of its truth cannot be bound to or exhausted by earlier
paradigms of the relationship between the world and the church.
In this relationship, the church, as the “little yeast [that] leavens
the whole batch of dough” (1 Cor. 5:6), permeates and sanctifies
every era and every society, thus extending the implications of
the Incarnation throughout space and time, and witnessing to the
continual Pentecost which the church in fact lives.
Eschatology, finally, cannot be dissociated from the dialectic
between the present and the future, between affirmation and denial
of the world, between participation in politics (the life of the city)
and the transcendence of politics. There is a danger on either side,
of the church either abandoning the world and history, or being
absorbed by the world and history and becoming secularized.
Monasticism, with its coenobitic and ascetic spirit and its ethos
of voluntary renunciation, has always provided the best example
for Christians’ journey in the world, while also standing guard
and keeping a permanent vigil over the church’s eschatological
identity. Monasticism itself, in fact, was born from a certain
distrust of the “Christianized” Empire and is often interpreted
as a protest against the church’s secularization, as a refusal to
compromise with the world and the worldly mindset, and as an
attempt to construct another kind of commonwealth, another kind
hältnisses zwischen Kirche und Welt,” in: Fl. Uhl-S. Melchardt-Ar. R. Bo-
elderl (Hg.), Die Tradition einer Zukunft: Perspektiven der Religionsphiloso-
phie, Berlin: Parerga V., 2011, pp. 141-176.
138

eschatology or theocracy? god or ceasar?
of society.6 As Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra has emphasized:

“The emergence of the historical institution of monasticism was
a most significant and fundamental moment in the history of the
world. The successive phases of monasticism which followed,
though varying with time and place, have nevertheless preserved
the eschatological experience for Christian communities,
despite influence, in the beginning, from the counter-blows and
constrictions of paganism, then from the secularization of social
life, from heresy, from schisms and so forth, down to our own
asthmatic age.”7
Monasticism is the eschatological watchman, the escha
tological conscience of the church. And it is precisely this kind of
monasticism ‒ that based on the spirit and mindset of the desert
rather than on an imitation of heavy-handed political methods ‒
that we Christians in the world so urgently need today.
6. See, for example, Fr G eorges F lorovsky ’ s articles, “Antinomies of

Christian History: Empire and Desert,” op. cit., pp. 74-75, 83-85, 88, and
“Christianity and Civilization,” op. cit., pp. 123-126.
7. Elder Aimilianos, Spiritual Instruction and Discourses, Volume 1: The
Authentic Seal, Ormylia, Halkidiki, Greece: Ormylia Publishing, 1999, pp.
110-111.
139

Index

Abraham 95 Barr, R. R. 51
Adorno, Th. 48 Barth, K. 46
Adrachtas, V. 115, 130 Bartholomew
Agamben, G. 16 (Ecumenical Patriarch, see also
Agoras, K. 38 Bartholomew I) 11, 36, 77-78
Agourides, S. 20, 26-31, 69, 77, Bartolomew I
110, 113, 133 (see also Bartholomew) 36
Ahrweiler, H. 20, 28 Basil of Caesarea
Aimilianos (Elder of Simonos (see also Basil the Great) 97
Petras or Simonopetra) 11, 138-139 Basil the Great
Ampatzidis, Th. 60 (see also Basil of Caesarea) 62
Anastasius of Sinai 27 Bastias, K. 33
Angelopoulos, Ath. 33 Baubérot, J. 81
Antes, P. 91 Baume, S. 18
Areopagitic Writings or Corpus Beck, H.-G. 28
Areopagiticum Begzos, M. 53
(see also Pseudo-Dionysius Bekridakis, D. 100
the Areopagite) 54-55, 112, 115-116 Ben Tallon, L. 98
Argyropoulos, A. 52 Benjamin, W. 48
Aristides (the Apologist) 96 Berdyaev, N. 21, 60-62, 71, 121-123, 136
Arkadas, D. 110, 115, 131 Bloch, E. 48
Arzakovsky, A. 62
Blumenberg, H. 23, 32
Asproulis, N. 11
Boelderl, A. R. 137
Astrup, A.-S. 32 Boff, Cl. 49
Atger, F. 17 Boff, L. 49
Athenagoras 30 Boland 21
Attawater, D. A. 121 Bonhoeffer, D. 46
Augustus (reign of) 26-27 Bowden, J. 46
Ayuch, D. 11 Briere, E. 43, 91
Bulgakov, S. 60-61
Baker, M. 11 Burnett, R. (and Martha) 46
Ball, H. 21 Burns, P. 49
143

Caesarius 96 Demertzis, N. 20
Cahill, P. J. 132 Denis, J.-P. 59
Câmara, Dom Hélder Dibo, A. 11
(Archbishop) 50, 52 Diognetus (the Epistle of) 128-130
Cardenal, E. 51-52 Dionysius (of Trikis
Casanova, J. 81 and Stagon, Metropolitan) 33
Cassiani (nun) 25 Doïkos, D. 94
Chaberras, P. 91 Doremus, A. 21
Chambers Talbot W. 97 Dorival, G. 32
Che Guevara 49 Dostoevsky, F. 121-122
Christodoulos (Archbishop) 70 Draghici, S. 18
Christou, P. 33 Drury, J. 51
Chryssavgis, J. 78 Duchrow, U.11
Clapsis, E. 72, 81, 115 Dvornik, F. 19, 30
Clark, F. 46
Clément, O. 36-37, 79, 115 Eagleson, J. 49-50
Cone, J. 51 Edwards, G. 10-11, 57, 95
Constantine (the Emperor) 30 Elizabeth (biblical person) 126
Cortés, D. 21 Ellacuria, I. 51
Cullmann, O. 110, 114, 132 Ephrem (Lash, Archimandrite) 26
Cyprian (of Carthago) 117 Eusebius of Caesarea
Cyprian (the Martyr) 96 (Bishop of Caesarea) 19, 26-27, 30-
Cyril of Jerusalem 97-98 31, 38
Euthymios (Stylios, Metropolitan
Damaskinos (Metropolitan of Aheloos) 69
of Andrianoupolis) 121 Evdokimos [Karakoulakis, Archi
Daniel (the book of) 27 mandrite] 79
Dantine, W. 51-52
David (the King) 133 Faivre, A. 55
Debray, R. 81 Falk, R. 81
De Maistre 21 Filias, V. 70
Decartes, R. 16 Fiorenza, F.-S. 47
144

index
Florovsky, G. 28, 32, 62-63, 74, 89, Habermas, J. 81

105-106, 111, 114, 116-118, 132-133, Harmer, J. R. 99
136, 138 Hobbes, T. 18-19
Fountoulis, I. 97 Hollander, D. 15
Fragoso, A. (Bishop) 51-52 Hollerich, M. J. 31
Franco 22 Holmes, M. 99
French, R. M. 62 Horsey, R. 114
Freud, S. 36 Hunsinger, G. 46
Froehlich, K. 116 Huntington, S. 35
Fyodorov, N. 60
Ignatius (Metropolitan
Gavrilyuk, P. 54 of Dimitrias) 121, 135
Gennadios [Limouris], Ignatius of Antioch 101
Metropolitan of Sassima 79 Inda, C. (Sister) 49-50
George Kedrenos 30 Ioannidis, D. 33
George the Monk Ioannidis, F. 109
(or George the Sinner) 30 Ioannou, G. 34
Georges Khodr Iorga, N. 66
(Metropolitan or Métropolite
of Mount Lebanon) 76-77 Jackson, B. 97
Georgi, F. 137 Jehle, F. 46
Georgiadou, V. 20 Johannes von Skythopolis
Gibellini, R. 47-48 (see John of Scythopolis) 112
Gifford, E. H. 98 John Chrysostom 62-63, 97, 102
Golitzin, A. 116 John of Damascus 118, 137
Goltz, H. 55 John of Scythopolis
Gratziou, O. 34 (see also Johannes von
Gregory Nazianzen 96, 112, 118 Skythopolis) 112
Gregory of Nyssa 108 John Skylitses 30
Gregory Palamas 53-54, 116 Judas Iscariot 69, 71
Gutiérrez, G. 49-50 Justin
Gvosdev, K. 34 (the Philosopher and Martyr) 30
145

Kalaitzidis, P. 11, 35, 37-38, 44, 60, Malchus 128

67, 69, 74, 89-91, 100, 113, 115, 130, Mark (the Liturgy of Saint
133, 137 or Apostle) 97
Kalin, E. R. 48 Marx, K. 62
Kantakouzinos, J. 54 Mary (the Mother of God) 126
Karavidopoulos, I. 94, 106, 110 Matsoukas, N. 103, 106, 108-109,
Kattan, A. E. 137 119, 133
Kelsen, H. 23 Maximus the Confessor 97, 109,
Kennedy, E. 18 112, 130
Kesich, L. 61 McGuckin, J. 20
Köller, M. 18 Melchardt, S. 137
Kondylis, P. 15-16, 21 Melito of Sardis 30
Kotsonis, H. Metaxas, I. 33
(Archbishop of Athens) 33 Metz, J. 9, 46-48
Meyendorff, J. 36, 89, 106
Lactantius 30 Meyendorff, P. 36
Lamoreaux, J. 112 Meeks Douglas, M. 47
Leclerq, J. 116 Middleton, H. 57
Leenhardt, F.-J. 111 Millin, A. E. 31
Leo Grammatikos 30 Moffatt 118
Lightfoot, J. B. 99, 129 Moltmann, J. 9, 47-48, 81, 114
Lipowatz, T. 20-21, 23,3 7-38 Monod, J.-C. 32
Livingstone, D. 51 Mottu, H. 48
Lossky, V. 54 Müller, J. W. 22, 47
Lot-Borodine, M.
Lowrie, D. A. 124 Nahas, G. N. 137
Luibheid, C. 116 Neamptu, M. 74
Luke (the Gospel-Acts) 27, 99 Nellas, P. 111, 114
Lundström, G. 108 Neusner, J. 115
Nianios, E. D. 50
Magdalino, P. 91 Nicholas Cabasilas 103
Makrides, V. 91 Nikitas Heracleias 27
146

index
Nikolaidis, A. 45, 47-48, 53 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Nissiotis, N. 45, 52, 72, 76 (see also Areopagitic Writings or
Noble, T. Fr. T. 49 Corpus Areopagiticum) 54
Ntontos, N. 38, 137 Pullan, L. 119
O’Connell, M. J. 50-51 Ramet, S. 35

Oakes, G. 18 Rawls, J. 81
Oelmüller, W. 47 Reginald, F. 46
Oliver, D. 48 Ricks, D. 91
Origen 30 Roberts, J. D. 51
Romanides, J. 33
Paahnke, D. 91 Romero, Ó. (Archbishop) 50-52
Palièrne, J.-L. 44 Roques, R. 116
Pallas, D. 34 Rorem, P. 112, 116
Pannenberg, W. 23, 38 Rumscheidt, M. 48
Papadimitriou, D. 35 Runciman, S. 20, 28, 30
Papadopoulos, G. 33 Russell, N. 11, 40, 91
Papanikolaou, A. 11
Papathanasiou, A. N. 49, 60, 115, 133 Schmemann, A. 92, 94, 106
Patronos, G. 108 Schmitt, C. 9, 15-25, 28-29, 31-32,
Paul (the Apostle) 15, 21, 23, 96, 38, 45-46, 53-54
114, 135 Schram, K. 44
Pavlidou, E. 103, 106, 109 Schwab, G. 15, 18
Pelikan, J. 116 Sdrakas, E. 33
Peterson, E. 24, 31 Séglard, D. 18
Peukert, H. 46 Seitzer, J. 18
Photiou, S. 53 Serapion of Thmuis 99
Podskalsky, G. 20, 26, 28 Shaff, P. 97-98, 119
Pope, S. 51 Simon, P. 128
Prenter, R. 111 Skliris, S. 100
Proudhon 62 Sobrino, J. 51
Psaroudakis, N. 78 Sölle, D. 9, 47-48
147

Song, C.-S. 53, 72 Uhl, F. 137

Spiteris, Y. 44 Ulmen, G. L. 18
Stendahl, K. 114 Urs von Balthasar, H. 112
Stewart, E. M. 132
Stoyiannos, V. 114-115, 117 Vassiliadis, P. 11, 72, 77, 94, 101, 103-
Stylianopoulos, T. 69, 133 104, 107, 112-113, 115-116, 123, 137
Ventis, H. 11
Tanner, K. 24 Verheyden, J. 99
Tatian (the Apologist) 30 Vinogradov, A. 94
Taubes, J. 15, 21, 23
Taylor, J. 99 Wace, H. 97-98, 119
Tertullian 30 Wallace, R. M. 23
Theodoret of Cyrrhus 30 Watson, E. W. 119
Theodosius Melitenos 30 Wesche, K.-P. 116
Theokritoff, E. 35, 81, 137
Theophilus of Antioch 30 Yannaras, C. 34, 40, 44, 55-59,
Théraios, D. (see also Thiraios- 78-79, 91
Koutsoyannopoulos, D.) 60 Yoder, J. 114
Thiemann, R. F. 81
Thiraios-Koutsoyannopoulos, D. Zisis, T. 33, 60,
(see also Théraios, D.) 33 Zizioulas, J. 36, 39-40, 94, 98, 100,
Topitsch, E. 23 104-105, 107, 111-112
Torres, C. 49, 52 Zoumboulakis, S. 59
Treptow, L. 67
Tsakonas, D. 33
Tsananas, G. 47
Tsompanidis, S. 11
148


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A trenchant critique, a hopeful vision—

ORTHODOXY AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Key to developing a distinctive political theology and public witness,

Pantelis Kalaitzidis, editor of the DOXA & PRAXIS series, is Director of

Doxa & Praxis Orthodox Christianity/Theology

Gunther Gerzso, Orange-Blue-Green, 1972

selides Orthocoxy.indd 1 6/13/12 1:35:35 PM

Dr Pantelis Kalaitzidis, series editor

Board of Editorial Consultants

Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas, Ecumenical Patri­archate

selides Orthocoxy.indd 2 6/13/12 1:35:35 PM

selides Orthocoxy.indd 3 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

Translated from the Greek by Fr Gregory Edwards

Opinions expressed in WCC Publications are those of the authors.

Book design and typesetting: Indiktos Publications, Athens-Greece

World Council of Churches

selides Orthocoxy.indd 4 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

selides Orthocoxy.indd 5 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

INDEX ........................................................................................................................... 141

selides Orthocoxy.indd 7 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

O ne of the main features of Eastern Orthodox theology and

selides Orthocoxy.indd 9 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

of the term. It looks also to understand why prominent Orthodox

1. Sections of this text were initially translated by Dr Haralambos Ventis.

selides Orthocoxy.indd 10 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

appeared in Greek, as my personal contribution to the Festschrift

Volos-Beirut, Easter 2012

2. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Eschatology and Politics,” in: Synaxis Efcharistias,

selides Orthocoxy.indd 11 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

selides Orthocoxy.indd 13 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

A lthough political theology seems to be the chief means by

1. C arl S chmitt , Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of

selides Orthocoxy.indd 15 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

concepts.” For example, when referring to “emergencies” (that

3. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, English translation, p. 36.

selides Orthocoxy.indd 16 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

6. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, op. cit., pp. 46-47.

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notion of the transcendence of the sovereign vis-à-vis the state.

selides Orthocoxy.indd 18 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

monarchical/authoritarian regimes, and for a kind of “theology

selides Orthocoxy.indd 19 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

that Byzantine theocracy and synallelia (mutual cooperation)

University, 1966, especially, v. II, pp. 614ff.; Gerhard Podskalsky, Byzan-

selides Orthocoxy.indd 20 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

In this ultra-conservative, pro-royalist vision of his, which

selides Orthocoxy.indd 21 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

line with this commitment, Schmitt went so far as to declare, as

selides Orthocoxy.indd 22 6/13/12 1:35:36 PM

opposition to Judaism. This subtle distinction may help explain

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anti-Trinitarian view, which as we saw was directly related to his

The preceding, rather introductory, portrait of Schmitt and his

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miracles and states of emergency; and (b) his systematic animos-

What one realizes, after a close reading of this conservative German

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in the well-known hymn in the second tone from the Christmas

When Augustus reigned alone on the earth, the many kingdoms of

On this topic, the observations made by the late Greek Professor

21. English translation by Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash) at: http://www.

selides Orthocoxy.indd 26 6/13/12 1:35:37 PM

selides Orthocoxy.indd 27 6/13/12 1:35:37 PM

Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas, Ecumenical Patriarchate