Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, between the Neo-patristic synthesis and the Russian Religious Renaissance: an example of the reception of the patristic tradition

ABSTRACT

In 1972, Fr Alexander Schmemann, claimed that two fundamental theological trends exist within modern Orthodox theology that may be sharply distinguished from each other by their difference of methodology and orientation. Even if these two currents of thought do not take the form of two radically distinct schools, it is nevertheless certain that for several decades until recently it was almost a commonplace in the relevant scholarship that the history of twentieth-century Orthodox theology may be characterised by the existence of two different, if not radically opposed, schools of thought. This polarity, however, has recently been questioned by a number of studies that seek a more synthetic and irenic understanding of the history and theology of the twentieth century Orthodox theology. In this light the person and work of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia may be regarded as a genuine attempt to achieve this sort of synthetic overview.

KEYWORDS:

• Neo-patristic synthesis
• Russian Religious Renaissance
• Eastern orthodoxy
• tradition
• theological method

Acknowledgments

This article is an updated version of my article ‘Ho Mētropolitēs Diokleias Kallistos Ware mataxy Neo-paterikēs synthesēs kai Rōsikēs Thrēskephtikēs Anagennēsēs. Hē periptōsē tēs proslēpsēs tēs paterikēs paradosēs’, in Hē martyria tēs Orthodoxias stē Dysē. Synaxis Eucharistias pros timēn tou Mētropolitē Diokleias Kallistou Ware [The witness of Orthodoxy in the West. A conference of thanksgiving in honour of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia], ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Nikolaos Asproulis, 103–29 (Volos: Ekdotiki Dimitriados, 2018). English translation by Norman Russell.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Schmemann, ‘Russian Theology’.

² The works of Valliere, Modern Russian Theology; and Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, are regarded today as the fullest studies on the relations and differences between these two dominant currents. See also Asproulis, ‘Is a Dialogue between Orthodox Theology and (Post)modernity Possible?’; Asproulis, ‘Ways of Contemporary Orthodox Theology in the West’; and more recently, ‘Ostliche Orthodoxie und (Post-)Moderne’.

³ The classic study is still Zernov, The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century.

⁴ See on this Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, part I and part II, where a panoramic critique of Russian theology is presented from the fall of the Byzantine Empire until the dawn of the twentieth century. See also an analogous critique of Greek theology in the same period through the lens of an East-West bipolar division in Yannaras, Orthodoxy and the West.

⁵ This term has been borrowed from the science of mineralogy, where it indicates the unusual form of a mineral or group of minerals in which, although the original structure remains stable, the outer form has undergone change or transformation as a result of the influence of some external matter. The analogous use of the term is first encountered in Otto Spengler (1880–1936), in his Decline of the West, the German original of which (Der Untergang des Abendlandes) was published in 1917. See Florovsky, ‘The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology’. For a critical examination of the theological use of the term, see Wendebourg, ‘Pseudomorphosis’.

⁶ Cf. the two relevant papers by Florovsky, ‘Westliche Einflusse in der russischen Theologie’, 212–31 and 238–42.

⁷ See, for example, Florovsky, ‘Patristics and Modern Theology’; Florovsky, ‘The Ways of Russian Theology’; Florovsky, ‘The Christian Hellenism’. For a critical assessment of the way in which the theory of ‘Christian Hellenism’ has been received by modern Greek Orthodox theology, see Kalaitzidis, ‘Ho “christianikos Hellēnismos” tou p. Geōrgiou Phlorophsky kai hoi Hellēnes theologoi tēs genias tou ’60ʹ.

⁸ See note 1.

⁹ For the exploitation of this from the point of view of theological methodology, see Asproulis, ‘Ekklēsiokosmikē Dogmatikē’ hōs hena neo montelo theologikēs ekpaideusēs’; and Asproulis, ‘Church and World Dogmatics’.

¹⁰ For this term see Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, x.

¹¹ Cf. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance.

¹² See, e.g., Ladouceur, ‘Treasures New and Old’’ and especially Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology.

¹³ See, e.g., Gallaher, ‘Mia epanexetasē tēs Neopaterikēs synthesēs?’; and more recently, Gallaher, Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology.

¹⁴ See, e.g., Papanikolaou, Being with God; Papanikolaou, ‘Sophia, Apophasis and Communion’; and Papanikolaou, ‘Personhood and its exponents in twentieth-century Orthodox theology’.

¹⁵ See, e.g., Panagopoulos, Orthodoxo dogma kai Theologikos eksynchronismos’ and Metropolitan of Naupaktos and Hagiou Blasiou Hierotheos, Metapaterikē theologia kai ekklēsiastikē paterikē empeiria.

¹⁶ On this line of thought see among others: the special issue of Theologia, the official organ of the Church of Greece, dedicated to the work of Georges Florovsky (81.4, 2010); the collective volume by Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou, Orthodox Readings of Augustine; Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas; and Kalaitzidis, ‘Apo tēn ‘epistrophē stous Pateres’ sto aitēma gia mia synchronē orthodoxē theologia’. The present author’s doctoral dissertation, defended in 2016 at the Humanities School of the Hellenic Open University, shares the same perspective: ‘Dēmiourgia, Historia, Eschata stē synchronē orthodoxē theologikē hermēneutikē: apo ton Geōrgio Phlōrophsky ston Iōannē Zizioula’. The basic thesis of this study is that the two theological currents constitute two distinct but not opposed platforms that point the way towards a complementary perspective. Starting from a hermeneutic approach to ecclesial tradition and doctrine (ad intra), theology is called next to engage in dialogue with the world around it, with a view to giving replies to the critical questions of our age in the light of the dynamic of tradition (ad extra). Otherwise it remains a ‘theology of repetition’ without any existential value or soteriological intentionality for life today. See also the proceedings of the conference organised by the Volos Academy of Theological Studies in co-operation with theological schools and research centres outside Greece in June 2010 under the title: ‘Neo-paterikē synthesē ē meta-paterikē theologia? To aitēma tēs theologias tēs synapheias stēn Orthodoxia’ (Neopatristic synthesis or postpatristic theology? The question of contextual theology in Orthodoxy).

¹⁷ See Metropolitan Ware, Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century. The relative priority of anthropology in theological thought is also reflected in other publications by Metropolitan Kallistos, such as ‘The Human Person as an Icon of the Trinity’. We find the same perspective in the work of another important Orthodox theologian, Nikos Nisiotis, on whom, as an introductory study, see Asproulis, ‘Hē peri prosōpou theōrēsē tou N. Nēsiōtē kai hē theologikē genia tou ’60ʹ and more recently; and Asproulis-Chryssavgis, Theology as Doxology and Dialogue. Nikos Nissiotis Essential Writings.

¹⁸ See also Ware, ‘Hē martyria tēs Orthodoxēs Ekklēsias ston 20 ͦ aiōna’, where there is a critical analysis of the historical juncture at which the Church finds itself today and the basic views of the theology of the Church which must be emphasised and appropriated in its dialogue with the world.

¹⁹ Ware, Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century, 17.

²⁰ Ware, Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century, 25.

²¹ For the way in which this method is understood, see Tillich, ‘The Problem of Theological Method II’; and Loomer, ‘Tillich’s Theology of Correlation’.

²² For an overview of the relevant discussion, see Sergey Horuzy, ‘Anthropological Turn in Christian Theology’.

²³ On the occasion of the celebration, on 4 November 2015, of the thirtieth anniversary of the presence of Orthodox theology at the University of Munich, the metropolitan of Pergamon was appointed Honorary Lecturer of the Department of Orthodox Theology. In his address, which was published in Orthodoxes Forum under the title ‘The Task of Orthodox Theology in Today’s Europe’, Zizioulas notes further (on p. 261) that ‘the anthropological consequences of Trinitarian theology may offer a meeting-point in the dialogue between Christianity and contemporary humanist civilization.’

²⁴ See Ware, Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century, 25–8.

²⁵ See Kalaitzidis, ‘Apo tēn ‘epistrophē stous Pateres’ sto aitēma gia mia synchronē orthodoxē theologia’.

²⁶ See Ware, Pōs sōzomaste? where reference is made, within the context of a discussion of salvation, to the well-known saying of the Russian thinker, Nicolas Berdyaev, ‘bread for me may be a material question, but bread for my neighbour is always a spiritual question’. At this point Metropolitan Kallistos ventures a gentle criticism of the rather weak interest that Orthodoxy has shown in changing the unjust social structures that create the inequalities. He remarks characteristically that we give bread to the hungry (referring to the Church’s philanthropic work) but we do not ask why they are hungry. The Church, he says, needs to seek forgiveness for this. This is a point of particular interest in the light of the present economic crisis which is afflicting the world.

²⁷ Fyodorov, N, where cited?.

²⁸ Ware, ‘The Witness of the Orthodox Church’, 53.

²⁹ At this point, Metropolitan Kallistos echoes Fr Florovsky, ‘The Church’. The thesis derives from Koster, Ecclesiologie im Werden, published in 1940. For a historico-systematic approach to this theory see the doctoral dissertation by Napiwodski OP, Eine Ecclesiologie im Werden.

³⁰ Ware, Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century, 28.

³¹ See, for example, the translation of the Philokalia by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, published in four volumes between 1979 and 1995. The final fifth one is under publication; Ware, The Orthodox Way; Ware, The Inner Kingdom; Ware, The Power of the Name; and See also Louth, ‘The Theologian’.

³² See, for example, Ware, Echthroi ē philoi?.

³³ See, for example, the now classic work, The Orthodox Church; also Ware, Eustratios Argenti; Ware, ‘Orthodoxy in Britain’, 3–6; Ware, ‘Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement’; Ware, ‘Orthodoxy in America’; Ware, ‘Orthodoxy in Alaska’; Ware and Davey, Anglican–Orthodox Dialogue, and other studies.

³⁴ See the discussion in Valliere, Modern Russian Theology, 373–403.

³⁵ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 204.

³⁶ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 204.

³⁷ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 205.

³⁸ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 206.

³⁹ Ware, ‘Man, Woman, and the Priesthood of Christ’, 65.

⁴⁰ See Florovsky, ‘The Catholicity of the Church’; and ‘Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers’.

⁴¹ See Vladimir Lossky, ‘Tradition and Traditions’.

⁴² Ware, The Orthodox Church, 207.

⁴³ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 206 (my emphasis).

⁴⁴ Metropolitan Kallistos (see ‘Man, Woman, and the Priesthood of Christ’, 66) not only emphasises the dynamic character of Tradition but also notes the continuity that characterises it, in the degree in which the Holy Spirit always points to Christ and it is that which guards and also guides the search for new ways of formulating the truth that has been definitively revealed in Christ.

⁴⁵ A similar discussion seems to have been conducted, for example, in an article by Metropolitan Kallistos on the Theotokos, and particularly on the way the ‘immaculate conception’ has been understood in the East and in the West. See ‘The Sanctity and Glory of the Mother of God: Orthodox Approaches’, esp. 85–6. At the same time, however, he describes in a very clear manner the incremental, not static, crystallisation of the doctrine in question, a fact which shows that the crystallisation and formulation of a doctrine by the Church is not some kind of automatic process at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, but a synergetic process between God and man within the framework of a reciprocally conducted dialogue. This process arrives at completion sometimes after violent struggles (it suffices to peruse the acts of the Ecumenical Councils) and, one might add, after failures, too.

⁴⁶ For the great debate on the question of the ‘development’ of doctrine from the Orthodox side, see Stăniloae, ‘The Orthodox Conception of Tradition and the Development of Doctrine’; Meyendorff, ‘Chalcedonians and Monophysites after Chalcedon’; and, of course, Bulgakov, ‘Dogma and Dogmatic Theology’. More broadly, see also the classic work of John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Among recent articles one may consult Asproulis and Kalaitzidis, ‘Which Orthodoxy, Whose Heresy?’, esp. 263–6; Lattier, ‘The Orthodox Rejection of Doctrinal Development’; Kalaitzidis, ‘The issue of Dogmatic Development in Contemporary Orthodox Theology’; Papadopoulos, Theologia kai Glōssa. At the opposite pole, see Andrew Louth, ‘Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category for Orthodox Theology?’.

⁴⁷ See the especially interesting study of C. Karakolis, ‘The Holy Spirit in Luke-Acts’.

⁴⁸ Ware, Pōs sōzomaste?, 18.

⁴⁹ For a comparative examination of the texts, see Asproulis, ‘Hepomenoi tois hagiois Patrasi …’.

⁵⁰ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 209.

⁵¹ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 212.

⁵² Ware, ‘Eastern Orthodox Theology’, 185b. The metropolitan expresses himself in a similar way in his Foreword to the first volume of the English edition of Dumitru Stăniloae’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (xvii), where he says that Stăniloae ‘totally rejects a theology of mere repetition’, a commonplace in many contemporary theological works, and notes that in no way did Stăniloae believe that the Fathers had given a reply on all subjects and that he himself had drawn many creative ideas from contemporary thought.

⁵³ Ware, Pōs sōzomaste? 55–6, where he does not hesitate to draw attention to the creative variety of the view-points encountered in patristic thought on the question, for example, on how salvation in Christ is to be understood. Thus he refers (rather approvingly) to Athanasius of Alexandria, who sees salvation in terms of redemption and substitution, even if the Orthodox are rather reserved with regard to the use of the concept of substitution.

⁵⁴ Ware, Echthroi ē philoi? 125–6.

⁵⁵ Ware, Echthroi ē philoi? 131–2. It is worth mentioning here the exceptionally eloquent text of St Symeon the New Theologian in which he refers with approval to his teacher, Symeon the Studite. This is Hymn 15, 141–211, a text which is very challenging to a conservative audience: ‘He was not ashamed of any of the human members, nor of seeing anyone naked, nor of being seen naked himself, for he had the whole of Christ, and was himself the whole of Christ, and all his members and the members of everyone else he always saw as Christ … and the hand the foot of my wretched self is Christ … and thus assuredly you recognised Christ as my finger and penis … do not say that I am blaspheming, but accept these things and adore Christ who made you thus!’.

⁵⁶ Ware, Echthroi ē philoi? 143, where marriage, and especially sexual relations within this context directed primarily towards the begetting of children, is described by Palamas as ‘not a gift of grace’, since ‘it can scarcely be called a divine gift of God’ (Triads I, i, 22).

⁵⁷ See, for example, Ware, ‘Man, Woman, and the Priesthood of Christ’, 75. Also Ware, Echthroi ē philoi? 127, relating to the discussion of the mistrust, among other things, shown by monasticism, especially against the female body and its biological functions.

⁵⁸ Ware, Echthroi ē philoi? 63.

⁵⁹ Even though such indications are not absent from the metropolitan’s work. Compare, for example, (Ware, ‘Man, Woman, and the Priesthood of Christ’, 74) his argument against the opinion concerning the physical impurity of women and their spiritual and moral inferiority to men (widespread among the body of the faithful), arguments which are often expressed within the context of discussions about the legitimacy or otherwise of the ordination of women. In this case, Metropolitan Kallistos calls for the need to ‘contextualize‘ the approach, for example, of the relevant ordinances of Leviticus (15:19–30) or of other biblical texts.

⁶⁰ Compare the critique of the relevant perspective in the detailed if often somewhat one-sided and extremist essay by Brown, ‘On the Criticism of Being as Communion in Anglophone Orthodox Theology’.

⁶¹ According to Russell, in ‘Metropolitan Kallistos as a Dogmatic Theologian’ (published in this issue of the IJSCC, vol. 19, no 4, page no. to be inserted here, when known), Ware had not yet studied Afanasiev’s work on Eucharistic ecclesiology when he was writing The Orthodox Church.

⁶² See Afanasiev, ‘The Canons of the Church’.

⁶³ Ware, The Orthodox Church, 214.

⁶⁴ For the centrality of the Philokalia in the work of Metropolitan Kallistos, see Louth, ‘Metropolitan Kallistos and the theological vision of the Philokalia’.

⁶⁵ Compare Bulgakov, ‘Dogma and Dogmatic Theology’.

⁶⁶ Compare Ware, Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century, 32–3, 37.

⁶⁷ One such theme appears to be the question of the ordination of women in the Orthodox Church, which often meets with radical denial if not abhorrence. Metropolitan Kallistos, however, offers here too a different paradigm. In a detailed study of the subject he not only shifts from his earlier position but goes on to make certain critical observations on the historical practice followed by the Church in this matter and does not shy away from wondering whether and to what extent it is possible for us to give a mistaken respect to the Church and the Fathers concerning a particular attitude on their part. At all events, he himself describes the whole matter as an ‘open question’ which has not yet received an appropriate and full reply (see the discussion in Ware, ‘Man, Woman, and the Priesthood of Christ’).

⁶⁸ See, for example, Metropolitan of Diokleia Ware, ‘Ecological Crisis’ (a lecture delivered at Fordham University, New York, in April 2005), 8–10; and Ware, ‘The Nearness and Otherness of the Eternal in Meister Eckhart and St. Gregory Palamas’, 47–8. It is interesting that Metropolitan Kallistos uses this term to interpret Maximus the Confessor’s well-known theory of the Logos and the logoi and Gregory Palamas’ famous distinction between the essence and the energies (see especially ‘God Immanent yet Transcendent: The Divine Energies according to Saint Gregory Palamas’, where there is an analytic discussion of Palamas’ panentheism). Metropolitan Kallistos also stresses the difference between pantheism and panentheism insofar as the former suggests that ‘God is the world and the world is God’ thus abolishing any ontological distinction between God and creation, whereas in the latter it is understood that that ‘God is in the world and the world is in God, a soteriological perspective being manifestly uppermost. It is also worth noting that this understanding also finds support in the Bible, for example in 1 Cor 15:28, and in other Fathers such as Dionysius the Areopagite (compare Ware, ‘The Nearness and Otherness of the Eternal in Meister Eckhart and St. Gregory Palamas’, 48).

⁶⁹ See, for example, on Bulgakov’s ‘panentheism’ his Lamb of God, 121. For a recent evaluation, see also Gavrilyuk, ‘Bulgakov’s Account of Creation’. From an Orthodox point of view there is critique of the theory by Loudovikos, ‘The ‘Pantheistic Archetype’ in Russian Religio-Philosophical Ecclesiology and the Sophiology of Consubstantiality’, which is a panoramic critical examination of the pre-history and the appropriation of the problematic of pantheism in sophiological thinking.

⁷⁰ See Louth, ‘Metropolitan Kallistos and the theological vision of the Philokalia’.

⁷¹ See, for example, Ware, ‘Fifty-four Years as an Athonite Pilgrim’; also, Sherrard, Athos, the Holy Mountain.

⁷² The connection between the contemporary environmental crisis and the erroneous practices of Christianity in the course of history has been brought to the surface in a clear way by Lynn White, Jr., ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’.

⁷³ See, for example, Chryssavgis (ed.), Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer. For the eco-theology of the Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas, see Tsalampouni, ‘Hē oikologikē diastasē tēs theologias tou Mētropolitē Pergamou’.

⁷⁴ See, for example, Ware, ‘Ecological Crisis’; Ware, ‘Orthodox theology today’, 117; and Ware, Pōs sōzomaste? 84.

⁷⁵ See, for example, ‘The Souls according to the Greek Fathers of the Church’ in Echthroi ē philoi? 36, 60–1.

⁷⁶ As Metropolitan Kallistos remarks characteristically: ‘The human person is that in which new beginnings are continually being made. […] To be a human is to be endlessly varied, innovative, unexpected, self-transcending’ (Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century, 32–3), in contrast, for example, to a computer.

⁷⁷ See, characteristically, Ware, Echthroi ē Philoi? 47, 66, 73, 83–4 (where there is also a personal testimony to the interest which Metropolitan Kallistos himself has always had in works of the imagination), etc.; and Ware, The Inner Kingdom, 193–7.

⁷⁸ For the criteria and presuppositions of the (Greek) dialogue between theology and literature, see Kalaitzidis, ‘Theologikes proüpotheseis tou dialogou me tē monterna logotechnia’; Athanasopoulou-Kypriou, Keimena gia to tipota; and Fr Gkanas, ‘Mythistorēma kai theologia’.

⁷⁹ Ware, ‘Orthodox theology today’, 114. Compare also Ware’s address on the occasion of his being awarded an honorary doctorate of St Vladimir’s Theological Seminary, entitled ‘The present and Future of Orthodox Theology’, where the urgent need is noted for elements from the two ‘schools’ to be combined within the perspective of a renewed vision for Orthodox theology in the twenty-first century. The demand is made that we should advance beyond any sclerotic fixed opinions that we may have, which are usually rooted in a one-sided reception and ideological (i.e. non-historical) study of the texts, or that we should speak in a more theological language about a stance that is passive and fearful in the face of the renewing and unifying power of the Spirit, which ‘blows where it wills’ (John 3:8). See also some further thoughts on the same lines in Gallaher, ‘Mia epanexetasē tēs Neopaterikēs sythesēs’, especially, 90–2.

⁸⁰ See Ware. ‘The Debate about Palamism’, where the ‘antinomic’ character of the distinction between divine essence and energies is discussed.

⁸¹ On this subject see the comprehensive study of Kresic, ‘Development and Reality of Antinomy in Russian Religious Thought’.

⁸² See Ware, ‘Eastern Orthodox Theology’, 185b. Compare also Yannaras, Postmodern Metaphysics.

⁸³ See, for example, Ware, The Orthodox Church, 215, 226; Ware, The Inner Kingdom, 79, 90, 96, 100, 109, 122; and Ware, ‘Orthodox theology today’, 106.

⁸⁴ See, for example, Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament.

⁸⁵ Fr Meskos, Ho Planētēs tēs Theologias.

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Nikolaos Asproulis

Dr. Nikolaos Asproulis is Deputy Director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and Lecturer at the Hellenic Open University. He has authored numerous articles and essays on the history and theology of contemporary Orthodoxy, theological methodology and hermeneutics, political theology, ecumenical relations, theological education. He is co-editor among others (with P. Kalaitzidis et. al.) of Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education, Volos Academy Publications in co-operation with WCC Publications and Regnum: Volos/Oxford, 2014) and (with John Chryssavgis), of Theology as Doxology and Dialogue. The Essential Writings of Nikos Nissiotis, Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2019).]