Olivier Clément on Orthodox theological thought and ecclesiology in the West

Abstract

Lay theologian, Olivier Clément, achieved acclaim as a pioneer of Orthodox theological renewal and became one of the significant contemporary Christian intellectuals in France. The Russian diaspora brought a fresh encounter with Eastern Orthodoxy to the West. In Christianity, Clément found the answer to the destructive culture of death evinced by atheism and contemporary nihilism. He was baptised in 1951, aged 30, in the Russian Orthodox parish of the Patriarchate of Moscow, Paris, yet he remained both French and Western European, his theological, political and philosophical views shaped by his diverse experience of European culture and history. Brought up in a predominantly Protestant area of France, Clément had little familiarity with Catholic culture and faith; this affected his openness to Catholicism. Over time this changed; he sought a new paradigm for ecumenism through eucharistic ecclesiology, an ecclesiology of communion and a synthesis of culture and Christian values.

Keywords:

• ecclesiology of communion
• eucharistic ecclesiology
• absence of God
• secular nihilism
• Russian diaspora
• sobornost
• neo-patristic synthesis
• ecumenism

Notes

¹Clément published thirty books and numerous articles, and had editorial involvement with the theological journal Contacts from 1959. Many of Clément's works are listed in the bibliography.

²On Russian diaspora see Johnston, New Mecca, New Babylon; Clément, ‘Avenir et signification’.

³Clément, Orient-Occident, 15.

⁴On the encounter between Clément and Lossky, see Clément, ‘Vladimir Lossky, théologien orthodoxe’. See also Lossky, ‘Theology and Spirituality’.

⁵On Berdiaeff see the classic studies by Schultz, ‘Die Schau der Kirche’.

⁶On the history of the French Orthodox Parish, see Behr-Sigel, ‘La fondation de la première paroisse’.

⁷On the history and background of St Sergius, see Kniazeff, L'Institut Saint-Serge.

⁸See Clément, Dialogue avec le Patriarche Athénagoras; Clément, ‘Dalla scoperta di Cristo’, 19–25; Clément, ‘Atenagora I (1886–1972)’, 79–99; Clément, ‘Il Patriarcato Ecumenico’.

⁹Clemént, La Vérité Vous Rendre Libre. On the history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate see Nanakis, ‘Histoire du patriarcat œcuménique’, 25–50.

¹⁰See Clément's Rome Autrement, his response to John Paul II's Encyclical, Ut unum sint (1995) in which the Pope invited discussion on the Petrine office. Clément favoured the conciliar structure of Orthodoxy but criticised Orthodox nationalist models. On the Papacy from an Orthodox perspective, see Famerée, ‘Le ministère du pape’.

¹¹Stăniloae (1903–93), Romanian Orthodox priest and theologian, worked for over 35 years on the translation of the Philokalia into Romanian (see Miller, Gift of the World, 18).

¹²Clément, Taizé, un sens à la vie.

¹³Clément, Petite boussole spirituelle pour notre temps, 109.

¹⁴Cunningham, ‘Orthodox Youth and Orthodox Culture’, 18.

¹⁵See McCaffrey, ‘Memory and Collective Identity’; Carbonell, ‘Les historiens protestants libéraux’.

¹⁶Clément, L'Autre Soleil, 10.

¹⁷Clément, Transfigurer le temps.

¹⁸Merton notes in his journal, ‘this book is really excellent … a book to read twice’. See Merton, Turning Toward the World, Journals, 39, cited in Allchin, ‘Our Lives a Powerful Pentecost’, 128.

¹⁹Alphonse Dupront (1905–90), French historian of the Middle Ages and the modern era.

²⁰Damour, Olivier Clément, 33.

²¹Evidenced by many references to Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn in L'Autre Soleil.

²²Clément, L'Autre Soleil, 56.

²³On Sobornost, see Cioffari, La sobornost' nella teologia russa; also, Cunningham and Theokritoff, ‘Who Are the Orthodox Christians?’, 11. On Khomiakov, see O'Leary, The Triune Church.

²⁴Damour, Olivier Clément, 39.

²⁵Cunningham and Theokritoff, ‘Who Are the Orthodox Christians?’, 11; Jillions, ‘Orthodox Christianity in the West’, 281.

²⁶Afanasiev's eucharistic theology returns to the early Patristic sources to understand the Church in relationship with the world, its engagement with the world and the culture within which it lived. Athenagoras I recommended Afanasiev's appointment as observer at Vatican II, where his ecclesiological work influenced the writing of Lumen Gentium. See Nichols, Theology in the Russian Diaspora; also Kaszowski, ‘Sources de l'ecclésiologie eucharistique’. On eucharistic theology in the Orthodox Tradition, see Arjakovsky, ‘The School of Paris’.

²⁷Plekon, Living Icons, 149–50.

²⁸Clément, Rome Autrement, 10.

²⁹Ibid.

³⁰Clément, Dialogue avec le Patriarche Athénagoras, 9.

³¹Ibid.

³²On the emergence of lay theologians in the modern Orthodox Tradition, from which perspective Clément cannot be understood, see Jiohtsis, ‘Les théologiens laïcs’. For an account of contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy and twentieth century Orthodox thinkers see Nichols, Light from the East.

³³Erickson, ‘The Formation of Orthodox Ecclesial Identity’.

³⁴Clément repeatedly draws on patristic sources in his writings and published in 1982, in Sources, an anthology of the first Christian mystics. See also Gudziak, ‘Towards an Analysis’.

³⁵Goussef, ‘Une intelligentsia chrétienne en exil’; Chkarovski, ‘L'Église orthodoxe russe au XXe siècle’.

³⁶Clément, Orient-Occident, 11.

³⁷Ibid., 12.

³⁸Ibid.

³⁹See Williams, ‘Lossky’, 1–24.

⁴⁰Clément, Orient-Occident, 13.

⁴¹On Massignon see O'Mahony, ‘The Influence of the Life and Thought’ and ‘Louis Massignon, the Melkite Church and Islam’. For Clément's views on Massignon's contribution to theology and dialogue with Islam, see Clément, ‘Islam dans l'histoire du salut' in Clément and Mohamed, Un respect têtu, 271–3.

⁴²Cited in Michael Plekon's paper, ‘Living Tradition – Social Theory Working with Theology: The Case of Fr Sergius Bulgakov’. Second Conference on ‘Radical Orthodoxy: A Christian Answer to Post-Modern Culture’ Institute for Ecumenical Studies, Ukrainian Catholic University. See also Williams, Sergii Bulgakov.

⁴³Plekon, ‘The “Sacrament of the Brother/Sister”’. See also Klofft, ‘Gender and the Process of Moral Development’.

⁴⁵Clément, Le Chemin de Croix, 59. Translated here by the author.

⁴⁴Rupnik, ‘Introduction’, 9.

⁴⁶Plekon, ‘Review Essay’, 416.

⁴⁷Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 279, quoted in Buckley, ‘Atheism and Contemplation’, 680.

⁴⁸Buckley, ‘Atheism and Contemplation’, 681.

⁴⁹Ibid., 690.

⁵⁰Ibid.

⁵¹Clément, On Human Being, 106.

⁵²Ibid.

⁵³Ibid., 112.

⁵⁴Ibid., 133.

⁵⁵Ibid., 116–17.

⁵⁶Clément, Petite boussole spirituelle, 122.

⁵⁷Jordan, ‘Preface’, 5.

⁵⁸Coleridge, On the Constitution of the Church and State, 98–9, quoted by Shortt in Rowan Williams: An Introduction, 79.

⁵⁹Plekon, Living Icons, 235.

⁶⁰Ibid.

⁶¹Kishkovsky, ‘Russian Theology after Totalitarianism’, 268.

⁶²Ibid., 236.

⁶³Hamant, Alexander Men, 206.

⁶⁴Clément, L'Eglise Orthodoxe, 123.

⁶⁵Cf. Arjakovsky, ‘The School of Paris’.