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ABSTRACT
The term ‘dogmatic theology’ entered Orthodox usage in the nineteenth century as a scholastic concept. A fresh approach, treating dogmatics as fundamentally an aspect of mystical theology, began with Bulgakov and Evdokimov in the mid-twentieth century. Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) builds on this, producing in his first book (The Orthodox Church of 1963) what was in effect a dogmatic theology ‘in a new key’. What the West takes to be dogmatic theology is included in the Orthodox understanding of Tradition, which comprises the Bible, the Creeds, the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils and the writings of the Fathers. The full range of Orthodox dogmatic theology thus covers the Trinity (with the Filioque considered unacceptable because it relates the divine unity to the essence, not the persons), the Church (not primarily a hierarchical structure but a mystical body), the Liturgy (which is a better guide to Orthodoxy than any theological treatises), the Last Things, and personal communion with God in prayer. The personal aspect is important: the metropolitan comes to agree with Khomiakov that the Councils do not establish their authority automatically but need to be ‘received’ by the faithful, and he has reservations about the eucharistic ecclesiology of Zizioulas because it has little to say about the personal appropriation of grace in Holy Communion. His chief characteristics as a dogmatic theologian are judged to be his lack of dogmatism, his irenic stance, and his apophatic approach.
Acknowlegements
This article was first published as Ο Μητροπολίτης Κάλλιστος Ware ως δογματολόγος in Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Nikolaos Asproulis, eds. Η μαρτυρία της Ορθοδοξίας στη Δύση. Σύναξις Ευχαριστίας προς τιμήν του Μητροπολίτη Κάλλιστου Ware [The witness of Orthodoxy in the West. A conference of thanksgiving in honour of Metropolitan of Diokleia Kallistos Ware]. Volos: Ekdotiki Dimitriados, 2018, 59–75. The English version appears by kind permission of the editors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 This paper was originally delivered at a conference held in Volos, Greece, in 2015 to honour Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia. A Greek version was published in Kalaitzidis and Asproulis, eds., Η μαρτυρία της Ορθοδοξίας στη Δύση, 59–75.
2 Stăniloae, The Experience of God, xiv.
3 Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 4. 3 (PG 20, 1181B). Eusebius regarded dogmatic theology as true knowledge of God and used ‘ecclesiastical theology’ as an equivalent expression. See Batiffol, ‘Theologia, Theologi’, 205–20.
4 Dogmatic theology has been defined by Karl Barth as follows: ‘As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self-examination of the Christian Church with respect to the content of its distinctive utterance concerning God’ (Church Dogmatics, I, 1, p. 1, §1). The emphasis on scientific, with the meaning of ‘rigorous and systematic’, should be noted.
5 The first Orthodox Dogmatic Theology to appear in print was that of Metropolitan Makarii (Bulgakov), published in five volumes from 1849 to 1853. See Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, 255–9.
6 Boulgaris (1716–1806), the leading scholar of the Greek Enlightenment, was anticipated by another figure of the Greek Enlightenment, Vikentios Demodos (1700–1752), but the latter’s Dogmatics remained unpublished until the first part of the first volume was issued by the Monastery of Vatopediou in 2013.
7 Trembelas, Δογματικὴ τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας. A second edition was published in 1978–9.
8 Kallistos, ‘Review of Trembelas’, 477.
9 Ibid., 477–80. The French translation (Trembelas, Dogmatique de l’Église Orthodoxe Catholique) was published by Chevetogne in 1966–8.
10 Cf. Metropolitan Kallistos’ remarks in Ware, The Orthodox Church, 148, where he brackets Trembelas’ work with similar dogmatic theologies by P. I. Bratsiotis, I. N. Karmiris, B. Ioannides, and Ieronymos Kotsonis.
11 Boulgakov, L’Orthodoxie. There is no discussion in this book of Bulgakov’s contested sophiology.
12 Evdokimov, L’Orthodoxie.
13 It has been revised several times, most recently in 1993. My quotations are from the edition of 1991.
14 Ware, The Orthodox Church, 204 (my emphasis).
15 Ibid., 212.
16 Ibid., 215.
17 Ibid., 219.
18 Ibid., 223.
19 Ibid., 237.
20 Lossky, The Mystical Theology; cited Ware, The Orthodox Church, 266.
21 As recounted in Bishop Ware, ‘Strange yet Familiar’, 1–3.
22 Ware, The Orthodox Church, 271.
23 Ibid., 313.
24 Ware, The Orthodox Church, 316, commenting on Khomiakov, ‘The Church is One’.
25 Ware, The Orthodox Church, 332–4.
26 Ware, Metropolitan of Diokleia, ‘Orthodox Theology Today’, 107, quoting Lossky’s Mystical Theology, 8–9.
27 Ware, ‘Orthodox Theology Today’, 106, with reference to Yannaras, ‘Theology in Present-Day Greece’, 195–214.
28 Archimandrite Ware, ‘The Debate about Palamism’, 63.
29 Archimandrite Ware, The Orthodox Way, 8.
30 Ware, The Orthodox Way, 18.
31 Ibid., 34.
32 Ibid., 122.
33 Ibid., 48.
34 Ibid., 90.
35 See Metropolitan Ware, Orthodox Theology in the Twenty-First Century, esp. 17–22.
36 Bishop Ware, ‘Strange yet Familiar’, 7. Cf. Ware, ‘Sobornost and Eucharistic Ecclesiology’, 218, where he says of Khomiakov’s writings that ‘they played a decisive part in persuading me to join the Orthodox Church’.
37 Ware, ‘Strange yet Familiar’, 7.
38 Ware, ‘Sobornost and Eucharistic Ecclesiology’, 219.
39 Ibid., 225.
40 Ware, The Orthodox Church, 256–7.
41 Ware, ‘Sobornost and Eucharistic Ecclesiology’, 221, citing Khomiakov, L’Église latine et le Protestantisme, 49, who is himself quoting St Innocent of Alaska.
42 Ware, ‘Sobornost and Eucharistic Ecclesiology’, 227. In footnote 54 the metropolitan notes: ‘In writing my first book, The Orthodox Church, I gave considerable emphasis to the “eucharistic” nature of the Church (e.g. 21–2, 246). I was relying here on the article of Romanides: I had not at that stage read Afanasiev, and Zizioulas had not yet begun to publish anything.’
43 Ware, ‘Sobornost and Eucharistic Ecclesiology’, 229.
44 Ibid., 232.
45 Ware, ‘Sobornost and Eucharistic Ecclesiology’, 232. These observations are repeated, perhaps even more strongly in Ware, ‘Orthodox theology today’, 116: ‘[Zizioulas] says relatively little about the correlative authority of the succession of holy men and women in each generation, about the gerontes or startsi, and he neglects the place of confession and spiritual guidance in the Christian life. He has, moreover, little to say about personal prayer, in particular about the Jesus Prayer, and about hesychasm and the tradition of the Philokalia.’
46 Ware, The Orthodox Church, 265.
47 Ware, ‘Strange yet Familiar’, 195.
48 Ware, ‘The Debate about Palamism’, 63.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Norman Russell
Norman Russell holds an Oxford D.Phil and is an Honorary Research Fellow of St Stephen’s House in the University of Oxford. He is the author of several books on patristic and Byzantine themes, most recently Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age (Oxford University Press, 2019), with another volume forthcoming on Palamas in his historical context: Gregory Palamas, the Hesychast Controversy and the Debate with Islam (Liverpool University Press, 2020). Of partly Greek descent, Norman Russell has also translated into English some 35 modern theological and philosophical works, mainly from Greek, but also from French, Italian and German. He is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.