Georgios Mantzarides
All Articles by Georgios Mantzarides
Professor Emeritus, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
The Experience of Temporality According to St Sophrony
Time coextends with Creation, which is not yet completed. Each of us has been granted his allotted time—brief, but enough to find salvation. Time is the ‘locus’ of our encounter with the Creator. What defines our actions is the purpose we have set in our life. Our perfection identifies with perfection of the hypostatic principle that we have as creatures ‘in the image and likeness’ of God. The Creator’s work is fulfilled in time, in the perspective of eternal life. Likewise, man’s work in time should be fulfilled in the perspective of eternal life. Through prayer we see God and we are in communion with him.
Many efforts have been made to investigate the notion of time and attempts have been made to formulate some definition of it. There are also those who have cast doubts on the existence of time. St Sophrony considered it important to explore this mysterious concept of time and he settled on a formulation of a certain definition which, while not describing its nature, does interpret its functionality and points to its theological and anthropological significance.
According to St Sophrony, time is the ‘locus’ of our encounter with the Creator. Time is the process of the implementation of God’s plan for creation… Creation has not yet been completed… Each of us has been granted ‘his allotted “time”—brief, but enough to find salvation’.1
St Sophrony notes that, in our own day and age, ‘The very feeling of time takes on a strange character—now tediously slow, now apparently non-existent, in the absence of any intelligent purpose’.2 If we recollect, however, that our proper attitude to time is the same as our proper attitude to life, it becomes clear that neither of the two feelings of time just mentioned justifies us in our life. The proper attitude to time, as the proper attitude to life itself, is of capital importance for us. This attitude, however, presupposes the concomitant determination of the purpose of human life.
If we are not to feel the passage of time as tediously slow, we have to exercise within it some creative task which has meaning and purpose. ‘The aim that we give
Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), On Prayer, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1996), 16.
Ibid., 90.
The Concept of Justice according to Saint Gregory Palamas
This paper seeks to elucidate the way in which the principle of justice/righteousness functions in the thought of St Gregory Palamas. As the paper notes, the concept of ‘justice’ or ‘righteousness’—the biblical equivalent of justice—was a central concern to both the ethical systems of the Ancient Greeks and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Following in the wake of these ancient currents, St Gregory regards righteousness/justice as being inextricably connected to divine economy and the human endeavour to respond to the grace it imparts. As such, the ‘justice’ of Palamas is rather different from retributive and punitive forms of justice and the modern associations therewith. Though justice/righteousness is ultimately a response to the divine call to deification, it is not, in St Gregory’s view, indifferent to the realities of social justice.
The concept of justice occupies a central position in human thought and life. For a clearer understanding of this concept, and for a more complete presentation of the particular content it assumed in Christian and Patristic literature, it is necessary to contrast it with the pre-Christian, biblical tradition, and even more so with its significance outside the Bible. In the literature of Ancient Greece, justice was already associated with the notion of virtue, which was taken as the main characteristic of a just man.1 According to Plato, justice harmonizes the virtues of the tri-partite human soul, while Aristotle considers it to be the sum total of moral virtues. In the Old Testament, righteousness is of great theological significance. The pre-eminent Righteous One is God. People become righteous by aligning their will with that of God and observing his law. We demonstrate our faithfulness to God and his testament through works of the law. However, if the works of the law are interpreted on an individual basis and are practiced independently of any trust in divine righteousness, this undermines communion with God and has a negative effect on relations with our neighbour. In the biblical tradition, God’s righteousness is linked to his mercy. The long-awaited Messiah will ‘execute justice and righteousness in the land’ and in his days, Israel will be saved.2 The fullest testimony to this is the incarnation