Sotiris Mitralexis
All Articles by Sotiris Mitralexis
University of Cambridge, UK; City University of Istanbul, Turkey
Religion as Science, Science as Religion, and an Unwelcome Reformation: Science and Religion in the Public Square during COVID-19 – a Greek Orthodox Case Study
The present paper comments upon certain (mis)understandings concerning science and religion in Greece’s public discourse during 2020 and 2021. The first half consists of a theoret- ical commentary on what transpired in Greece, focusing on ‘science’ and ‘religion’ morphing into one another in the public square apropos the pandemic—with religion presenting itself as science, science presenting itself as religion, and an unwelcome ‘Reformation’ in science emerging out of dissent. The second half of the paper provides a report on Greece’s public square during the pandemic, on the basis of which the theoretical part was formed.
The years 2020 and 2021 will linger in memory as the anni horribilesof the COVID-19 pandemic—with 2022 passing the baton to global security concerns of war and peace while the pandemic is still ongoing. During those years, the meaning, power, method, efficacy, independence and politicisation, and capacities and limitations of ‘science’ as a generic term dominated global public discourse, both directly and indirectly—in discussions not only about the virus itself or the vaccines and medicines developed to counter its spread and effects, but also about social distancing, various restrictions and policies, lockdowns, ‘green passes’, vaccinations/testing certificates, and so on. ‘Religion’ featured heavily in the public square as well—less as a promise and a hope in times of collective distress, and more as a question concerning the safety of collective worship and of certain worship practices, as well as in the context of the unavoidable ‘perennial battle between science and religion’ trope.
A Spectre Is Haunting Intercommunion
As an introduction to the current issue, this paper looks at certain details of the current state of the ecclesial dialogue between East and West, in light of Edward Siecienski’s two important contributions, The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate (Oxford University Press, 2017) and The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford University Press, 2010) and of other sources. The core question of the paper is, which Church is the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” that we confess to during each liturgy and mass? Is it one of two divided Churches, or the one Church in schism?
1
Allow me to start with my personal incentives for embarking upon this enquiry. Reading Edward Siecienski’s treatises on the history of the divide, the recent The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate1 and his earlier The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy,2 I saw with considerable clarity that the actual historical trajectories of the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, in all the vertiginous complexity of these trajectories in all their details, look quite different from the simplified, retroactively formulated historical narratives concerning purported clear-cut divisions.
Of course, there is much to be said about which differences are indeed seemingly or currently irreconcilable doctrinal and ecclesiological divisions and which differences are merely legitimate local liturgical, ecclesiological and theological traditions, from the vast pool of theologoumena, of apostolic churches comprised of different peoples and at different points and circumstances in history. It must be remarked that this diversity of legitimate traditions of apostolic churches has also been largely lost within both the Roman and the Byzantine Church, in view of the homogenisation that emerged during the reign of the empires within which each of these churches flourished.
A. Edward Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
The Reception of the Theology of the Russian Diaspora by the Greek Theology of the ‘60s: a Case Study
This paper is the result of an interview with Christos Yannaras and aims to explore the impact of the theology of the Russian diaspora on the creative explosion in Greek Orthodox theology usually described as the ‘generation of the ‘60s’ through the eyes of one of its protagonists. My particular approach here is to look into how that protagonist thinks back to that encounter today, both in his personal development and in his assessment of the theological landscape.
The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of the theology of the Russian diaspora on the creative explosion in Greek Orthodox theology usually described as the ‘generation of the ‘60s’; however, my particular approach here is to look into how the protagonists of that generation think back to that encounter today, both in their personal development and in their assessment of the theological landscape. To that end, my initial intention was to interview both Christos Yannaras and the Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizioulas, as the living protagonists of the Greek theological renewal. However, Christos Yannaras’s 31 December 2017 interview provided me with an abundance of material to which I would not do justice were I to try to squeeze it into the first part of a two-part paper; this being the case, I opted here to present Christos Yannaras’s take on his, and Greek theology’s, encounter with the Russian diaspora. I remain with the hope that an interview with the Metropolitan of Pergamon shall follow in the near future. Given that this is the context of this paper, I should stress that it does not claim to be a research paper but, rather than that, precisely what it is—a snapshot of how these protagonists of the Greek theological revival remember today their encounter with the ideas and figures of the Russian diaspora. Thus, any descriptions of persons or events reflect the protagonist’s take on these persons and events rather than my own research on the matter.
Christos Yannaras
Some background on the state of theology and public Christian discourse in Greece during Yannaras’s youth, with which most of you are already familiar:
Rethinking the Problem of Sexual Difference in Ambiguum 41
Maximus the Confessor’s Ambiguum 41 contains some rather untypical observations concerning the distinction of sexes in the human person: there is a certain ambiguity as to whether the distinction of the sexes was intended by God and is ‘by nature’ (as the Book of Genesis and most Church Fathers assert) or whether it is a product of the Fall, while Christ is described thrice as ‘shaking out of nature the dis tinctive characteristics of male and female’, ‘driving out of nature the difference and division of male and female’, and ‘removing the difference between male and female’. Different readings of these passages engender important implications that can be drawn out from the Confessor’s thought, both eschatological implications and otherwise. The subject has been picked up by Cameron Partridge, Doru Costache and Karolina Kochanczyk–Boninska, amongst others, but is by no means settled, as quite different conclusions have been formulated. The noteworthy and far-reaching implications of Maximus’ theological stance, as well as its problems, are not the object of this paper. Here, I am merely trying to demonstrate what exactly Maximus says in these peculiar and much discussed passages through a close reading, in order to avoid a double-edged Maximian misunderstanding—which would either draw overly radical implications from those passages, projecting definitely non-Maximian visions on to the historical Maximus, or none at all, as if those passages represented standard Patristic positions.
Maximus the Confessor’s Ambiguum ad Ioannem 41 1 is mainly concerned with Maximus’ fivefold cosmological division to be overcome by humanity through Christ, and contains a number of quite uncommon assertions concerning sexual difference, which may not seem to be in complete harmony with other passages in the Ambigua; for example, the assertion that the human person, following Christ, ‘shakes out of nature the distinctive characteristics of male and female’,2 ‘drives out of nature the difference and division of male and female’,3 and ‘removes the differ-
1.Maximos the Confessor, On Difficulties in the Church Fathers. The Ambigua, ed. and trans. Nicholas Constas, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 102–12. ‘The natures are innovated, and God becomes man.’
2.(PG 91:1305C).
3.(PG 91:1309A).