Priests of Creation: John Zizioulas on Discerning an Ecological Ethos PDF
Preview Priests of Creation: John Zizioulas on Discerning an Ecological Ethos
Priests of Creation Priests of Creation John Zizioulas on Discerning an Ecological Ethos Edited by John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis, 2021 John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. Cover design: Terry Woodley Cover image © Ravi Pinisetti/Unsplash All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chryssavgis, John, editor. | Asproulis, Nikolaos, 1975- editor. Title: Priests of creation: John Zizioulas on discerning an ecological ethos / edited by John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis. Description: London; New York : T&T Clark, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020047652 (print) | LCCN 2020047653 (ebook) | ISBN 9780567699091 (paperback) | ISBN 9780567699107 (hardback) | ISBN 9780567699121 (epub) | ISBN 9780567699114 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Orthodox Eastern Church–Doctrines. | Zizioulas, Jean, 1931- | Ecology–Religious aspects–Orthodox Eastern Church. | Nature–Religious aspects–Orthodox Eastern Church. | Creation. | Human ecology–Religious aspects–Orthodox Eastern Church. Classification: LCC BX323 .P75 2021 (print) | LCC BX323 (ebook) | DDC 261.8/8–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047652 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047653 ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-9910-7 PB: 978-0-5676-9909-1 ePDF: 978-0-5676-9911-4 ePUB: 978-0-5676-9912-1 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www .bloomsbury .com and sign up for our newsletters. CONTENTS Foreword vii Introduction: Toward an Ecological Ethos 1 I Historical Roots 19 1 St. Paul and the Ecological Problem 21 2 The Book of Revelation and the Natural Environment 31 3 Creation Theology: An Orthodox Perspective 38 II Theological Approaches 53 4 Orthodoxy and the Ecological Crisis 55 5 A Theological Approach to the Ecological Problem 61 6 An Orthodox Response to the Environmental Challenge 73 III Liturgical Perspectives 91 7 Preserving God’s Creation: Three Lectures on Theology and Ecology 93 vi CONTENTS 8 The Eucharistic Vision of the World 133 9 Proprietors or Priests of Creation? 144 IV Ecological Ethics or Ecological Ethos? 155 10 Ethics or Ethos? A Brief Sketch 157 11 Toward an Environmental Ethic 160 V Scientific and Spiritual Dimensions 173 12 Religion and Science: A Theological Approach 175 13 Humanity and Nature: Learning from the Indigenous 186 14 Man and Animals 197 VI Ecumenical and Cultural Implications 203 15 Ecological Asceticism: A Cultural Revolution 205 16 Communion and Communication 210 17 Pope Francis and Laudato Si’ 214 Conclusion: From Here to Where? 221 Original Publications 228 Select Bibliography 231 Index of Names 233 Index of Terms 235 FOREWORD It becomes more and more clear that the ecological crisis which faces the human family cannot be adequately understood, let alone responded to, as a purely “managerial” set of problems. The roots of the crisis lie in a dysfunctional spirituality, and no merely technical solution will do: the survival of our ecosystem requires a spiritual revolution. The survival of the material world made by God—including our own material humanity—depends on our spiritual renewal, and the spiritual revolution is inseparable from a rediscovery of our material reality. For this to be possible, we need a coherent theology of our human position in the world. For centuries, at least since the beginnings of the dramatic expansion of the natural sciences in the seventeenth century, the working assumption of European modernity has been a grimly distorted version of theological convictions about our human vocation and our human uniqueness. We have absorbed the myth that humans are essentially agents defined by instrumental reason—and thus defined by problem-solving for the sake of their own survival: the material stuff of our environment has been seen as entirely subordinate to this model of the priority of the human agent as technical manager. The traditional and biblical understanding of the human person as made in the divine image, and thus made in order freely and lovingly to serve the well-being and balance of the whole created order, has been overlaid by a false spiritualism allied with a Promethean ambition for total control over the material world. Unsurprisingly, Judeo-Christian faith itself has been blamed by some for the devastation of our environment. Yet it is precisely this tradition that gives us some of the most deeply rooted resources for combating the lethal myths that imprison us. In recent decades, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has been an eminent Christian pioneer in the recovery of a richer and more faithful theology of human calling viii FOREWORD and human dignity—a recovery now also endorsed eloquently in the Encyclical of Pope Francis, Laudato Si’. And the Patriarch’s theological vision has been developed in concert with one of the most creative theological minds of our age, Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon. Metropolitan John’s writings on Trinitarian theology, on Church and Eucharist, and above all on the relational character of all finite being as the free creation of an infinite agency that is itself irreducibly relational, have been formative for Christian thinkers of all confessions and backgrounds. It is a great gift to have his reflections specifically on the question of our theological response to ecological crisis gathered together. Here we have just the coherent and comprehensive theological resource that we need for “spiritual revolution”—an impressively wide-ranging vision of what human freedom means in a fragile material universe. The very fact of creation means that our world is vulnerable to disintegration (to what the New Testament and the Fathers knew as phthora, “corruption”). The finite universe always stands “over” nothingness, held in life solely by God’s free gift and not resting on any intrinsic quality of its own, and this means that created freedom exists—in the image of uncreated freedom—in order to serve and conserve the mutuality and reciprocal life-sharing of finite beings, the fruitful balance of all things as they reflect the harmony and abundance of eternal wisdom. The tragedy of our created freedom is in our turning away from this vocation to conserve the flow of gift within the created order to the distorted obsession with preserving our own privilege and security at the expense of all others, human and nonhuman. Christ’s work restores to us that lost place of service— the priestly place we were created to occupy. And the Eucharist in which Christ’s body draws into itself the material life of the world around so that it is, by the spirit’s power, transformed into a gift both to God and from God is the supreme embodiment of the renewal of our humanity and our whole world that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection accomplish. This is the vision which Metropolitan John outlines, with both passion and subtlety. In these pages, as in everything he has written, we find a profound challenge to reimagine our humanity in the living presence of the Triune God and to open ourselves afresh to the transformation offered and promised by the grace of Christ and the FOREWORD ix act of the spirit. For anyone looking for a fully and unapologetically Christian manifesto for the spiritual revolution we so urgently need, these pages will be more than welcome. Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury (2002–2012) Master of Magdalene College (2013–2020)
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