Você está na página 1de 15

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL DIMENSION

OF THE ORTHODOXY-SCIENCE RELATION

Emeritus Professor Petros Vassiliadis


Director of the “Orthodox Ecumenical Theology” inter-Orthodox post-graduate program of IHU

ABSTRACT: The paper deals with the understanding of the Science and the Orthodox Church’s relationship to
science, by examining her relationship to modernity, especially on the crucial issue of Christian anthropology. As a
presupposition it first deals with the examination of Orthodoxy as an ecclesial category, especially by focusing on its
eschatological dimension, and by extension on the importance of her “Eucharistic,” identity. The Eucharist is always
understood in its authentic perception as a proleptic manifestation of the Kingdom of God, as a symbol and image of an
alternative reality, something that makes all human efforts and pursuits, including science, seemingly redundant.
Eschatology, however, being the starting point of the Church’s witness to the world, does not mean detachment from
the history. Very crucial is, therefore, the relationship between the Church’s (eschatological) identity and her
(historical) witness. The Church exists not for herself, but for the world. The tension between the ecclesial identity and
our modern pluralistic society, based primarily on science, especially the social and anthropological ones, is one of the
most important chapters in the Orthodox Church’s witness today and her relation to science.
To thoroughly examine the church-science relation the paper focuses on four areas: (a) The Church’s attitude toward
modernity, and science as a “modern” (and post-modern) phenomenon. The Church cannot exercise her mission in
today’s world in a meaningful and effective way without a certain encounter with modernity. (b) The new
understanding of Christian mission, especially in view of the decisions of the Orthodox Church’s recent Holy and Great
Council, which in general endorses science. The old mission paradigm, in straight opposition to the science, in the form
of opposition to the evolution theory at the beginning of last century, and on the level of anthropology in our present
time, with fundamentalists continuing to fight the “culture war”, needs a re-assessment. Also, a reassessment is needed
to tackle a distorted understanding of eschatology, which led to a dangerous development in Orthodoxy that fights
against the…faithless, corrupted, or even heretic, West, in the case of the recent Rushkii Mir theory that has clear
consequences on the present Ukrainian crisis. And (c) the anthropological dimension of the Orthodox-science relation,
centered on the concept of human identity, the most debated issues of which are those on gender theory and on the
nature and role of women in Church and society.

Without ignoring that the main focus of this series of conferences is on the natural sciences, in
view of the future perspectives of science-Orthodoxy relations in the title of the program, I
intentionally decided to address the anthropological dimension of this relation, because it is an
issue that will occupy Orthodoxy – but also Christianity and broadly religion in general – both
theologically and as a mission imperative.
It is almost impossible, however, to understand this relation without examining the Christian
Church’s attitude toward modernity. But before doing this I need to define what does this very
precious, but at the same time ill-treated, misunderstood, and even badly misused, entity, i.e.
Orthodoxy, really means.
Orthodoxy as an ecclesial category, and its eschatological dimension: Orthodoxy is normally
defined in confessional or denominational terms, i.e. as the Eastern branch of Christianity, which
was separated from the West around the beginning of the second millennium CE. This is at least
how the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes the Orthodox Church, i.e. as “a
family of Churches, situated mainly in Eastern Europe: each member Church is independent in its
internal administration, but all share the same faith and are in communion with one another,
acknowledging the honorary primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople.” This definition no longer
holds true. According to its most serious interpreters Orthodoxy refers to the wholeness of the
people of God, who share the right conviction (ορθή δόξα=right opinion) concerning the event of
God's salvation in Christ and his Church, and the right expression (orthopraxia) of this faith.
1
Orthodoxia leads to the maximum possible application in Orthopraxia of charismatic life in the
freedom of the Holy Spirit, in all aspects of daily public life, social and cosmic alike. Everyone is
invited by Orthodoxy to transcend confessions and inflexible institutions without necessarily
denying them. The late N. Nissiotis has reminded us that Orthodoxy is not to be identified only
with us Orthodox in the historical sense and with all our limitations and shortcomings. 1 “We should
never forget that this term is given to the One, (Holy, Catholic and) Apostolic Church as a whole
over against the heretics who, of their own choice, split from the main body of the Church. The
term (Orthodoxy) is exclusive for all those, who willingly fall away from the historical stream of
life of the One Church but it is inclusive for those who profess their spiritual belonging to that
stream.”2 The term Orthodoxy, therefore, has more or less ecclesial rather that confessional or
ideological connotations. 3

This ecclesial understanding of Orthodoxy has been first put forward by the late George
Florovsky, who speaking at an ecumenical meeting in the name of the One Church has declared:
“the Church is first of all a worshipping community. Worship comes first, doctrine and discipline
second. The lex orandi has a privileged priority in the life of the Christian Church. The lex credendi
depends on the devotional experience and vision of the Church.”4
I have argued elsewhere5 that out of the three main characteristics that generally constitute the
Orthodox theology, namely its “Eucharistic,” “Trinitarian”, and “hesyhastic” dimension, only the
first one can bear a universal and ecumenical significance. If the last dimension and important
feature marks a decisive development in Eastern Christian theology and spirituality after the
eventual from Western Christianity, a development that has determined, together with other factors,
the mission of the Orthodox Church in recent history; and if the Trinitarian dimension constitutes
the supreme expression of Christian theology, ever produced by human thought in its attempt to
grasp the mystery of God, after Christianity’s dynamic encounter with the Greek culture; it was,
nevertheless, only because of the Eucharistic experience, the matrix of all theology, ecclesiology
and spirituality of Christianity, that all theological and spiritual climaxes in our Church have been
actually achieved.
The Eucharist, heart and center of Christian Liturgy, is always understood in its authentic
perception as a proleptic manifestation of the Kingdom of God, as symbol and image of an
alternative reality, which was conceived before all creation by God the Father in his mystical plan
(the mysterion in the biblical sense), was inaugurated by His Son Jesus Christ, and is permanently
sustained by the Holy and life-giving Spirit.
What is, nevertheless, of paramount importance, is that this Kingdom is expected to culminate at
the eschaton. This, in fact, brings us to the eschatological dimension of the Church.6 Eschatology
1 N. Nissiotis, “Interpreting Orthodoxy,” ER 14 (1961) pp. 1-27.
2 Ibid. p. 26. Cf. also the notion of sobornicitatea (open catholicity) advanced by D. Staniloae, Theology and the
Church, p. 7. More on this in N. Mosoiu, Taina prezenţei lui Dumnezeu în viaţa umană. Viziunea creatoare a
Părintelui Profesor Dumitru Stăniloae, Pitesti/Braşov/Cluj-Napoca 2000, pp. 246ff.
3 For this reason one can safely argue that the fundamental principles of Christian ecclesiology, spirituality, and
of the Christian mission, are the same in the East and in the West. What I am going to say, therefore applies to the
entire Christian faith, to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. In what follows, therefore, I will freely
alternate the terms “Orthodoxy” and “Christianity”, avoiding as much as possible any reference to the canonical
boundaries of the term “Church.”
4 G. Florovsky, “The Elements of Liturgy,”, in G. Patelos (ed.), The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical
Movement, Geneva 1978, 172-182, p.172.
5 Cf. my “The Eucharistic Perspective of the Church’s Mission,” Eucharist and Witness. Orthodox Perspectives
on the Unity and Mission of the Church, WCC/Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Geneva/Boston 1998, pp. 49-66, p. 50.
6 The early Christian tradition stresses, in one way or another, the eschatological and not the historical dimension
of the Church. Even the episcopocentric structure of the Church, was understood eschatologically. The bishop e.g. as
primus inter pares presiding in love over the eucharistic community, was never understood (except very late under the
heavy influence of scholasticism) as a vicar, representative, or ambassador of Christ, but as an image of Christ. So,
with the rest of the ministries of the Church: they are not parallel to, or given by, but identical with those of, Christ.
3
constitutes the central and primary aspect of ecclesiology, the beginning of the Church, that which
gives her identity, sustains and inspires her in her existence. Hence the priority of the Kingdom of
God in all ecclesiological, missiological and spiritual considerations. Everything belongs to the
Kingdom. The Church in her institutional expression does not administer all reality; she only
prepares the way to the Kingdom, in the sense that she is an image if it. That is why, although to the
eyes of the historian and the sociologist is yet another human institution, to the theologian it is
primarily a mystery, and we very often call her an icon of the Kingdom to come.
Eschatology, however, being the starting point of the Church’s witness to the world, does not by
any means detach her from the world. It is to the merits of modern Orthodox theologians, who 7

reaffirmed the paramount importance of eschatology for Christian theology, although very little has
been written about the relationship between the Church’s (eschatological) identity and her
(historical) mission. The mission of the Church is but a struggle to witness and to apply this
8

eschatological vision of the Church to the historical realities and to the world at large. Christian
theology, on the other hand, is about the right balance between history and eschatology. We should
never forget that theology and the Church exist not for themselves, but for the world. The tension,
therefore, between eschatology and history, or to put it more sharply the relationship between the
ecclesial community and our modern pluralistic society basically based on science, is one of the
most important chapters in the Church’s witness today.9
I will focus on three areas, in an effort to shed light to the issue we discuss: (a) The Church’s
attitude toward modernity and science, and the whole range of the achievements of the
10

Enlightenment, especially within the framework of post-modernity; (b) the new understanding of
Christian mission; and (c) the anthropological dimension of the Orthodoxy-science relation.
(a) Science as a “modern” phenomenon in modernity and “post-modernity”
Science is definitely related to, and for most scholars is the result of, “modernity,” the most
tangible outcome of the Enlightenment that prevailed in Europe and dominated in all aspects of
public life of our western civilization after the disastrous religious wars in the 17 th century CE, that
ended with the famous peace of Westphalia in 1648 CE. The modernist revolution had a lasting and
catalytic, though indirect, effect in the religious life of the Christian world on both sides of the
Atlantic. 11

That is also why the whole Orthodox theology and life, especially as this latter is expressed in Sunday’s liturgical
offices, are centered around the resurrection. The Church exists not because Christ died on the cross, but because he is
risen from the dead, thus becoming the aparche of all humanity. J. Zizioulas, Being as Communion. Studies in
Personhood and the Church, New York 1985; idem, “The Mystery of the Church in Orthodox Tradition,” One in
Christ 24 (1988) 294-303.
7 Almost all prominent Orthodox theologians of the recent past (G. Florovsky, S. Agouridis, J. Meyendorff, A.
Schmemann, J. Zizioulas, to name just few) have underlined the eschatological dimension of Orthodoxy. Cf. also E.
Clapsis’ doctoral dissertation, Eschatology and the Unity of the Church: The Impact of the Eschatology in the
Ecumenical Thought (Ann Arbor, MI.: U.M.I., 1988); also his "Eschatology," in the Dictionary of the Ecumenical
Movement, pp. 361a - 364a.
8 Cf. my Eucharist and Witness, passim; also “L’ eschatologie dans la vie de l’ Église: Une perspective chrétienne
orthodoxe et son impact sur la vie de la société,” Irénikon 73 (2000), pp. 316-334.
9 Cf. Staniloae’s strong criticism to the trend in contemporary Orthodoxy to identify the Orthodox spirituality
with a disregard to the every day life, a phenomenon described in his own words as “a premature eschatologism.” ( D.
Stăniloae, Ascetica si mistica orthodoxa, Alba Iulia 1993, p. 28, in Romanian).
10 In this paper I use the terms “modernism” (and “pre- or post-modernism”) as ideological, spiritual, cultural
category or paradigm, and “modernity” (and “pre- or post-modernity”) as the discrete period in history in which this
paradigm circulate.
11 Cf. Visser’t Hooft, “Pluralism – Temptation or Opportunity?” The Ecumenical Review 18 1966, pp. 129-149.
For an early Orthodox response cf. Metropolitan George Khodre,“Christianity in a Pluralistic World -The Economy of
the Holy Spirit,” Ecumenical Review 23 (1971), pp. 118-128.
To properly define the faith-science dichotomy it is necessary to briefly locate it within the
framework of modernism and the dialectics between modernism and post-modernism. 12

In the pre-modern world, the sacred cosmic stories of all religions provided, each for its own
culture, the most public and certain knowledge human beings believed they had about reality. After
the “Enlightenment”, i.e. in modernity, the secular science replaced religion as the most public and
certain knowledge that human beings believed they had of their world, whereas the religious
stories, values and views were reduced to matters of personal and private belief and opinion. The
ideal of modernism was the separation of the church from the state (or religion from society), the
relegation of religion to the private or personal realm, and the declaration of the public realm as
secular (from the Latin word seculum=age, this present world), in other words free from all
religious influence (focusing as we said on the world to come). During almost the entire period of
modernity Christianity was reserved, if not hostile, to the principles of modernism. This is more
evident in Eastern Christianity, whereas in some segments of the West the opposite path was
followed, that of an almost complete surrender, especially in Protestantism.
Post-modernity is an ambiguous term used to name an ambiguous time of transition in history.
The post-modern period has its beginnings in the emergence of the social sciences, which at its
earlier stages undermined the authority of religion and their public presence, and contributed to the
secularization of society. When, however, the same techniques of sociological and historical
criticism were finally applied to science itself, including the social sciences, it was discovered that
the scientific knowledge was also an imaginative interpretation of the world. For some, this
discovery was more shocking than the discovery that the earth was not the center of the universe. 13

Suddenly, all our worldviews, including the so-called scientific ones, were relativized. This made
people aware that their respective (modern) views of the world could not automatically be assumed
to be objective descriptions. All these developments have brought again religion, and the Church in
particular, back into the public domain. This made theology adopt a new approach and articulate
what is generally called “public theology.” 14

Having said all these, it is important to reaffirm what sociologists of knowledge very often
point out, i.e. that modernism, counter (alternative) modernism, post-modernism, and even de-
modernism, are always simultaneous processes. Otherwise post-modernism can easily end up and
15

evaporate to a neo-traditionalism, and at the end of the road a neglect or even negation of the great
achievements of the Enlightenment and the ensuing scholarly critical “paradigm.” The rationalistic
sterility of modern life has turned to the quest for something new, something radical, which
nevertheless is not always new, but very often old recycled: neo-romanticism, neo-mysticism,
naturalism, etc. 16

12 From Nancey Murphy’s three-fold approach to the subject (philosophy of language, epistemology, philosophy
of science) I will concentrate only on the last one (Anglo-American Postmodernity: Philosophical Perspectives on
Science, Religion and Ethics, Boulder, Colorado, 1997). Cf. also Rodney L. Petersen (ed.), Christianity and Civil
Society, ΒΤΙ, Boston 1995; and Jacob Neusner (ed.), Religion and the Political Order, Scholars Press, Atlanta 1996.
13 Darrell Fasching, “Judaism, Christianity, Islam: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in the (Post)modern World,”
Jacob Neusner (ed.), Religion and the Political Order, Scholars Press, Atlanta 1996, pp. 291-299. Also idem., The
Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Apocalypse or Utopia? Albany 1993.
14 Cf. E. Clapsis, “The Orthodox Church in a Pluralistic World,” Orthodoxy in Conversation:Orthodox
Ecumenical Engagements, WCC/HC Geneva/Boston 2000, pp. 127-150.
15Jürgen Habermas, “Die Moderne-Ein unvollendetes Projekt,” W.Welsch (ed.), Wege aus der Moderne.
Schlüssetexte der Postmoderne Diskussion, Weihnheim 1988, pp. 177-192; Jean-François Lyotard, “An Interview”
Theory, Culture and Society 5 (1989), pp. 277-309, esp. p. 277; idem, The Postmodern Condition Minnesota UP,
Minneapolis 1984; Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in 19 th c. Europe, J.Hopkins U.P,
Baltimore 1973; Ι. Petrou, «Παράδοση και πολιτισμική προσαρμογή στη δεύτερη νεωτερικότητα», Σύναξη 75 (2000),
pp. 25-35.
W. Welsch, Unsere postmoderne Moderne, VCH Acta humaniora, Wenheim 1988, σελ. 7
16 Postmodernity’s responses and reactions to the modern project of the Enlightenment to ground knowledge on
“reason” as a timeless, universal construct, immune from the corrosive forces of history, has very seldom gone to the
extreme. The enduring dream of modernity, should not be minimized or dismissed out of hand, and the many
5
I firmly believe that the Church cannot exercise her mission in today’s pluralistic world in a
meaningful and effective way without a reassessment of the present context, without a certain
encounter with modernity. By and large, there still exist a aloofness between Christianity and
17

modernity, which is caused not only by the former’s rejection of the latter, and the negative attitude
toward the whole range of the achievements of the Enlightenment, and indirectly toward science;
but also by the obstinate persistence of the adherents of modernism, especially the militant
modernists to allow historic and diachronic institutions, like the Church, to play a significant role in
the public life, without being either absorbed or alienated by it, with the simple argument that
derive their origin in the pre-modern era. If today this encounter is possible, and even desirable, this
is because of the undisputed transition of our culture to a new era, the post-modern era that brought
with it the resurgence of religion, which however can be both a hope and a threat.
Peter Berger half a century ago tried to describe the attitude of the Church toward the modernist
revolution, and the pluralistic condition that it entailed, in terms of two opposite positions:
accomodation and resistance. In my view both these positions from a theological point of view
18

(more precisely from an Orthodox theological point of view) are inadequate.


Resistance is no longer suggested as a practical solution, because of the progress made in the
theology of mission, as we will see later. As to accomodation, the impossibility of its application is
19

based on a theological and ecclesiological ground. For the Church and her theology are
20

incompatible with at least three cornerstones of modernism: (a) secularism, (b) individualism, and
(c) privatization.
If the Church accomodates to modernism and accepts secularism, then automatically her role,
her nature and mission are all exhusted to her institutional expression. The Church will become yet
another institution of this world, which can of course be welcomed, and even become a desirable
player, by the dominant modern paradigm in the public domain, but she will loose her prophetic,
and above all her eschatological, character. The Church, drawing her esse and identity neither from
what she is at the present, nor from what it was given to her in the past (tradition, values, even
dogmas an moral commands), but from what she will become in the eschaton, she must not only
avoid acting as an institution of this world; she must also critically respond and prophetically
challenge all institutional and unjust structures, and even prevailing views in societal life.
With regard to individualism, it is quite obvious that the Church as a communion event, a
koinonia of free people (and not as an oppressing communitarian system that ignores the individual
human rights), is incompatible with any system that places as a basic principle the individual being
21

and not his or her relations with the “other,” any other, and of course God, the “Ulimate Other.”
Fianlly, the relegation and extrusion of the Church exclusively to the private domain contradicts
her identity, and above all nullifies her responsibility and imperative duty to evangelize the good
news to the end of the world. This mission, of course, should not have an expansional character
with imperialistic attitude and behavior, as it happened in the past; nor should it aim “at the
22

achievements it has realized, such as a concern for universal human rights, a concern for justice and equality, all
deserve commendation and praise from the Church.
17 Cf. my recent book Postmodernity and the Church. The Challenge of Orthodoxy, Akritas Athens 2002.
18 Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy. Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Doubleday, New York
1967, pp. 156ff.; also pp. 106ff.
19 F.J.Verstraelen etc. (eds.), Missiology. An Ecumenical Introduction, Michigan 1995; also K.Raiser,
Ecumenism in Transition. A Paradigm Shift in the Ecumenical Movement, WCC Publications Geneva 1991 (translated
with modifications from the Germen original Ökumene im Übergang, C.Kaiser Verlag München 1989), pp. 54ff.
20 What follows comes from my book Postmodernity and the Church, pp. 38ff.
21 Cf. Kostas Delikostantis, Human Rights. A Western Ideology or an Ecumenical Ethos?, Thessaloniki, 1995
(in Greek).
22 Cf. my article “Beyond Christian Universalism: The Church’s Witness in a Multicultural Society,” in
Επιστημονική Επετηρίδα Θεολογικής Σχολής. Τιμητικό αφιέρωμα στον Ομότιμο Καθηγητή Αλέξανδρο Γουσίδη. n.s.
Τμήμα Θεολογίας. vol. 9 (1999), pp. 309-320
propagation or transmission of intellectual convictions, doctrines, moral commands etc., but at the
transmission of the life of communion, that exists in God.” 23

If, nevertheless, neither resistance nor accommodation of the Church to the modern critical
paradigm is legitimate on theological grounds, there is a third solution that has been applied by the
Church on grounds of her missionary responsibility during the golden era of the 4 th century c.e.,
that of the social integration, the famous Byzantine synthesis, when the Church took the risk to
embrace the “empire” and practically reject the “desert.” At that critical moment in her history the
24

Church allowed to be integrated to the contemporary society of the Roman empire, certainly a
“secular” one with all difficulties and risks, but she kept her prophetic voice and role about the
historical process.
(b) The new understanding of Christian mission
The essence of what has been briefly presented was on the ecumenical agenda of WCC, where
the ecumenical theology of mission replaced the negative assessment to modernism – and to
science in particular – by a more positive one. Since the 1963 World Mission Conference in Mexico
most of the earlier models of evangelization of the whole world, as well as of mission as
proclamation and conversion in their literal sense, were enriched by a new understanding of
mission, mostly represented by a variety of terms like witness or martyria, public presence,
dialogue, liberation, etc. Rather than proclamation alone, all Churches and Christian communities
25

and mission agencies started exploring in their own ways a different understanding of “Christian
witness.” In addition to the earlier models of evangelization of the whole world, the Church began
to address human sin in the structural complexities of our world and started ministering the socially
poor and marginalized of our societies in their contexts, and above all entering into a constructive
dialogue with science, thus making her presence visible in the society.
It has been rightly argued that during the “old ecumenical paradigm” Christians felt that they
were called “to convey to the rest of humanity the blessings of Western (i.e. bourgeois) Christian
civilization...The slogan ‘the evangelization of the world in this generation’ emphasizes the
missionary consciousness of this early movement, in which genuine missionary and evangelistic
motives were inextricably combined with cultural and social motives.” 26

It was for these reasons that Christian theology on the world mission scene adopted a more
holistic view, and with the contribution – among others – of the Orthodox theology, suggested a
radical shift to a “new paradigm,” a “trinitarian” understanding of the divine reality. For mission
theology, this meant abandoning the primary importance of proselytism, not only among Christians
of other denominations, but even among peoples of other religions. Dialogue was suggested as new

23 I. Bria (ed.), Go Forth in Peace, WCC Geneva 1986, p. 3.


24 G. Florovsky, “Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert,” Christianity and Culture. Vol. II of The
Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Nordland Publishing Company, Belmont 1974, pp. 67-100.
25 Cf. Common Witness. A Joint Document of the Working Group of the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC,
WCC Mission Series, Geneva 1982; the document Common Witness and Proselytism; also I.Bria (ed.), Martyria-
Mission, WCC Geneva, 1980. Even the Mission and Evangelism-An Ecumenical Affirmation, Geneva 1982, WCC
Mission Series 21985 , is an attempt to correctly interpret the classical missionary terminology. Cf. also the most recent
agreed statement of the Dorfweil/Germany Consultation of KEK with the European Baptist Federation and the
European Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (12-13 June 1995) with the title: “Aspects of Mission and
Evangelization in Europe Today”). We must confess, however, that the traditional terminology (mission, conversion,
evangelism or evangelization, christianization) still have an imperative validity and are retained as the sine qua non of
the Christian identity of those Christian communities which belong to the “evangelical” stream of the Christian faith. A
comprehensive presentation of the present state of the debate in J.Matthey, “Milestones in Ecumenical Missionary
Thinking from the 1970s to the 1990s,” IRM 88 (1999), pp. 291-304.
26K.Raiser, Ecumenism in Transition. A Paradigm Shift in the Ecumenical Movement, WCC Publications Geneva
1991 (translated with modifications from the Germen original Ökumene im Übergang, C.Kaiser Verlag München
1989), p.34.
7
term parallel to, and in some cases in place of, the old missiological terminology. Nowadays, the 27

problem of reconciliation in the religious field has become not simply a social necessity but a
legitimate theological imperative.28
We no longer insist on the universal proselytizing mission, but on the authentic witness of the
Church’s eschatological experience. This was made possible by the fundamental assumption of the
Trinitarian theology, “that God in God’s own self is a life of communion and that God’s
involvement in history aims at drawing humanity and creation in general into this communion with
God’s very life”. Therefore, the moral and social responsibility of Christians, i.e. their mission in
29

today’s pluralistic world overwhelmed by the importance of science and the challenges it poses, is
based on their ecclesial (i.e. relational) self-consciousness. In practical and pastoral terms this
means a loving and compassionate, not a confrontational, response to all modernist challenges of
today.
Today, in the field of world mission, we speak of the “oekoumene which is to come” («την
οικουμένην την μέλλουσαν»), according to the terminology of Epistle to the Hebrews (2,5 cf. also
13,14ff.), as it is described in the book of Revelation (chs. 21 and 22), as an open society, where an
honest dialogue between Church and science, as well as between the existing living cultures, can
take place. The world pluralistic society can and must become a household (οίκος), where everyone
is open to the “other” (as they are open to the Ulimate Other, i.e. God), and where all can share a
common life and contribute to the “common good,” despite their pursuits and views and the
plurality and difference of their identity.
All these new developments have been recently reaffirmed by the Holy and Great Council (Crete
2016), the nucleus of the adopted documents of which were agreed and voted by all 14
Autocephalous Churches, including those that did not participate in it. These are the relevant to
science paragraph in the Message that summarized the results of the Council in simple terms:
“In regard to the matter of the relations between Christian faith and the natural sciences, the
Orthodox Church avoids placing scientific investigation under tutelage and does not adopt a
position on every scientific question. She thanks God who gives to scientists the gift of
uncovering unknown dimensions of divine creation. The modern development of the natural
sciences and of technology is bringing radical changes to our life. It brings significant benefits,
such as the facilitation of everyday life, the treatment of serious diseases, easier communications
and space exploration, and so on. In spite of this, however, there are many negative consequences
such as the manipulation of freedom, the gradual loss of precious traditions, the destruction of the
natural environment and the questioning of moral values. Scientific knowledge, however swiftly
it may be advancing, does not motivate man's will, nor does it give answers to serious moral and
existential issues and to the search for the meaning of life and of the world. These matters
demand a spiritual approach, which the Orthodox Church attempts to provide through bioethics
which is founded on Christian ethics and Patristic teaching. Along with her respect for the
freedom of scientific investigation, the Orthodox Church at the same time points out the dangers
concealed in certain scientific achievements and emphasizes man's dignity and his divine destiny”
(par. 7).30
27This development is a radical reinterpretation of Christology through Pneumatology (cf.John Zizioulas, Being
as Communion, SVS Press New York 1985), through the rediscovery of the forgotten trinitarian theology of the
undivided Church (cf. A.I.C.Herton ed., The Forgotten Trinity, London, 1991).
28 For an Orthodox contribution to the debate cf. (Archbishop of Albania) Anastasios Yannoulatos, Various
Christian Approaches to the Other Religions (A Historical Outline), Athens 1971.
29 I. Bria (ed.), Go Forth in Peace, p. 3.
30 The original reference of all this is the Mission document. “For the Orthodox Church, the ability to explore the
world scientifically is a gift from God to humanity. However, along with this positive attitude, the Church
simultaneously recognizes the dangers latent in the use of certain scientific achievements.…This perspective of the
Church proves necessary for many reasons in order to establish proper boundaries for freedom and the application of
the fruits of science, where in almost all disciplines, but especially in biology, we can expect both new achievements
and risks. At the same time, we emphasize the unquestionable sacredness of human life from its conception”. And in
the next paragraph: “Over the last years, we observe an immense development in the biological sciences and in
However, not all Orthodox Churches share this modest opening towards the values of today’s
“modern condition.”31 Much more reserved towards science is the official document of the Russian
Church: The Basis of the Social Concepts.32 Mainly for its inclination toward the “traditional”
(exclusively, of course) moral ethics (pro-life etc.) – rather than the more “holistic” social ethics
endorsed by the Holy and Great – the Russian Church (and her allies) abstained from this long-
awaited Pan-Orthodox Council. More recently this inclination has taken the more aggressive form
of their Rushkii Mir theory, which in fact rejects everything that comes from the West. And this had
obvious consequences on the present Ukrainian crisis.
Of course, there are other factors that have contributed to the reservation – even hostility –
toward science: one is the apocalyptic and the other the humanistic version, of eschatology.
According to the former the Kingdom of God is coming soon, and therefore there is not anything to
expect from history. Christians can do nothing to improve human reality, to relate to science and its
consequences etc. and therefore, there no need for real mission, social responsibility, public
presence or culture is possible or even desirable. The New Jerusalem is expected to come from
heaven all prepared (Rev 21:2), and we have nothing to contribute to it.
According to the latter, which stands in opposition to the former and was dominant in the West
since the time of the Enlightenment, there is an optimistic understanding of history; but in the
Orthodox world has taken the form of a revival of either the post-hesyhastic dichotomy between
reason/science and theology, or the old paradigm of the Byzantine synthesis, this time in the narrow
limits of nationalistic religious entities: Holy Russia, Great Serbia, the chosen Greek Orthodoxy
etc. are some expressions, which taken even further envisage a dangerous development of an
Orthodox axis, which will fight the faithless, corrupted, or even heretic, West!33
Equally important factor for such a (nearly negative Orthodox) attitude toward science was a
distorted view about liturgy,34 and consequently the lack of liturgical renewal, especially in the so-
corresponding biotechnologies. Many of these achievements are considered beneficial for humankind, while others
raise ethical dilemmas and still others are deemed unacceptable. The Orthodox Church believes that the human being is
not merely a composition of cells, bones, and organs; nor again is the human person defined solely by biological
factors. Man is created in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and reference to humanity must take place with due respect. The
recognition of this fundamental principle leads to the conclusion that, both in the process of scientific investigation as
well as in the practical application of new discoveries and innovations, we should preserve the absolute right of each
individual to be respected and honored at all stages of life. Moreover, we should respect the will of God as manifested
through creation. Research must take into account ethical and spiritual principles, as well as Christian precepts. Indeed,
due respect must be rendered to all of God’s creation in regard to both the way humanity treats and science explores it,
in accordance to God’s commandment (Gen 2:15)” (The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World, chapter F.
The Mission of the Orthodox Church as a Witness of Love through Service, par. 11 and 12).
31 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, Minnesota UP, Minneapolis 1984; also his “An Interview”
Theory, Culture and Society 5 (1989), 277-309, p. 277.
32 Especially in chapter xiv: https://mospat.ru/en/documents/social-concepts/xiv/
33 According to J. Meyendorff, he third type of eschatology is the prophetic one. It is the only acceptable type of
eschatology, and it is based on the biblical concept of prophecy, which in both the Old and the New Testament does not
simply forecast the future or announce the inevitable, but also places humans before an option, a choice between two
types of personal or social behavior. The people of God are free to choose, but the prophet has informed them of the
consequences (“Does Christian Tradition Have a Future,” pp. 140ff). Of course, these consequences today are the
realities of the pluralistic (post)modern world and the issues of science and secular bio-ethics, but these can – and
should be – viewed along the lines of the modern mission paradigm.
34 There are two major understandings of Liturgy. According to the first one, the Liturgy is understood as a private
act, functioning as a means to meet some particular religious needs: i.e. both the need of the community to exercise its
power and supervision on its members, and the need of the individual for personal “sanctification.” We can call this
understanding of the liturgical act juridical This juridical understanding of Liturgy develops separation and certain
barriers, sometimes even hostility, between members of different religious systems and world views, thus intensifying
phenomena of intolerance and fanaticism. With such an understanding of Liturgy there is no real concern for history,
social life and public presence of the Church, nor any acceptance of pluralism or even dialogue with science. According
to a second understanding, however, the Liturgy functions as a means for the up building of the religious community,
which is no longer viewed in institutional terms, or as a cultic organization, but as a communion and as a way of living.
9
called “Metropolitan” lands of Orthodoxy. Naturally, then, only those Orthodox communities,
which have undergone a liturgical and eucharistic renewal, are able to properly deal with science.
The rest are struggling to overcome today’s real challenges by a retreat to the glorious past, despite
their strong pneumatological and eschatological tradition. But thus, they become vulnerable at best
to a kind of traditionalism and at worst to an anti-ecumenical, nationalistic, and intolerant
fundamentalism, attitudes, totally alien and unacceptable to the Orthodox ethos.
(c) The anthropological dimension of the Orthodoxy-science relation
And this brings us to the last and most important ethical issue: The anthropological dimension
of the problem of Orthodoxy-science relation, centered on the concept of human identity, the most
debated issues of which are in our days the “gender theory” in general, and the “nature and role of
women” in Church and society in particular.
In the long history of the undivided Church (the era of the Ecumenical Councils) the
theological focus was on Christology, related of course to soteriology. In the 20th century, as a result
of the division of Christianity and the ensuing ineffectiveness of the Christian mission, the focus
inevitably shifted to ecclesiology. The most urgent demand today for the Orthodox theology is
undoubtedly of an anthropological character.
Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) insists on the importance of anthropology for the future of
Orthodox theology and witness. In order to formulate Orthodox anthropology beyond the widely
accepted distinction between the (Apostolic) “T”radition and all the later local “t”raditions,”
another important distinction is equally necessary: that of the authentic— though latent—tradition,
and the one historically shaped as an ethos, albeit a majority in some cases. He argued:
“many Fathers of the Church (Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac the Syrian etc.)
believe that ‘the divine image in the human being should be associated with the soul and not with
the body, and even in the soul it is related to the power of self-knowledge and of speech.’ But
there are others - who may be a minority but a significant minority - who adopt a more holistic
approach, asserting that the divine image includes not only the soul but the whole being, body,
soul and spirit together. In this way they agree with the view expressed in the 5 th Ecumenical
Council and the Christian Creed. St. Irenaios of Lyon, e.g., writes: ‘The soul and the spirit can be
part of, but not the entire, human being; a perfect human being is a clash and a union both of a
soul, who has the spirit of the Father, and held in the image of God, a merciful flesh.’ 35
According to Metropolitan Kallistos, “the reality of the (human) person is beyond and
above whatever explanation we choose to give it. The inherent element of the person is the
overcoming of him/herself, his/her ability to be always open, his/her ability to point always to
the other. The human person, unlike the computer, is the one that fires every new start. Being a
human being means to be unpredictable, free and creative,”36 thus inevitably destined to embark
on the scientific journey.
This unpredictability of the person has recently brought with it the “scientific” quest of the
human identity, a highly controversial, of course, and ambiguous issue. Previously, the human
identity was considered as something given. But today, due to the research of the social
sciences (though their findings are still questioned) it is argued that all identities are
And this is what we can call communal understanding of Liturgy (More in my “Sunctus and the Book of Revelation.
Some Anthropological and Theological Insights on the Communal and Historical Dimension of Christian Liturgy,” L.
Padovese (ed.), Atti del VII Simposio di Efeso su S. Giovani Apostolo, Roma 1999, pp.143-156).
35 Ad. Heresies 5:6,1 (Η δε ψυχή και το πνεύμα μέρος του ανθρώπου δύνανται είναι, άνθρωπος δε ουδαμώς· ο δε
τέλειος άνθρωπος σύγκρασις και ένωσις εστι ψυχής της επιδεξαμένης το πνεύμα του Πατρός και συγκραθείσης τη κατ'
εικόνα Θεού πεπλασμένη σαρκί). This same view is also to be found in the celebrated passage of Michael Choniatis,
attributed wrongly to St Gregory Palamas, «...μή άν ψυχήν μόνην, μήτε σώμα μόνον λέγεσθαι άνθρωπον, αλλά το
συναμφότερον, όν δη και κατ' εικόνα πεποιηκέναι Θεός λέγεται» (Προσωποποιίαι, PG 150, col. 1361C).
36 From the first paragraph of his ceremonial speech as an affiliated member of the Academy of Athens, Ο
άνθρωπος ως μυστήριον. Η έννοια του προσώπου στους Έλληνες Πατέρες (The Human Being as a Mystery, The
Concept of the Person in the Greek Fathers), Academy of Athens publications 2006.
constructions talking about “shaping” the identity of a person or group in the sense of a
dynamic process through which the identity of the individual or group is constantly formed by
their environment, thereby developing a new ethos. Modern and postmodern ethics, in many
ways, attempt to impose an inclusive ethos, while traditional societies – and especially religious
ones – advocate an exclusive ethos. The inclusive ethos seeks to integrate a group into its social
context, which it often attempts to shape. The exclusive ethos struggles to maintain the
necessary distance through persistence in traditional values: this is because any “construction”
has anthropocentric features, and sometimes it conflicts with eternal or changeless truths.37
About half a century ago Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément, in their work, The Newly
Born Woman, gave a backdrop to the context in which the Church is called upon to give her witness
on social and moral issues. They spoke about the impossible to predict what will happen with
sexual variations in the future, in two hundred or three hundred years. One thing should not be
forgotten: men and women are involved in a web of centuries of cultural determinations that are
almost impossible to analyze in their complexity. It is now impossible to talk about “woman” or
“man” without being trapped in an ideological theater, where the multiplication of representations,
reflections, recognitions, transformations, distortions, constant change of images and fantasies,
cancels any appreciation in advance. 38

After World War II, new ethical issues have arisen, forcing the Christian world, and especially
theology mostly in an apologetic tone, ignoring most of the time the newest findings of science. 39

Today there is a clear distinction between what is a sin and what is a crime: adultery has always
been a sin, but in most countries, it is not an offense punishable by law. Rape, on the contrary,
continues to be both a sin and a crime.
To address this new situation Orthodoxy – not being of course alone among the various
religious systems – appears unprepared. The following three considerations, therefore, seem
necessary: a theological reconsideration of “human sexuality”; a new, dynamic and scientific
interpretation of biblical and patristic data; and a prudent approach to scholarly and scientific
results, especially with regard to the nature and role of women in Church and society.
(i) The Human Sexuality: In the “Letter from Sheffield”40 a statement was formulated which
said: “We welcome the recognition that human sexuality does not contradict (Christian) spirituality,
which is unified and concerns the body, the mind, and the spirit in their entirety…. Unfortunately,
sexuality itself has been for centuries and continues to be problematic”.41
In the Bible, of course, human beings are not determined by their nature, but by their
relationship with God and with their fellow human beings. Therefore, their salvation is not
achieved through any denial of the body, including sexuality. Moreover, the disobedience of our
ancestors did not bequeath guilt to humankind, and even linked to sexuality, but mortality and

37 There are of course cases, even in the New Testament texts, where the ethos of one or another group is mixed,
with its “exclusive” side tracing the “limits,” considering everything else as being on the outside, heretical, etc., while
its “inclusive” side expresses the manifold, and constantly evolves (cf Eberhard Bons-Karin Finsterbusch (eds.),
Konstruktionen individueller und kollektiver Identität (I): Altes Israel/Frühjudentum, griechische Antike, Neues
Testament/Alte Kirche - Studien aus Deutschland und Frankreich, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016). D.S.
Athanasopoulou-Kypriou in her book, To the Limits: Gendered Studies of Christian Presence, History, Crisis, and
Hope (Athens 2016), deals with this issue from the point of view of Christian witness.
38 Originally published in French as La jeune née, 1975, and then it was translated into English in 1986.
39 This change in morals was particularly evident in the United Kingdom, due to the notorious Kinsey Report that
resulted in the repeal of the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967; and in the United States early in the 1970s, when all laws that
categorized homosexual activity as a criminal offense were abolished.
40 I Sheffield a Christian conference was convened at the beginning of the Ecumenical Decade, “Churches in
Solidarity with Women” [1988-1998].
41 Connie Parvey [ed.], The Community of Women and Men in the Church: The Sheffield Report, Geneva, WCC
1981, pp. 83f.
11
perishability. The physical and spiritual functions of human beings are perceived as an inseparable
unity, and both can either distance them from God or put them at His service, that is, in communion
with Him. The “flesh” is not identified with evil, nor is it extremely dangerous. It only becomes so
when humans exclusively base their existence on it. Unbridled (and heterosexual) and unnatural
(not only homosexual) sexual activity on the one hand, but also hypocrisy on the other, are (at least
for St. Paul) examples of wrong human behavior.
Equally, in the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, as a great Orthodox scholar, the late fr.
John Meyendorff, has long ago argued, “human nature is not a static, closed, autonomous entity, but
a dynamic reality. The human being is determined by his/her relationship with God”.42 Human
nature, therefore, has not lost its dynamism after the fall, because by the grace of God it can be
transformed. Indeed, the role of God’s grace is that it essentially provides human being with their
“natural” substance43. The subject of human sexuality is therefore directly related to Christian
anthropology. And the main area of controversy is the gender issue, with homosexuality and the role
of women in Church and society being its main components.
(ii) The biblical data on homosexuality and the nature and role of women: At a theological
level, the controversy over both these issues took place with great emphasis on biblical references,
mainly in the US and the UK due to their Protestant tradition. Because the main biblical references
– which are proportionally minimal to zero in the rest of the biblical literature, including the
teaching of the historical Jesus – to the subject come from the corpus paulinum, upon those Pauline
references the ideological confrontation was based.44 I will limit myself to the Pauline evidence.
(a) By making an overall and as neutral as possible analysis, irrespective whether one accepts
the scientific findings that homosexuality45 is an inherent given – i.e. not due to human choice – or a
social construction), I came to the conclusion that St. Paul does not condemn the
homosexual inclination, but a kind of homosexual activity,46 which in a certain way, as a misguided
orientation of human behavior, was associated with a denial of or hostile attitude towards God. His
main arguments were: (i) that homosexuality was the behavior of his idolatrous religious and
social environment, which worshiped ta creatures rather than the creator; and for that reason (ii)
was contrary to the divine order.47
42 Byzantine Theology, New York 1972, p. 2
43 Ibid, pp. 143 and 138. Even more important and insightful, however, is Archbishop Lazar Puhalo’s recent
contribution, entitled On the Neurobiology of Sin, Synaxis Press: Dewdney, Canada 2016.
44 On the issue of homosexuality, we now have many high-level studies, irrespective of whether some are subject
to specific ideological preconditions. Where there seems to be theological unanimity is the distinction between the
homosexual act itself and human rights. (The silent ecclesiastical support of the Russian legislation and radical Islam
are exceptions that confirm the rule). There are also very interesting interpretive analyses and explanatory propositions
of particular biblical passages, with the help of new hermeneutical methods: honor-dishonest/shameful => highlighting
the subversive and radical—and certainly not conservative—character of the preaching of the historical Jesus and of the
early Church.
45 In Greece very few serious Orthodox studies on the subject are available: Rev. Vassiliou Thermos’ Attraction
and Passion: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Homosexuality (Athens 2016); my paper “Ο Απόστολος Παύλος για την
Ομοφυλοφιλία. Μια πρώτη ιεραποστολική και βιβλική προσέγγιση,” (St. Paul on Homosexuality. A Preliminary
Μissiological and Biblical Approach), in www.academia.edu/13225813, a first – as neutral as possible – attempt and
exclusively descriptive survey of the biblical data; and D. G. Athanasopoulou-Kypriou, To the Limits. Gendered Studies
of Christian Presence, History, Crisis and Hope” Athens 2016. We have all tried to contribute as much as possible—
sometimes to the ears of non-listeners—to the formation of an overall, comprehensive, and complete theological view
for an authentic, inclusive, and effective Christian witness, one which respects the collective entity of its long tradition
which hardly exceeds any “limits.” Our goal was to help our Church one day to overcome the “limits” without injuring
anyone, and without harming the authentic Church, to which we look with hope.
46 More in my article, “Ο Απόστολος Παύλος” (see previous note).
47 For this reason, I appealed for developing a clear scientific and theologically substantiated view and a new
interpretive approach, a new paradigm, based on: (i) the eschatological and ecclesiological identity of the Church,
analyzed above, (ii) the early biblical (but also later Byzantine) strategy of “social integration,” and (iii) the
If Orthodoxy is to renew its witness dynamically and in a philanthropic and loving manner in
the public domain, then she needs to take into consideration the scientific view on both
homosexuality and the nature of women and their role in Church and society, in other words to
seriously consider the sociological views of the gender theory. The change today in the use of
relative terminology (from sex to gender) is due to the extension of the concept of gender by
sociologists to express different sexually oriented groups and behaviors. The conflict is exacerbated
for ideological reasons on the basis of the Gramscian theory of cultural hegemony, which most
often evolves into a confrontation. And this has led, on the one hand, the Christian opponents of
any new theories to label those who subscribe to the new theories as victims of a systematic anti-
Christian front; and on the other hand, the advocates of gender theory almost always try to impose
their views on society, systematically targeting religious traditions.
(b) In the wider Christian circles, until very recently, those who supported the rights of women
and her dignity as a human person created by God primarily relied on the famous Galatian passage,
"there is no longer male and female" (3:28). At the other end, the various supporters (mainly from
the conservative Protestant world) of a literal reading of the biblical texts without qualitative
grading, as well as the supporters of the unqualified "tradition" of the Church (as opposed to the
authentic but "latent tradition," I mentioned above) limited the value of the above passage only to
its narrow salvific dimension. Therefore, they accept other passages of the corpus paulinum,
scholarly considered as deutero-pauline,48 or later N.T. views recorded for specific pastoral and
missionary purposes, as identifying the authentic Pauline view, or that they are of equal value (I
Cor 14,34f, I Tim 2,13, and the Haustafeln – the codes of family behavior – Col 3,18, Eph 5,22).
However, neither the Galatian passage, nor those of exactly the opposite view, are now
considered as of the Pauline contribution on the nature and role of women in the Church and the
Christian society. The first, because it is a pre-baptismal confession from the earlier Christian
tradition, which St. Paul simply adopted, just as he did with the other two cases of "parelavon-
paredoka” corresponding passages (I Cor 15:3ff, and 11:23ff).
As to the rest, because they simply stem from the later Deutero-Pauline or post-Pauline
literature, canonical of course, but not representing the authentic teaching of the "historical" Paul.
All except one: I Cor 14,33b–35 («αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν· οὐ γὰρ
ἐπιτέτραπται αὐταῖς λαλεῖν, ἀλλ᾿ ὑποτάσσεσθαι, καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει, εἰ δέ τι μαθεῖν θέλουσιν, ἐν
οἴκῳ τοὺς ἰδίους ἄνδρας ἐπερωτάτωσαν· αἰσχρὸν γάρ ἐστι γυναιξὶν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ λαλεῖν»).
This passage, in addition to being contrary to the argument of Paul in the same epistle,
according to which women are not only allowed to have a praying but also a teaching presence in
the liturgical synaxes of Corinth (to which the apostle refers extensively in chapter 11 verses 2-16),
it also breaks the flow of the argument and its literary coherence after verse 36; it is also missing or
replaced in some early manuscripts (D, F, G, it, Ambrosius, etc., which place it after verse 40, at the
end of the prophecy and speaking in tongues argument of Paul. All this led the interpreters to
conclude that this passage is a later addition, a gloss in the original text of the epistle.

philanthropic practice of the Orthodox canonical tradition.


48 It is important here to mention the results of biblical scholarship regarding the formation of the corpus
paulinum (the 13 epistles, to which later the epistle to the Hebrews was added as the 14th one): that formation came out
of the interest of his disciples to preserve the teaching of his master following his martyrdom. Initially as a small corpus
with his great letters, headed by Romans, to which later a first addition was attached, headed by the Ephesians, and
later a second one by another disciple of his, the one with the Pastoral letters. All 3 collections are sorted in a
decreasing number of words and in that order were passed to the final canon, with the addition of epistle to the
Hebrews at the end. The following table with the number of words of each letter, with the deutero-Pauline epistles in
italics:
Original collection1st Addition 2nd AdditionRomans34,410Ephesians12,0121 Timothy8,8691
Corinthians32,767Philippians8,0092 Timothy6,5382 Corinthians22,280Colossians7,897Titus3,733Galatians11,0911
Thessalonians7,4232 Thessalonians 4,055Philemon 1.575
13
However, what radically change the state of scholarly biblical research, and lifted the slightest
doubt about the later (non-Pauline) addition of I Cor 14: 33b-35, was the discovery of the
significance of the 16th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the more extensive of the New
Testament, in which we find the fullest exposition of the gospel Paul. So far, Rom 16 was almost
totally ignored, as merely containing recommendations and greetings, unworthy of serious
scientific and interpretative analysis. However, in the last few decades this chapter is considered as
an important contribution to the discovery of the role of women at the very early stages of Christian
Church’s life.
In Romans 16:1-2, therefore, Paul recommends to the Romans. a woman called Phoebe from
the harbor of the city of Corinth, Kechreae, "συνίστημι Φοίβην τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἡμῶν,
οὖσαν διάκονον τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἐν Κεγχρεαῖς" (1-2), with the addition " προστάτις πολλῶν
ἐγενήθη καὶ αὐτοῦ ἐμοῦ ". Note that she was a deacon, and although at that time the "deacons" were
not the official functional institutions, which is being done at a later stage in the first Church,
Phoebe must have been a prominent physiognomy of the Corinthian church. Moreover, the fact that
Paul recommends to the recipients of his letter a woman who comes from the place where Paul
wrote the letter, probably suggests that Phoebe was the one who conveyed Paul's letter to the
Romans, certainly a not insignificant mission.
A little further below, in Romans 16:3-4, Paul greets a woman and her husband, Prisca and
Aquila (“Πρίσκαν (καὶ ᾿Ακύλαν) τοὺς συνεργοὺς μου ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ,” 16:3). The important thing
in this case is that the woman is mentioned prior to her husband (as in 2 Tim. 4:19, but not in Acts
16,19), in contrast to the ancient practice, which may mean that Prisca was the leader of "this own
church" (16:4). According to the book of Acts, in which the woman is called Priscilla, the couple
was expelled from Rome by Emperor Claudius, and met with Paul in Corinth (Acts 18: 1-3). There,
we also read that Prisca and her husband “προσελάβοντο (τον Απολλώ) καὶ ἀκριβέστερον αὐτῷ
ἐξέθεντο τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ,” 18:26). In any case, Paul calls them συνεργούς, a title that ιn his
original letters is given to important leaders of the Church, like Apollos (Acts 3: 9), Titus (2 Cor
8:23) and Timothy (1 Thes 3:2).
In verse 6 there is a reference to a " Μαριάμ, ἥτις πολλὰ ἐκοπίασεν εἰς ἡμᾶς,"identified by
some commentators with Mary Magdalen. Notwithstanding this hypothetical view, of extreme
importance is the verb used here, and repeated twice later in this chapter (verses 12-13) also for the
other three women " Τρύφαιναν καὶ Τρυφῶσαν τὰς κοπιώσας ἐν Κυρίῳ». And further down
“Περσίδα τὴν ἀγαπητήν, ἥτις πολλὰ ἐκοπίασεν ἐν Κυρίῳ»." All these references indicate certainly
the female participation in the leadership, management and ministry of the Early Church.
But the most important reference appears in 16,7, which refers to Junia, a woman "apostle".
There Paul greets two people who were prominent among the apostles (οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν
τοῖς ἀποστόλοις). One was Andronikos. But the other, which was also an "apostle", and even
before Paul ("οἳ καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γεγόνασιν ἐν Χριστῷ "), in most of the older Western translations was
attributed to a man, though Junia as a feminine name was quite a common female in Roman use,
never a male one. If the (feminine) Junia is the right name, as in the Orthodox tradition has been
always so – and in addition she was from the beginning venerated as a saint - and lastly this reading
has become more widely accepted (even in all official scientific translations), then we have more
proof that women were apostles at an early stage in the early Christian tradition, at least in the
missionary jurisdiction of the St. Paul.
There is a testimony from the 6th century AD, from the patriarch of Antioch Gregory, who, in
praising the Myrh-bearing women, verbatim said: "Απαγγείλατε τοις εμοίς μαθηταίς άπερ υμείς
εθεάσασθε μυστήρια. Πρώτοι γίνεσθε των διδασκάλων διδάσκαλοι. Μαθέτω Πέτρος ο αρνησάμενός
με, ότι δύναμαι και γυναίκας αποστόλους χειροτονείν” (Tell to my disciples what mysteries you
have seen. Become teachers of the teachers. Let Peter, the one who denied me, that I can ordain
also female apostles".49
The uncontested authenticity of this chapter proves a situation in the first half of the 1 st c.AD,
which was very different from the later practice at the end of the century. as it is reported in the
Pastoral Letters (1 Tim 2:11-3: 13). Obviously, therefore, in his days there was no ban to women
teaching in the Church (“γυναικὶ δὲ διδάσκειν οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ᾿ εἶναι ἐν
ἡσυχίᾳ," 1 Tim 2:12). In his ecclesiastical communities no one was excluded, and those who were
chosen to lead the body of the Church were chosen not by their biological sex, but by their spiritual
gifts (1 Cor 12: 4-11).
To conclude: there is no doubt that St. Paul’s view on the nature and role of women has
faithfully followed the teaching and general behaviour of the Historian Jesus.
(c) The nature and the role of women in Church and society: In addition to what was described
above, many other issues pertinent to Christian anthropology and related to the overall presence in
Christian life (liturgical, missiologiacal, and even administrative in decision-making processes) are
being recently discussed. In the Orthodox world, within the framework of Christian anthropology,
is undoubtedly the need for the admission of women in the diaconal sacramental priesthood 50 as
liturgically ordained deaconesses.51 In addition to the anthrolological dimension, discussed above,
in dealing with the role of women in Church and society, an ecological approach can hardly be
ignored. The male and (not or) female interrelatedness is also mutually related to a Christian
understanding of integral ecology. There is an interesting concern in the Roman Catholic Church
52

and her social doctrine, recognizing that an adequate theological anthropology is required for
53

social/ ecological justice. So far, the Catholic Church (and I will add all the traditional ancient
Churches, the Orthodox much more) shows an ambivalent admixture of natural law and patriarchal
ideology. If man and woman complete each other in both Church and society, why is patriarchal
male headship still enshrined in the Church hierarchy, given that man and woman are fully
homogeneous in their “whole being”? 54

Of course, this is something that has been consistently pursued by the secular “eco-feminist”
movement. It has been long stemming from a patriarchal ideology of male domination and female
submission, which for many scholars was the consequence of the Augustinian doctrine of the
original sin.55 It is, however, also a Christian (and even ecclesiastical) anthropological concern. This
49 PG 88, vol. 1848. There are three other female faces of the chapter 16 of the Romans, the mother of Rufus,
Julia and sister Nerea’s sister ("ἀσπάσασθε ῾Ροῦφον τὸν ἐκλεκτὸν ἐν Κυρίῳ καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐμοῦ, v. 13 και
“ἀσπάσασθε…Ιουλίαν, (Νηρέα καὶ) τὴν ἀδελφὴν αὐτοῦ,” v. 15), which also affirm that the Paul not only knew women's
personalities who held a leading position in the life of the Church but also that they were in his narrow missionary
circle, and most importantly he recognized their authority.
50 The diaconal aspect of the ordination of women, rather than the one of power struggle pursued in the Western
world, is for the Orthodox much more important, without of course neglecting the legitimacy of the latter, which was
also thoroughly discussed in a recent conference (see the next note).
51 The Proceedings of a conference, organized by the Orthodox Center of Ecumenical, Missiological and Environmental
Studies “Metr. Panteleimon Papageorgiou” (CEMES), are now available both in Greek in P. Vassiliadis-E. Amoiridou-M.
Goutzioudis (eds.) Deaconesses, Ordination of Women and Orthodox Theology, Thessaloniki 2016,.and in English by Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, P. Vassiliadis-N. Papageorgiou-E. Kasselouri (eds.), Deaconesses, the Ordination of Women and Orthodox
Theology, CSP: Newcastle upon Tyne 2017.
52 On integral ecology see my paper “The Witness of the Church in Today’s World, Three Missiological
Statements on Integral Ecology,” in www.academia.edu/28268455.
53 Cf. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church in http://www.vatican.va
/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html.
54 From a recent working draft (22 December 2015) – among so many others, encouraged by Pope Francis’
willingness to promote gender equality in his Church - by Luis T. Gutiérrez, entitled: “Gender Balance for Integral
Humanism & Integral Ecology”.
55 Based mainly on Genesis 3:16. See also my article “Ο ιερός Αυγουστίνος ως ερμηνευτής του Αποστόλου
Παύλου και το πρόβλημα της ανθρώπινης σεξουαλικότητας” (St. Augustine as Interpreter of St. Paul and the problem
15
is not about what women (or men) want. This is about discerning what Jesus Christ wants for the
Church in the 21st century, for the glory of God, for integral human development, for integral
humanism, and for integral ecology.
“As long as the patriarchal binary prevails, subjective human development remains
defective, with pervasive repercussions in human relations as well as human-nature
relations…. There can be no fully integral ecology as long as humanity behaves as the
dominant male and treats nature as a submissive female. There can be no lasting social
justice, and there can be no lasting ecological justice, as long as human behavior is driven
by the patriarchal mindset”.56
It is true that the Old Testament exemplifies patriarchal bias in many ways, notably by the
metaphor of the woman coming out of man (Gen 1:22). It is inescapable, however, that this was
corrected in the New Testament, notably by the Pauline explicit statement that “when the set time
had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). God becoming incarnate “from a
woman” is a reversal of a woman “coming out of man”. Not insignificantly, this seemingly
innocuous clarification follows the summary of the cultural progression that is now attainable, but
yet to be fully attained, in human history: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,
nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).
***
To sum up: Orthodoxy and/or the Church universal, in order to effectively witness to the Gospel
in today’s modern and post-modern context, in addition to re-affirming her ecclesial (and not
confessional or ideological, with the ensuing “culture war”) identity and her authentic perception of
eschatology, she desperately needs a new encounter with modernity, a new and dynamic relation
with science, and a coherent anthropology – quite evident in the authentic, though latent, Orthodox
tradition – in dealing with today’s burning ethical issues, such as the gender theory and the nature
of women and her role in Church and society.

of Human Sexuality), posted with all publication details in academia.edu/1992336/.


56 Luis T. Gutiérrez, “Gender Balance for Integral Humanism & Integral Ecology.”

Você também pode gostar