Press release

The International Conference of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies has continued and completed its session on Sunday June 6, 2010, after the morning divine service at the Ascension's Church in Volos. The conference is covered by the web television-channel www.intv.gr with simultaneous translation (English-Greek).

Speakers of the final session were Rev. Dr. Emmanouel Clapsis, Professor of Dogmatics , Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, USA, Dr. Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, editor in chief of the theological journal Synaxis, Greece, and Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Greece.

Rev. Dr. Emmanouel Clapsis spoke on "Toward An Orthodox Theology of Religions". In an effort to move toward an Orthodox Theology of Religions, this paper examined the highly contended question of whether the salvific grace of God is limited only within the canonical boundaries of the Orthodox Church or it extends in different degrees and patterns to other Christian churches, to communities of other living faiths, to agnostics, or even to atheists. It was asserted that a sacramental and charismatic perspective of the Church does not allow the scope of God's salvific grace to remain only within the canonical boundaries of the Church. It was argued that the operation of God's Spirit in other Christian churches and in the world cannot be affirmed at the expense of the importance of the canonical limits of the Church. While maintaining that the fullness of God's salvific grace can be found within the canonical boundaries of the Church, the author suggested that there is a need to move beyond the understanding of God wherein He is limited to being either fully present or not present at all in the lives and actions of secular and religious others.The cosmic dimensions of the Eucharist, by which Creation through Christ and God's Spirit participate in God's being can be the basis of recognizing the salvific presence of God in the whole created world. The salvific presence of God's Spirit plays in the world cannot be disassociated from the salvific work of the incarnate Word of God. Christomonism should be substituted by Pneumatonism. The Holy Spirit either precedes Christ or follows Christ in God's efforts to save the totality of creation. The Trinitarian faith anchors God's revelation to the particularities of history-which climax in Jesus Christ-yet prohibits the limitation of God to any particularity vis-à-vis the universal action and presence of the Holy Spirit in the world. The Holy Spirit opens up the boundaries of whatever and whomever it touches and brings all into a sustaining and transformative relationship with the risen Christ in a transparent manner within church and in a hidden pattern in the life of the life of the world. The possibility of salvation that exists for those outside of the Church should lead Christians to an unshakeable hope that God, in His boundless love and mercy, communicate His salvific grace through other unknown and hidden ways to those who possess the natural knowledge of God and faith as well as an ethical consciousness characterized by a life of love yet who live beyond the distinctive boundaries of the Church. It argues that salvation is offered to all as a possibility through the Church and not apart from it. The paper concluded with the implications such recognition within the other has on the life and mission of the Church.

Dr. Athanasios N. Papathanasiou spoke on "Mission as a challenge for Orthodox Contextual Theology". The theology of Mission is often understood as something secondary; as a byproduct of mainstream theology. However, a careful glance at ecclesiastical experience can show the opposite: that throughout history mission has constituted a matrix of theology. The reason is that in itself the Church constitutes a continuous fermentation. It only exists as a meeting of God with the world, and as a metamorphosis of the world. In other words, the meeting of the Gospel with the various contexts is not something which might possibly be added to the self of the Church in retrospect. The contextuality is in itself the way of realization of th Church-event. Thus it is not by accident that discussion on contextuality in modern times was born in the field of missionary praxis and theory. The first danger, therefore, is for us to think that the Church coincides with only one culture οr to forget that the Church is not the Kingdom itself, but rather a sign of the future Kingdom and a servant of the invitation which God delivers to all his creation. The more the missionary consciousness weakens (in other words, the more it is believed that the Church has reached the termination of its historical course), the more the mentioned danger is strengthened. Nevertheless, if we think carefully, we will discover that this danger constitutes contempt of contextuality (indifference towards other cultures), but as a matter of fact it originates precisely from contextuality itself, since a specific context (cultural, social, historical) is being placed above the Gospel. In this case, instead of human reality operating as the sarx [flesh] of the Gospel (in one continuous process of its incarnation at any time), it ends up as its sarcophagus (and hinders its further incarnation)! However, the Orthodox Churches (especially in modern times, with a few exceptions) has not yet worked upon the relationship between Gospel and contexts; they have not puzzled over the eventuality that ecclesiastical expressions different from the Greco-Roman ones would emerge; they do not concern itself with the differences between the various models of meeting between the Gospel and the world (adaptation, indigenization, inculturation, contextualisation, etc.) which occupy modern sociological and missionary theory. They consider that the missionary debt is paid off with the sheer transfer of its texts, its art and mentality to the churches of the Third World, and does not at all consider what is needed for these churches to contribute to ecumenical Orthodoxy. Here, however, a new danger can arise: an affirmation of contextuality without caution and critical thought. In this way a naive attitude may be shaped, which comprehends traditional cultures as solid substances, cannot discern their changes through time, is unable to differentiate between life-bearing and fatal elements, and does not manage to distinguish which cultures actually exist today in reality (and not only in the mind of the missionary) and which new ones are emerging. Mission, therefore, is called upon to be conciliatory, but simultaneously also to be liberating. At the same time, Missiology is called upon to function as the catalyst so that Church self-consciousness remains alive and faithful to the Gospel.

Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis spoke on "Toward a "Post-Patristic" Theology?". The "return to the Fathers," which was the dominant theological "model" for Orthodox theology in the 20th century, contributed greatly to the renewal of Orthodox theology and its release from its "Babylonian captivity" to Western theology in terms of its language, its presuppositions, and its thinking. It did, however, have some negative consequences, such as: 1) the theoretical justification for the widespread devaluation of biblical studies in the Orthodox milieu; 2) the mythologization and ahistorical approach to patristic theology; 3) Orthodox theology's absence from the major theological developments and trends of the 20th century; 4) the polarization of East and West, and the cultivation of an anti-western and anti-ecumenical spirit; 5) the preservation of the historic tension between Orthodoxy and modernity. These ramifications make a new incarnation of the Word and a contextual reading of the Fathers absolutely imperative, while raising at the same time the question of the possibility of a post-patristic Orthodox theology. This paper will serve as an introduction to the issues and areas that need to be a part of the discussion about a post-patristic Orthodox theology. They can be very briefly summarized in the following points: 1. The concept and content of tradition, the authority and consensus of the Fathers, and the appeal to their authority. 2. The exclusivity (?) of the relationship between patristic theology and Greek modes of thought, between Patristics and Hellenism, and the question of the theological language of a post-Greek world such as our own. Can "Christian Hellenism" really form an "eternal category of Christian existence"? 3. The diachronic and normative character of the use of ontology and Greek philosophical categories in theology. The exclusivity (?) of the intermediary role played by philosophy and ontological language in the dialogue between theology and the world. New forms of mediation (and universality), such as, for example, literature, human sciences, etc. The Gospel and philosophy, ontology and mission. 4. The authoritarian, patriarchal, pre-modern model and its relationship with patristic theology, and the absence of any concept of religious pluralism and otherness. A re-examination of the paired idea of catholicity-heresy, in relation to the paired ideas of otherness-heresy and diversity-unity. The tolerance and persecution of "heretics" in the patristic texts and the current cultural conditions. 5. The Church's and theology's complicated relationship with imperial ideology. For example, the Councils and the issue of their infallibility, especially when the imperial interventions and imperial "interests" are taken into consideration. 6.The anthropological summits of the theology of the Fathers, as well as the flawed anthropology of the Fathers: problematic anthropological aspects of patristic theology, e.g. concerning women (the "image of God" is attributed to her only through man); the metaphor of the woman with the devil; the catastrophic fire, etc.; the justification of the arbitrary nature of the Fathers' view that unmarried women are the "property" of their fathers (see Basil the Great); the labeling of Gregory the Theologian's support for women and John Chrysostom's exposition of a theology of marriage and affection as "hapax legomena"; the general anti-feminism of the Church and patristic theology; the new anthropological challenges of bioethics and biotechnology, etc. These observations make ever more necessary a contemporary Orthodox post-patristic theology, as well as a re-interpretation of what it means to be faithful to the patristic tradition. In the framework of this paper, "following the Holy Fathers" does not mean simply the continuation, the updating, or even the re-interpretation of this tradition, but-according to the precedent set by the early Christians and the Fathers themselves-the surpassing of it when and where it is necessary.

Before the end of the conference the ecumenical observers Rev. Dr. Hevre Legrand o.p. (Roman Catholic Church-Paris), Dr. Karl Piggera (Evangelical Church-Germany), Ιoan Ovidiou Ionut (Orthodox Church-NECLEE-Romania) presented their reflections concerning the topic and the sessions of the conference.