From Carl Schmitt’s authoritarian- and conservative-inspired structural analogy between theology and law, theology and politics, and miracles and emergency powers, to the manifestation and application today of the political dimensions of the Gospel and the socially liberating elements of the Christian faith introduced by Johan Baptist Metz, Jügern Moltmann, Dororthee Soelle, as well as Latin American liberation theology (Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, Camilo Torres, Archbishops Dom Helder Camara and Oscar Romero, Bishop Antonio Fragoso, Fr Jon Sobrino, Fr Ernesto Cardenal, et al.), what ultimately constitutes the core of political theology? Is there a "political theology" of Byzantium? What is the "political theology" of the Church Fathers and contemporary Orthodox theologians? Why, with very few exceptions, has Orthodoxy not developed a “political theology,” in the radical and liberating sense of the term? For what reasons has the trend known as the “theological left” or the “Christian left” not developed on Orthodox soil? Is the denunciation of wealth, personal property, usury, and economic exploitation sufficient grounds to speak about a “political theology” or a “liberation theology” in the Fathers of the Church?

The main speaker in this workshop will be Dr Pantelis Kalaïtzidis, Director of the Academy for Theological Studies, Lecturer at the University of Thessaly, and Visiting Professor at the Orthodox Theological Institute of St. Sergius in Paris, while the roundtable discussion to follow will include short presentations by: