The crucial issue that this book sets out to explore can be summarized in this provocative question: Did Orthodoxy come to a halt before modernity? This fundamental question is then joined by a whole series of subsidiary and more specific questions: Does Orthodox Christian theology function only within traditional or traditionalist contexts? Has Orthodoxy accepted the vested rights that come with modernity and their consequences in the religious, social and cultural fields? Or do we Orthodox still long for the pre-modern forms of an agrarian society and the structures of our glorious past (the Byzantine/imperial in particular)? Are human rights compatible with the Orthodox ethos, and to what extent does the emergence of the subject necessarily lead to individualism and the demise of social relationships? Are Orthodoxy and Enlightenment of necessity mutually exclusive, and if not, what has become of the “enlightening” and “modern” aspects of early Christianity or of “non-religious Christianity”? Can there be an ecclesial discourse that is not bound up with the state or related to national ideology, and what is the relationship between the sacred and the secular, religion and politics, Orthodoxy and democracy, ecclesial identity and political identity in the context of modernity and post-modernity? What is the discourse of the Church and of theology in a time of post-modernity and multiculturalism? And what is Orthodoxy, ultimately: an ethnic-religious ideology inseparably tied to a social and cultural anachronism, a religion of the past and a struggle to preserve “historic privileges”—or a way of life addressed to all humanity, with universal/cosmic dimensions for the present and the future?
There can be no easy or definitive answer to these questions. The more so because the present work, an “introduction” to the encounter and the discussion of the relationship between Orthodoxy and modernity, is not an exhaustive treatment of the issues under discussion. The present text came about through a modification of the original plan. In its original form, it was based on the Welcome Address given at the start of the second series of lectures in the winter program of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, in Volos, Greece, during the academic year 2001–2002, whose theme was precisely “Orthodoxy and Modernity.” I began rewriting and expending the text in November 2005, when I was a visiting scholar at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, in Brookline, Massachusetts, with a view to using it as the Introduction to the collective volume Orthodoxy and Modernity which appeared in Greek in parallel with the present volume.1 The task of writing took the entire winter of 2005–2006 in Volos, in parallel with the work involved in the “State and Church” series of lectures of the Volos Academy, and was completed in its present form in December 2006, after research in libraries in Greece and abroad. So, the present text was not originally composed as a free-standing work, nor was it written all at once. It came into being, matured and developed gradually, as the questions that it opened up demanded broader development or more detailed analysis. So, while it was written as an introduction to an important edited volume arising out of the work of the Volos Academy, it ended up because of its considerable length as an introduction both to that volume and to the wider discussion of the relationship between Orthodoxy and modernity.
By its very nature, however, a work such as this can only be an introduction: it can do nothing more than open up the outstanding issues in the relationship between Orthodoxy and modernity, without claiming to examine all the particular themes exhaustively. So, in the case of those themes that are adequately treated in other works or publications (often in the aforementioned edited volume of the Volos Academy, Orthodoxy and Modernity), the present book confines itself to brief mentions and bibliographical references, putting the weight of our exploration on those points that remain terra incognita for Orthodox theology or relate to areas that have historically been left in abeyance.
Since therefore the original intention of this work was simply to introduce the discussion, or rather, the belated encounter between Orthodoxy and modernity, it should be read side by side with the collective volume Orthodoxy and Modernity, edited by Nikos Ntontos and myself, and published in Greek by the prestigious Indiktos Publications in Athens. The present work presupposes that collective volume, and often refers to it for further discussion of particular aspects of the topic. It should be noted that the essays collected in the volume, consisting of the lectures given as part of the Volos Academy program for the academic year 2001–2002 in Volos, constitute perhaps the first globally systematic and multi-faceted approach to the theme “Orthodoxy and Modernity.” The choice of theme, as I have written elsewhere, was a natural sequel to the discussion of eschatology which preoccupied Volos Academy during its first year of operation (2000–2001).2 For if, in accordance with the eschatological perspective, the fullness and the identity of the Church is to be found not so much in the past but primarily in the future, in the renewed world of the Kingdom of God; if the Church is not identified with any given historical schema from the past and the core of its truth is not tied to or exhaustively defined by earlier paradigms of relationship between the world and the Church, Christianity and culture, then it is high time for the Orthodox to stop being afraid of modernity and open up a dialogue with it—albeit belatedly, albeit in the period of post-modernity or late modernity. It would be an illusion and self-deception to think that we Orthodox can participate dynamically and as equals in the formation of the so-called post-modernity so long as we side-step, avoid or dismiss modernity. Indeed, we should not forget that modernity and post-modernity (or late modernity), and the context that they define, form the broader historical, social and cultural environment within which the Church is called to live and to carry out its mission, within which it is called again and again to give flesh to the Christian truth about God, the world and human being. It may well be that the Church is more than history and cannot be identified with history; yet it is not possible for the Church to function in a manner deprived of history. In particular, it cannot function if it insists on scorning history and ignoring its lessons. This is why there is no sense in a theology that is disincarnate, a theology that is not in dialogue with the broader social and cultural realities of its time, that does not in other words assume the “flesh” of its time, whether this is modernity, post-modernity or late modernity.
I hope that this Introduction will assist, even if in a very small way, in an enterprise of enormous importance but also of great difficulty—the (belated) dialogue between Orthodoxy and modernity. And by so doing, I hope it may contribute to a more mature and deeper dialogue between theology and the intelligentsia, theology and academia, the Church and culture, as well as helping the Orthodox Church to become more outward-looking in the best sense, to overcome the pathological fears and sterile fixation on the past.
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I should like to take this opportunity to thank all who have contributed to the realization and success of the “Orthodoxy and Modernity” program and series of lectures, and also to this publication: first of all to our Bishop, Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias, both for his inspiring vision for the establishment of the Volos Academy and for his boldness in giving his blessing to the enterprise of dialogue between theology and the progressive secular intelligentsia, especially so soon after the identity cards crisis in Greece (2000 and 2001).3 I should also like to thank my dear friends and colleagues Effie Fokas, Nikos Ntontos, Nikos Varalis, Theofilos Abatzidis, Georgios Skaltsas, Konstantinos Agoras, Georgios Tsigaras, Haralambos Ventis and Nestor Kavvadas, for their constant willingness and assistance in the preparation of this book, as well as for their readiness to read parts of the essays here presented. Thanks are also due to Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, and particularly its then Dean, Fr. Emmanuel Clapsis, for doing me the honor of inviting me to spend the fall semester of the academic year 2005–2006 at the School as visiting scholar, during which time a part of this book was written. Also to my friend Manolis Velitzanidis, publisher of Indiktos Publications, who has once again embraced this book with his characteristic sensitivity and expertise. And last but not least, I thank Maria to whom this book is dedicated, and who for years has been my companion in a difficult, lonely and often precarious journey.
Pantelis Kalaitzidis
Volos, Greece
New Year’s Day 2007
Pantelis Kalaitzidis & Nikos Ntontos (eds.),
See Pantelis Kalaitzidis (ed.),
The crisis in Greece over identity cards (during the years 2000 and 2001) stemmed from the government’s decision not to include religion on a state document. This decision brought the government and the Orthodox Church of Greece into a head-on conflict. Reacting to the government’s intention to implement the decision on the non-indication of religion on identity cards, Archbishop Christodoulos (1998–2008) declared an adamant struggle against the socialist government and its policy on the matter, convening the Synod of the hierarchs of the Church of Greece, which decided to organize two mass demonstrations, and a “referendum” (organized under the responsibility of the Church). See more on this in Vasilios N. Makrides, “Between Normality and Tension: Assessing Church-State Relations in Greece in the Light of the Identity (Cards) Crisis,” in Vasilios N. Makrides (ed.), Religion, Staat und Konfliktkonstellationen im orthodoxen Ost- und Südosteuropa: Vergleichende Perspektiven (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005), 137–178 and Lina Molokotos-Liederman, “The Greek ID Card Controversy: A Case Study of Religion and National Identity in a Changing European Union,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 22:2 (2007): 187–203.