| Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Contemporary Greek Theologians Series, No 4) | 
 enlarge | Author: John D. Zizioulas
Publisher: St Vladimirs Seminary Pr
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 96957
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 269
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0881410292
Dewey Decimal Number: 230.19
EAN: 9780881410297
ASIN: 0881410292
Publication Date: March 1, 1997
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
A deep work February 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a fine piece of systematic theology. Zizioulas builds his reflections on personhood, the church and the ministry on the basis of communion. The importance of conceiving the church as a eucharistic community is at the centre of his ecclesiology. As a Protestant, this work goes behind the the sectarian attitudes that I can see at work in my denomination, and exposes the flaw in seeking unity only through confessional means. I sense a deep sadness in his writing about divisions between Christians, an attitude that I share. I eagerly await his next work on the eschatological ontology.
Paradigm-shifting book April 3, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book. Well thought out, and solid theologically. It was literally a paradigm shifting book for me. While I don't agree with all of his Ecclesiology, his views on the Trinity, Personhood, and "Being" vs. "Function" are excellent.
It takes some getting used to. I had to "wade" through it at the beginning. It's quite technical in language. I would recommend it for some ambitious college students and graduate and above.
Worth having and re-reading.
once upon a time November 19, 2005
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Let me 'fess up here: I read this book about 5 years ago. Along with many other books about theology.
But it is one of the few that I still remember pretty well, years later.
I'm in no position to say how well Zizioulas represents "orthodox" Orthodoxy, but I can say that in my opinion this is the best presentation I've ever read of Trinitarian theology, ecclesiology, and theological anthropology. Those are some massive areas, and it's remarkable that one book covered them so well.
I'd also recommend Lars Thunberg's study of Maximus the Confessor in "Microcosm and Mediator," as another one of those books that has stuck with me for a very long time. It touches on a lot of these same issues among others, showing that at the very least, Zizioulas is not "out of line."
However, both of these books are quite hard for most people (me included) to read. For a simpler introduction to modern Orthodox ecclesiology, I'd direct you to Khomiakov's essay "On the Western Confessions of Faith," available in a book edited by Schmemann, "Ultimate Questions." Of course, Bishop Kallistos (Timothy Ware) writes very clearly about all this and more in, for instance, "The Orthodox Way." A deeper, yet still crystal clear and refreshing spring is Olivier Clement's "The Roots of Christian Mysticism."
(Mea Culpa / Caveat Lector: I am not Orthodox.)
Communion in the Mystical Body of Christ July 4, 2005
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Being in Communion:
Dr. Olivier Clement, professor at the Institut de Theologie Orthodoxe St. Serge in Paris speaks about human nature, "not the philosophical idea but the revealed truth, cannot belong to a solitary being. It is distributed among persons in all their variety; it resides in the great interchange of life by which each exists for and through all the others. Christian spirituality - life in the Holy Spirit - is of its very nature something that "we" share, our self-awareness being awakened by our sense of being in communion with others."
Renewal in Ecclesiology:
John Zizioulas fresh look at ecclesiology have been with us for twenty years, and has left a dramatic impact on the mind of western neo-theologians. His integral consideration of the major theological basis of orthodox Christianity, the Trinity, Christology, sacramental theology, and eschatology but it is through the Eucharist, that the Metropolitan renews with a fresh understanding, Alexandrine Soteriology and Cyril's Eucharist centered ecclessiology of the one Person of Christ visited by Luther and Barth. He considers the local church as integrally catholic, in this sense. For Zizioulas, the Church Universal is the communion of all Churches, Catholic, Evangelical, and Orthodox.
Trinitarian Communion:
The author represents an ontology of the St. Cyril Orthodox expression of Trinitarian doctrine. He shows in a systematic theology how the unity of the Trinity is within the Trinitarian personshood of the Godhead. Western theology, considers the essence first in its approach to the Mystery. This book cuts through dogmas of ecclesiastical divisions and reaches for the patristic understanding, by asking questions that matter, from the very life of the Heavenly triune God, who in his self revelation, invites his believing sons and daughters to be in communion, sustained through His Holy spirit.
How is the Trinitarian communion defined, and ecclessiastical fellowship experienced within the life of the Church, and the teaching of the Gospels? Evidently, the writings of early Church fathers, starting with the Capadocian and Cyril of Alexandria, should be reexamined in the new ecumenical approach of contemporary ontological theologians from Athanasius to Yannaras.
Metropolitan Zizioulas of Pergamon:
Zizioulas doctoral thesis, supervised by Fr Florovsky, submitted to the University of Athens, was on the Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist was published before forty years. Yves Congar has written that he considers the author to be "one of the most original and profound theologians of our epoch" and that he "presents a penetrating and coherent reading of the tradition of the Greek Fathers."
Absolutely M A S S I V E August 23, 2004
52 out of 54 found this review helpful
Every so often a book comes along that manages to rotate and shake up your paradigm in such a way that, after the shift is over, you suddenly see things not only in a new way, but in a new way that makes far greater sense. _Being as Communion_ by Metropolitan John Zizioulas is one such book for me.
It works on several levels, bringing together what are oftentimes considered disparate strands of thought - philosophical, theological and pastoral - into a thickly weaved narrative that shows why an Orthodox understanding of the Trinity as the communion of the three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is...necessary. For Zizioulas, this communion of the Trinity is the model to be embodied not only by the Church as the communion of all churches, but by the very person as well: we only are who we are when we are in communion with God and one another.
The title of the book is no mistake; Zizioulas puts himself in dialogue with some of the great philosophers of the 20th century (such as Heidegger and Levinas, the latter of whom he praises, particularly his work Totality and Inifinity). The fundamental point that Zizioulas raises about Being is that in the eucharist - in the act of communion itself! - the essential and the temporal become fused into a living harmony. Such was - and is - Christ, and such also is to be the Church and the Christian, participating in the eternal life of God while in the here and now. Being is not static, but in time and in relation.
For those that have found themselves turned off to Orthodox theology in the past due its oftentimes proclaimed self-sufficiency, Zizioulas may very well seem like a theologian that comes out of left field: his *criticisms* of Orthodox theology (and I have never read an Orthodox theologian that was critical of Orthodox theology before) are what many Western inquirers have long wanted to know: can Orthodoxy be constructively self-critical? Can Orthodoxy be open to the recognition of Western churches as viable, even if critiquing them at the same time? Zizioulas presents an unapologetic "yes" to both of these questions.
The most heartening thing about this book, however, is the fundamentally pastoral angle the Zizioulas takes. While he can discuss the Cappadocians, for example, at great length, he also sees the essentially pastoral implications of the relational, Trinitarian God: the imitation of this *as* the relational pastor. He is especially concerned with the rise of anti-clericalism in both Greece and abroad; he sees this anti-clericalism as committing the same fallacy that it seeks to fight against: the reduction of the Church to being first and foremost an institution. Yet, he also sees how the pastoral failures of the past have contributed to this by not seeking to incarnate the fundamentally relational nature of God.
The book ends with a substantive - and crucial - question. If the Church is fundamentally the communion of churches, what do we make of churches that are in ecclesiastical and/or confessional division? It is with this question that Zizioulas quite literally ends; it is an abrupt ending, too, that leaves reader in a state of suspension. Yet, I can't think of a better way to end it. From theology as the contemplation of God to the reality of a fragmented Church (especially with regard to Protestantism/s/s/s/s/s...), there is quite a tragic distance. It is in the recognition of this distance, though, that the real conversation and communication - the very word "communication" being etymologically related to both "community" and "communion" - begins.
This is a book that cuts through dogmatic and ecclesiastical divisions and asks substantive questions that are birthed from the very life of the God who is in communion with himself and, in being so, opens himself to communing with all others. At this time, I know of no other book that more urgently needs to be read; and, I know of no other book that I would more highly recommend.
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