Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia as dogmatic theologian

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe term ‘dogmatic theology’ entered Orthodox usage in the nineteenth century as a scholastic concept. A fresh approach, treating dogmatics as fundamentally an aspect of mystical theology, began with Bulgakov and Evdokimov in the mid-twentieth century. Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) builds on this, producing in his first book (The Orthodox Church of 1963) what was in effect a dogmatic theology ‘in a new key’. What the West takes to be dogmatic theology is included in the Orthodox understanding of Tradition, which comprises the Bible, the Creeds, the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils and the writings of the Fathers. The full range of Orthodox dogmatic theology thus covers the Trinity (with the Filioque considered unacceptable because it relates the divine unity to the essence, not the persons), the Church (not primarily a hierarchical structure but a mystical body), the Liturgy (which is a better guide to Orthodoxy than any theological treatises), the Last Things, and personal communion with God in prayer. The personal aspect is important: the metropolitan comes to agree with Khomiakov that the Councils do not establish their authority automatically but need to be ‘received’ by the faithful, and he has reservations about the eucharistic ecclesiology of Zizioulas because it has little to say about the personal appropriation of grace in Holy Communion. His chief characteristics as a dogmatic theologian are judged to be his lack of dogmatism, his irenic stance, and his apophatic approach.