Reception and Crisis of the Enlightenment from the 1970s to the Present Day: an Orthodox Point of View

Abstract

In responding to the main papers of this conference, I will try to concentrate on my East and Southeast European Orthodox context, and limit my remarks to the following four points: a. Introductory remarks The period from the 1970s to the present day can be easily characterized as the period of the most radical changes in the history of contemporary Orthodox Christianity. In Greece, the traditional matrix of Orthodoxy, a speedy process of modernization began in the mid-70s, immediately after the fall of the American-backed right wing dictatorship. Quite a similar process, though somehow slower, started in the early 1990s in rest of the Orthodox world, who got rid of a communist-led left wing dictatorship. There has been, first of all, a change in the overall attitude of citizens towards their Christian tradition, which certainly affects any missionary strategy in the post- Enlightenment, and post-modern Europe. In the West, Europeans, in seeking their identity, recognize very reluctantly today their religious, and particularly Christian heritage. Especially the secular elite but also other citizens place stronger emphasis on the achievements of the Enlightenment. In contrast to this attitude, almost all East European countries with Orthodox affiliation feel the opposite. Almost all of them try to adapt quite reluctantly to a modernization process, and the majority of them almost identify their national identity with their Orthodox religion. b. The ecclesiological background From an Orthodox perspective, therefore, the issue in question has some theological nuances in addition, of course, to the obvious historical and sociological ones. In my view, the problem of the incompatibility between religion and modernism, and more particularly between the church and secularism, is rather an issue caused by the institutional expression of the churches in Europe. The incompatibility, therefore, is an ecclesiological one. This means that for an effective mission in modern Europe our churches should base their mission on an authentic understanding of the church. In this respect Orthodox theology (not in confessional but ecclesial terms) has some contribution to make. It is not accidental that despite the religious crisis in our western society the churches in the so-called Orthodox world are still packed. There must be a link between our ecclesial understanding and its consequences for mission. In the East, the missionary imperative of the church (Yannoulatos) as a liturgy after the liturgy, i.e. the overcoming of the evil in the world, is basically understood neither as a moral nor as a doctrinal issue; it is primarily (and for some even exclusively) understood as an ecclesial one. The moral and social responsibilities of the church (both as an institution and also of her individual members) as their primary witness/mission (martyria) is the logical consequence of its ecclesial self-consciousness. If no tangible results have so far appeared, with the exception of course of the Orthodox diaspora (Hopko), this is definitely due to the absence of a constructive encounter of Orthodoxy with modernism (Clapsis). By and large, there still exist an aloofness between Orthodoxy and modernity that is caused not only by the former's rejection of the latter, and its negative attitude toward the whole range of the achievements of the Enlightenment but also by the obstinate persistence of the adherents of modernism to allow historic and diachronic institutions, like the Orthodox Church, to play a significant role in public life without being either absorbed or alienated by them. The simple argument modernists produce for this attitude is that the church derives its origin from the pre-modern era. Many theologians, however, believe (Vassiliadis 2002) that an encounter is possible and even desirable (despite the tragic events of 11 September 2001 in the USA, and the ensuing and theologically unjustified war on terror) mainly because of the undisputed transition of our culture to a new era, the post-modern era, that brought with it the resurgence of religion. …