The Notion of The Beautiful in Ancient Greek Thought and its Christian Patristic Transfiguration - J.A. McGuckin

In a significant essay on Platonic philosophy, R. J. O'Connell highlights one of the most interesting and problematic aspects of the identification of the good and the beautiful in the Greek philosophical tradition :

‘It is a truism to say that, for the Greek mind, the good and the beautiful
(Kalokagathon) are at one , just as the evil and the ugly are. Use these terms
in their moral sense, however, and the gigantic act of ‘belief' implied in that
equivalence becomes more evident.'

The widespread and distinctive Greek idea that moral utility ( what was good by virtue of being beneficial ) would coincide with socially accepted senses of rightness of action , in more or less the same way as it could be commonly agreed that a ‘good' vase or a ‘good' horse meant simply one of these things that was at one and the same time an elegant as well as an efficient specimen, was an idea that sounded well, and sometimes worked, but was frequently doomed to failure as a standard of ethics in so far as it did not have the workaday capacity to make sense of those many situations of moral conflict that called for a good action that brought no benefit to its agent. Many can be the occasions when one is called upon to do the ‘right thing', to do one's duty, when the result is far from beneficial or advantageous. To the simple idea of utilitarian ‘goodness' in early Greek thought Socrates brought a more refined and transcendent notion of aesthetics. To this Plato remained faithful.

The Legacy of the 13th Apostle: Origins of the East Christian Conceptions of Church and State Relation - J.A. McGuckin

1. Introduction.

It is remarkable to consider how much has been written on the notion of the early Christian and Byzantine attitudes to political theory relying on the singularly useless concept of caesaro-papism. It illuminates nothing, apart from the standing-point of the user. It was, in origin, a term of disparagement, comparable in its intent to the scornful use of Byzantinism to signify all that was corrupt and devious. This bigoted Gibbonesque apologetic, so beloved of Protestant and Catholic theorists alike in their mutually conflicting critiques of Eastern Christian political theology, should by now have fallen into desuetude though a surprising amount of authors have still continued to use it well into the modern era; apparently unaware of the theological ‘animus' that gave birth to the word, and even more so of the fact that it is hopelessly anachronistic. To try to explain the complexity of the Eastern Christian attitudes to political theory with such a term is doomed from the outset. One presumes from the context in which the word ‘caesaro-papism' has largely figured, that it is supposed to connote ‘sacral autocracy'; but the whole point of any serious investigation would surely be to consider just how the dimension of religion overlaid itself onto political theory in antiquity, and how this went on, through the stimuli of controversy and considered reflection, to arrive at any kind of consensus in regard to a theory of church-state relations in Byzantium. Papism is hardly appropriate for the highly extended systems of episcopal collegiality and autonomy practised in the eastern churches , and the use of the designation ‘Caesar' to connote autocracy is something that demands such extensive qualification as to make it all but useless as a definition. The Byzantine inheritors of the imperial title remained ‘Supreme Autocrat of the Romans' to the end, but the amazing amount of those ‘Emperors dear to God' who died prematurely and violently, more than demonstrated that the autocracy of a late Roman Emperor was ‘not as the world knows it'. The imperial power in Byzantium was, arguably, even more so than in the times of the pre-Christian empire, radically circumscribed by a volatile aristocracy, the stability of the city populations, the capacity to demonstrate fiscal and military success, and to some extent the pressures of the bishops and monastics who represented a considerable traditionalist consensus but who brought their influence to bear largely through indirect means.

The Challenge of Our Time - Fr. George Florovsky

The great Russian bishop of the last century, Theophanes "The Recluse" (d. 1894), in one of his pastoral letters makes a startling statement. What the Russian Church most needed, he said, was "a band of firebrands," which would set the world on fire. The incendiaries must be themselves burning and go around to inflame human minds and hearts. Theophanes did not trust a "residual Christianity." Customs could be perpetuated by inertia, he said, but convictions and beliefs could be kept only by spiritual vigilance and continuous effort by the spirit. Theophanes felt that there was too much routine and convention in the life of Russian Christians. He anticipated a crisis and even a collapse. He resigned his diocese and retired to a monastery, because he felt that he could do much more service to the Church by writing books than by administering a bishopric.

The Self-understanding of the Orthodox and their Participation in the Ecumenical Movement - Metropolitan John (Zizioulas)

IntroductionThe subject on which I have been asked to speak is a complex and vast one. I have no ambition to deal with it exhaustively, or even properly. I shall limit myself to certain reflections of a theological nature, hoping that these might help the present meeting to reach a clearer view of the role of the Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement, and the WCC in particular, as well as of what this role entails both for the WCC and the Orthodox themselves.

The term “dogma” and its significance - Metropolitan John Zizioulas

The term is derived from the (Greek) verb "dokein" (= seeming, believing) and originally, its literal meaning was "that which seems good or proper to someone"; it also pertains to belief, ideology, principle, opinion, faith, and other related meanings. (Plato's Soph.256C: «by making use of the many dogmas and words...»).

From its original meaning of a personal opinion, the term was transposed to the field of philosophical positions; in other words, it became a knowledge belonging to a (philosophical) School. (e.g. Plutarch, Ethica 14B: "the dogmas pertaining to souls" or the Stoic philosophers' dogmas, etc.) The transposing over to this meaning is justified, by the fact that ancient thought demanded eclecticism in philosophy.