John Zizioulas
1931-2023 · Eastern Christianity · Little-known
Zizioulas was a Greek Orthodox bishop and theologian who held that nothing exists on its own. To be at all is to be in relation, he argued in Being as Communion, taking as his proof the Trinity, God's own life as three in relation. A person exists in the relations that make him someone. The Church becomes real at the moment a congregation gathers around its bishop for the Eucharist, and not before.
Signature
The position Zizioulas is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence
- Highest Good
- Union with God
Positions on the 11 axes the sources answer
- The Divine
- mildly between Describable and Indescribable (40 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly between Unity and Multiplicity (46 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ethics
- leans Means (75 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Allegiance
- mildly leans Local (35 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
9 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Zizioulas refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Synergism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological / Kairotic
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Sacred Tradition / Charismatic Authority
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?