Question 1

What is Anamnesis?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The liturgical remembrance through which the Church makes present the saving events of Christ. In the Eucharist, anamnesis is both a recollection of the past and the remembrance of the future Kingdom revealed in Christ. …

Question 2

What is Anaphora?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The central eucharistic prayer of the Divine Liturgy in which the Church gives thanks and invokes the Holy Spirit to transform the offered bread and wine. It expresses the fullness of the Church’s self-offering to God an…

Question 3

What is Apocatastasis?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The doctrine of a universal restoration of all things, associated with Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, holding that all rational creatures will ultimately be reconciled with God. The Fifth Ecumenical Council condemned this …

Question 4

What is Apophaticism?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Apophatic Theology: the patristic approach in Metropolitan John Zizioulas's Orthodox theology holding God's essence unknowable, yet known through His energies.

Question 5

What is Apostolic Succession?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The unbroken continuity of ministry from the Apostles through the episcopate. In Zizioulas’ ecclesiology this is not merely a historical chain of ordinations but an eschatological reality: the bishop embodies the apostol…

Question 6

What is Asceticism?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Asceticism (Askesis): discipline that, for Metropolitan John Zizioulas, purifies self-love and opens the person to communion with God and others.

Question 7

What is Autexousion?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Autexousion (Self-Governance): the patristic term for human freedom that Metropolitan John Zizioulas identifies as the ontological foundation of personhood.

Question 8

What is Autocephaly?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The canonical independence of a local Orthodox Church to elect its own primate and govern itself, while remaining in full doctrinal and eucharistic communion with all other Orthodox Churches. Autocephaly expresses legiti…

Question 9

What is Baptism?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The first sacrament of initiation, inseparable from Chrismation and the Eucharist. Baptism is an ontological event—death of the old person bound to biological necessity and birth into a new mode of existence in communion…

Question 10

What is Being as Communion?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The central ontological insight of patristic theology is that being and communion are inseparable. True existence is relational existence. This principle is revealed in the life of the Holy Trinity, manifested in the Chu…

Question 11

What is Bishop?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Bishop (Episkopos): in Metropolitan John Zizioulas's ecclesiology, the icon of Christ who presides at the Eucharist and gathers the community into one Body.

Question 12

What is Catholicity?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Not geographical universality but the fullness of the Church’s life present in each local eucharistic community. The local Church is fully Church—lacking nothing—and through communion with other local Churches the one ca…

Question 13

What is Chrismation?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Chrismation (Confirmation): the sacrament joining the baptized to Christ's anointing, discussed in Metropolitan John Zizioulas's glossary of Orthodox sacraments.

Question 14

What is Christology?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The theological reflection on the person and nature of Jesus Christ—fully God and fully human (Council of Chalcedon, 451). For Zizioulas, Christology is inseparable from Pneumatology and ecclesiology: Christ is never an …

Question 15

What is Communion?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Communion (Koinonia): the ontological core of Metropolitan John Zizioulas's theology, where personhood, Church, and Eucharist are realized through relationship.

Question 16

What is Conciliarity?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Conciliality (Synodality): the principle, central to Metropolitan John Zizioulas's ecclesiology, that councils express the Church's Trinitarian communion.

Question 17

What is Confessionalism?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The tendency, emerging after the Reformation, to define Christian identity primarily through adherence to doctrinal propositions or confessional formulas. Zizioulas regards this as a distortion of the patristic tradition…

Question 18

What is Creatio ex Nihilo?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The Christian doctrine that God created the world from absolute non-being, not from pre-existing matter. It implies that existence is gift, not necessity; that the world is contingent and mortal by nature; and that grati…

Question 19

What is Deacon?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Deacon (Diakonos): the ordained order linking bishop and people in the Eucharist, described in Metropolitan John Zizioulas's glossary of Orthodox ecclesiology.

Question 20

What is Deification?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Deification (Theosis): humanity's vocation to share God's life through the Eucharist and Church, a central theme in Metropolitan John Zizioulas's theology.

Question 21

What is Diaspora?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The dispersion of Orthodox Christians into non-Orthodox countries, especially in the twentieth century. The diaspora creates a canonical anomaly when multiple ethnic jurisdictions exist in the same territory, violating t…

Question 22

What is Divine Energies?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The uncreated operations or activities of God through which He is genuinely present and active in the world, distinguished from His unknowable essence. A key concept in Palamite theology (Gregory Palamas, 14th c.) is tha…

Question 23

What is Divine Liturgy?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The primary eucharistic rite of the Orthodox Church, in which the gathered community offers bread and wine and receives the Body and Blood of Christ. The Liturgy is an eschatological event—an image of the Kingdom—and the…

Question 24

What is Ecclesiology?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The theological doctrine of the Church—its nature, structure, ministries, and life. Zizioulas’ eucharistic ecclesiology holds that the Church is fully realized in each local eucharistic gathering, is essentially communio…

Question 25

What is Economy?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Oikonomia (Economy): God's saving plan realized in the Incarnation, a term Metropolitan John Zizioulas's glossary also traces into pastoral canon law.

Question 26

What is Ecumenical Patriarchate?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The see of Constantinople, holding primacy of honor among the Orthodox Churches according to the decisions of the Second and Fourth Ecumenical Councils. Its role is to coordinate pan-Orthodox action, express the unity of…

Question 27

What is Energies?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

A cross-reference to Divine Energies—the uncreated operations through which, as Metropolitan John Zizioulas stresses, God is personally known in the world.

Question 28

What is Epiclesis?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The invocation of the Holy Spirit in the eucharistic prayer, calling on God to send the Spirit upon the community and the gifts. For the Eastern tradition the epiclesis is the decisive consecratory moment. It also charac…

Question 29

What is Eschatology?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The doctrine of the last things—death, judgment, resurrection, the Kingdom of God. For Zizioulas eschatology is not merely about the future end of time but about the end (telos) that gives meaning to history now. The Kin…

Question 30

What is Ethnophyletism?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The heresy condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 1872: the organization of the Church along ethnic or national lines. It violates the catholicity of the Church by making ethnic identity an ecclesiological principle…

Question 31

What is Eucharist?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The sacrament of thanksgiving in which bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ and the Church becomes what she truly is—the Body of Christ, the eschatological community, the foretaste of the Kingdom. The Eucha…

Question 32

What is Eucharistic Ecclesiology?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The theological approach, developed by Nikolai Afanasiev and refined by Zizioulas, that holds the local eucharistic community to be the primary locus of the Church’s life and identity. “Where the Eucharist is, there is t…

Question 33

What is Filioque?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The Latin addition to the Nicene Creed stating that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son ” ( filioque ). Absent from the original Greek text of the Creed (381) and rejected by the Orthodox, who hold that…

Question 34

What is Florovsky, Georges?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Georges Florovsky (1893–1979), the neopatristic theologian whose call to return to the Greek Fathers deeply shaped Metropolitan John Zizioulas's ecclesiology.

Question 35

What is Freedom?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Eleutheria (Freedom): for the Greek Fathers and Metropolitan John Zizioulas, the person's capacity to transcend nature through love and communion.

Question 36

What is Grace?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Charis (Grace): God's personal, uncreated self-giving, which Metropolitan John Zizioulas insists is known through the Spirit, not as an impersonal force.

Question 37

What is Hesychasm?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The mystical-ascetical tradition of inner stillness (hesychia) and unceasing prayer, associated especially with St. Gregory Palamas (14th c.) and Mount Athos. It holds that through purification and prayer the saints can …

Question 38

What is Holy Trinity?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The one God who exists as three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in perfect communion. The Trinitarian dogma is the ontological foundation of Zizioulas’ entire theology: being is relational; unity and diversity are e…

Question 39

What is Homoousios?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Greek: “consubstantial,” “of the same substance/essence.” The term adopted by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) to define the Son as fully God, consubstantial with the Father. The Cappadocian Fathers also appl…

Question 40

What is Hypostasis?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Hypostasis (Person): the patristic term Metropolitan John Zizioulas extends into a relational personhood at the center of his Orthodox theological anthropology.

Question 41

What is Icon?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

A sacred image that reveals the transfigured, eschatological reality of the person depicted—not a naturalistic portrait but a window into the Kingdom of God. The icon is possible because the incarnate Logos is present in…

Question 42

What is Image and Likeness?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Eikon and Homoiosis (Image and Likeness): Metropolitan John Zizioulas ties this patristic reading of Genesis to theosis, humanity's eschatological fulfillment.

Question 43

What is Incarnation?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The becoming human of the eternal Son and Word of God in Jesus of Nazareth. The Incarnation is the ontological ground of creation’s dignity and salvation: God assumes the fullness of human nature, including the body and …

Question 44

What is Individual vs. Person?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

A central distinction in Zizioulas’ theology. An individual is defined by separation and self-enclosure, ultimately governed by the fear of death. A person is constituted by relationship: one exists truly only in communi…

Question 45

What is Kenosis?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Greek: “self-emptying” (from Phil 2:7). The divine condescension by which the Son of God emptied himself of glory and took the form of a servant, even to the point of death on the cross. The kenotic pattern shapes the Ch…

Question 46

What is Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The patristic principle: “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” What the Church prays expresses and guards what she believes. Theology must be derivable from and translatable back into prayer. This principle underlies…

Question 47

What is Logikos / Logos?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The Greek term translated “rational” but carrying the deeper meaning of gathering, uniting, and establishing coherence. The human being is logikos not merely because he thinks but because he is capable of bringing the di…

Question 48

What is Macarian Tradition?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The spiritual tradition associated with Pseudo-Macarius (4th–5th c.) that restored the heart as the center of obedience and love in the ascetic life, saving Eastern monasticism from Evagrian intellectualism and individua…

Question 49

What is Maranatha?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Aramaic: “Come, Lord!” The earliest liturgical acclamation of the Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christian community, expressing the Eucharist’s eschatological character as the cry for and foretaste of the Lord’s return. It con…

Question 50

What is Maximus the Confessor, St.?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

St. Maximus the Confessor (580–662), the Byzantine theologian whose eschatological Christology and cosmic Eucharist shaped Metropolitan John Zizioulas's thought.

Question 51

What is Microcosm / Macrocosm?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The patristic description of the human being as the point where the entire creation is gathered and held together—a “world in miniature.” The human person is the mediator through whom creation is offered to God and throu…

Question 52

What is Monarchy of the Father?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The Orthodox Trinitarian principle that the Father is the sole cause ( aitia ), source, and principle of the Son’s and the Spirit’s personal existence. Unity in the Trinity is personal, not substantial. This principle is…

Question 53

What is Monasticism?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The ecclesial charisma of radical commitment to God through ascetical life, poverty, chastity, and obedience, typically in community ( cenobitic ) or solitude ( eremitic ). Zizioulas describes it as an eschatological pro…

Question 54

What is Nature?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Physis (Nature): the common essence distinguished from person in patristic thought, a key distinction in Metropolitan John Zizioulas's theological anthropology.

Question 55

What is Neopatristic Synthesis?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The theological program proposed by Georges Florovsky: a creative return to the Greek Fathers as the authentic foundation for Orthodox theology, overcoming the “Babylonian captivity” of Western scholastic categories. It …

Question 56

What is Ontology?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Relational Ontology: Metropolitan John Zizioulas's proposal that being is constituted by communion, not self-contained substance—'to be is to be in communion.'

Question 57

What is Ordination?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The sacramental act by which the Holy Spirit bestows a charisma of ministry on a person within and for a specific community. Ordination is not the conferral of an abstract power but a relational event binding the ordaine…

Question 58

What is Otherness?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The irreducible uniqueness of every person. In Trinitarian theology, otherness is constitutive of communion rather than opposed to it. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct without division. Likewise, human perso…

Question 59

What is Palamism?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Palamite Theology: St. Gregory Palamas's essence-energies distinction, a key patristic source for Metropolitan John Zizioulas's theology of communion with God.

Question 60

What is Pantokrator?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Greek: “Holding all,” the primary divine title in the Eastern creeds (distinct from the Latin omnipotens, “almighty”). It carries the connotation not merely of power but of the capacity to hold all things together, susta…

Question 61

What is Parousia?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The Second Coming of Christ at the end of history, when the Kingdom of God will be fully revealed, the dead will be raised, and God will be “all in all.” The Parousia is the eschatological horizon of all Christian life a…

Question 62

What is Passions?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The disordered attachments or aversions that bind the soul to selflove and separate it from God and others. In Maximus the Confessor’s anthropology, passions are not feelings as such but the irrational elements attached …

Question 63

What is Pentarchy?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

The Byzantine model of five patriarchal sees (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem) as the principal centers of leadership in the Church. Zizioulas notes that the pentarchy was grounded in historical sign…

Question 64

What is Personhood?

John D. Zizioulas · Accepted Answer

Prosopon/Hypostasis (Personhood): Metropolitan John Zizioulas's central theological category—the person as relational identity, not a self-contained individual.