Fellowship and dialogue between Atanasije Jevtić and John Zizioulas
by Bishop Maxim Vasiljevic
(From the book: Bishop Maxim Vasiljevic, ATANASIJE—A LIFE STORY, Los Angeles: Sebastian Press, 2023, forthcoming)
The more than half a century-long friendship between Atanasije Jevtić and John Zizioulas, a man with a brilliant theological path, began in the first days of Atanasije’s stay in Athens (1964-65). They met at the Faculty of Theology, where Zizioulas received his doctorate in 1965. He came from Harvard, where he had been taught by Paul Tillich, Georges Florovsky, Werner Jaeger, and the like. After defending his doctorate, Zizioulas taught for two years (1966-1967) as a research associate at the faculty.
Having become close to the theologian Zizioulas, Atanasije described this encounter to Abba Justin. In his answers, Justin did not hide his enthusiastic impressions about the awakening of Orthodox theology among the Greeks:
I am especially glad that the Holy Fathers are beginning to speak more and more clearly and loudly through today’s Greek descendants of theirs, especially young theologians. Oh, if only traditional (faith-once-delivered) orthodox theology may be freed as soon as possible from the austere and noxious scholastic and Protestant rationalism. I will be very happy to read the study of dear Mr. Zizioul(as): The Unity of the Church.
When he said a prayer for Marianthi, the mother of John Zizioulas, somewhere around Easter 1970, Abba Justin used a specific sentence construction, in the form of a blessing mixed with admiration: “Blessed is the mother who gave birth to such a Christ-loving and Christ-wise son— John Zizioulas!”
Zizioulas and the group of young theologians around him, reading Abba’s writings on theo-humanism based on the Incarnation of the Son of God, recognized the basic feature of the Christian response to modern social turbulence and philosophical wanderings. Reflecting on that circle of Zizioulas, Abba did not hide his enthusiasm: “Oh, how I wish I could turn up in the midst of those keen theologians there, young zealots of Truth/All-truth, and together with them, harmoniously, feel and sense the grandiose Byzantine thought—God-inspired thought, holy and God-centered.”
Having received some of Zizioulas’ writings through Fr. Atanasije, Justin did not spare words of praise:
Young Zizioulas is very interesting and deep: he has been accorded a level of inspiration and discernment equal to the Holy Fathers. He possesses a kind of apostolic yeast, acting from within. His thesis on the Holy Eucharist, and the article: they are full of Orthodox wisdom, godly wisdom. He is driven by his sense of Christ’s presence, and deep emotion, full of immortal love for Christ. And those are the blocks that build a young man into an ascetic in the fashion of the Holy Fathers. You wrote to me back in March that he was sick, and since March 16, we have been praying here for his recovery. How is his health now? Give him my sincerest regards. Let him continue to strive to be a worthy disciple of his great teacher, Fr. G. Florovsky. And God will grant him great rewards in this and the next world.
Justin did not hide the fact that he also learned from Zizioulas. Referring to his doctorate, Justin wrote about Easter in 1966: “The study of Ζηζιούλας: very interesting. I learned a lot. Particularly important: the understanding of the episcopacy; the Holy Eucharist in relation to the episcopacy; the progression from the single body of the Church to apostolic succession; and the place of episcopacy in the Church. It is apparent that he is a worthy student of the famous father Florovsky.” Then, somewhere in 1968, he praised Zizioulas’ article on the occasion of the Uppsala conference: “I found brother Zizioulas’ lecture at the Uppsala Assembly very useful for me. Humanism, on any level, and in any form, always ends in nihilism. To man, in his present condition, the God-man is the only way out of all his difficulties, from all his deaths, hells, horrors, demons.”
While writing his doctorate, hieromonk Atanasije translated a collection of ten articles by Abba Justin into Greek. The well-known book entitled “Man and the God-man” (Ἄνθρωπος καὶ Θεάνθρωπος) would see the light of day in Athens in 1969 and has since had many editions, including the latest by the Vatopaidi Monastery, in 2020. The translation of selected works of Father Justin into Greek was at the same time Atanasije’s “grateful thanks to the Greek brothers for their great gifts to us Serbs.”
Copies of this book were given to many, from theologians in Greece, through Fr. Florovsky and Fr. Meyendorff in America, to many theologians in France. In connection with the book, Abba Justin was especially interested in what the young theologian John Zizioulas had to say about it, so he wrote to Atanasije: “The opinion of dear Zizioulas is very precious to me. Give him my highest regards: may he continue to grow ‘with the growth from God’ [Col. 2:19] through holy virtues.”
Incidentally, John Zizioulas and hieromonk Atanasije were connected in a special way by Abba Justin Popović. This is demonstrated by the words of this astute Greek theologian (in the Letters to Atanasije on April 29, 1969 from Geneva, after reading Abba’s book “Man and the God-man,” in Greek, and on May 5, 1972 from Edinburgh, after visiting the Abba in Ćelije):
After reading each of his lines, I want to exclaim: “That is exactly how I have felt for so long, and that is what I want to say!” In each line, all the Fathers come together in one voice. It is the Church, catholic, whole in its catholic expression. If anyone who lives their life in the midst of western Christianity reads this book, they will feel that they have found themselves again. May God keep Father Justin well for many years, to pray and guide us.
During his Athenian years Atanasije was friends with John Zizioulas, who was seven years older, and he viewed him as equal to Fr. Florovsky and Fr. Justin. He used to say that he was “indebted to Father Justin Popović, Father Georges Florovsky and his brother John Zizioulas,” from whom he learned the divine truth of the Holy Fathers—that the Holy Trinity is in the first place a community, and they are a community because there are Three Persons. In 1991, when Zizioulas was conferred an Honorary Doctorate by the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade, hieromonk Atanasije said: “I learned a lot from him in my life, and I am still learning, and I am not saying that just out of courtesy, and— God that knows my heart is my witness.”
When Zizioulas was still a layman, he visited Father Justin and was amazed by him. But Father Justin was also amazed by young Ioannis and the depth of his theology, his godliness and Christocentrism. In that respect, Father Justin is a theologian of the Word of God, and a Holy Father of our time, a Theological-humanist, a Christo-humanist. When some were scandalized by Justin’s critique of humanism, John Zizioulas said: “Father Justin criticized this miserably superficial and perverted Western ‘humanism’ in the name of the greater, higher and deeper, even more multidimensional and richer Humanism—The-humanism, Christ-humanism.”
A personal visit to Abba in Ćelije was the highpoint of respect that Zizioulas’ showed to Abba Justin. He wrote about this to Atanasije:
You certainly already know that I visited Father Justin and I had that great blessing of God and indescribable joy to see his face and talk to him. Just to see his face is enough. What a splendor of a child’s soul and what holiness! How unassuming and, by God’s grace, radiant are the faces of the wise men! I praise God for making me worthy to meet him. His face and his love will remain unforgettable to me. We have said many things, but, again, not enough. The more you talk to him, the more you want to stay with him. May God grant him health for our sakes. And may we always remain in his prayers.
Of the younger Greek theologians, in addition to John Zizioulas, Fr. Justin also valued the prolific writer Christos Yannaras, whose books Atanasije sent him from Greece. His letter was full of genuine insight. “The young writer has rich spiritual material in him, which can later shine for the great benefit of the Orthodox world . . . The gentle Lord has gifted him with inexhaustible wisdom of God.” The theologian and philosopher Christos Yannaras later referred to his brotherly love for, as he called them, holy men: Amfilohije and Atanasije.
Incidentally, it was hieromonk Atanasije that, during a walk along Lake Geneva in the beginning of the 1980s, advised then layman John to enter into priesthood, because he had been hesitant about it for many years. Atanasije would also thank Metropolitan John in his inaugural sermon in Vršac in 1991:
Special and exceptional thanks to a Father, and a brother, and a co-serving priest today, Metropolitan John of Pergamon, a great Orthodox theologian well-known in the world, and of late a Metropolitan of the crucified apocalyptic Church of Pergamon in Asia Minor. I cannot but mention his martyred and crucified Greek people in Asia Minor, who were massacred and deported from their land, just like the Jewish people, descendants of the Hebrews of the Bible, who undoubtedly suffered the most in their long history of persecution and martyrdom. The Serbs were also persecuted and martyred, but not like the Jews. Today also, both our peoples are threatened by the same crescent moon, Islamic aggression, and by the cunning and traitorous Europe, never friendly to Orthodoxy. Friendly Turkey and Islamic brethren are better off than the Orthodox Eastern Church, with the cross and faith, from which they received the Gospel, according to St. Basil. From the East is light, from the East is the Gospel. And the East will remain the East— allegorically, not geographically—as the Font of Justice, the Sun of Justice—Christ.
Atanasije’s theological wisdom left a deep impression on John Zizioulas, who would later admit to a Cypriot, Fr. Zacharias of Essex: “Whenever I wrote on a theological topic, I wondered: what would Fr. Atanasije have to say about it?”
Although he occasionally took a somewhat divergent theological orientation, Atanasije always appreciated many of Zizioulas’ contributions to theology, especially his emphasis on the eschatological perspective:
There is one great Greek theologian, John, Metropolitan of Pergamon—from the suffering Church of Pergamon in Asia Minor—who in our time speaks about eschatology. Seven apocalyptic Churches: Pergamon, Ephesus, Smyrna, Philadelphia, Sardis, Thyatira, Laodicea, failed due to Turkish tyranny and genocide against the Greeks. The Church of Constantinople, the Great Church, the Church of the Martyrs, still holds ecclesiastical jurisdiction over those Churches, and still appoints their respective titular Metropolitans, and this Bishop of Pergamon hopes to return to his Pergamon, even with a small group of apocalyptic believers. This fall will be the 1900th anniversary since John wrote the Apocalypse on Patmos, which is across from Ephesus. On a beautiful sunny day, Asia Minor and Ephesus are visible from Patmos. It is on that island that John the Theologian experienced Revelation and had it recorded while a prisoner there. Maybe we will, God willing, visit there soon; and I have already visited those Churches of Asia Minor.
Speaking on a different occasion about the book of Bishop Ignatije Midić, Remembering the Future, Atanasije said: “So, that Metropolitan of Pergamon John, with the surname Zizioulas, a native of Kozani, is one of the great Orthodox theologians, and our Bishop Ignatije has the honor of being his student, and, by God, according to Metropolitan John himself, that young man from Niš, from Knez-selo, seems to have surpassed his teacher, the Metropolitan of Pergamum. That young man is our Bishop of Braničevo here, whose book we present today...”
Atanasije summarized his relationship with John Zizioulas in one Letter:
Ioannis Zizioulas attended my Russian church in Athens regularly and we were friends while he worked as research assistant to Konidaris, and after that, all the way to Geneva, then Thessaloniki, Glasgow, London, and today is the same. I was at his mother’s grave in his village, several times in his apartment in Kifissia, and often met him at theological meetings. He had a wonderful bishop, Dionysius of Kozani, from whom we have all learned a lot. We worked on our doctorates at almost the same time and so had discussions about them, and we defended them at almost the same time. Around that time when he was still a layman, he once visited St. Abba Justin. We learned together from Fr. G. Florovsky (who served with me in the Russian Church, and I gave him my thesis to read), from whom Ioannis acquired an Orthodox theological orientation, and, of course, from the Fathers, especially St. Maximus, just like I did. I had read Florovsky long before that in Russian and Serbian (Father Justin was publishing his works on the Church and the Eucharist in the “Christian Life” before they were published in Russian). Naturally, the doctoral thesis of John Zizioulas on the Church in the first three centuries is a capital synthesis of the Eucharistic-episcopocentric, i.e., Christocentric ecclesiology. One can always learn a lot from him, because he has the gift of synthesis.
Having all this in mind, it is not surprising that the greatest theologian of today, John of Pergamon—inconsolable upon hearing of Atanasije’s passing in 2021—confessed his attitude towards Atanasije with the following (previously quoted) words: “Whenever I wrote on a theological subject, I wondered: what would father Atanasije have to say about it?”
