Metropolitan John always considered the Eucharist and monasticism as two eschatological aspects of Church life, insisting that these two must never be secularized. Already in 1966, young theologian John Zizioulas wrote that The Eucharist gives to the faithful “the strongest assurance of the victory of Christ over the devil, but upon this earth, this victory will ever be a victory of ‘kenosis,’ the victory of the cross, the victory of heroic ascesis — as it has been understood and lived in Eastern monasticism.”

It has become commonplace to view Orthodox tradition as evolving in two contrasting “trends:” monastic and eucharistic. Zizioulas argues that the usual narrative concerning two trends in modern Orthodox theology needs revising. For him, neo-patristic synthesis implied a renewal not simply in patristic thought but also in the tradition of ascetic spirituality and the liturgical tradition. And while in Zizioulas’ writing, one finds a systematic treatment of Eucharistic ecclesiology, it is hard to expect a sustained, methodical treatment of precisely what he meant by monastic or ascetic tradition. One could ascertain that John Zizioulas has lived theologizing the opposite of what was expected of him as a proponent of Eucharistic ecclesiology; his theology is a panegyric of asceticism.

To the surprise of many, Zizioulas did not simply draw examples from the ascetic tradition to prove his theological points, but he wrote a book on monasticism. A (relatively) recently released series of lectures on monasticism is of equal importance to devotees and newbies alike. (See Βασιλείας Θεοῦ ἐκτύπωμα. Ὁ Μοναχισμός, ἤτοι κείμενα θεολογικὰ περὶ μοναχικῆς πολιτείας [Imprint of the Kingdom of God: Monasticism, i.e., Theological Texts about a Monastic Polity] (Megara, Greece: ἐκδ. Εὐεργέτις, 2013). With this book, surprising many readers in the theology world, he declared his deep respect for genuine monasticism. He endorsed its emphasis on breaking of one’s own selfish will, the ethos of self-condemnation, etc., even though monasticism had been secularized by many monasteries across the world. Another source of his views on asceticism is found in his recently published sermons (Receive One Another: 101 Sermons, Los Angeles, 2023). His overflowing theological insights are in these Sermons: pastorally subtle, full of nuances, knotty. Following his teacher, Fr. Georges Florovsky, Zizioulas believed in his assessment of monasticism or asceticism (he favored the untranslatable Russian word “podvig”, rendered in English as ascetic struggle, “attainment,” or “feat”). In “Christianity and Culture,” Florovsky wrote: “Ascetic renunciation implies first of all a complete disowning of the world, i.e., of the order of this world, of all social ties. A monk should be ‘homeless,’ aoikos, in the phrase of St. Basil. Asceticism, as a rule, does not require detachment from the Cosmos.” This proposal has been widely taken up and detailed by Zizioulas.

Zizioulas recognized the great potential in the monastic tradition, finding the true spirit of monasticism in the desert Fathers. While noting “a remarkable revival of Orthodox monasticism in our times,” he was afraid and lamented that “the spirit of the desert Fathers—that is, the spirit of self-blaming or taking upon oneself the sins of the world—is often replaced in our monasticism by that of aggressive zealotism, which defeats the very purpose of asceticism.” For the genuine witness of Orthodoxy in the 21^st century, Zizioulas repeatedly said that “the world will need the spirit of genuine monasticism more and more, as it is overcome by the greed of utilitarianism and self-justification that mark today’s culture.”

In Communion and Otherness, Zizioulas raised a crucial question: “How can we free the Other from moral categorization, thus protecting his or her personal uniqueness, while recognizing the reality of evil in our existence?” He couldn’t find a better answer to this question “than the one provided by the ascetic Fathers of the Church, particularly those known as the desert Fathers. No one has taken evil as seriously as they have, being engaged in a constant fight with the 'demons' and with everything demonic in existence. Yet in a remarkable way they insisted that the Other should be kept free from moral judgement and categorization. This they achieved not by disregarding evil but by transferring it from the Other to the Self.”

However, for Zizioulas, only Christology can theologically justify this: “Christ himself made his own the sins of others on the Cross, thus paving the way to condemnation so that the others might be justified. ‘Christ became a curse for us’ (Gal. 3:13).”

Chiapetti remarked that, for Zizioulas, a sacrifice is implied in created reality, because for the biological hypostasis—which, even after baptism, makes its influence felt on the ecclesial hypostasis—the self is ontologically primary. In a remarkably formulated argument, Zizioulas holds that the ascetic path, to which suffering is connected, consists precisely in giving priority to the Other. All this is closely linked to another characteristic of asceticism which is kenosis. “Behind the ethos of self-condemnation for the sake of the Other lies the Christology of kenosis.” The best application of this theme to the ascetic life Zizioulas found in the late Father Sophrony (Sakharov). “The famous saying of his spiritual master, St Silouan the Athonite ‘keep thy mind in hell and despair not,’ inspired Father Sophrony to develop the theology of ascetic kenosis by extending Christ’s ‘descent into hell’ to the point of reducing oneself to nothing so that space may be made for the reception of the Other.”

One of Zizioulas’ constant and favorite subjects was that of self-emptying for the sake of the Other which implies death. “Ascetic theology is characterized by the conviction that, if man does not die, he cannot live, he cannot be resurrected. If he does not go through the cross, he cannot reach the resurrection. If he does not kill his own will, he cannot perform God’s will.” (101 Sermons, 389). A monk has to sacrifice the seed of his own existence because the seed is saved by its “death” (cf. John 12:24).

There is here, indeed, a paradoxical tension Zizioulas saw in the stories of such “empathy with the Other’s sin which are retailed in the lives of the desert Fathers”. This is the argument at the core of Communion and Otherness (2006). “This theological justification of ascetic self-emptying for the sake of the Other is deeply rooted in patristic thought, particularly in that of St Maximus the Confessor. Maximus locates the roots of evil in self-love (philautia). Ali vices and passions spring from this source.”

Zizioulas was always concerned with ontological issues. “The ascetic life,” he explains, “is not concerned with the inner psychological experiences of the individual. Its ground is ontological: one is truly oneself in so far as one is hypostasized in the Other while emptying oneself so that the Other may be hypostasized in oneself. This hypostasization constitutes the essence of communion: ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20).”

These truths and arguments are irrefutable. They breathe the air of Gospel. “The way to God has to pass through the relationship with the neighbor. Love is the only healthy basis of Christian spirituality. As it would be put later on by the ascetic Fathers of the Church, the instrument of knowledge is not the mind but the heart.”

Zizioulas raised the issue of the identity of monasticism in a very straightforward way. “What is the special characteristic that differentiates the Monk from the other members of the Church? In other words, apart from the typical characteristic, which is the monastic tonsure, what is the theological differentia specifica of monasticism?” Any serious consideration of the monasticism of the Church, of the path of asceticism, muse be closely knit to the fact that a monk subjects himself freely to the will of God. “Through the path of asceticism, the Church educates man to sacrifice his own will, his self-centredness, and subject himself freely to the will of God, thus showing that man has reversed the attitude of the first Adam.”

However, these taxing themes necessitated consequent deepening on behalf of Metropolitan John. Thus, he explains, “monasticism is the extension of the Cross of Christ through the ages. There are two axes around which the life of the Church moves, and I would say also the whole world until the day when the Kingdom of God will prevail in the world.” According to Zizioulas, “one axis is the Cross of Christ and the other is the Resurrection of Christ.”

But how does he combine these? Schematically speaking, Zizioulas holds that “the Cross of Christ is par excellence extended throughout the ages by Monasticism.” On the other hand, “the Resurrection of Christ is extended by the Divine Liturgy, the Divine Eucharist, which, according to the Orthodox understanding, does not have the Cross of Christ as its center.” Therefore, “in the Orthodox tradition the Holy Eucharist is a feast of the Resurrection, a feast of the Church, which celebrates the Resurrection with splendor. It is the image of the Kingdom of God. The foretaste of joy and rejoicing, as the Evangelist Luke accurately describes the first Eucharistic gatherings of the faithful, when he says that with “breaking bread … they ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 6:46).

The consideration of these ontological-historical categories defines what Zizioulas would call cross-resurrectional life. “Rejoicing is a characteristic of the Divine Liturgy, because it is an extension in the ages of the Kingdom of God, the Resurrection of the Lord. It was this dual approach and framework that shaped Orthodox tradition. “When the Church lives only by the Eucharist, it is as if it lives only by the Resurrection. On the other hand, when it lives only with Monasticism, it is as if it lives only with the Cross. Both of these aspects of the life of the Church are indissolubly united to each other. Every separation constitutes an alteration of the whole way of existence of the believer and the Church. It is characteristic that, in our Church, whenever we honor the Cross of the Lord, we immediately add the honor to the Resurrection. ‘We bow down to Your Cross, Christ, and we glorify Your holy Resurrection’.”

Zizioulas frequently pointed to the image of the Resurrection, which also has the Cross of the Lord in it. “It is an authentic image of the Byzantine performance of the Resurrection. Any autonomy of these two things, the Cross and the Resurrection and correspondingly I would say, Monasticism and the eucharistic experience, is a distortion of the correct theological understanding of the life of the Church.”

Following Zizioulas' argument we can understand why it is important that the Church protects itself from secularization coming from technology. In battling against secularization, he wants by every means to ensure the uncoupling of worldly methods from monasticism.

The second thing the Church must do in order not to secularize itself by using the technological means is to keep them away from those institutions and acts of its life which are by their very nature destined to convey the eschatological message to this world. There are primarily two such institutions in the Church: monasticism and the Divine Eucharist. Monasticism, by its very nature, has been a voice of protest against the secularization of the Church since its inception.

According to him, it is contrary to the monastic vocation to use the technology to proclaim the ideals of monasticism. Nevertheless, there may be a mustard-seed of truth in Zizioulas’ assumption that a movement away from the world (by flight from the world), is necessary to monk’s existence; that there can’t be, without such “rebellion,” neither sufficient “podvig” nor eschatology.

“It is not by chance that a monk dresses in a black robe and takes a vow (oath) to withdraw from the world and die for the world. It represents an oxymoron, reaching the point of grotesqueness, that a monk uses worldly methods to attract people to Christ. Missionary work is not a monk’s job. His job is to be ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness,’ a silent but very loud reminder to all of us that ‘the form of this world is passing away.’ If monasticism is secularized, it will lose its power to protect the Church from secularization.”

Only by cultivating this ascetical ethos, monasticism can offer to society an invaluable contribution. “An ascetic—a weak man, one who many perhaps would accuse of abandoning the struggle of life and society—comes to offer to the world, to society, more perhaps than anyone else who actively works for the good of the world.” (101 Sermons, 49). The chief weight of Zizioulas’ arguments in favor of the ascetical ethos lies in its relational ontology. “In the earlier Gerontikon (collections of stories about monks and their sayings) we encounter stories of ascetics who wept over the death of birds or who lived in peace with wild animals. Even today on Mount Athos one can encounter monks who never kill serpents, but co-exist peacefully with them—something that would make even the best of Christians among us shiver and tremble.”

Zizioulas’ firm position is that if we borrow the vision of monasticism from St Maximus the Confessor, the argument will have to be based on eschatology. Because the goal of asceticism is to live ὑπὲρ φύσιν (above nature). In his latest book (Remembering the Future), Zizioulas clarifies that “living ὑπὲρ φύσιν, i.e., as if the eschaton not only is imminent but is in a sense already here through the entrance of the risen Christ into history in the Holy Spirit, means that life κατὰ φύσιν does not fulfil itself if it obstructs, or does not lead to, living ὑπὲρ φύσιν.”

In any empirically or logically evidential context of inquiry about Eastern tradition, asceticism is the crux. So, what is the goal of asceticism? By raising this question, we touch upon the most profound paradox of our existence shown, according to Metropolitan John, in the life of St. Anthony the Great. “This professor of the desert gives us one more lesson, that the ultimate goal of every exercise is love—to be able to cleanse our heart of passions in order to truly love.” A passionate love is not free love. “We cannot truly love if our heart is full of passions, since all the passions are summed up in one root of all the passions, which is called φιλαυτία or self-love. And it is natural, when there is self-love, even if there is just a trace of it, that we cannot love the other. This is why we must not consider our asceticism as our ultimate goal, and not have the false impression that we love, but rather we must struggle continually against the passions and particularly against the passion of self-love.”

Zizioulas had serious doubts about virtues as self-sufficient. “If this death of ours comes from love for the other, then it does fulfill its destiny. Asceticism without love is without meaning. To uproot your passions in order to develop ethically and spiritually gets you nowhere. Saint Maximos says that only love is that which justifies the asceticism.”

By publishing the book on monasticism in his senior phase, Metropolitan John prompts some to ask whether Zizioulas actually has changed or whether a changing context has finally allowed him to express what he has been thinking for some time fully. However, there is no debate that his ideas on monasticism and asceticism have been present in his theology from the start.