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Nicolas Prevelakis

From the 1950s to the 1980s, there has been a revival of interest for Orthodox Christianity in Greece. The
main authors associated with this revival are often referred to as neo-Orthodox. [1] Influenced by
nineteenth and twentieth century Russian theology, these authors have dealt with central Christian dogmas
concerning theology (the nature of God), and fundamental anthropology (human nature). They have, for the
most part, put forward the idea of a sharp division between Western Christianity, that is, Christianity as it
developed in Western Europe after the fall of Rome, and eastern Christianity, that is, Christianity as it
developed in Byzantium and continues to exist in the contemporary Orthodox world. Of these authors, John
Romanides (1927-2001) and Chrestos Yannaras (born 1935) figure prominently within Greek intellectual life.
The reason for this prominence is that their writings expanded beyond strictly theological concerns to
engage with questions such as the nature of modernity, the origins of modern secularism, and the
relationship between Orthodox Christianity and such philosophical currents as existentialism and
personalism, which were very important in post-World War II Europe. Most importantly, both Romanides and
Yannaras have built upon their theological work to shed new light into modern Greek history and used their
understanding of Orthodox civilization to engage in debates on the nature of modern Greek national identity,
the relationship between ancient and modern Greece, and the continuity of the Greek nation. Their writings
gradually reached the broader intellectual community, influenced such personalities as the political scientist
Kostas Zouraris, the marxist historian Kostis Moschof, and the composer Dionysis Savvopoulos. Their work
constitutes an excellent case-study of the ways in which theological discourse formed the basis of a
historical poetics that led to a radical contestation of the dominant national narrative of modern Greece. [2]
Their broader appeal in the 1980s and 1990s is also an excellent way to understand some of the issues that
Greece faced at that time and, to a certain extent, is still facing today.

It is usual to think of nationalism as a secular form of consciousness. This is true for at least two reasons:
first, because nationalism tends to emphasize this life, in contrast to a religious consciousness, which often
sees this life as a preparation for a (far more important) afterlife, and second, because nationalism replaces
the doctrine of divine sovereignty, i.e., the idea that sovereignty comes from God, with that of popular
sovereignty, i.e., the idea that sovereignty derives from the people (Greenfield 1996).

The secular character of nationalism can be seen most clearly in the case of France, where the conflict
between two opposing visions of sovereignty (divine sovereignty vs. popular sovereignty) took the form of a
conflict between Church and State, which ended with their formal separation in 1905. It has even been
argued that, for this reason, the spread of modern nationalism since the 16th century was one of the
reasons (together with such factors as modernization, industrialization, and modern capitalism) for the
secularization of the Western world (Eastwood and Prevelakis 2010). But while nationalism has arguably
been a secularizing force in history, numerous cases point to an alliance between nationalism and religion.
This happens in movements that identify the national community with a particular religion, as, for instance, in
the case of Hinduism, religious Zionism, or Pakistani nationalism.

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In these cases, there is typically a negotiation between the doctrines of divine and popular sovereignty. The
result of this negotiation covers a wide spectrum defined by two extremes. In the first extreme, which is
close to a traditional theocracy, sovereignty is thought to derive from God, through the people who exercise
it. In the second extreme, which is a sub-category of ethnic nationalism, religion is seen as nothing but an
ethnic characteristic of the national community; in this case, religious dogmas are treated superficially and
are of little importance. This ethnic interpretation of religion can be observed in various ethnic conflicts
throughout history, two of the most famous ones being the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, which were said to
be fought in the name of religion by atheists and agnostics, and the conflict in Northern Ireland, where a
common joke has to do with an Irish atheist, who has to declare if he is a protestant or catholic atheist in
order to have his side in the conflict determined.

In Greek national consciousness, nationalism and religion are inextricably intertwined. The origins of this
connection are to be found in the Ottoman Empire, where religion was used as a demarcation between
communities in the millet system. Thus, the nascent Greek nationalism naturally adopted religion as a
national demarcation (Mavrogordatos 2003:128). This identification has been reproduced and reinforced in
various historical instances. One of the clearest examples is 1922, when an exchange of populations
between Greece and Turkey followed the Greek defeat in Asia Minor (Clogg 2002:92-104). Then, religion
(rather than language, geographical location, or self-definition) was used to decide who was Greek and who
was Turk, signaling that religion was seen as the primary determinant of national identity.

As in most cases where nationalism and religion are intertwined, there is, throughout Greek history, an
ambiguity as to the precise meaning of this interaction and the type (theocracy, ethnic nationalism, or
something in between) to which it corresponds. For instance, when the Greek state was established, many
elements seemed to point towards a theocratic model: most of the inhabitants had strong ties to the Church
and a primarily religious (Christian Orthodox) identity; the first Greek Constitution was written in the name of
the Holy Trinity; and citizenship was given to whoever was born inside the Greek territory and believed in
Christ. On the other hand, religion was heavily controlled by the state. The Church of Greece, which was
created in 1833, has always depended on the Greek state, both financially and administratively; in turn, the
State would use it as an instrument to spread the values of Greek nationalism to the masses. [3]

The very establishment of the Church of Greece is a very interesting case study in this respect. Its creation
as a separate entity from the Patriarchate of Constantinople and dependence on the modern Greek state
was legitimized by appealing to the tradition of the Orthodox Church, which, in Byzantine times, had never
questioned its strong linkages to the Byzantine State (Mavrogordatos 2003:124). But this subjugation of the
Church to the modern Greek state could also be interpreted as signaling the reinterpretation of Orthodox
Christianity from a universal faith to a mere ethnic attribute of the Greek nation. It was this latter
interpretation that prevailed in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which, for this reason, did not officially
recognize the Church of Greece until 1850 and, in 1872, condemned religious nationalism under the name
of phyletism (Kitromilides 1989:181-82).

The identification between religion and national identity in Greece did not always go unchallenged. Many of
the first Greek nationalists were anti-clerical. They had studied in Europe, had been influenced by the
Enlightenment, and would see themselves as the descendants of ancient Greek philosophers, who were
greatly admired in Europe at the time; they also often considered the Orthodox Church as an obscurantist
institution. At the same time, the Greek Patriarchate was not eager to adopt Greek nationalism; Patriarch
Gregory V had even openly condemned the idea of a Greek Revolution (Kitromilides 1989:179).

In Greece, secular nationalists and Orthodox Christians typically have different historical and geographical
referents. Greek secular nationalists looked at 5th century BCE Athens; Orthodox Christians looked at the
Byzantine Empire, and saw Constantinople, rather than Athens, as their true capital. This tension between
Athens and Constantinople can also be seen in Greek historiography. The first Greek historians of the
modern era, inspired by the Enlightenment, admired ancient Greece, but paid little attention to Byzantium.
[4] It was only later historians like Spyridon Zampelios (1787-1856) and Constantinos Paparrigopoulos
(18151891) who, under the influence of German Romanticism, saw Byzantium in a positive light (Arabatzis
1998:18). These two authors were also instrumental in establishing the idea of one Greek nation across time
(Ancient Greece, Byzantium, Ottoman Rum Millet, modern Greek state). [5]

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This continuity of the Greek nation could, in turn, be interpreted in at least two ways: either as a biological
continuity of the Greek people across time, or as the continuity of the Greek civilization throughout history.
The first interpretation was seriously challenged by Jacob Philipp Falmereyer (1790-1861), who, in his
writings, had put forward the idea that a significant part of the inhabitants of contemporary Greece are of
Slavic descent. After the end of World War II, speaking of a biological continuity became politically incorrect,
because of its association with racism. The second interpretation, that of a continuity of Greek civilization
across time, had to provide a plausible hypothesis of a cultural continuity between Ancient Greece,
Byzantium, and the modern Greek nation. These academic questions had, no doubt, political repercussions
well into the 20th century. Did Greece belong to the East or to the West, and what are the political
implications for Greeces membership in NATO and the European Union? To what extent is the Greek state
secular, and how is this secularity challenged by the absence of a formal separation between Church and
State? How far back does the Greek nation go, and to what extent are Greeks entitled to consider
Byzantium as a Greek state?

The originality of John Romanides and Christos Yannaras is that they tried to provide an answer to these
questions, and a new approach to modern Greek history, based on theological discourse. Both of them are
representative of the complex articulation between religious and national concerns in modern Greece. [6]

John Romanides was born in Piraeus in 1938 but immigrated with his family to the United States a few
months later. He studied theology at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (where he would
later serve as professor of Dogmatic Theology from 1956 to 1965). In 1957 he submitted to the University of
Athens his doctoral dissertation, entitled The Ancestral Sin. The book attempts to uncover the views of the
early Church fathers regarding the sin of Adam and Eve and its consequences for humanity, views which
Romanides contrasts with those of Western post-Augustinian, and later scholastic, theology. [7] According to
Romanides, scholastic theologians think of Adam and Eve as being created immortal and their sin as the
transgression of Gods rule. According to this view, God was offended by this transgression, and thus
punished them with death (Romanides 1957:18, 23). Their sin was transmitted to the whole of humanity,
which, as it was somehow contained in Adam and Eve, participated in their sin as well. Romanides argues
that this view, which found its clearest formulation in Augustine, and which was subsequently adopted by
scholastic theology, was totally absent from the Apostolic Church and from the writings of the early Church
Fathers. According to the latter:
Adam and Eve were created neither mortal nor immortal, but with a propensity to either mortality or
immortality, depending on whether they would incline towards mortal or immortal things (Romanides
1957:32, 127-28, 162).
Their purpose was the attainment of theosis divinization (Romanides 1957:112), a communion with
God which involved the whole person, and which led to, literally, becoming God. [8] For Augustine, on
the contrary, the purpose of mans life is some sort of eudaimonia happiness, acquired through the
contemplation of God and achieved by means of ones mind.
Their transgression meant their withdrawal from divine life, a withdrawal, which, in turn, corrupted their
nature (Romanides 1957:34). Sin is thus seen less in juridical terms and rather understood as the
failure of man to attain to perfection and theosis divinization because he fell into the hands of him
who has the power of death (Romanides 1957:34, 99, 112).
God was not angry or offended by this transgression. It was Anselm of Canterbury, an 11th century
Western theologian, who defended the view that God was offended by this transgression and
demanded, for His appeasement, a sacrifice of equal magnitude, i.e. the death of Christ (Romanides
1957:18). None of these ideas can be found in the Greek Fathers, for whom God did not send his son
to pay for humanitys sins, but to restore humanity to its original purpose, namely a communion with
Gods life. Salvation, for the Greek Fathers, is the destruction of the power of Satan and the
restoration of creation to its original destiny through the perfecting and theosis of man (Romanides
1957:112).
God, as benevolent and loving, could not be the cause of death. Death was rather seen as the
creation of Satan, the primary cause of transgression, sin, and death (Romanides 1957:79) and a

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consequence of man's distancing from divine lifenot as a divine punishment. God allowed it out of
compassion, so that man does not become immortal in sin, but did not create it (Romanides
1957:32).
Humanity participated in the consequences of Adams sin, not the sin itself. It did, however inherit from
Adam a corrupted and mortal nature, with a propensity towards sin (Romanides 1957:166-67). [9]

This difference has, according to Romanides, important moral implications. For instance, the early Church
Fathers were not concerned with the question of evil (how can God be benevolent and cruel at the same
time?) because God was not seen as the source of cruelty. It also lacked the fear of a punishing God: for
instance, it did not interpret hell as a created fire by which God punishes the sinful but as the experience of
Gods glory as torture by those who have missed the possibility of a communion with God (Romanides
1982:96).

In his second book, Romiosni (), Romanides connects the above theological analysis to a wider
interpretation of Church history. [10] This book expands on the themes of the Ancestral Sin and offers a
historical interpretation for the reasons why the heretical (Western) views came to prevail throughout the
Middle Ages, and still today, even within the Orthodox Church. According to Romanides, the theology of the
Apostolic Church, as presented in his first book, was common to both the Greek and the Latin Fathers of the
first centuries after Christ. Because they wrote in the period of the Roman Empire, Romanides calls them
Roman Fathers. It should be noted, however, that linguistic differences among Greek and Latin Church
fathers were relatively insignificant, the content of their theologies being relatively similar.

Romanides argues that things began to change with Augustine, whose views on the ancestral sin were
fundamentally different from those of the previous Church fathers. Augustines main mistake, according to
Romanides, is the rejection of deification as a real possibility for humanity (Romanides 1982:39) and the
subsequent belief that the primary means through which men can approach God is the use of reason
(Romanides 1982:85). [11] Augustine therefore could not understand the ancestral sin as the failure to
achieve deification; instead, he interpreted it as the transgression of divine rule.

According to Romanides, Augustines heretical theology became official in the West mainly for political
reasons. After conquering the western part of the Roman Empire, the Franks and other Teutonic tribes
managed to gain control over the Patriarchate of Rome and made Augustines theology its official theology
(Romanides 1982:78). They would later claim that the Patriarchate of Rome (which was under their control)
was the sole representative of true Christian faith. Politically, the same Franks, after subjugating the
Romans, declared themselves the sole heirs of the Roman Empire and rejected the authority of its
legitimate Emperor, whom they started to call Greek (Romanides 1982:193) by falsely equating the terms
Roman and Latin (Romanides 1982 133) and by referring to the Eastern Roman Empire as Greek. Later
Western historiography went even further and referred to that Empire as Byzantium and to its inhabitants
as Byzantines. Romanides explains that these appellations, while official in history books, are contrary to
the self-definition of the inhabitants of that region, who always thought of themselves as Romans, as well
as to the way in which they were known to their neighbors: Romanides explains that the Ottomans would
refer to the Christian population of the Roman Empire as Rum; and that, as late as the 1950s, many
Greeks would refer to themselves as Romi, i.e., Romans (Romanides 1982:294).

Romanides builds on these ideas to argue that the creation of the modern Greek state was the work of the
Westerners and the Russians, who wanted to prevent the recreation of the Roman Empire, and preferred
to divide the region into smaller nation-states with parochial-national identities. For this reason, the modern
Greek state would claim direct linkage to ancient Greece, rather than the civilization of Christian Rome (i.e.
Byzantium). Its inhabitants were called Greeks (Graikoi, according to the way in which ancient Hellas was
known in the West), rather than Romi. Romanides writes:

Paradoxically, the external enemies of Romanity (Romiosni, ) found in

Greece a naive collaborator, the neo-Greek spirit, which was servile to the Franks
(). This spirit, unfortunately, prevailed after 1821; imbued with the

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Eurofrankish and Russian bias characteristic of those times, and with contempt for
medieval Romanity, and out of a dedication to the European conception of ancient
Greeks, and creating among the Romi a Teutonic-type racism with the thought that
they are the descendants of only the ancient Greeks, it preached to the Romi of
Greece that they should not be called Hellenes and Romans, but only Hellenes and
Greeks (Romanides 1982:23)

The above quote is interesting in many respects. First, Romanides condemns the very creation of the
modern Greek state, which he sees as a protectorate of foreign powers, as well as extremely limited
compared to the Roman Empire, the true home of the Hellenes and Romans. Second, he finds a way to
maintain the unity of the Greek nation throughout history while condemning racist theories of biological
descent, for which he blames, once more, the Russians and the Europeans. Most importantly, Romanides
puts together the Franks and the Russiansand holds them both responsible for the destruction of the
Helleno-Roman nation; he thus makes it clear that he does not see modern Russia as continuing the
Roman spirit.

Though it is very difficult to distinguish between Romanidess theological positions and his historical
analysis, one could argue that, as he moves from his first book, The Ancestral Sin, to his second one,
Romiosni, theological differences become less important in themselves; they are interpreted as mainly tools
used by the Franks to establish their domination over the Romans. In the end, Romanides views Church
history as an ethnic struggle between the Romans and their Frankish conquerors. The questionable nature
of his historical speculations, his intensely polemical writing style, as well as some allegations about his
political engagements, [12] contributed to discrediting Romanidess writings in the eyes of the broader
public. His theological work, however, along with its resultant historical views, influenced many Greek
intellectuals.

Christos Yannaras is arguably the most creative of Neo-Orthodox theologians. While he shares many of
Romanidess theological views, he is primarily interested in the theological differences between East and
West that Romanides points out, rather than in the alleged ethnic struggle between Romans and Franks;
Yannaras argues that these differences have a philosophical and civilizational meaning that goes beyond
theology.

Yannaras was born in 1935. At a very young age, he joined the brotherhood Zoe, a very important Christian
group formed in 1907 on the model of pietism fraternities. Yannaras was uncomfortable in this environment.
He felt that, under the rigidity of its ideas, it missed the essence of Christianity. For this reason, he decided
to broaden his horizons by studying theology at the University of Athens. [13] Later, he went to Paris to
pursue doctoral studies in theology and philosophy. There, he became very interested in Heidegger and his
critique of Western metaphysics. He discovered existentialism (through J. P. Sartre and A. Camus), from
which he took the idea that human freedom is irreducible to a human essence and that freedom (freedom
to choose, to transcend ones nature, to shape oneself through ones actions) is what defines humanity. He
also discovered personalism through Emmanuel Mounier and Nikolai Berdyaev; from it he took the idea that
one could find in early Patristics a philosophy of personhood that stresses human dignity without falling into
the traps of either Western (bourgeois) individualism or communist totalitarianism, two systems which,
according to Yannaras, failed to adequately respect human freedom (Yannaras 1998). At the same time,
Yannaras got acquainted with neo-Patristics (Florovsky), Catholic scholars of the early Church (Urs von
Balthazar, Jean Danielou), and the Orthodox theologians of the Russian diaspora (Vladimir Lossky,
Alexander Schmemann). Of these, the most important influence was most probably Vladimir Lossky, a
Russian theologian who, in 1944, published The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, a book that would
become a reference among Orthodox theologians and would also shape the way in which non-Orthodox
understand Orthodox Christianity. [14]

Yannaras has published more than 35 books, seven of which have been translated into English. He has also
published in theological journals, periodicals, and daily Greek newspapers. His writings cover questions of

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philosophy, theology, history, and contemporary politics. An extensive analysis of all this work is beyond the
limits of my discussion here, which is mostly based on three of Yannarass publications: his article The
Consequences of an Erroneous Trinitology for the Modern World (1982), the theological summary of his
thoughts in his book Freedom of Morality (1984), and his book on the intellectual and theological history of
modern Greece entitled Orthodoxy and the West (2007).

Following Vladimir Lossky, Yannaras argues that the separation between the Eastern and the Western
Church, which became official with the schism of 1054, was the result of a civilizational divide that had
already started in the fourth through sixth century trinitarian debates. In a nutshell, these debates aimed at
formulating the proper way to make sense of the Holy Trinity, while also explaining the fact that God is one
and exists as three, namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Lossky suggested that the Greek Fathers placed
more emphasis on the personal aspect of the Trinity, whereas the Latin Fathers stressed the idea of a divine
essence (Lossky 1976:57-58). [15] According to this view, the Latin theologians would start from the
principle of divine unity, which they saw in the common divine essence, and then proceed to deduce the
three persons as following logically from the necessity of that divine essence. The Greeks, on the contrary,
would start from the three persons (or hypostases, substances), and move up to the principle of unity,
which they would locate in one of these persons, namely the person of the Father. [16]

Yannaras sees in the Trinitarian essentialism of the West the origins of modern secularism. He argues that
the primacy of the divine essence is at the roots of Western secularism, while the Orthodox East has rather
focused on the personal aspect of God. This is because Western essentialism reduces God into an
abstraction, while Eastern personalism focuses on the immediate experience of a personal God whose
mode of existence is freedom. [17] For Yannaras, as for Lossky, there is also a difference in the way a
human person is understood: while the Latins would define humanity by appealing to human nature and
emphasize the elements of rationality and individual boundaries (Lossky 1974:111-23), the Greeks would, on
the contrary, stress the irreducibility of man to his nature (Lossky 1974:120). Yannaras understands the
Greek view in light of Sartres idea that in humans, existence precedes essence; but rather than
concluding, like Sartre, that men shape themselves through their actions, Yannaras stresses that humans
are bound to always transcend their essence by relating with others. Yannaras interprets sin as, precisely,
the failure to do so and the retreat into the comfort of ones given nature, including ones character, beliefs,
and professions (Yannaras 1984:21, 181). [18]

Like Lossky and Romanides, Yannaras saw a sharp distinction between the civilizations of Orthodoxy and
the West. Like Lossky, he saw the West as individualistic, rationalistic, and essentialist. Like Romanides,
he resented the legalism of the West, which opposed an existentialist system of ethics focusing on human
relations. For Yannaras, these two critiques are actually linked. A theology which sees the relation between
God and men as primarily mediated by reason would also tend to interpret sin in moralistic terms and
develop a rational understanding of sin as the transgression of a rule. On the contrary, a theology which
views divine (and subsequently human) persons as primarily relational beings would tend to interpret sin as
a relational failure.

In his historical treatise entitled Orthodoxy and the West, Yannaras attempts to show that the Greek world
has been alienated from its original way of life (centered on human relations) and led to adopt the legalistic
and rationalistic ideas of the West. This happened, according to Yannaras a) with the translation of the
writings of Thomas Aquinasthe most rationalistic of all Western theologiansinto Greek b) politically, with
the Fourth Crusade, which destroyed the Byzantine Empire c) with the adoption of Western theological
manuals by the Orthodox Church during the Ottoman period and d) with the creation of the modern Greek
state by the European powers and the substitution of the traditional ecclesiastical culture with the rational,
Western institutions characteristic of modern nation-states.

Published in 1992, Yannarass book follows a strict chronological order. He sees the beginnings of modern
(i.e. alienated) Hellenism in 1354, when Demetrios Kydones translated into Greek the Summa contra
Gentiles of Thomas Aquinas, an event that signaled a new historical period in which the Greeks gradually

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transferred the focus of their attention from their own tradition and their own civilization to another vision and
another ideal (2007:3). Yannaras follows the first Greek Unionists (Ch. 5, 4550), the Scholastics (Ch. 6,
5158) and other Western attempts to westernize the Orthodox world in the 17th century. He notices the
gradual introduction of Western ideas within the Orthodox Church, despite regular resistance from
theological movements such as Palamism, but also from various movements of popular resistance to
westernization (Ch. 11, 111137).

For Yannaras, Greek independence from the Turks was the result of the living Christian faith of the
people and was achieved, to a large extent, by the clergy (1992:157). However, from the start, the Greek
state modeled its social and political institutions on the West (1992:158). The state was economically and
politically subordinated to the European powers: the education system was established on the model of
German Universities (1992:160), and neo-classicism became obligatory for Orthodox church architecture
(1992:167). The autocephalous Church was made dependent on the secular state, on the model of Bavaria
(1992:171). There was resistance from the monasteries, which were under attack, and often closed down
(Ch. 15, 169192). Theological schools and para-ecclesiastical organizations completed the westernization
of popular religious tradition. Yannaras thus interprets modern Greek history as a struggle between authentic
Orthodoxy, found mostly in monasteries, local tradition, and popular faith, and the West, represented by
the state institutions, para-ecclesiastical organizations, as well as the Church of Greece. Further, Yannarass
only hope for the preservation of modern Greek identity is the Orthodox revival that, as he claims, started
taking place in the 1960s.

Yannarass accounts of medieval Christianity lack Romanidess polemical tone but have striking similarities
in content. [19] For instance, Yannaras explains the legalism of the West by the fact that the Western
Church had to rule over illiterate populations who lacked the political refinement of their Roman counterparts
and were therefore in need of top-down rules of conduct. [20] Yannaras also agrees with Romanides that a
national form of Christianity assisted the Franks' political ambitions, especially after 800, when Charles the
Great (Charlemagne) became king and that, in this goal, Augustine's theology was decisive. Like
Romanides, Yannaras argues that while, at first, the Church rejected the innovations of the Franks, from
1009, the Franks controlled the succession to the papal throne and Latin Orthodoxy dropped its resistance
(Yannaras 2007:1618).

While placing emphasis on the religious tradition of Greece, Yannaras, like Romanides, [21] refers to ancient
Greece with praise, stressing the continuity between ancient Hellenism and authentic Orthodoxy. He writes
that ancient Greek philosophy was closer to the initial Christian (and later, Orthodox) worldview than the
tradition of Western Enlightenment (itself, a by-product of Western Christianity), would have us believe.
Yannaras often quotes Heraclituss writing that only in communion are we in the truth, [22] and argues that,
in ancient Greece, as in authentic Orthodoxy, truth was always associated with a collective (and for that
reason relational) validation. Following Heidegger, he opposes this conception to the scholastic definition of
truth as adequatio intellectus rei, i.e. a conformity between the intellect and the things, which Yannaras
sees as one more illustration of Western rationalism.

Pushing Romanidess arguments one step further, Yannaras defines Hellenism as a way of life, the
philosophical foundations of which are the primacy of the category of relation and the condemnation of
individualism as both an epistemological and moral fallacy. According to Yannaras, this way of life started
with ancient Greek philosophy, found its apogee in Christianity, and has been preserved, to a certain extent,
in the current Greek Orthodox tradition. The history of modern Greece is, to a large extent, the history of a
systematic attack against this way of life by Western individualism.

Yannaras and Romanidess theological works thus serve as the means to solve multiple tensions within
modern Greek historiographical discourse. They use Orthodox exegesis to draw conclusions about modern
Greek history, and vice versa. Their historical poetics offer an alternative reading to Greek national
historiography and a solution to the problem of Greek continuity, by advocating for the fundamental unity of
ancient Greek and Byzantine civilizations, without having to establish some kind of biological descent. For
Yannaras, who is the most creative in this respect, this unity stems from a major philosophical agreement:

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the primacy of the category of relation over that of substance. This primacy, according to Yannaras, can
be seen in metaphysics (through the understanding of reality as fundamentally relational), in politics (through
the primacy of human relations over individualism), and in epistemology (through a relational approach to
truth).

This unity allows for a re-appropriation of ancient Greece by modern day Greeks, who are seen by Yannaras
as the successors of the ancient Greek philosophers, since the fundamental intuition of these philosophers
(namely the primacy of the category of relation) is, according to Yannaras, more present in contemporary
Greek folk culture (through Orthodox Christianity) than in Western universities. Neo-Orthodoxy has therefore
a clear anti-elitist dimension. Moreover, by attributing a precise philosophical message to this unity,
Yannaras was able to put Greece at the center of the worlds intellectual debates. Its civilizational message
is presented as the transcendence of both capitalism and socialism (both interpreted as by-products of the
metaphysical presuppositions of the West) [23] and the only way to a more humane type of society.

Romanidess and Yannarass discourse became particularly appealing in the 1980s and 1990s, for many
reasons and to multiple audiences. Greece had been a member of the NATO alliance for a long time and
had recently entered the European Union. Neo-orthodoxy allowed the Greek intellectual and political elites
to see their country enter the European Union as a central civilizational entity and not as a poor relation,
while it gave the average Greek citizen a confidence boost and a sense of national pride. In addition,
Yannarass discourse gave members of the Greek intellectual left a way to reject the liberal-capitalistic West
without embracing communist totalitarianism. Finally, it gave the Greek Church a newly found meaning by
interpreting its dogmas as reflections of a crucial philosophical message.

It can be said that both Yannaras and Romanides interweave theological doctrine and historiographical
critique. Their arguments dared to reverse Greeces dominant historical narrative and to provide a re-
appropriation of ancient Greek history at the time when Greece was gradually entering into Western
institutions (NATO, EU) as an equal partner. Their theological investigations and their historical poetics are
two sides of the same coin, one reinforcing the other and serving as building blocks for the redefinition of
Greek national identity.

Athanassopoulos, E.F. 2008. Medieval Archeology in Greece: A Historical Overview. In Archeology and
History in R oman, Medieval, and Post-Medieval Greece, ed. W.R. Caraher, L.J. Hall, and R. S.
Moore, 1535. Aldershot.

Arabatzis, G. 1998. Ethique du bonheur et orthodoxie Byzance: IVemeXIIeme sicles. Paris.

Campbell, J.K. 1975. Honour, Family and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek
Mountain Community. Oxford.

Clogg, J.K. 2002. A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge.

Eastwood, J., and N. Prevelakis. 2010. Nationalism, Religion, and Seculariztion. An Opportune Moment for
Research. Review of Religious Research 52:90110.

Greenfeld, L. 1996. The Modern Religion? Critical Review 10:169191.

Halleux, Andr de. 1984. Hypostase et personne dans la formation du dogme trinitaire (ca. 375-381).
Revue dhistoire ecclsiastique 79:324328, 651, 658661.

Kitromilides, P. 1989. Imagined Communities and the Origin of the National Question in the Balkans.
European History Quarterly 19:149192.

Lossky ,V. 1974. In the Image and Likeness of God. New York.

Lossky, V. 1976. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. New York.

Makrides, V. 1998. Byzantium in Contemporary Greece: The Neo-Orthodox Current of Ideas. In Byzantium
and the Modern Greek Identity, ed. David Ricks and Paul Magdalino, 141153. Aldershot.

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Mavrogordatos, G. 2003. Orthodoxy and Nationalism in the Greek Case. West European Politics
26:117136.

Meyendorff, J. 1961. ' (Romans 5:12) chez Cyrille d'Alexandrie et Thodoret. In Sonderdrck aus
Studia Patristika IV, ed. F.L. Cross, 156161. Berlin.

Meyendorff, J. 1979. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. New York.

Payne, D. 2011. The Revival of Political Hesychasm in Contemporary Orthodox Thought: The Political
Hesychasm of John Romanides and Christos Yannaras. Lanham.

Regnon, Th. 1898. Etudes de thologie positive sur la Sainte Trinit: t.I. Expos du dogme II. Paris.

Romanides, J.S. 1955-1956. Original Sin According to St Paul. St Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly 4:528.

Romanides, J.S. 1957. The Ancestral Sin: A Comparative Study of the Sin of our Ancestors Adam and Eve.
Athens.

Romanides, J.S. 1981. Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine: An Interplay Between Theology and
Society. Brookline.

Romanides, J.S. 1982. Romanity (, ), 2nd ed. Athens.

Spiteris, Y. 1992. La teologia ortodossa neo-greca. Bologna.

Stavrakakis, Y. 2003. Religion and Politics: On the Politicization of Greek Church Discourse. Journal of
Modern Greek Studies 21:151183.

Weaver, D. 1985. The Exegesis of Romans 5:12 Among the Greek Fathers and its Implication for the
Doctrine of Original Sin: The 5th-12th Centuries, Part II. Saint Vladimir's Theological Quarterly
29:133159, 231257.

Yannaras, C. 1975. The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology. Saint
Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 19:232245.

Yannaras, C. 1982. Consequences of an Erroneous Trinitology in the Modern World. In La signification et

lactualit du IIme Concile Oecumnique pour le monde chrtien d'aujourd'hui 497502. Geneva.

Yannaras, C. 1984. The Freedom of Morality. Crestwood.

Yannaras, C. 1987. [Refuge of Ideas]. Athens.

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[ back ] 1. For an overview of the main ideas associated with neo-Orthodoxy, see Makrides 1998.

[ back ] 2. For a definition of historical poetics, see the introduction to this volume.

[ back ] 3. This conversion of the Greek Church to Greek nationalism led it, for instance, to be very vocal
about the need to maintain religious affiliation mentioned in Greek national identity cards in the 1990s or to
have a strong foreign policy, especially under Archbishop Christodoulos in the 1990s. For an overview of the

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interplay between religion and politics in Greece during the 1990s, see Stavrakakis 2003.

[ back ] 4. See Athanassopoulos 2008:18, The hostile stance towards Byzantium, exemplified by Koraes,
continued during the first decades of the existence of the Modern Greek state, from 18601930.

[ back ] 5. This does not mean that secularists necessarily dismiss Byzantium, or that religious Greeks will
look primarily at Constantinople. One can be a secular Greek nationalist and still refer to Byzantium, seen as
a glorious Greek Empire. One can be very religious but think that it is the Church of Athens, protected and
supported by the independent Greek State, rather than the Patriarchate of Constantinople, under Turkish
control, which represents the true faith. But it is certainly true that the degree to which one sees religion as
an important element of Greek national identity is often linked to ones general evaluation of Byzantium.

[ back ] 6. For a recent overview of both Romanides and Yannarass politics, in light of their theology, see
Payne 2011.

[ back ] 7. A vital component of Christian theology, the idea of the ancestral sin has played a dominant role
in traditional Christian social life, see J. Campbell 1975. The exact content of this idea in Orthodox theology
became a matter of intense debate after the publication of John Romanidess book, and led to numerous
philological studies, in Greece and abroad, see Weaver 1985 and de Halleux 1984.

[ back ] 8. This possibility for man to become God did not involve any kind of pantheism, according to
Romanides, because the Church would distinguish between Gods essence, which is inscrutable and
incommunicable, and Gods energies, which are the ways in which God exists (Romanides 1957:111). For
this distinction, Romanides relies on the work of 14th century theologian Gregory Palamas, who compared
Gods essence to the essence of the sun and Gods energies to the rays of the sun. The rays are the sun
itself but are different from its core. They are the ways in which the sun exists outside of itself.

[ back ] 9. According to John Meyendorf, who follows Romanides, the idea of a transmission of Adam and
Eves sin to the whole of humanity comes from Augustines misinterpretation of Romans 5:12. The Greek
passage reads as follows:
, ,
(Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death
came to all people all sinned.) The Latin Church Fathers interpreted either as in whom, and
deduced that humanity as a whole had sinned in Adam, or as because, and drew the same conclusion,
namely that humanity as a whole sinned, the reason being that it was somehow contained in Adam and
shared his sin. The Greek Fathers, on the contrary, interpreted as because of which, and attached it
to death (). Based on this interpretation, they argued that humanity sinned because it inherited
Adams mortality and explained this by the idea that mortality (through the existential anxiety that it brings
with it) led them to further sins. Meyendorf 1979:144. For a detailed analysis of this question, see also
Weaver 1985 passim.

[ back ] 10. For a presentation of the same ideas in the English language, see also Romanides 1980.

[ back ] 11. As a result, for Romanides, the Augustinian tradition uses the categories of philosophy to
understand the essence of God. 1992:39.

[ back ] 12. Yannis Spiteris wrote that John Romanides was entangled in the fascist right during the time of
the Colonels. 1967-74, in Spiteris 1992:283. This view has been challenged by F. Metallinos, who points out
that Romanides might even have been a victim of the junta, following anonymous accusations that he was a
communist. Metallinos 1985. Romanides did, however, appear as a candidate of an extreme right-wing party
of anti-junta Royalists in the elections of 1974.

[ back ] 13. This story is very well developed in Yannaras 1981.

[ back ] 14. Losskys ideas are, to a large extent, also the source of inspiration of Romanidess writings. But
whereas Romanides would emphasize the Augustinian doctrine of the original sin and its subsequent use by
the Franks for political reasons, Lossky would rather stress differences between Orthodox and Western
understandings of the Holy Trinity. Like Romanides, Lossky sees a relatively sharp distinction between the
civilizations of Orthodoxy and the West.

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[ back ] 15. Before Lossky, this view was first articulated by the Jesuit theologian Theodore de Rgnon in the
19th century, himself influenced by the 17th Jesuit theologian Denis Ptau. For a comprehensive account of
this issue, see Rgnon 1898, as well as the overview of the reception of Rgnons ideas by Lossky then
Yannaras in Halleux 1994 passim.

[ back ] 16. For an overview of this position, see also Zizoulas 1985:27-49.

[ back ] 17. See John Zizioulas, who argues that focusing on the personal basis of divine being means that
God exists out of free will: God, as Father and not as substance, perpetually confirms through being
His free will to exist. Zizioulas 1985:41.

[ back ] 18. Among human relations, Yannaras places particular emphasis on sexual love, which he calls
the ecstatic power in existence, the potentiality for self-transcendence and loving communion. Yannaras
1984:186.

[ back ] 19. Yannaras praises Romanidess Ancestral Sin for reestablishing the authentic Orthodox tradition
against the legalistic framework of Western theology but criticizes his later works and their emphasis on
intrigues and conspiracies. 2007:27577.

[ back ] 20. Yannarass critique is often quite radical: the God of Augustine, of Anselm, and of Nicodemos,
the terrorist God of sadistic demands for justice, is of no concern to man ... He must be set aside and put out
of mind. 2007:206. He argues that these demands for justice are the true source of our modern idea of
rights, which he criticizes as pre-political achievements. 2004:88.

[ back ] 21. For this reason, Romanides writes that the Ancient Romans had become themselves Greeks as
regards their language, their education and their civilization before they conquered Greece. 1982:39.

[ back ] 22. Heraclitus, Frag. Diels-Kranz I, 29-30, 148, quoted in Yannaras 1988:65.

[ back ] 23. Socialism and liberalism were (and are) two sides of the same coin: the naturalism of the
Enlightenment, the view of man as res cogitans (Descartes), as animale rationale (Aquinas). Yannaras
2002.
15

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