ABSTRACT
In the heart of Christos Yannaras’s lifetime work of philosophical theology lies his longing to oppose ‘religionisation’, the secularisation of the ecclesial event. Even though the term religionisation (θρησκειοποίηση) is not found in his early work, the condition to which it refers had been a reality that Yannaras had encountered and which he had pointed out right from the outset. This was a religious paradigm that – as Yannaras was to explore early in his career – stemmed from a fundamental, ontological error: a false mode of existence, signified by the primacy of the individual and its human ratio as the measure for true knowledge, and subsequently the conceptualisation of the Christian narrative. This formed clearly an alienation, if not a complete overturn, of the true biblical message and of the initial ecclesial experience and was consequently reflected in the refutation of God as expressed in nihilism of Western metaphysics.
The current chapter describes the theological context within which Yannaras set out in his early career, and those core features in his contribution which essentially addressed the secularisation of theology at the time and the religionisation of the ecclesial life and ethos: Yannaras’s input in the overturn of theological scholasticism and rationalism, and the return to the Patristic heritage resulting in the gradual renaissance of Greek Orthodox theology in the ‘60s; his opposition to religious legalism, to moralism and conformist piety that was dominant in Church life and the influence of Yannaras’s work in recovering a true ecclesial ethos free from dualism and the fragmentation of spirituality; the role of Yannaras’s emphasis on ontology, with its entrenched aspects of personalism and apophaticism leading to an existential, i.e. dynamic and relevant approach to the Christian tradition and the ecclesial event.
