ABSTRACT
What were the circumstances under which Christos Yannaras’s early engagement with theologically political thought emerged? Usually focusing on Roman Catholic and Protestant trajectories of thought, political theology seldom takes note of Orthodox Christianity and the politically informed theology and/or theologically informed politics it engenders. This chapter engages certain aspects of Christos Yannaras’s political theology. Yannaras, who intervenes regularly in Greece’s public sphere with his political commentary, does not consider his contribution as a “political theology”; in fact, he criticizes the concept as such. However, a consistent, coherent, and critical political theology, i.e. a theologically informed political theory, is clearly visible in many of his works. This chapter, focuses (a) on his understanding of both the political and the ecclesial element of life and society as emerging from the same “mode of existence,” (b) on the way in which a political community, when primarily aiming at the truth rather than usefulness and efficacy, strives to iconize the Trinity, and (c) on his critique of ideology, while (d) discerning the social and political context in which these ideas first appeared.
