ABSTRACT
A renewed attention to the iconic character of nature has over the last decades been re-emerging in Eastern Orthodox ecotheology. This chapter examines that how such an iconic-liturgical perspective on nature shapes human attitudes toward it and how this might translate in the way one devises and employs technology. In order to assess this, we first need to explore some crucial aspects of the underlying anthropology and ontology. Re-engaging with the iconic and liturgical perspectives on nature, drawing on patristic sources in an attempt to recontextualise their unusual insights, could illuminate our present condition, worldview and ethical approaches. Maximus the Confessors doctrine of the logoi appealingly but radically challenges conventional notions of ontology and ethics by considering being as a responsive movement to a call, as a communal becoming through a befitting ethos. According to Maximus the Confessor, it all comes down to a simple question that is put before us as humans: to be or not to be.
