Page 140 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
C onclusions
In bringing these reflections to a close, we may gather to-
gether, in a brief and concentrated form, the principal ways
in which the mystery of the Church is lived and experienced.
First, the Church is encountered above all in the sacra-
ments—most especially in Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
These are not isolated rites, but the very mode in which the
Church exists. The other sacraments unfold as extensions of
the Eucharistic life, and in the ancient Church they were or-
ganically united with the Eucharistic celebration itself. Thus,
the Church is not first an idea to be grasped, but a life into
which one is initiated and continually nourished.
Second, the Church is experienced as a place of healing—a
θεραπεία of the passions. These passions, rooted in egoism
and in the illusion that life is nothing more than biological
existence, are not simply suppressed but transfigured. Within
the Church, they are replaced by what Maximus the Confessor
calls an “affectionate relationship” (ἀγαπητικὴ σχέσις). In this
way, the Church is revealed as a mode of existence grounded
in love—a communion in which freedom is no longer exer-
cised as self-assertion, but as self-offering.
From this arises a profound and necessary tension: the
contrast between what we receive in the sacraments and what
we embody in daily existence. This tension does not lead to
despair, but to repentance. It cultivates a sober awareness of
our distance from the fullness of communion, and it is pre-
cisely this awareness that keeps us within the truth of the
Church. For the Church is not a society of the perfect, but a
140