Page 152 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
Unity and Diversity
Before we speak more concretely of the bishop, the presby-
ters, and the deacons, and of the visible structure that gath-
ers the Church in history, we must pause and contemplate a
deeper foundation. For the structure of the Church is not first
an arrangement of ministries, but the expression of a theo-
logical truth. Beneath every canonical form there lies a mys-
tery: the way in which unity and diversity coexist in the very
being of God. Only in the light of this mystery can the life and
order of the Church be rightly understood.
Trinitarian theology places at its very center the profound
question of the relation between unity and diversity—that is,
between the one and the many. The confession of one God who
is at the same time three is not a logical puzzle, but an onto-
logical revelation: unity and diversity coincide in the very be-
ing of God.
The crucial question, however, is whether unity precedes
diversity—logically or ontologically. Much of medieval theol-
ogy, shaped by the essentialism of classical Greek thought, gave
priority to unity. The treatise De Deo uno preceded that of De
Deo Trino: God was first conceived as one, and only subse-
quently as three. This theological monism parallels the philo-
sophical monism that marked ancient thought from the Pre-
Socratics to Neoplatonism. Even Plato, though wrestling deep-
ly with the relation between the one and the many, ultimately
failed to grant equal ontological weight to plurality.
This prioritization of unity was accompanied by another
decisive move: the priority of substance over person. Following
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