Page 157 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O R D I N AT I O N A S G I F T I N C O M M U N I O N
Kingdom already anticipated here and now.
The Holy Spirit acts through ordination not because of a
rite or external criteria, but because of the promise of the Lord
that He would remain in the Church and guide her. If ministry
is nothing but the ministry of the One “sent from God,” real-
ized by the movement of the Spirit in communion, it cannot
be seen as of human origin but as a gift of the Spirit. And if
this gift is related to what God has prepared for His world in
the last days, ministry does not exist for itself but for the world.
Man is the priest of creation, called to offer it back to the Cre-
ator—not as an individual, but in relation with others. He can
be a priest only in the context of communion.
Ordination does not bestow an objective “thing,” but a cha-
risma understood as an existential relationship between the
ordained and the Church. No ordained person holds this cha-
risma as an individual possession, but always in relation to the
community and his function within it. For this reason, ordina-
tion is inseparable from the eucharistic community and is
given only within it.
Placed in this perspective, ordination appears at first sight
as a contradiction. It implies order, setting apart, division into
ministries. Historically, this led to the formation of orders in
the Church and to hierarchical structures. Theologically, it
produced the dilemma: does ordination bestow an ontological
grace or simply a function? Thus theology moved between the
“ontological” and the “functional,” between character indele-
bilis and pure commission.
But ordination, as an act of the Spirit, is not meant to di-
vide, even though it “divides the gifts” and gives them “to each
one.” The answer cannot be found in these inherited dilem-
mas, but in the notion of communion. In 1 Corinthians 12–13,
all charismata are defined not in themselves but as relational.
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