Page 260 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
cross or participates in liturgical life, one does not follow a
logical command but embodies a mode of existence received
through tradition. This ethos is learned not through reasoning
but through participation, imitation, and belonging.
Among the faithful, this has always been the true “ethics”
of the Church: a way of life that flows from being itself. One
goes to church not because of a rational obligation, but be-
cause one belongs. Saint Paul does not ground behavior in
abstract principles, but in ontology: we act as members of one
Body. Without this ontological foundation, there is no true
ethics.
In this light, no universal ethical principle can stand above
the person. No value can justify the sacrifice of a concrete
person. In love, the existence of the person transcends every
ethical demand. The being of the one we love becomes more
important than any judgment about what that person has
done. Ontology, therefore, can overturn ethics in the presence
of personal communion.
For the same reason, ethical qualities do not determine the
truth of a person’s being. A single act cannot define who some-
one is. Yet modern society, governed by ethical categories,
tends to fix identity through judgment. In the Church, for-
giveness reveals something different: that the truth of the per-
son is not determined by deeds. What God does not remem-
ber has no ontological reality. Sin does not define the being of
the person.
Finally, true being is revealed not by the past, but by the
future. While ancient thought saw man as determined by pri-
or causes, the Gospel points toward the eschaton. As Christ
says of the man born blind, his condition is not the result of
past sin, but the occasion for the future manifestation of God’s
glory. Ethical judgment looks backward; ontology looks to-
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