Page 265 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

T H E T E S T I M O N Y A N D D I A K O N I A O F O R T H O D O X W O M A N
its concept of freedom. Formed through Enlightenment
thought and intensified in existentialist nihilism, freedom has
come to mean liberation from something or someone. In Or-
thodoxy, however, freedom means freedom for something
and someone—a freedom identical with love. Women can
learn and embody this kind of freedom more naturally. Thus
the Orthodox woman is called to help transform the indi-
vidualistic current in Western civilization. She possesses all
the prerequisites to do this, provided she truly lives as an Or-
thodox woman.
This testimony must also extend into public life. The Or-
thodox woman should not be absent from it. In an era in
which women’s rights and responsibilities in society are rec-
ognized, there are no biological or other reasons to prevent
her from taking an active and substantial role.
It must be emphasized, however, that the Orthodox woman
who participates in public life must remain conscious of the
fundamental cosmological and social principles that distin-
guish the Orthodox vision from the Western view of the
world, humanity, and God. If, as a politician, scientist, admin-
istrator, or technocrat, she does not embody and transmit this
vision, she herself risks being assimilated by the very mental-
ity she is called to transform.
For what purpose would an Orthodox woman serve, for
example, as minister of the environment if she were not con-
scious of the Eucharistic, liturgical, and ascetical approach to
nature, and instead acted according to purely utilitarian crite-
ria? On the other hand, if she seeks to offer to society what
Orthodoxy uniquely possesses, she must remain attentive to
the deeper issues of cosmology, ethos, and mentality that
shape the life of the Church.
If we have undertaken this excursus into the pre-20th-cen-
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