Page 352 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
not healing; nor is it healing simply to destroy their memory.
Divorce, separation, flight from the world—these may remove
immediate pain, but they do not heal the root of the disorder.
The problem remains within the person.
The same is true of imagination. The memory or recollec-
tion of things is not evil in itself. Art, culture, and human
imagination are not the enemies. The real battle is always
against the passions joined to them. If this distinction is ig-
nored, spiritual guidance can itself create pathology, causing
deep psychic harm in the name of religion.
How then are passions separated from things and represen-
tations? Saint Maximus answers: through spiritual love and
self-mastery. Here love and freedom become the keys to heal-
ing—but both are themselves vulnerable to distortion. Love
can become narcissism, a disguised form of self-love. Even
erotic love often contains an element of possessiveness, de-
manding exclusivity and building existence around the self
mirrored in another. Likewise freedom can become patho-
logical when understood as independence from others, as
liberation from communion rather than freedom for com-
munion.
Theology therefore insists on two principles. First, true love
overcomes exclusivity. If one loves only certain people more
than others, this reveals the persistence of self-love. Perfect
love excludes no one. Second, the highest form of freedom is
love of enemies. Love that seeks reciprocity remains bound by
self-interest; only love that expects nothing in return is truly
free. God’s love is revealed precisely in loving sinners while
they are still enemies. Only when love and freedom coincide
is there genuine healing. Love without freedom, and freedom
without love, are both pathological.
How, then, does the Church heal? The Church heals not so
352