Page 382 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
How Must Theolog y Speak Today?
Having traced the encounter of Orthodoxy with the con-
temporary world and its challenges, we are now led to a
more pressing question: how can the theological word itself
once again become life-giving within the horizon of modern
existence?
The rupture between theology and life is, sadly, a reality at
the dawn of the third millennium after Christ. We have
reached a point where the theological word no longer has an
essential resonance in the life of human beings. The history of
the world unfolds without the influence of theology, and the
daily life of people is scarcely shaped by it. This is not a mar-
ginal phenomenon, but a widespread condition—one that
characterizes even those societies once formed by Christian
tradition. It stands in sharp contrast to the age of the Holy
Fathers, when theology was not an abstract discipline but the
very expression of life in Christ. For Orthodoxy, this should
be a matter of deep concern. How did we arrive here?
A decisive turning point may be found in the period fol-
lowing the Renaissance, and especially in the Enlightenment.
Faced with new intellectual currents, theology entered into a
defensive struggle, adopting the tools of “rational persuasion”
in order to justify the truth of the faith. In doing so, it gradu-
ally lost not only this battle, but also its proper orientation.
Theology became a “science” in the academic sense—one dis-
cipline among others, confined to the domain of specialists.
Its language ceased to be the common language of the Church.
Dogma, once the living confession of the ecclesial body, be-
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