Page 388 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
crisis. Yet its relevance lies not only in this “innocence,” but in
the positive vision it offers.
Already in the contemporary developments of science—es-
pecially in the revolution initiated by Albert Einstein and
deepened by Werner Heisenberg—the mechanistic and atom-
istic view of the universe is being overcome. Reality is no lon-
ger understood as a collection of isolated entities, but as a
network of relations. The distinction between subject and ob-
ject is no longer absolute; the observer participates in what is
observed. The world itself appears as relational. Although this
insight has not yet fully shaped social thought or common
understanding, it has long been central to Orthodox theology.
This is expressed above all in the Trinitarian faith of the
Church. God is one, but not alone. Against the ancient philo-
sophical idea of the absolute, solitary One, the Fathers pro-
claimed a God whose unity is constituted by relationship—the
communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The being of God
is relational, not individualistic. This vision extends directly to
anthropology. The person is not an individual, but a being
constituted in relation. One cannot say “I” without a “You.”
Just as there is no Father without the Son, there is no person
apart from communion. What contemporary science now
discovers in its own way was always present in the Orthodox
understanding of being.
This truth is not merely theoretical; it is lived in the Eucha-
ristic assembly. The Divine Liturgy is not the place where in-
dividuals encounter God in isolation, but where each becomes
a person through communion with others. Nothing exists
there as individual possession; everything exists as shared life.
The Eucharist reveals a mode of existence in which identity is
relational, reflecting the very life of the Trinity.
Within this same liturgical experience, the natural world is
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