Page 47 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

T H E R E L E VA N C E O F D O G M A
The Relevance of Dogma
If the Eucharist reveals the life of the Church as communion,
then we must ask how this life is expressed, safeguarded, and
transmitted. For the Church does not live by experience alone,
but also by truth—truth confessed, interpreted, and handed
down. This brings us to the question of theology and dogma.
By Orthodox theology we do not mean the repetition of
dogmatic manuals, nor a vague “experiential” approach
indifferent to doctrine. Rather, we mean the theology shaped
by the Fathers of the Church, who sought to express the faith
of the Gospel in dialogue with their own time—and who lived
this faith within the body of the Church: in worship, in ascetic
practice, and in the ethos of her members.
Theology, therefore, is not the product of intellectual
speculation or the logical arrangement of propositions. It is
the expression of the living experience of the Church. It speaks
of truths that arise not from the intellect alone, but from the
whole relationship of the human person with God.
This is why, in the patristic era, the central question was not
whether God exists, but how He exists. The being of God was
taken as given; what concerned the Fathers was the mode of
His existence. And this question had direct consequences for
both the Church and the human person, since both were
understood as images of God.
Dogma, therefore, cannot be reduced to formal definitions
imposed by authority. If we accept a dogma merely because an
Ecumenical Council has proclaimed it—without perceiving
that it reveals something upon which our very existence de-
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