5/6 - Being As Communion - Chapter 1, Last Section

This eschatological character of the ecclesial hypostasis contains, of course, a kind of dialectic, the dialectic of "already but not yet." This dialectic pervades the eucharist. It makes man as a person always sense that his true home is not in this world, a perception which is expressed by his refusal to locate the confirmation of the hypostasis of the person in this world, in the goods and values of this world.

We are no longer bound to the nihilistic biology of death. Jesus conquered death with death. He ascended to the Father and now we can, too. We go under the water and are buried with Christ in our baptisms and we rise up from the water and ascend with Him to the Father. We are baptized into a new being of Life, of Love, of Freedom.

In spite of living the tragic aspects of the biological existence—we still have no choice in our conception, still get sick, and still die a physical death—we are not defined by our sufferings. We draw our being instead from that which we will be.

“As often as he tastes and experiences this hypostasis in the eucharist, man is confirmed in his certitude that the person which is hypostasized by love freed from biological necessity and exclusiveness will not die.”

“Christ and history give to the Church her being, which becomes true being each time that the Spirit con-stitutes the eucharistic community as Church. In this way, the eucharist is not a ‘sacrament,' something parallel to the divine word: it is the eschatologization of the historical word, the voice of the historical Christ, the voice of the Holy Scripture which comes to us, no longer simply as ‘doctrine' through history, but as life and being through the eschata. It is not the sacrament completing the word, but rather the word becoming flesh, the risen Body of the Logos (Met. John Zizioulas, Being as Communion).”

It is in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus that we find our personal identities. We overcome our biological nihilism by being born anew in baptism, which the Church makes present to us in the Eucharist.

“When the eucharistic community keeps alive the memory of our loved ones – living as well as dead – it does not just preserve a psychological recollection; it proceeds to an act of ontology, to the assurance that the person has the final word over nature, in the same way that God the Creator as person and not as nature had the very first word.”

What Met. John is known for is his teachings on the role of the Eucharist within the Church (eucharistic ecclesiology). In Being as Communion, he relates that teaching to our personal identities. I finished chapter one in the book and found it so accurate, clear, and enlightening that I want to share it.

Chapter 1, which I read in these videos, explores the history of how ancient, pagan, and secular cultures grappled with the conception of personhood, what it means to be, and how Christ gave us a new identity. Particularly fascinating to me is the organic conclusion of modern secular life which produces a philosophy of biology in which life is meaningless and the only control one has in it is over death. Without Christ, they can’t but reach such a conclusion. I already had a fruitful conversation with an elderly person struggling with suffering and death who is sympathetic to this biological philosophy and therefore to assisted suicide and I was able to clearly explain why the baptized Christian has a hope beyond the body, being a vehicle of the Holy Spirit’s comfort and peace--just because of chapter one.

Met. John also briefly touches on Marxism, modern art, immigration, the role of law, and a number of other topics so relevant to us today while presenting the ontology of personhood, or the study of what it means for a person to be.

I really think this is information so foundational, so transformative, that it should be widely known. So I’m reading it and sharing it with you. This video is the introduction. The series includes six videos: the forward and preface, chapter 1 (in four sections), and the introduction which is at the end as a sort of review. That’s it. I hope you’ll make time to watch. And I’d be honored if you chose to discuss it.