Dumitru Staniloae's Ecumenical & Trinitarian Ecclesiology

Recently the international trilingual juried journal of which I am editor, Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, published an essay treating many of the same themes as that author has now developed at length in his new book: Dumitru Staniloae’s Trinitarian Ecclesiology: Orthodoxy and the Filioque by Viorel Coman (Fortress, 2019), 310pp.

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I think Staniloae one of the most important Orthodox theologians of the last century, and that Radu Bordeianu's book on him remains one of the most significant treatments in ecclesiology this century. (See my interview with Radu here.) It is good, then, that Staniloae continues to get much deserved attention from young scholars. 

About this book the publisher tells us this:

Dumitru Stăniloae is one of the most important but routinely neglected twentieth-century Orthodox theologians. Viorel Coman explores the ecumenical relevance of Stăniloae’s reflections on the interplay between the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the church in the context of the debates on the ecclesiological ramifications of the filioque. Coman combines a historical and theological analysis of Stăniloae’s approach to the filioque, Trinity, and church. The historical analysis shows the changes that have taken place over time in Stăniloae’s approach to the issue of the filioque and the doctrine of the church. The theological analysis emphasizes the ecumenical contribution of the Romanian thinker to the fields of Trinitarian theology and ecclesiology. Even though this book centers primarily around Stăniloae’s vision on the link between the doctrine of the Trinity and the Church, it places his theological reflections in a solid dialogue with other Eastern (Georges Florovsky, Vladimir Lossky, and John Zizioulas) and Western theologians (Karl Barth, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, and Walter Kasper).

Dumitru Staniloae on the Love of the Trinity

As I have noted before, we are seeing a resurgence of interest in Trinitarian theology. Along comes another new book from a man widely regarded as the most important Romanian theologian of the twentieth century, and one of the most influential Orthodox thinkers of our time: Dumitru Staniloae, The Holy Trinity: In the Beginning There Was Love (Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2012), 106pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

The dogma of the Holy Trinity has always been at the center of Orthodox theology, which is why it was an endless subject of reflection for Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, may he rest in peace. The special place that the Trinity occupies in his teaching on the Church makes Fr. Staniloae the theologian par excellence of the Holy Trinity in the contemporary world. In fact, his entire corpus is a mammoth effort to place the unspeakable mystery of the Holy Trinity at the center of all recent Christian life and thought. As with St. Maximus the Confessor, whose work he has translated and commentated on in Romanian, this dogma does not represent an isolated theme for Fr. Staniloae. His exegeses of the Trinity glimmer throughout every chapter of his dogmatic theology. While identifying both a united absolute essence and distinct absolute hypostases at the heart of the Holy Trinity, in the most Orthodox spirit Fr. Staniloae always aimed to bring the living, dynamic personalism of Orthodox Christian theology into the light. Speaking as no one else in contemporary theology has about the infinite value of the person, about its unfathomable depths, and seeing "the undying face of God" in man, Fr. Staniloae can also speak about the perfect love whose only source is the Holy Trinity. - His Beatitude Patriarch Teoctist of Romania (+2007)

Author Interview: Radu Bordeianu

Last year I wrote a long and very appreciative review of a splendid new book in ecclesiology from the pen of the Orthodox priest and theologian Radu Bordeianu. It is, as I concluded, a book that nobody interested in ecclesiology, ecumenism, or Romanian theology in the person of Dumitru Staniloae can afford to ignore. I have been able to talk to the author about his work, and here are his thoughts:

Please tell us about your background

I was born and raised in Romania, where I went to seminary and undertook Master’s studies. I obtained a second Master’s degree from Duke University, and my Ph.D. from Marquette University. An ordained Orthodox priest since 1998 and father of three children, I am in my sixth year teaching at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA.

My research focuses on ecumenical ecclesiologies—especially the dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic churches—the relationship between the Trinity and the Church, theology of creation, and environmental issues. I am particularly engaged with the ecclesiology of the Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae, placing special emphasis on Staniloae’s contribution in ecumenical discussions on the Church.

My Dumitru Staniloae: an Ecumenical Ecclesiology has been published by Continuum. My other works appeared in Pro Ecclesia, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Downside Review, Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, Theological Studies, and in book chapters, etc. I have presented numerous academic papers and was have lectured nationally and internationally. I have also been interviewed on television, radio, and in newspapers.

I am the director of the annual Holy Spirit Lecture and Colloquium, an ongoing series intended to encourage the exploration of ideas pertaining to the theology of the Holy Spirit within an ecumenical context and in dialogue with contemporary issues. I am also the director of the des Places Libermann Award in Pneumatology, which honors the individual who has made the most significant scholarly contribution to the area of pneumatology in the preceding five-year period.

I especially honored to serve as president of the Orthodox Theological Society in America (OTSA). 

Tell us why you wrote this book:

I wrote this book for two reasons. First, Staniloae is one of the most important Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, if not the most important. He is certainly the most important Romanian theologian of all times. And yet, his theology is largely unknown in the West because he was isolated by the Communist regime and because of a lack of translations. He provides a significant alternative position to other Orthodox authors such as Lossky, Zizioulas, or Florovsky. 


Second, Staniloae has been highjacked by anti-ecumenical rhetoric that portrays him in a very polemical way. True, his theology is not always consistent and he is not up to date with Western theologies, but it is an unfortunate misunderstanding to consider him anti-ecumenical, based on marginal comments. He wrote explicitly in favor of ecumenical dialogues and he was involved in dialogues--once the Communist regime reluctantly allowed him to have contacts in the West. I mention other reasons in the book, but these are the two most important reasons for writing the book.

For whom was the book written—did you have a particular audience in mind?

The book is intended for an academic audience, for use in graduate classes, as well as for those involved in ecumenical dialogues. I hope to take Staniloae’s conclusions and present them in a book for a larger public later on.

What about your own background led you to the writing of this book?

Since 1999, when I began studying ecumenical ecclesiologies at Duke University, I have been interested in the limits of the Church, and thus in the relationship between Orthodoxy and other churches. At Marquette I added another interest--namely the relationship between clergy and the people (laity). I have also studied before ecological issues and Trinitarian theology. All these come together in my book, but they do not explain why I wrote it on Staniloae. I must admit that, like most Romanians, I saw Staniloae as a myth, even though I was largely unfamiliar with his works. This is a paradox: many Romanians speak about Staniloae, but few read him. When my mentor, Michael Fahey, insisted that I write on Staniloae, I was instantly captivated by his thought and I am still enthusiastic a decade later.

Were there any surprises you discovered in your writing?

I was surprised to see how relevant Staniloae’s theology still is for contemporary problems. Many times I had to show that relevance in a creative way, and yet still true to Staniloae’s spirit. Other times, however (and most surprisingly), I discovered how Staniloae dealt explicitly with issues that are still ecumenically very relevant, at a time when it was pioneering to do so.

Are there similar books out there, and if so, how is yours different?

While there are other studies of various aspects of Staniloae’s theology, none of them deals explicitly and extensively with his ecclesiology and its ecumenical relevance as my book does.

Sum up briefly the main themes/ideas/insights of the book

In answer to your question, here is an excerpt from the conclusion to my book:

Communion ecclesiology has the potential to bridge the divide between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Staniloae contributed to the discussion of the relationship between the universal and local aspects of the Church, and various local churches among themselves, as an application of his trinitarian approach to ecclesiology. The unity of the trinitarian persons is reflected in, and imprinted upon, the unity of the local churches that make up the Una Sancta. Each of these local eucharistic assemblies possesses the fullness of the Church as long as it remains in communion with the other local churches. They are all united through mutual identity, since the same Christ is present in each one of them, through the Spirit, in a new filial and sacrificial relationship with the Father. This unity presupposes other elements related to, but also distinct from, the Eucharist. Local churches find themselves in relationship with other churches through their bishops, who are in communion of love and teaching with each other, and thus all the members of the local church are in communion with the baptized faithful in other local churches.

Sharing in the same faith and being united by the bond of love, local churches also manifest the communion between the clergy and the people, all sharing in the three offices of Christ: Prophet, Priest, and King. Thus, the bishops gathered in a council do not stand above the Church, but their teaching ministry is complemented by the prophetic office of all baptized Christians: the bishops represent the faith of their communities at the council and their decisions are then subject to reception by the faithful. The communion between the clergy and the people is also manifested as they both exercise their kingly office by having dominion over their passions and by participating in the administration of the Church communally, while maintaining the distinctions between their specific gifts. The same holds true as the entire community celebrates the Eucharist. In the Liturgy, heaven and earth praise God in unison, and the entire Church is gathered in worship: Virgin Mary, the saints, the angels, the living and the dead, clergy and the people— all surround the Lamb of God, all join in his sacrifice to the Father, and all are united in the same Spirit.

The liturgical life of the Church encompasses all creation, which was made to praise God in a cosmic Liturgy. The Church fulfills the natural priesthood of all human beings, who were created to manifest the sacramentality of the world and give voice to the praises of the entire universe.

In a general sense, all human beings are adoptive children of the Father, all share in Christ’s restored humanity, and all are filled with the Spirit. In a special sense, however, the Church is fully united with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, acting as the sacrament of the Trinity in the world. The baptized are the People of God, manifesting the Kingdom of God as much as possible on this side of the eschaton, while knowing that at the end of time the Kingdom will extend to the rest of the universe. Christians also form the Body of Christ, extension of the incarnation, an organism endowed with various charisms—some ordained and some not. These charisms are empowered by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the Church, for missions ad extra, while simultaneously the Spirit empowers creation to become fully Church. Staniloae’s theology becomes fully ecumenical (understood etymologically as household) to include not only the universe of the Church, but the entire cosmos.

These relationships among the trinitarian persons as they are manifested in the economy of salvation (the world and the Church) are the same as immanent, intratrinitarian relationships. At the basis of the example described above stands the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father to the Son, resting in the Son as the love of the Father, and also shining forth from the Son back toward the Father as the Son’s response of love. To arrive at the conclusion that the same relationships are manifested both in the Trinity and the Church, I have systematized Staniloae’s trinitarian ecclesiology into four models: the Church is a reflection of the Trinity, establishing an analogical relationship between them; icon of the Trinity, where the Church is a presence of the Trinity by grace, pointing toward the Trinity; the “third sacrament,” as instrument and revelation of the Trinity; and the ecclesiological consequences of Staniloae’s understanding of theosis. As an ecumenical application of these models, I addressed the ecclesiological consequences of the Filioque (or lack thereof), especially concerning the papacy. This is just one among many instances in which I presented Staniloae’s ecumenical relevance.

On Dumitru Staniloae's Ecclesiology

I drew brief attention earlier to a new book by Radu Bordeianu, Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology (T&T Clark, 2011). It is, as I said before, one of the most rewarding new books in ecclesiology in the last ten years at least. Too much of what passes for ecclesiology today forgets that it is a theological discipline, and thus God should be central. More often than not, God is given a perfunctory mention in a book's preface, and then the author spends the rest of the book running away from Him, often offering us instead what I call ecclesiastical sociology. Not so with Bordeianu's splendid book, which shows us just how deeply Trinitarian Dumitru Staniloae's ecclesiology is. (Several of Bordeianu's articles on these themes are available on his website here.)

In mentioning this book to others, I was reminded by one person of a suspicion of Staniloae that I myself once shared: that he had never sufficiently accounted in general for anti-Catholic views in Romanian Orthodox circles or, in particular, for the brutal suppression of what was once the second-largest Eastern Catholic Church in the world, the Romanian Greco-Catholic Church. That suppression, aided and abetted by some in the Romanian Orthodox Church--some details of which were discussed in a 2005 article by Michael Mates published in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies--was something that Staniloae was himself said to be supportive of, or at least did not object to or repent of. I am very glad indeed to now learn otherwise, first in Ronald Roberson's important chapter "Dumitru Staniloae on Christian Unity" in Dumitru Staniloae: Tradition and Modernity in Theology, ed. Lucian Turcescu (Centre for Romanian Studies, 2002), 104-25; and second in Radu Bordeianu's book, especially the introduction and first chapter. It is, indeed, Bordeianu's book that has removed all doubt in my mind about Staniloae and his perceptions of, and relations with, Catholics and other Christians. Thanks to this masterful study, Staniloae now emerges as one of the freshest and most important voices in the on-going dialogue and search for Catholic-Orthodox unity (and much else besides). He is anything but a fulminating Athonite denouncing ecumenism as the "pan-heresy" and stamping his feet while trumpeting Oρθοδοξία ή θάνατος.

On this particular charge of the suppression of the Romanian Catholic Church, Bordeianu comes out at the end of his introduction and flatly admits that "these Byzantine Catholic churches were dissolved forcefully by the political regime, and coerced into becoming Orthodox or simply going underground. Staniloae saw this instance as a restoration of justice--undoubtedly a blemish on his magnificent work"(8).

More widely still, and much more encouragingly, Bordeianu starts his introduction by insisting that "Staniloae was far from being anti-ecumenical, despite the occasional highly polemical tone that he adopted." Indeed, B shows that S often used Western concepts and language as part of his method of "'open sobornicity,' which is defined as the acceptance of valid theological insights in Western theologies without altering the essence of Orthodox teaching. His work provides a model for creative engagement with the West" (5; my emphasis). From here Bordeianu goes on to say that he is "deeply concerned about the growing anti-ecumenical attitude in...Orthodoxy in particular," the representatives of which are "never able to produce evidence of ecumenical documents in which Orthodox representatives...have corrupted the essence of the faith" (6). But it is not enough, Bordeianu insists, for Orthodox merely to defend their faith from all apparent "corruptions" based on dialogues with other Christians: instead, Orthodox need to ask themselves "are we there to learn from other Christians? Few among us would admit it. Even fewer would apply it. And yet, Staniloae's concept of open sobornicity commends it. Orthodox Christians can and must learn from the other instances of God's manifestation outside the Orthodox space," all the while holding in tension the belief that Orthodoxy represents the fullness of truth but not at the exclusion of truth manifested, however partially or inadequately, outside her boundaries.

Bordeianu spends all of chapter one unpacking the concept of open sobornicity, arguing that "Orthodoxy needs to be enriched (even corrected) by other historical instances of God's revelation"(29). This open sobornicity also sees the West and East joining together as friends so that each can help the other develop its tradition. In particular, Bordeianu argues that the East might be aided by the West in two areas: its understanding of sacraments (including their very number, and their differentiation from "sacramentals"); and a fuller understanding of apophaticism in contemporary Trinitarian theology. In his discussion of sacraments and East-West relations, Bordeianu makes two incautious and inaccurate generalizations when he says that "any baptized Christian can be received in the Orthodox Church through Chrismation without needing a second baptism" and "the Orthodox Church recognizes some of the ordinations of other denominations"(39). In fact, there is no consistent practice for the reception into Orthodoxy of other Christians--as John Erickson showed a number of years ago in an article in St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly. I know of several cases in which other Christians, including Roman Catholics, have been re-baptized, re-chrismated, and even, in the case of one Roman Catholic priest received into the Russian Church only this year, re-ordained! Many, but not all, Orthodox churches would not commit such sacrilege, but some do--including some Copts whom I know. There is, in fact, no consistency on these questions even within the same Orthodox Church, as recent and contrary examples in the Russian Church alone illustrate. (None of this is surprising, it should be noted: as the late Archpriest Robert Anderson always said to me, "in the East, everything is local custom.")

Staniloae did not always think in these terms of openness to other Christian traditions: early in his life, he sometimes resorted to "caricatures, unfair generalizations" and ambiguous or dubious sources when describing the West and Western theology. But later on he came to praise the ecumenical movement, encourage Orthodox to adopt an irenical posture towards other Christians, and argue that there are no "essential differences" dividing Orthodox and Catholics.

Part of the change in Staniloae came about after his 1946 "trial" and unjust imprisonment in the Gulag for five years. These years of abuse, isolation, hunger and extreme suffering marked him ever after, though he rarely talked about them. For details, one must read his daughter Lidia's essay "Remembering My Father" in the Turcescu volume noted above: Tradition and Modernity.

After this "methodological" first chapter, Bordeianu then begins to take us progressively deeper into the Trinitarian theology at the heart of Staniloae's project, starting with chapter 2, which functions as a general overview--to be unpacked in the next three chapters--of his Triadology.

Chapter 2, "Filled with the Trinity: the Relationship Between the Trinity and the Church" is a lucid overview of four "models" by which most theologians have recently attempted to conceive of the relationship between the Triune God and His Church. Many of those theologians either take that relationship for granted and never bother to elucidate it, or else do so by means that are not always adequate to the task. Bordeianu thus takes us, in increasing order of coherence and usefulness, through the models of reflection, icon, sacrament, and theosis. The first three models are not rejected, but found wanting to greater or lesser degree; each offers something to the task, but inadequately so.

In this chapter, Bordeianu discusses Staniloae's views on the filioque, arguing that Staniloae's treatment of this issue does not reflect the latter's best thinking and noting that much of this debate has been dealt with in the 2003 agreed statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic dialogue. (See also the splendid book of Edward Siecienski, whom I interview here.)

Bordeianu's book goes from strength to strength as we enter chapter 3, "Adoptive Children of the Father: the Relationship Between the Father and the Church." This chapter is unique in a great deal of contemporary ecclesiology, which tends to ricochet between Christology and pneumatology, but to seldom, if ever, ask "Where is the Father in ecclesiology?" This chapter is unique, as Bordeianu says, because "Staniloae's contribution toward a fully trinitarian ecclesiology is even more significant when considering the paucity of similar contributions among contemporary Orthodox theologians" (82)--to say nothing of other theologians.

The next chapter, on Christ and the Church, sees Staniloae applying "the dogma of Chalcedon...to the Church, adding a Maximian perspective, in reference to Christ's two wills and their symphonic manifestation....He argued that Christ and the Church are united without confusion and without change" (91). The importance of seeing Chalcedon in an ecclesiological perspective is one I always emphasize, and in fact was just this week discussing it again with some of my students. Too often people, in thinking of the Church, are either crypto-Arians (focusing exclusively on the human dimension) or crypto-Monophysites (focusing exclusively on the divine dimension). It always bears repeating that the Church is both divine (and thus holy and spotless) and human (and thus composed of sinful beings). Towards the end of this chapter, Bordeianu focuses on the liturgy, including the epiclesis, a topic given, I think, greater elucidation in Michael Zheltov's recent and very important essay in Issues in Eucharistic Praying in East and West: Essays in Liturgical and Theological Analysis, which I discuss here.

Chapter 5, on the Holy Spirit in ecclesiology, begins with the age-old struggle between "charismatic" and "institutional" authority in the Church. Staniloae is adamant in not separating the two, just as he insists that one cannot separate Christology and pneumatology in ecclesiology. In the end, Staniloae insists that each of the Persons must be understood in "their reciprocal interiority" (118). Staniloae's Trinitarian ecclesiology is perhaps given greatest articulation in this passage:

On account of these interior relations with the others [perichoresis] no divine Person is ever, either in the Church as a whole or in the individual believer, without the other divine Persons or without the particular characteristics of the others. "The Church is filled with the Trinity," said Origen, and the faithful too....Christ and the Spirit work together to make us sons of the Father (118, quoting Staniloae's Theology and the Church).

In the third and final section of the book, Bordeianu treats the question of "Priesthood Toward Creation" and "The Priesthood of the Church: Communion between Clergy and the People." I will pass over these chapters in the interests of length, but also because they do not seem entirely well connected to either the foregoing six chapters, nor to the eighth and final chapter. (In addition, I think the treatment of infallibility at the end of chapter 7 is too brief and needs greater development, as I called for here and also attempted, too briefly I freely admit, in my own book Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity.

Let me turn, in conclusion, to the last chapter, "Locality and Universality: Eucharistic Ecclesiology," which positions Staniloae between Nicholas Afanasiev and John Zizioulas, arguing that those two "positions...need to be complemented or at times even corrected by Staniloae's ecclesiology" (189). Part of what both Zizioulas and Staniloae rejected in Afanasiev was his recognition that, while doctrinal harmony is the ideal, it has never been the sine qua non for eucharistic sharing between Christians. (As Bordeianu notes, almost all other contemporary Orthodox theologians also reject this, but Paul Evdokimov's recently translated Orthodoxy is the one exception.)

Bordeianu concludes his chapter and his splendid book by presenting "four elements" necessary for unity: "doctrinal unity, episcopal communion, love, and eucharistic communion" (209).

Doctrinal Unity: Here Bordeianu recognizes, as Zizioulas and the others have also, that the only serious issue is that of papal primacy (which, again, if I may be forgiven the repeated self-references, I treat in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity).

Episcopal Communion: Here Bordeianu admits that "Ideally from an Orthodox perspective" such communion would consist of the pope and all the bishops of the world exercising authority together in a synod (which I have also suggested) "without overlapping jurisdictions" (211). This, he says, is less important than the first point, citing the current jurisdictional mess in North American Orthodoxy which does not inhibit eucharistic sharing among bishops: "eucharistic communion is possible even before solving all the juridical issues" (212).

Love: Bordeianu says that he does not support eucharistic sharing between Catholics and Orthodox currently, in large part because of a lack of love between both. Once greater bonds of love are built between both--especially outside of North America, where relations are, he says, on the whole quite amicable--then we will be in a better position to move toward...

Eucharistic Communion: But before we get to that happy day, Bordeianu proposes something I have not seen advocated by others before, "namely, communion in all the other sacraments except the Eucharist."

In sum, Radu Bordeianu's Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology is an incredibly rich, challenging work that has cogently and convincingly introduced us in a deeper and more satisfying way than anyone has hitherto done to the ecclesiological thought of Romania's preeminent theologian, who offers great wisdom for all Christians in our ongoing search for that unity which the Lord wills for His Church. Nobody who cares about Christian unity, or about ecclesiology, can afford to ignore this book.

Radu Bordeianu on Dumitru Staniloae

In a variety of journals over the past several years, I have reviewed well over a dozen recent books in ecclesiology, all but one or two of them deeply dissatisfying. But now I have just finished a tremendously rewarding book: Radu Bordeianu has written what is easily the most intellectually stimulating and theologically satisfying book in ecclesiology written so far this century: Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology (T&T Clark, 2011), 240pp. I only wish this book had been released a few months ago because then I could have had my graduate students read it this semester.

Part of the T&T Clark's "Ecumenical Investigations" series, to which I drew attention earlier, this book began as Bordeianu's doctoral dissertation under the Jesuit theologian Michael Fahey when he was still at Marquette. But unlike many dissertations that make the transition to book, this one is not a plodding Teutonic treatise but a very cogently written book that moves smartly along making a wonderfully lucid case for seeing Staniloae an extremely important, if hitherto generally unknown, voice in the debates over ecclesiology in which the "positions" of Nicholas Afanasiev and John Zizioulas have thus far dominated Orthodox debate, and heavily influenced other Christians as well.

Divided into three sections and eight chapters, this book begins by making the case for an "ecumenical ecclesiology" in the first two chapters, and for seeing Staniloae in those terms. In the second section (chapters 3-5), Bordeianu argues that for the Church to be "Filled With the Trinity" (as the section is titled), it has to understand its relationship to each Person of the Trinity. Especially in chapter 3, "Adoptive Children of the Father: the Relationship between the Father and the Church," the author argues that Staniloae, more than almost any other ecclesiologist of our time, asks the question about the Father's role in the Church's self-understanding. Much ecclesiology either focuses on Christ or the Spirit: it is extremely rare for ecclesiological reflection to focus on the Father, making this chapter all the more welcome. The third and final part, "Communion Ecclesiology," contains some practical outworkings of the deeply Trinitarian ecclesiology from part two, the heart of the book. In this third and final section, we find reflection on the role of the priesthood, the relationship between the local and universal Church, and several suggestions for ways toward full eucharistic communion between Catholics and Orthodox.

There is so much richness in Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology to return to again and again that I am continuing to mull it over for some time before putting together a long, coherent review. But in the meantime, I wanted to draw your attention to this volume and insist that that if you are at all interested in ecclesiology (to say nothing of Dumitru Staniloae) then you simply must buy this book.

Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology

Earlier this year, in a long review of a fascinating new collection, I drew attention in particular to the work of Radu Bordeianu on Dumitru Staniloae, widely regarded as Romania's pre-eminent theologian of the twentieth century. Now the latter again occupies the former's attention in a welcome new book to be released later this year:

Radu Bordeianu, Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology (Ecclesiological Investigations) (T&T Clark/Continuum, 2011), 240pp.


  About this book, the publisher says: 

Widely considered the most important Orthodox theologian of the twentieth     century, Dumitru Staniloae (1903-1993) contributed significantly to an ecumenical understanding of these themes. Because of his isolation by the Romanian Communist regime, his work still awaits its merited reception, especially given its potential contribution towards Christian unity.

In Staniloae's understanding the Church is a communion in the image of the Trinity. Because there is a continuum of grace between the Trinity and the Church, the same relationships that exist among trinitarian persons are manifested in creation in general, and the Church in particular. In this way, the Trinity fills the world and the Church, determining their mode of existence. Intratrinitarian relationships are manifested in the relationships between humankind and non-human creation, the Church and the world, local and universal aspects of the Church, clergy and the people, and among various charisms.

We also have the table of contents:

Introduction
Part One - Ecumenical Ecclesiology
Chapter 1 - Open Sobornicity: Staniloae's Interaction with the West
Chapter 2 - Filled with the Trinity: The Relationship between the Trinity and the Church
Part Two - Filled With the Trinity
Chapter 3 - Adoptive Children of the Father: The Relationship between the Father and the Church Chapter 4 - Body of Christ: The Relationship between the Son and the Church
Chapter 5 - Filled with the Spirit: The Relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Church
Part Three - Communion Ecclesiology
Chapter 6 - Priesthood Toward Creation
Chapter 7 - The Priesthood of the Church: Communion between Clergy and the People
Chapter 8 - Locality and Universality: Eucharistic Ecclesiology
Conclusion
Bibliography

I greatly look forward to reading this, reviewing it for Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, and discussing it on here--as well as interviewing the author in the weeks ahead. 

Staniloae's Dogmatics: Volume III

Several scholars have suggested that the premier Romanian Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century was and remains Dumitru Staniloae, author of many books on a variety of topics. Slowly his multi-volume dogmatics has been making its way into English translation, and Holy Cross Press, just last month, has brought out the third volume:

Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 3, The Person of Jesus Christ as God and Savior, ed. Ioan Ionita and Patr. Daniel  (Holy Cross Press, 2011),182pp.

In his preface, the well-known theologian Andrew Louth tells us about this book:

"In this, the third volume of The Experience of God, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae's Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (the third half-volume of the Romanian original), we find his treatment of Christology, of the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. At first sight, it seems a very traditional treatment - biblical witness of both the Old and New Testaments, the patristic witness, the theology of the Incarnation, and then a treatment of Christ's work as Prophet, Priest, and King - but the traditional structure...disguises an account of Christ that, though certainly deeply traditional and Orthodox, is challening and even revolutionary in its approach."

I look forward to seeing this reviewed in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. 

What is the Church?

T&T Clark/Continuum has been in the forefront of publishing some of the most interesting theological works today, especially in ecclesiology and theological anthropology--including those by John Zizioulas: Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church and Lectures in Christian Dogmatics. It is worth noting that they will be bringing out another of the great metropolitan's books in late August: Eucharistic Communion and the World. We will, of course, be paying significant attention to that forthcoming volume this fall, both here and in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies.

They recently sent me a new volume, part of their fascinating and highly welcome new "Ecclesiological Investigations" series. As an ecclesiologist I have been following this series with great interest. Its other recent volumes include:

Minna Hietamaki, Agreeable Agreement: An Examination of the Quest for Consensus in Ecumenical Dialogue

Gerard Mannion et al., Christian Community Now: Ecclesiological Investigations

Neil Ormerod and Shane Clifton, Globalization and the Mission of the Church

Gerard Mannion, Comparative Ecclesiology: Critical Investigations; Idem., Church and Religious 'Other'

Paul Collins and Michael Fahey, Receiving 'The Nature and Mission of the Church': Ecclesial Reality and Ecumenical Horizons for the Twenty-First Century

Steve Summers, Friendship: Exploring its Implications for the Church in Postmodernity

Judith A. Merkle, Being Faithful: Christian Commitment in Modern Society 

The most recent volume to appear in this series came out in 2009 in hardback, and March of this year in paperback. I recently received and read with great interest:

Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, ed., Ecumenical Ecclesiology: Unity, Diversity and Otherness in a Fragmented World (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2011), xii+247pp.

This is a collection of articles whose authors are a diverse lot, coming from Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox backgrounds. Like all such collections the quality varies enormously. Some are, as we will presently see, important and substantial contributions for several reasons, and we can be grateful to the editor for including them and the publisher for putting them into print. Some, however, treat topics so recondite as to be of very limited relevance and interest, while several others are shoddily written exercises in adolescent whingeing and sophomoric sloganeering about (what else?) homosexuality--in the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions. But let us attend to pleasure before business.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section, "Perspectives on Ecumenical Ecclesiology," comprises reflections on contemporary ecumenical ecclesiology. This is a "methodological" section in many ways.

The editor's own chapter, "Seeking Unity: Reflecting on Methods in Contemporary Ecumenical Dialogue" notes the progress that has been made in all major ecumenical dialogues in the last half-century. but laments the fact that "despite such advancement, the slow progress of the reception of these statements" (of the dialogues) into the life of parishes and individual Christians has been extremely slow. She then asks a difficult question others have asked: what is the nature of ecumenical "reception"? What does it mean for a doctrine, document, or ecumenical council to be "received" by the people of God? Some, she notes, do not want to receive anything: "there are those who are only too keen to dwell on and dissect ever more differences which, in fact, do not create any significant obstacles to agreement on essentials" (37). Five minutes on the Web, visiting any number of Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic sites, especially among those of a self-identified "traditionalist" bent or from "converts," will quickly demonstrate, with a depressing abundance of evidence and a tedious regularity, the truth of Thiessen's thesis.

Thiessen presses home later in her article a crucial problem I have been aware of for twenty years now since attending the seventh assembly of the World Council of Churches in Canberra in 1991: the highly "elitist" nature of ecumenical work. This is a major problem bedeviling the search for Christian unity since, of course, the failure of the Council of Ferrara-Florence, about which Joseph Gill's landmark book has recently been brought back into print by Cambridge University Press:

Too many theologians and ecumenists operate at too far a remove from what Thiessen calls the "actual life of faith" of people in the pews whose "factual apostolicity is neither examined nor taken seriously....In short, it would be significant to find out how the people of God understand their faith and the role that the church plays in and for their faith life" (45).This remains an enormously important if difficult desideratum.

Miriam Haar's "The Struggle for an Organic, Conciliar and Diverse Church: Models of Church Unity in earlier Stages of the Ecumenical Dialogue" is a cogent historical essay reviewing the ecclesiological issues at work in the various statements and conferences of the World Council of Churches (especially its Faith and Order commission) from the early part of the twentieth century. Anyone looking to review these relevant documents in chronological order would find this crisply written chapter very helpful.

Edwin C. van Driel's "Church and Covenant: Theological Resources for Divided Denominations" will offer Eastern Christians in particular some very interesting food for thought on that vexed question of "canonical territory" (discussed previously here).What is so striking is that van Driel is concerned with this problem in a Western and Protestant context: in the Netherlands Reformed Church. He offers several practical ways to overcome this problem, not all of them entirely convincing it seems to me, but one in particular, "Thesis Five: Church Shopping Is 'Verboten'," is especially interesting. This is his attempt to get people out of that especially North American habit (made so commonplace, of course, by the advent of the automobile) of moving around to find a church they like. The Netherlands Reformed Church has, since 1951, attempted to apply the "geographical principle" strictly: if you live in area X, you are automatically registered and expected to attend the parish in X. What if you don't like Parish X? To that van Driel very strikingly replies by asking rhetorically

how would it be if church bodies would respond to requests to transfer out...by saying "We are sorry, but we cannot do this. Obviously there is something that bothers you about our church. We are committed to working with you on this, however difficult and painful this might be for all of us. But we all are called to be together the members of the body of Christ" (71-72).

To his credit, van Driel notes that this is an easier principle to try to implement in a tiny, and more ethnically homogeneous society like Holland than it would be in the United States. (Van Driel was born in the Netherlands, but is currently teaching at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.) Nonetheless, it is a very simple idea with a very ancient apostolic-conciliar patrimony behind it and it very much bears thinking about anew.

The remainder of the noteworthy articles in Ecumenical Ecclesiology: Unity, Diversity and Otherness in a Fragmented World come in Part II, "Communion Ecclesiology and Otherness." In this section, I start with the last article because it dovetails nicely with van Driels: "Evangelical Ecclesiology as an Answer to Ethnic Impaired Christian Community? An Inquiry into the Theology of Miroslav Volf" by another Dutchman, Eddy Van der Borght. He takes as his "point of departure the claim of Zizioulas that the ethnic factor is a non-legitimate form of otherness within the Christian community" (161). He quotes Zizioulas at greater length in which the metropolitan denounces the division in North American Orthodoxy along ethnic-jurisdictional lines. This important self-criticism comes in
Communion and Otherness, a text as fundamental to Zizioulas's work, and to understanding him, as Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church was when it first appeared a quarter-century ago.

What is so fascinating about Van der Borght's chapter is that ethnophyletism is not, the author demonstrates, an exclusively Eastern Christian problem: it exists in such ethnic Western parishes as found, inter alia, among some Dutch Protestants, and among certain Roman Catholics in Serbia and Bosnia. Thus he is able to say that this "is a global issue that is a challenge for all Christian denominations" (163-64).

His next move in the chapter is to inquire as to how much, and where, this problem of ethnocentrism has been treated by theologians and ecumenists, especially in the context of the World Council of Churches. The answer to that is: not much, not often, and not clearly.

He then spends the rest of the chapter asking if the work of Miroslav Volf, especially in The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World and even more in Volf's landmark book Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation will help Christians move beyond this problem. Volf concludes, according to this author, that "religion must be de-ethnicized so that ethnicity can be de-sacralized" before "each culture can retain its own cultural specificity. Christians are distinct, and yet they belong" (167).

Let us return now to earleir in this section, and to three articles that I regard as the heart of this collection:

• Paul Collins, "The Church and the 'Other': Questions of Ecclesial and Divine Communion"
• Travis Ables, "Being Church: a Critique of Zizioulas' Communion Ecclesiology"
• Radu Bordeianu, "Retrieving Eucharistic Ecclesiology"

(There is, I should note in passing, a fourth article here, Brian Flanagan's "Communion Ecclesiology and Ecumenical Experience: Resources for Inner-Denominational Otherness" that does a nice job summing up, and making accessible, the thought of the Groupe des Dombes so ably studied by Catherine Clifford, and especially the work of the late Dominican theologian and ecumenist Jean-Marie Roger Tillard, object of Flanagan's doctoral dissertation, to be published later this year in this "Ecclesiological Investigations" series as Communion, Diversity and Salvation: The Contribution of Jean-Marie Tillard to Systematic Ecclesiology. We will review that book upon its publication.)

Paul Collins' article, "The Church and the 'Other'," continues the same interesting scholarship into other traditions that we have seen in his earlier work in, e.g., Christian Inculturation in India (Liturgy, Worship & Society), and his most recent book,  Partaking in Divine Nature: Deification and Communion, of which we have a review in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies this coming autumn.

In this article, Collins advances a very careful and balanced analysis of "the relationship between ecclesial and divine communion" (101) as seen in several recent figures, including Leonardo Boff's Holy Trinity, Perfect Community and John Behr's article "The Trinitarian Being of the Church." Behr's criticism of Zizioulas, which Collins seems to endorse, is that he has not resolved the problem of "otherness" and he pays insufficient attention to the "'economic' reality upon which trinitarian theology is based," leaving unconnected the life of the Church and the life of the Triune God: they exist side-by-side alone. 

Travis Ables advances some important criticisms of Zizioulas's ontology and Christology in "Being Church: A Critique of Zizioulas' Communion Ecclesiology." But Ables weakens his own case by turning what starts out as a careful critical analysis into a relentless attack not untouched by a certain defensiveness about his own Western tradition. Ables especially undermines his case in the last paragraph, which is nothing more or other than a giant dodge. Having laid out all these problems he sees in Zizioulas's thought, Ables ends by dismissing the very efforts Zizioulas has so painstakingly undertaken, and Ables himself has spent an entire essay criticizing: "we need to take a step back from the assumption that ecumenical and theological concerns are resolvable by recourse to a particular register of discourse--in this case, ontology" (124). Instead, he says, we simply need to focus on practice, and so avoid the problem whereby "ontology confuses the being of the church with simply being church." While there is much wisdom in this, and I am not unsympathetic at all to this argument, it so undercuts Ables' own work as to force the question: why bother writing at all? 

The ninth chapter, "Retrieving Eucharistic Ecclesiology" will be of greatest interest to Eastern Christians. It is an outstanding contribution written by Radu Bordeianu, who is a Romanian Orthodox priest-theologian currently teaching at Duquesne in Pittsburgh. (T&T Clark will, later this year, be bringing out Bordeianu's new book, the latest volume in the "Ecclesiological Investigations" series: Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology.) This chapter really is the highlight of the volume, and I say that not only because he's the only Orthodox contributor, nor because I happen to agree with him.

Bordeianu's burden here is to offer Dumitru Staniloae as a middle path between the problems in the ecclesiology of Nicholas Afanasiev on the one hand and John Zizioulas on the other. Staniloae is certainly an important figure who is still being discovered by many as his works continue to appear in English. Recent important studies of Staniloae include Lucian Turcescu, ed., Dumitru Staniloae: Tradition and Modernity in Theology, Charles Miller, Gift of the World: An Introduction to the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae, and Natalia Tserklevych, The Knowledge of God and Participation in the Trinitarian Community: The Balanced Approach of Dumitru Staniloae. Works of Staniloae in English include:

• Eternity and Time 
• Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar 
• Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: The Experience of God, Vol. 1: Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God
• The Experience of God : Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Volume 2: The World, Creation and Deification
• The Victory of the Cross

Bordeianu begins by situating Afanasiev in the universal-eucharistic debate among ecclesiologists, arguing that Cyprian of Carthage (for Afanasiev) supplants the eucharistic ecclesiology of the earliest Church with his own universalist notions. Part of what Afanasiev tries to accomplish, of course, is precisely a recovery of this eucharistic ecclesiology, and in that he has succeeded hugely. His ideas have been enormously influential on Catholics (cf. no. 26 of Lumen Gentium as well as numerous references in the drafts and acta), Protestants, and Orthodox for decades now.

Bordeianu traces out Afanasiev's ideas in many articles and books, but it is surprising to me that Bordeianu nowhere cites or acknowledges the English translation of Afanasiev, available since 2007: The Church of the Holy Spirit under Michael Plekon's smooth editorship and with Vitaly Permiakov's capable translation.

What is so fascinating about Afanasiev is, as Bordeianu says, the fact that he "contended that both Catholic and Orthodox Churches both celebrate the same Eucharist, which unites all those who receive it, whether they be Catholic or Orthodox, in spite of their canonical and dogmatic divergences" (130). Because of this, Afanasiev advocated that both Churches "should work towards manifesting their already-existing unity by renewing their communion and postponing the solution of dogmatic differences for the time when they would be able to address them in the spirit of love" (133). This bears more than passing resemblance to more recent arguments by David Bentley Hart and Antoine Arjakovsky. One point that opponents of this line of argument point to, of course, is that we need dogmatic agreement first before sharing the Eucharist. But Afanasiev rightly and indisputably argued that such "absolute dogmatic harmony...has never been the case in history," and that is demonstrably true. Why demand a tougher standard now between Catholics and Orthodox (the story with Western denominations is entirely different, and I would not advocate this with them) when it was unheard of in the first millennium, and for much of the second? Why insist on a doctrinal convergence and coherence that has never completely obtained before, and would be impossible to obtain even today within the same Church? (How would one measure such convergence?) Why--as Arjakovsky demonstrated--use doctrinal agreement as the pre-cursor to full communion when many Orthodox (both Oriental and Byzantine), who ostensibly agree on doctrine and are therefore supposedly "in communion" with one another refuse to celebrate the Eucharist together amongst themselves? That puts the lie to the notion that doctrinal accord is what brings eucharistic hospitality.

Afanasiev, who so anticipated many later developments in such detail, was arguing in the 1960s that the only serious dogmatic issue for Orthodox and Catholics to resolve was that of "papal primacy and infallibility" (137). Afanasiev proposed that the Catholic Church come to understand "primacy to refer only to the West" and to view "infallibility from the perspective of conciliarity and reception" (137). There are, of course, many parallels here with my own proposals in Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity. 

Afanasiev's proposals were not widely accepted. Bordeianu says that only Paul Evdokimov whole-heartedly endorsed them. Kallistos Ware and John Zizioulas both rejected them. Staniloae was neither so critical nor so accepting. Instead, he argued, as Bordeianu says in his conclusion, for four things, one of which was eucharistic communion. In addition, Catholic-Orthodox unity required:

• "doctrinal unity (while maintaining diversity)";
• "episcopal communion (where the pope would be primus inter pares within a unified synod of bishops)";
• "love."

It is, in fact, as I conclude in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy, drawing on Afanasiev's The Church of the Holy Spirit, the issue of love that will determine unity more than anything. One can put forward all the proposals in the world, but without a loving desire to do the Lord's will by seeking unity--a unity, as I have shown elsewhere, based on the Lord's kenosis--those proposals will come to naught. For all the hurdles Christian unity faces, of which I am painfully aware, they could all be overcome if we loved each other, the Church, and the Lord as much He deserves. We are in Radu Bordeianu's debt for reminding us of this once more in his superb essay, which deserves a place on bibliographies of all courses taught in ecclesiology, ecumenism, and Romanian theology today; and we are in debt, too, to Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen for editing Ecumenical Ecclesiology: Unity, Diversity and Otherness in a Fragmented World (Ecclesiological Investigations), and to T&T Clark for their ongoing "Ecclesiological Investigations" series whose future volumes are greatly to be welcomed.