A review of
Priests of Creation: John Zizioulas on Discerning an Ecological Ethos edited by John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis (London: T&T Clark, 2021)
Originally published in Forerunner, no. 78, Winter 2021–22, pp. 37–40.
In this volume, John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis have brought together eighteen articles and papers written by John Zizioulas (Metropolitan John of Pergamon) over the past thirty years or so, including seven which have not previously appeared in print. Zizioulas is arguably one of the most important contemporary Orthodox theologians and the leading Orthodox voice on the development of an Orthodox response to the environmental crisis. This is a very welcome addition to the literature since his writings on the subject have previously been scattered across a variety of publications, some of which are quite obscure.
The editors have adopted a loosely thematic approach, grouping the chapters into six parts: ‘Historical Roots’, ‘Theological Approaches’, ‘Liturgical Perspectives’, ‘Ecological Ethics or Ecological Ethos?’, ‘Scientific and Spiritual Dimensions’, and ‘Ecumenical and Cultural Implications’. This approach certainly helps to orient readers, particularly those who might be new to the subject. However, it also serves to obscure the development of his thought.
It quickly becomes clear that there are several recurring themes in these essays, which are reflected in the part titles chosen by the editors. But the themes actually cut across the parts of the book. So, for example, the fullest account of Zizioulas’s theological approach appears as the first chapter of the section on liturgical perspectives.
The starting point of Zizioulas’s approach to the environment is his recognition that Christian theology and spirituality are implicated in the genesis of the contemporary environmental crisis. He accepts Lynn White’s thesis about the historical roots of the environmental crisis and combines it with Max Weber’s association of the Protestant work ethic with the spirit of capitalism to present the contemporary crisis as driven to a large extent by attitudes encouraged by Western Christianity, particularly Calvinism, but not excluding medieval Catholicism. In his view, they created the ethos that encouraged the West’s exploitative approach to the natural world. Thus the environmental crisis may be understood as a spiritual issue requiring a spiritual solution rather than merely a technological fix.
While Zizioulas is certainly right to treat the environmental crisis as a spiritual issue, he undermines his case by his uncritical acceptance of White and Weber’s arguments. Both have been extensively criticized for their historical inadequacies. Far from being a largely Western Christian problem, it is arguable that human societies have had a negative impact on the natural environment since at least the Mesolithic era. A fuller and fairer account of Western theological traditions regarding the natural world would recognize that they are not entirely negative, that there is a countervailing strand in which the natural world has an essential role in God’s purposes. And perhaps his fulsome praise of Pope Francis’s encyclical on ecology and justice (chapter 17) can be read as an implicit correction of his earlier position.
Having established that the environmental crisis is a spiritual issue, Zizioulas seeks to address it using resources from the biblical view of the natural world and the patristic doctrine of creation. The book begins with an essay on St Paul’s understanding of the natural world and immediately follows it with one on the place of the natural world in the book of Revelation. Turning to patristic resources, Zizioulas emphasizes the importance of the doctrine of creation from nothing. This doctrine stresses the fragility of the material creation and its radical dependence upon God. He does admit, in passing, that this led some of the fathers (notably those most influenced by Origen and Evagrius of Pontus) to downplay the significance of material existence and concentrate too much on the spiritual dimension of human nature. However, he insists that mainstream patristic teaching did not go down this road.
His positive treatment of the biblical and patristic resources is frustrating because it is so brief. The occasional nature of most of the chapters means that he never really has the opportunity to develop the material in depth. For example, the obvious biblical resources of Genesis 1 and Psalm 103 are not explored, nor does he touch on the recurring Old Testament theme of environmental catastrophe as divine judgement. Likewise, although he is clearly outlining patristic teaching, he rarely cites patristic sources, so readers will have to look elsewhere if they wish to explore the tradition for themselves.
The distinctive and most important aspect of Zizioulas’s theological approach to the environmental crisis is trailed by the title of the book. Many secular environmentalists seem to regard the human race as a virus or a cancer attacking the integrity of the natural world. Those who do not, together with the majority of Christian environmentalists, see the human race as just one more species among many. In contrast to such views, Zizioulas unashamedly insists that human beings have a vital role to play in creation as its priests. At several points, he clearly expounds how the royal priesthood of all believers gives us a mediating role between God and the nonhuman creation. And for Zizioulas, as for St Paul, the fall of the human race was also an environmental fall. The fundamental theological reason for the environmental crisis is that in rejecting that role the human race has subjected the rest of creation to futility (Rom. 8:22). Without our mediating role, the creation is unable to achieve its divinely intended purpose.
Again, for Zizioulas as for St Paul, the salvation wrought by Christ has implications for the whole of creation. What Adam failed to do, Christ has achieved. Thus ‘in the person of Christ, the world possesses its priest of creation, the very model of man’s proper relation to the natural world’ (p. 130). And, as the body of Christ, we participate in this priesthood.
The last theme I want to pick up is a corollary of this priesthood of creation. As we live this priesthood, we establish an ecological ethos, a culture of caring for the environment. For Zizioulas, this ethos has at least three aspects. Most important, and the one he develops most fully, is the eucharistic aspect. In the Eucharist, we offer to God the material creation represented by bread, wine, and ourselves and receive it back transformed. A eucharistic vision of the world enables us to see it as something holy to be valued for its own sake. In addition, he suggests that this ecological ethos has an iconographic aspect: the material world becomes transparent, the medium through which we can encounter the transcendent. And, last but not least, there is an ascetic aspect: recognizing the holiness of God’s good creation, we will fast from exploiting it.
For Zizioulas, this ecological ethos is the Church’s essential contribution to tackling the environmental crisis. He insists on the inadequacy of all environmental ethics that are not underpinned by such an ethos. Prescribed codes of behaviour are not enough. Without grounding in an appropriate ethos, they lead all too easily to guilt, failure, and despair. As he points out, ‘there is no ethical critique that can compel us to behave in an ecological way’ (p. 158).
Zizioulas presents us with an attractive vision of the Church’s role in addressing the environmental crisis. However, sermons, patriarchal statements, and conferences seem to have done little to foster the ecological ethos that he perceives in Orthodoxy. The reality on the ground is that nations which identify as Orthodox are not noted for their care for the environment. Several Orthodox nations are major coal producers, and the largest Orthodox nation is also the fourth-largest global emitter of greenhouse gases.
Yes, we need the kind of ethos Zizioulas describes, but we also urgently need guidance as to how that ethos works out in practice, in ethics and askesis. Unfortunately, these essays only hint at what that practical guidance might look like. Positively, he speaks of ecological askesis as fasting from environmental exploitation but gives no examples of what that might mean. Negatively, he affirms at several points the reality of ecological sin, but he does not offer guidance to enable us to recognize when we have fallen into such sin so that we might confess it and repent of it.
In conclusion, these essays offer us an important foundation for an Orthodox perspective on the environmental challenges that face us. However, the work of expounding how that might help us live as priests of creation in a world facing imminent catastrophic climate change is left for others.
