Some notes on Yannaras’s Elements of Faith

As you might expect, I have been aware of Christos Yannaras for some years and have read one or two summaries of his thought. But, until recently, I hadn’t read anything by him. What I found myself reading a couple of months ago was so thought-provoking that I decided to begin a deep dive into his work. And the logical place to start seemed to be his Elements of Faith: An Introduction to Orthodox Theology (T&T Clark, 1991).

NB This is not a review, just some notes in passing.

It certainly has the appearance of an introduction to the subject. Its ten chapters cover

1. ‘Positive’ Knowledge and Metaphysics
2. The Problem of God
3. Faith
4. Apophatic Knowledge
5. God as Trinity
6. The World
7. Man
8. Jesus Christ
9. The Church
10. Orthodoxy

And it does all this in fewer than 200 pages. A further indication of its introductory nature is that it lacks the extensive footnotes one might expect in a more advanced treatise. It doesn’t even have a bibliography or suggestions for further reading.

But the list of chapter titles hints that this is no straightforward exposition of Orthodox Christianity in general. It clearly does not follow the structure of the Nicene Creed. Nor does it attempt to create some kind of catechism. Rather, it seems to be Yannaras’s own personal take on Orthodoxy. This is the perspective of someone with a firm grounding in mid twentieth-century Continental philosophy. Further, it is written with a degree of sophistication that makes me wonder who his intended readers were. An introduction to Orthodox theology for philosophy graduates perhaps?

Just a couple of caveats on what he says in these chapters:

He defines the Church thus,

the Church is the gathering in the Eucharistic meal. Not a foundation, not a religious institution, not a governing hierarchy, not buildings and offices and organizational arrangement. It is the people of God gathered in the ‘breaking of the bread’ and the ‘blessing of the cup’. It is the children of God who are scattered abroad (Jn 11.52 RSV) who are gathered now in the unity of life of the ecclesial body. (p. 122)

But, having defined the Church in this way, he goes on to focus on: the paschal meal; renewal of life; Pentecost; existential transformation; ‘transubstantiation’ and ‘symbol’; mysteries; the ecclesiastical hierarchy; synods, primacy and authority; and religious alienation. He says nothing about the gathered community that is sent out into the world at the end of the Eucharist. But we are not Church only when we are gathered together in the event of the Eucharist. That event may define us as the Church, but we remain the Church – the body of Christ – when we are scattered abroad to go our separate ways. During the week, we are the body of Christ acting for the Kingdom of God in the world. And, at the start of each week, we gather together again in the Eucharist to reaffirm that this is who we are. So, it is not enough for Yannaras stop where he does. There is a desperate need for a rigorous analysis of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ acting for the Kingdom in the world.

My other caveat regards the distinction he draws between Orthodoxy and western Christianity. He idealizes the former and with it the Hellenistic contribution to Greek Orthodoxy. By contrast, he demonizes western Christianity as a heresy that ‘has transformed radically the course of human history’ (p. 154), drawing a clear line from Augustine, through Scholasticism, to western European culture and modernity. This western Christianity and culture has, he believes, poisoned contemporary Orthodoxy. While I think he is right to position Orthodoxy as a radically countercultural movement, I don’t think it helps our understanding of either Orthodoxy or western Christianity by exaggerating their differences in this way. Various commentators on Yannaras assure us that his position is actually much more nuanced than it appears to be here. Hopefully, I will discover those nuances for myself as I continue my dive into his works.