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1. An Orthodox Model of Practical/Pastoral Theology
As an Orthodox who has been a student and staff member for almost a decade at the Institute for
Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England, I have become accustomed to relate and
correlate many of my Orthodox views to the surrounding British theological environment. It is thus,
inevitably, in parallel or contrast with this same environment that I will attempt to present my
understanding of Orthodox practical theology in this study. In the traditionally Protestant British
theological context, the terms ‘practical theology’ and ‘pastoral theology’ are used in such close
association and are interdependent to such a degree that they are often used interchangeably or as
a twin concept. This is understandable since, while being a branch of practical theology, pastoral
theology is arguably its most vital and relevant form of expression, as it addresses the immediate
and stringent necessities of society, the problems and concerns of our fellow human beings.
Practical theology inherently underscores pastoral training and any reflection on pastoral models or
activities. As put by Anglican scholars Pattison and Woodward, both pastoral and practical theology
focus primarily on ‘contemporary practices, issues and experiences that bear upon or form a concern
for the Christian community.’1
This communitarian focus is of particular interest to Orthodox
theology and any approach to practical theology via its pastoral component – as understood in the
British context – would be greatly favoured by Orthodox scholars, despite them having to surpass an
initial terminological hurdle.
For indeed this focus on the wider Church community would not necessarily be immediately
apparent to Orthodox students or scholars when introduced to these concepts. The idea of a
theology which is deemed ‘practical’ or ‘applied’ would likely seem foreign and unclear to them –
not merely out of lack of pragmatism, but following a core view that all theology is inherently praxis.
As for pastoral theology, things appear to be even more confusing, since the immediate correlation
would be with the work of the ministers of the Church, its ‘hierarchy’ – priests and bishops – and not
with the wider community of the Church. While Protestant British pastoral theology is determined
not to allow itself to be confiscated by ordinands or clergy as a ‘specialist’ topic and seeks to address
all spheres of Church community, the exact opposite happens in the Orthodox context, where
‘pastoral’ remains resolutely the area of operation for the clergy alone. Laity is certainly encouraged
to play a role in Orthodox Church communities, but it is fair to say that the ‘doing’ of theology is all
too often understood to be the remit of Church hierarchy.
This is reflected to a degree in Orthodox education for ministry, where ‘pastoral’ theology – as
understood by the Orthodox – is taught to future priests only, in predominantly male-populated
faculties or seminaries, thus drawing a clearly separate line between the ministry of clergy and that
of laity. This comprehensive view of theology, comprising everything from Church history, to
dogmatic and systematic theology, to patristics and liturgics is deemed ‘pastoral’ simply because it
seeks a comprehensive training of future clergy and is meant to inform their activity as shepherds of
the Church’s flock. In Romania, Pastoral Theology is taught in Faculties of Theology or seminars
exclusively to male students since female students cannot be ordained. Female students or students
who are not interested in ordination can opt for other pathways like Didactic Orthodox Theology,
Social Orthodox Theology and Sacred Art.2
‘Social Orthodox Theology’ is taught in conjunction with
the Faculties of Psychology and Philosophy and it covers roughly the same area as that addressed by
1 In Woodward, James and Pattison, Stephen (ed.), The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology, (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2000), 6.
2 From the website of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, ‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ University, Iasi, Romania.
http://teologie.uaic.ro/main/mesajuldecanului/en (accessed on 23/07/2016).

2. ‘pastoral theology’ in Britain. Interestingly though, it is not addressed to ordinands, but remains an
adjacent sub-area meant for lay students.3
This study will address some of the essential aspects that characterise and define Orthodox practical
and pastoral theology – in its communitarian/societal understanding. Firstly, we will briefly explore
the Orthodox vision of theology as holistic, where the connection between the liturgical and
sacramental life on the one hand, and social action and commitment on the other hand are revealed
to be so tight that theology appears as an inseparable whole, in which societal commitment cannot
be divorced from the sacramental spiritual element. All theology is therefore implicitly
practical/pastoral. This study will then approach the Orthodox response to the western perspective
of pastoral theology as community-focused process. Thirdly, the concept of theosis will be presented
as ‘engine’ and ultimate goal of Orthodox practical/pastoral theology. We will then address the
fundamental importance of liturgical, eucharistic and sacramental life in the life of the Orthodox
Church. Following from that it will be revealed that, when approaching the ministry of the wider
community of the Church, that too is essentially understood as another level of sacramental
participation. Here Eucharistic sacrament marries the complementary concept of the ‘sacrament of
the brother’, akin to the concept of the ‘Liturgy after the Liturgy’. This study will finally address the
concepts of withdrawn ‘inner life’ and monasticism, which evidence the tension between the
rejection of the world on the one hand and social ‘incarnational’ involvement on the other.
All theology is practical/pastoral
A key phrase that synthesizes best the Orthodox conception of theology belongs to Saint Evagrius of
Pontus (345-399): ‘If you are a theologian you pray truly; and if you pray truly you are a theologian.’4
In its original understanding theology implies participation in the prayerful life of the Church, in its
liturgical life, it implies an experience of faith. This statement implicitly sets a proviso: one cannot be
a theologian unless one prays. Theologizing and praying are set in inescapable interdependence.
Prayer is seen as a vast concept in the Orthodox tradition and it refers to the whole spectrum of
Church life: worship, the inner life of the faithful, their eucharistic communion. Even their pastoral
and charitable acts are seen as consequences of prayer. Without this life in prayer, or rather in the
community of prayer, no one can be a theologian.
The concepts of ‘prayer,’ ‘worship’ and ‘community’ in the Orthodox tradition are all linked together
through – and inseparable from – the Eucharistic Liturgy, around which the whole life of the faithful
is seen as revolving. Centred around liturgical life, and not focusing on texts, Orthodox theology is
holistic and any of its particular foci – dogmatic, doctrinal, pastoral etc. – will relate back to the
regulating point of reference which is not a collection of texts, as it is often wrongly understood, but
the Eucharistic Liturgical life itself. To be pastoral, then, is seen as a continuation and a
‘consequence’ of the Liturgy, and the Liturgy has as a main ‘reason’ the bringing of the communion
in love of the Triune God into the human society. The importance of the Liturgy in the Orthodox
context will be tackled in more depth in a future section.
Going back the the holistic vision of theology, the question for the Orthodox is: what is not practical
or pastoral theology? In other words, what theology is there that is not pastoral? We are talking of
dogmatic or systematic theology, because the focus is different, but are these theologies non-
3 The website of the Romanian Faculty of Orthodox Theology states that: ‘The graduates of Pastoral Theology can become,
through ordination, clergy members of the church, in the ranks of deacon, priest, bishop, in accordance with the Statute of
the Organization and Functioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Those who do not follow a priestly vocation have the
opportunity to choose another area of activity in ecclesiastical administration or civil society.’
4 Cited in Olivier Clement, The Roots of Christian Mysticism. Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary (London: New
City, 1993), 184.

3. pastoral? The only possible non-pastoral theology we can identify is the text-based one, which
explores a certain depositum fidei stored in writing. This scholastic form often still informs the
modern theological endeavour. Indeed, the trend in modern theology seems to be ‘to give priority to
texts over experience, to theology over ecclesiology, to kerygma and mission over the eucharist.’5
All
too often, the attitude, both in the Western and Eastern tradition is to focus and to base Christian
faith on this depositum fidei (Bible, Fathers, canons of councils). Paradoxically there tends to be less
focus on the praxis of communion – eucharistic but also post-liturgical – which has been responsible
for and has produced this collection of texts.6
It is essential to speak about a holistic theology versus a practical/pastoral theology, not for the sake
of scholarly punctiliousness, but mainly as the holistic view keeps reminding us and keeps us aware
of the spiritual life that has, at the same time, to result from and to generate social and inter-
personal care. This risk of separating the pastoral dimension from ‘pure’ theology was also identified
by Anglican scholar R. John Elford. Elford observed that pastoral or practical theology is regarded as
a form of ‘applied theology,’ following the model according to which some sciences like physics or
mathematics exist in ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ forms.7
As put by Elford: ‘the use of this pure/applied
distinction to explain the relationship of theology to pastoral theology often lies behind the view
that it is not possible to undertake the formal study of pastoral theology without first obtaining
some grounding in more traditional theological studies, making it, therefore, more suited to
postgraduate levels of study.’8
The author challenges the traditional view that pastoral care arises
out of ‘pure’ theology and underlines the perspective that ultimately ‘theology always has and still
does arise out of pastoral concern.’9
One must acknowledge that, in Orthodox contexts, the understanding of practical/pastoral theology
has sometimes led to an approach that comes in contradiction precisely with this holistic
understanding of theology. These terms – ‘pastoral’ in particular – have come to refer exclusively to
the priests’ work – and there is an explanation for that, as we will soon see. By assigning all pastoral
responsibility to Church hierarchy, however, the faithful of the Church may tend to neglect their own
pastoral calling, in relationship with one another and with society.
A community-focused pastoral theology
Starting with one of the great fathers of the Church and one of the first theoreticians of pastoral
care, St Gregory of Nazianzus, we find an early general description of the ‘pastoral art’: ‘The scope of
our art […] is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God; to watch
over that which is in his image; if it abides, to take it by the hand, if it is in danger, to restore it; if
ruined, to make Christ to dwell in the heart by the Spirit: and in short, to deify, and to bestow
heavenly bliss upon one who belongs to the heavenly hosts.’10
This is an archetypal perspective on pastoral care established in the Orthodox Church: it emphasizes
salvation (‘giving [the faithful] to God’); sacramental life (‘to make Christ to dwell in the heart by the
Spirit’); and theosis, or deification (‘to deify, and to bestow heavenly bliss’). It is fair to say that
Orthodox tradition has not changed its perspective on pastoral care since those early centuries. Note
should also be made about the stated need to rescue the faithful from the world which also reveals
the Orthodox tension between the rejection and the embracing of the world. Also, deification is one
5 Petros Vassiliadis, ‘A response to Konrad Raiser’, in John Pobee (ed.), Towards Viable Theological Education: Ecumenical,
Imperative, Catalyst of Renewal (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1997), 70.
6 Ibidem.
7 See R. John Elford, The Pastoral Nature of Theology. An upholding presence (London: Cassell, 1999), 5.
8 Ibidem.
9 Ibidem, x
10 In defence of his flight to Pontos, Oration II: 25-26; PG 35, 432.

4. of the pivotal elements in the Orthodox vision of pastoral theology and it will be touched upon later
in this study. This is not however a uniquely Orthodox approach. Influential Protestant theologian
Edward Farley employs the terminology of habitus as the original goal of the Church’s theology, and
sees as the single purpose of theological study the proper growth of holiness in heart and life.
Theology is intended to produce a Godly life.11
A competent summation of all the significant commonalities of the definitions of practical/pastoral
theology in the British Protestant world was produced by Pattison and Woodward – an element of
which has been mentioned earlier – despite their stated reluctance to attempt to define such a wide
domain:
Pastoral and practical theology are concerned with practice. They are also concerned with relating
practice to the Christian theological tradition. The Christian community, the church, and its work is a
very important focus for pastoral and practical theology. Practical and pastoral theology have
traditionally been closely associated with the ministry of the church. An important focus for pastoral or
practical theology is contemporary practices, issues and experiences that bear upon or form a concern
for the Christian community. 12
The above intentionally generic definition tries to embrace what pastoral theology implies but less
what its purpose is. The emphasis is on practice, on the relation between practice and tradition, on
how Christian community represents the central focus, but we are left uncertain as to the ultimate
goal of the process. The authors have avoided deliberately any possibly 'normative' approach to
pastoral theology that could narrow down its reach. Although the Christian community is described
as an essential focus for pastoral and practical theology, there is little to suggest any relation to the
participation in the sacramental/liturgical life of the Church, which for the Orthodox would be of
utmost importance. It could be argued, rightly, that such a connection is implicit in the above
description, in the interplay between the tradition and ministry of the Church and the engagement
of the community. For the Orthodox, this connection would need to be explicit, and this hints
perhaps to the main paradigmatic difference between Western and Orthodox visions of pastoral
theology – the extent to which praxis relates (or not) to worship, to the sacramental life in the
Church.
More recently, Bonnie Miller-McLemore (former President of the International Academy of Practical
Theology) has made this connection somewhat more clearly in her introduction to the Wiley-
Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology. She identified four perspectives on practical theology,
according to which the volume was structured, the first of which – which sees practical theology as a
‘way of life’ – is given centre stage. The day-to-day life of the faithful is seen as the starting point of
practical theology (‘practical theology begins with the concrete and local’) but it also represents its
raison d'être: ‘Practical theology either has relevance for everyday faith and life or it has little
meaning at all.’13
For Miller-McLemore the religious appears in the mundane as something organic
and not as something that is ‘beyond the everyday’. Aspects of human life (like suffering, healing or
loving) are seen as ‘sites of religious formation and transformation’, and are ‘prototypical human
gestures to the transcendent’14
– in Peter Berger’s quoted words.
Miller-McLemore proceeds to propose three further dimensions of practical theology: As ‘method’,
focusing on methodology as ‘a way to understand the practice or experience of faith and to affect its
11 See Paul Ballard and John Pritchard, Practical theology in action: Christian thinking in the service of church and society
(London: SPCK, 1996), 132.
12 The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology, 6.
13 Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011),
7.
14 Ibidem.

5. transformation.’15
As ‘curriculum’, which concerns the education for ministry and faith in classroom,
congregation and community, and which should facilitate a multidirectional dialogue between
Biblical, historical, systematic theology and ‘practical theology and practices of ministry and faith’.16
And, finally and more conventionally, as ‘discipline’ where Miller-McLemore argues for the Practical
Theology’s life ‘beyond the academy’. ‘Practical theology is more than a method […] or a curricular
area’, she writes. Her insistence on the life of the faithful within the community brings her paradigm
full circle to its starting premise: ‘practical theology’s importance rests on its value for, or its
relationship to, the life of everyday faith.’ 17
A similar attempt to push practical theology beyond the sphere of the academe and closer to the life
of the faithful appears in Pete Ward’s Introduction to Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography.
The author decries a certain avoidance by theologians of ‘field work’, and argues for the need for
‘empirical research’. This empirical component has often been referred to as ‘ethnography’, and it
‘has often been discussed by theologians as […] a theoretical and theological necessity, but strangely
this is very often divorced from any real or sustained engagement with actual churches and
communities.’18
Where Ward comes perhaps closer to an Orthodox view on practical theology is his bringing
together of theology and sociology into an organic whole: ‘to understand the Church, we should
view it as being simultaneously theological and social/cultural.’19
‘To do ecclesiology’, he writes, ‘we
must embrace methods of research that are simultaneously theological and “ethnographic”’,
methods which ‘arise from our situatedness as church.’ 20
Thus, if theology is to be ‘reshaped by
observation’, observation remains a theological endeavour even if the tools employed are those of
social and cultural enquiry. Ward’s vision has a Christological foundation, as he quotes Colossians 1
where Christ is described as the One in whom all things originate and are reconciled – ‘in Him all
things are held together’ – while at the same time being the ‘head of His body, the Church.’21
It is this eminently theological drive, as well as the emphasis on ‘human gestures to the
transcendent’ which inform the perspective of a number of modern Orthodox theologians on
pastoral theology and its ultimate goal – while remaining seemingly less concerned with
methodological analyses and models. Orthodox academic John Jillions demarcates two essential
constituent elements of an Orthodox Pastoral theology:
‘While there is much common ground in pastoral theology, what is distinctive vis-à-vis other Western
Christian traditions […] are the particular tools and experience of the Orthodox Church. Two areas in
particular are emphasized in the Orthodox tradition of pastoral theology: liturgical life (‘where two or
three are gathered’, Mt. 18:20) and the inner life (‘go into your room and shut the door’, Mt. 6:6). The
one reinforces the other […]’22
The areas of liturgical life and inner life are emphasized here as foci of Orthodox pastoral theology,
and this represents indeed a very realistic approach to the Orthodox view. When talking about
pastoral theology or care, the Orthodox faithful will immediately make reference to their life in the
Church and to praying for each other. For a Westerner this would likely seem unconvincing, as what
looks at first sight simply as attendance of Church services and praying for one another does little in
15 Ibidem, 10.
16 Ibidem, 13.
17 Ibidem, 8f.
18 Pete Ward, Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 012), 1f.
19 Ibidem, 2.
20 Ibidem.
21 Ibidem.
22 John A Jillions, ‘Pastoral Theology: Reflections from an Orthodox Perspective’, in British Journal of Theological
Education, 13:2 (2003), 164.

6. practical terms for helping our brothers and sisters in need. And indeed this viewpoint could bring
about – or has perhaps already brought about – a certain apathy among Orthodox faithful with
regard to their practical social involvement. In its proper understanding however, liturgical life is
pastoral par excellence, as the Eucharistic liturgy shapes a particular type of community, maintaining
in each member of the Church an attitude of self-giving to the other members of the community.
Prayer on the other hand is seen as the source of all good deeds; it is not a passive exercise in
meditation, but an inner state generating action.
Spiritual growth and betterment through liturgical participation and prayer are then the starting
point in Orthodox practical and pastoral theology. Consequently, a key concept in Orthodox tradition
is that of ‘spiritual guidance,’ of spiritual parenthood – which implies that every member of the
Church is expected to have a ‘spiritual guide,’ belonging to the ordained clergy, but also to the
monastic community (both ordained and lay), therefore intimately connected with the liturgical life
of the Church. These spiritual guides are to constantly supervise, advise and direct the life of the
faithful – the ‘watching over’ and the ‘taking by the hand' mentioned in St Gregory’s definition.
According to this model, every pastoral case is seen as so ‘unique,’ as it can only be addressed
separately in its own context.
A note should be made that most Orthodox sources are proposing the language of ‘full commitment’
as a starting point for the pastoral endeavour, and this generates another interesting and very
edifying tension – that between the categories of ‘trust’ and ‘suspicion’. On the one hand, the
Orthodox are perfectly comfortable committing fully to the Tradition of the Church, which places
Liturgy at the heart of their understanding of the Church and prayer at the core of Christian life. On
the other hand Protestants view the full and whole commitment of a spiritual, liturgical, Church-
centred kind, as proposed by the Orthodox, with a degree of unease and suspicion.
The reflections of Anglican theologian Zoë Bennett, taken from an article drafted jointly with the
author of this study are particularly relevant. In response to an Orthodox vision of pastoral theology
which relied heavily on the praxis aspect of theology, seen to include prayer, inner and liturgical life
alongside the ‘practical’ commitment of the faithful, Bennett identifies a key question in the ‘tension
between critique and commitment’, raised by the Orthodox emphasis on the inner life and the
liturgical life. For Bennett:
These models and priorities speak of a strongly churchly and spiritual orientation for pastoral theology.
[…] The Orthodox vision of faithful theology and practice, which emphasizes communion, personal
experience, participation, vision, liturgical transformation and transfiguration, has implications in the
realm of the epistemology of pastoral theology and practice. […] This is praxis, but it is praxis expressed
in quite different language from the Marxian or quasi-Marxian language of critical reflection on
practice, especially where that critical reflection is sourced and fuelled by social or psychological
analyses based on secular knowledge.23
It is very likely that this kind of reaction is often triggered, not unreasonably, in liberal Protestant
participants in ecumenical contexts by the Orthodox insistence on a Church-centred approach of
faith and spiritual life. As Bennett suggests, critical engagement with the societal reality with
emphasis on a systematic analysis which is based upon the secular findings of psychology and
sociology seems to be very different – perhaps incompatible – to the Orthodox approach of total
faith. Bennett later asks in earnestness: ‘Is it possible to begin and end in God while not falling foul
of an ideological naïveté which mistakes the human mediations of God for the divine voice itself?’24
23 Zoe Bennett and Razvan Porumb, ‘Studying pastoral theology in an ecumenical context’, In JATE 8.1 (2011) 38-52, p. 48.
24 Ibid., p. 49.

7. Whilst this is a valid line of questioning which the Orthodox should also take into account, it does
signal an incompatibility of approaches that lies beyond the ecclesiological and doctrinal spheres,
and has to do with an understanding of ‘faith’ itself. Orthodox, and other non-Western groups of
Christians as well, take faith unquestionably for what it is: total trust in God and his work, a total
commitment to Church life and an abandonment into full hope in God and into a life of prayer.
Although the Orthodox do acknowledge that these aspirations are in themselves sterile without an
active concrete participation in the life of human society, the language of critical analysis is seldom
to be found in Orthodox exploits. For the Orthodox an overly analytical approach is often deemed
too much of a secular device and too modern a tool to employ in matters related to faith. These
tools seem to represent overly cynical, ‘materialistic’ and distrustful approaches vis-à-vis what is,
essentially, ‘faith’. That is not to say that such approaches are totally rejected, and the growing body
of modern and academic inter-disciplinary theological reflection in the Orthodox world is a
testimony to that. ‘Trust’ remains, however, an essential and defining approach for the Orthodox
whenever approaching any theological process, and indeed their view of practical/pastoral theology
makes no exception.
The essential character of deification in Orthodox theology
We have suggested that all theology – more so perhaps in the vision of the Orthodox Church’s
tradition – is inherently pastoral. However, nothing in relation with Orthodox theology, practical,
pastoral or otherwise, can be really understood without the grasp of its underlying principle,
direction or goal of the life of all the faithful within the Orthodox tradition, without that which
justifies and nourishes the entire spectrum of spiritual life – the concept of theosis: the deification or
divinization of the human being. Without referring to deification as the ultimate goal of Christian
life, it is indeed irrelevant to speak about spiritual life as part of the pastoral praxis within Orthodox
communities. In the words of one of the more recent and very popular Orthodox saints, Seraphim of
Sarov:
Prayer, fasting, vigils, and all other Christian practices, although wholly good in themselves, certainly do
not in themselves constitute the end of our Christian life: they are but the indispensable means for the
attainment of that end. For the true end of the Christian life is the acquiring of the Holy Spirit. As for
fasts, vigils prayers, alms, and other good works done in the name of Christ – these are the means
whereby we can acquire the Holy Spirit.25
Thus despite the fact that the present study attempts to scrutinize the ‘practical,’ pastoral aspect of
the life of the Orthodox Church, approaching deification as a concept which gives meaning and
direction to the whole of Orthodox theology and life is natural and essential. Seemingly theoretical
and abstract it is in fact a theme that impels and motivates Christian life and, moreover, it can only
find its fulfilment in the practical spiritual/liturgical life of the faithful. However incongruous it may
be for a theological theme as vast and complex as theosis, behind which lie centuries of patristic
thought, to be approached only in passing, it is essential to revisit it before deepening the pastoral
praxis of the Orthodox Church.
St Athanasius expressed this concept concisely, through his famous phrase: ‘The Son of God became
man, so that we might become God.’26
Thus, through the incarnation of Christ, what would
otherwise seem absurd, that the fallen, sinful man may become as holy as God becomes possible. To
partake of God’s nature is seen as the very reason or plan of God’s creation. In the words of St
25 St. Seraphim of Sarov cited in Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke,
1957), 196. My italics.
26 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B. Cited in Catechism of the Catholic Church. Second Edition, accessed at
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a3p1.htm (01/05/2016).

8. Maximus the Confessor, ‘God has created us in order that we may become partakers of the divine
nature […].’27
Indeed the same vision was shared by St Basil the Great: ‘Man is nothing less than a
creature that has received the order to become God.’28
Deification, leading to or being practically concurrent with salvation, can be achieved ‘fully’ only in
the kingdom of heaven; yet reaching this union with God during earthly life is nevertheless possible
and the example of the saints, seen as people who have achieved the state of holiness, is essential in
Orthodox spirituality. However, since it can never be fully achieved before the eschaton, the calling
to deification during earthly life is never-ceasing. In other words, theosis is not perceived as an
appropriated ‘state’ that can be achieved and maintained, but rather like a continuous struggle
towards perfection, towards the union with God. This struggle and constant aspiration toward
perfection, representing in fact the spiritual life of the faithful, retains a perpetually dynamic
character.
This view complements the ontological approach in St Athanasius, whence deification is seen
primarily as a consequence of the incarnation – humans can become Gods because Christ became
man. Deification is initiated at the incarnation of the Logos who appropriates the human nature to
Himself. As the human race is one in its inter-relatedness, in its consubstantial kinship, Christ brings
deification to all who participate in him through baptism. In other words, humanity is brought into
an ontological kinship with the Triune God. But this kinship is maintained and constantly actualized
through an active and profound participation in the liturgical life of the Church and through
involvement within its community.
Going back to the dynamic understanding of deification, theosis appears to be a process of
advancement for the human being, starting from the image of God and reaching the likeness of God
– likeness that is in its turn a perpetual progress since it can only reach completion in the Kingdom of
heaven. Thus theosis is seen as the goal of life, not as something that has to be achieved and
appropriated but rather as a constant aspiration toward a stage when ‘God becomes our life,’ a
stage which is paradoxically achieved in effect the very second one aspires toward it. Deification
remains a reality and not a sort of remote illusion. When identified with the very struggle and
aspiration of the Christian community, it is something that can be experienced here and now. Yet as
a reality that is in constant transformation and that is expected to always move onwards to an ever
higher stage, it is almost impossible to describe or define.
Going one step further, we need to further emphasize that the starting point in approaching God,
and in trying to understand divine life is the understanding of God as Trinity, as a ‘social being,’ as a
being living in a perpetual communion of love. In the words of Romanian Patriarch Daniel Ciobotea:
‘[…] the Holy Trinity is the source, the starting point and the ultimate goal of the entire theology and
spirituality, of the entire anthropology and ecclesiology, of the entire understanding of the world
and of existence.’29
The Holy Trinity represents the Orthodox conception about the world, and both
Ciobotea and Ware employ Russian thinker Nikolai Fedorov’s statement that ‘the dogma of the Holy
Trinity is our social program.’30
Orthodox theology sees in the incarnation of Christ at the same time the revelation of the Trinity, as
the Logos does not reveal himself as a singular person, but as a divine person in relation with other
two divine persons: in relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit. By His incarnation the son of God
27 Cited in Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke, 1957), 90.
28 Quoted by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware in his Foreword to Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man. St Gregory
Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 7.
29 Daniel Ciobotea (Metropolitan), Confessing the Truth in Love (Iasi:Trinitas. 2002), 67.
30 Cited in Ciobotea, 67. Also cf. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin Books, 1963), 216.

9. has introduced human nature within the deepest intimacy of the Trinity and gave it the ability of
eternally participating in the Trinitarian life. Hence, liturgical or prayerful life in Christ represents first
and foremost participation in the life of the Holy Trinity. The entire Holy Liturgy even, the prayer of
the Church par excellence is a gradual spiritual introduction into the Kingdom or Communion of the
Holy Trinity. By the invocation of the Holy Spirit the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of
Christ of the Trinity. Thus ‘the Holy Spirit reveals the eucharistic as being Trinitarian, and the
ecclesiastic as being eucharistic.’31
There are several aspects where the concept of theosis seen from a Trinitarian perspective is of
particular relevance to understanding the pastoral praxis of the Orthodox Church, the spiritual life of
its community. First of all, it is important to state that the search for deification cannot be self-
orientated, as the salvation of the others is as important as one’s own salvation. Indeed, the Church
as community of the faithful can be seen as a ‘a communion of deification.’32
This view of the Church
has as its main source the Trinitarian approach to theosis, where ‘mankind is one being but multi-
hypostatic, just as God is One Being in Three Persons.’33
Human beings come closest to their nature
created in the image of God, when the same communion of love that exists between the persons of
the Holy Trinity exists between them. According to the model of the Trinity, human beings should
also be in a continuous communion of ministry for and self-giving to one another.
Yet love alone between human beings is not, in Orthodox spirituality, seen as sufficient in itself, and
does not constitute the ultimate encounter of God. Romanian theologian Dumitru Staniloae
acknowledged that ‘the “I-Thou” relation constitutes a locus for the experience of God,’ yet this love
is nourished from the supreme source of love which is God:
We experience God through our fellow human beings and in the love we have for them […] but we do
not identify him with them, do not identify him with our love for one another. Rather we recognize him
as a source of supreme personal love who gives us the strength to rise higher and higher in our love for
one another. […] If God were simply identical to the love between the two of us, prayer would be of no
avail.’34
Thus a ‘link’ must be maintained with God through which humankind could constantly receive the
never-ending love of God, which in turn nourishes and increases one’s love for the others. This
connection with God is materialised in Orthodox theology through the sacramental life of the
Church. Through the sacraments and particularly through the Eucharist, through our own spiritual
life and prayer, a connection with the Trinity is always maintained. Deification is not seen in the
Orthodox tradition as achievable outside the eucharistic life of the Church. It can be achieved only
through an event of communion, not only between each individual and God, but between the whole
community of the Church and the community of the Trinity. Indeed, this deifying communion
between humankind and God could be seen as the very definition of the Church:
[…] through communion in the sacraments of Christ man partakes of His uncreated grace and is united
with him into one body and one spirit. This immediate and personal link between every believer and
Christ calls for a genuine unification and communion between believers themselves. In this way a new
relationship, beyond words and beyond nature, is set up between man and Christ. This is the Church.35
31 Ciobotea, 72.
32 Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man. St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 57.
33 Sophrony (Archimandrite), His Life is Mine (London and Oxford: Mowbrays, 1977), 88.
34 Dumitru Staniloae, Theology and the Church (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 199.
35 Mantzaridis, 57.

10. If, as members of the Church’s Body, we are entering into communion with its head – Christ – we are
implicitly entering into a special communion with one another. This is another starting point of the
pastoral vision of the Orthodox Church, within the Trinitarian-based self-emptying love, total self-
giving and passionate service of the faithful for one another. This reciprocal love and service
nourished regularly by the Eucharistic Liturgy, where the integrity of the Body of Christ is restored
and where the faithful sing together: ‘let us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to
Christ our God,’36
takes hold of the entire life of the faithful, permeates their family life, their daily
activities, their social involvement, their response to the problems of the whole world.
Liturgical life
As stated before, in Orthodox contexts the understanding of pastoral theology is seen as closely
connected to the activity of the priests. But even when practical and pastoral theology are seen
through a western perspective, as commitment to and involvement within the community, the
ministers of the Orthodox Church retain a central role in all Church activities. This is not necessarily
due to some form of over-clericalism – although that tendency does pose serious problems. Rather,
it is the ethos of Orthodox theology, the centrality of the Liturgy and of the entire spectrum of
sacramental life springing from it that explain this particular focus. Since the sacramental, liturgical
life of the Church is seen as nourishing and informing the entire spectrum of Church life, without
which no other activity of the Church has any validity, it stands to reason that the activity of those
assigned to administer these sacraments, and even themselves as individuals, be attributed an
essential and central role within the community. The priest is a model for the entire congregation
who accompanies him in the Eucharistic cycle. Indeed, in order to prepare for the celebration of the
Eucharist and the other sacraments, the priest is expected to follow an ascetic, self-sacrificial and
self-giving life style.
Furthermore, not only do priests administer the holy sacraments, but they are also expected to
constantly monitor the spiritual life of the faithful ensuring that they are prepared for the partaking
from the Eucharist and generally for participating in all the sacramental services. The Orthodox
tradition urges the faithful to have regular confession to a priest, preferably the parish one,
confessions during which the faithful may expose their eventual failures to conform to a life of love,
the problems that hinder them in preparing for and benefiting from the partaking of the Eucharist,
their difficulties, their pains, their worries etc. Note should be taken that this main pastoral
‘counselling’ activity of the priests takes place on an personal level, with a view to address each
individual’s problems in his/her specific context or situation. Thus the guidance and monitoring of
the faithful is done primarily within a contextual paradigm, which focuses on the individual within
the overall context of the community.
The role of the Liturgy in the Orthodox tradition is not seen as being one of anamnesis or
catechisation alone, but mostly of being a sacramental space, centred around the mystery of the
Eucharist. In the words of Bishop Kallistos Ware ‘Orthodoxy sees human beings above all else as
liturgical creatures who are most truly themselves when they glorify God, and who find their
perfection and self-fulfilment in worship. Into the Holy Liturgy which expresses their faith, the
Orthodox peoples have poured their whole religious experience.’37
Or as expressed by Father
Georges Florovsky: ‘Christianity is a liturgical religion. The Church is first of all a worshipping
community. Worship comes first, doctrine and discipline second.’38
36 John Chrysostom, The Divine Liturgy of Our Father Among the Saints John Chrysostom (London: Greek Orthodox Diocese
of Thyateira & Great Britain, 2011), 21.
37 Ware, 272.
38 Cited in Ware, 271.

11. However, the Eucharistic Liturgy (in its original etymological understanding, λειτουργία / leitourgia
meaning ‘a public work’ or an ‘activity of the people’) is not self-centred service and action, but is a
service for the building of the one Body of Christ within the economy of salvation which is for all
people throughout history. The liturgical assembly is the Father's House, where the invitation to the
banquet of the heavenly bread is constantly voiced and addressed not only to the members of the
Church, but also to the non-Christians and strangers. This banquet is meant to transport the
liturgical community beyond this reality into the life of the Triune God. It is a foretaste of the
Kingdom of Heaven. It is a journey from our world into the reality of God and back. Celebrated
Orthodox scholar Alexander Schmemann pointed out the characteristic of Liturgy as a Pascha, a
Passover into a different reality:
The Liturgy of the Eucharist is best understood as a journey or procession. It is the journey of the
Church into the dimension of the kingdom […] our entrance into the presence of Christ is an entrance
into a fourth dimension which allows us to see the ultimate reality of life. It is not an escape from this
world, rather it is the arrival at a vantage point from which we can see more deeply into the reality of
the world.39
In the community of the Eucharist ‘we subsist in a manner different from the biological, as members
of a body which transcends every exclusiveness of a biological or social kind.’40
Here the human
being acquires an ‘ecclesial identity’ in which ‘we appear to exist not as that which we are but as
that which we will be,’41
that is we acquire an eschatological way of being. If we are to recognize the
face of Christ in the face of our neighbour, and if we are to show Christ’s responsibility and love to
our neighbours, we must be in communion of love with God and always be seeking to deepen still
further this life-giving communion. ‘This is the nature of love: the more we depart from the centre
and do not love God, the more we depart from the neighbour; but if we love God, then the closer we
come to him in love, the more we are united in love of the neighbour.’42
The Sacrament of the Brother / The Liturgy after the Liturgy
Despite constituting the ultimate mystical event for the Orthodox faithful and despite its centrality in
the life of the community, the Eucharistic Liturgy with its transcending transfigured reality does still
not represent in itself an isolated or ‘sufficient' involvement of the faithful in the life of the Church.
Although it is perceived as informing all Church life it does not represent the sole required or
expected commitment of the Christians within the Church community. In fact the very person who
shaped the order of the eucharistic Liturgy celebrated most frequently by the Orthodox up to this
day, St John Chrysostom, saw the existence of two complementary altars – the one inside the church
but also another altar which we encounter in our daily life, which is in effect ‘the poor the suffering,
those in need, the homeless, all who are in distress.’43
We cannot help but perceive here an echo of
Protestant theologian Bonnie Miller-McLemore’s approach to practical theology (encountered
earlier) as a ‘way of life’, with her emphasis on the significance of everyday life, on the appearance
of the religious in the mundane, on the transcendental dimension of human activities and gestures.44
Chrysostom strongly emphasized this ‘sacrament of the brother’45
by which he understood that
philanthropy and service which Christians are to offer and perform in their social public life and
39 Alexander Schmemann, The world as sacrament (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1966), 29f.
40 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion. Studies in the personhood of the Church (London: Darton, Longman and Todd,
1985), 60.
41 Ibidem, 59
42 Dorotheus of Gaza, cited in Ciobotea, 40.
43 Cited in Kallistos Ware, ‘Go forth in peace. The Liturgy after the Liturgy,’ at http://incommunion.org/2004/12/11/go-
forth-in-peace/ (accessed on 1.06.2016).
44 Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, 7.
45 Ion Bria, ‘The Liturgy after the Liturgy’, at http://www.rondtb.msk.ru/info/en/Bria_en.htm (accessed on 1.10.2006).

12. which he saw as inextricably connected and complementary to the Eucharistic worship. This second
altar and sacrament have often been referred to by modern day Orthodox theologians as ‘the
Liturgy after the Liturgy.’46
Indeed ‘having received Christ in the Holy Gifts,’ says Metropolitan
Kallistos Ware, ‘we then go out from the church, going back to the world to share Christ with all
those around us.’47
Ware sees a Biblical foundation in this view of two complementary sacraments:
First there was the Eucharistic meal, where Christ blessed bread and gave it to the disciples, ‘This is my
body,’ and he blessed the cup, ‘This is my blood.’ Then, after the Eucharistic meal, Christ kneels and
washes the feet of his disciples. The Eucharistic meal and the foot washing are a single mystery. We
have to apply that to ourselves, going out from the Liturgy to wash the feet of our fellow humans,
literally and symbolically.48
In Romanian theologian Ion Bria’s words, ‘renewed by the Holy Communion and the Holy Spirit, the
members of the Church are sent to be authentic testimony to Jesus Christ in the world. The mission
of the Church rests upon the radiating and transforming power of the Liturgy. It is a stimulus in
sending out the people of God to the world to confess the Gospel and to be involved in man's
liberation.’49
There is a historic, traditional and unbreakable relation that the Orthodox see between social
involvement or ministry and the Eucharistic worship, between a spiritual way of life continuing the
prayerful state achieved during the Liturgy and the everyday service within the community. In fact,
this second everyday Liturgy of each and every member of the Church cannot be seen as distinct
from the spiritual life of the community, but they are in fact a single reality. It is in that same
prayerful state of peace acquired during the Liturgy that Christians become active within their
communities. That prayerful state – as was shown in a previous section – is not to be seen as passive
contemplation but as something transfigurative, participatory and dynamic.50
It is not only a state of
introspective or introverted individualism but it implies active participation within the community.
Ware sees in the final dismissal of the Liturgy, ‘Go forth in peace,’ not merely a ‘comforting epilogue’
or a call to meditative prayer but ‘a call to serve and bear witness,’ a sign that ‘the Liturgy after the
Liturgy is about to begin.’51
This call to dynamic peace, to active prayer, to participatory spiritual life is where pastoral theology –
as community-oriented paradigm – begins in the Orthodox Church. It is in this self-giving service to
the neighbour, in that support and guidance of the others that the Orthodox faithful become
‘pastors’ in their own right, ‘sharing Christ with all those around them.’52
This is in effect part of that
spiritual life Jillions referred to when trying to define pastoral theology from an Orthodox
perspective. The Orthodox however would rather refer to this sort of post-Liturgical care as
‘brotherly’ rather than ‘pastoral,’ since the priest’s role as a shepherd or indeed ‘father’ of the
community and his pastorship are seen, as mentioned previously, as singular and having a fixed
determinate place within the Church community.
It can be seen in the above reflections how, from its very beginnings, sacramental life in the
Orthodox Church has had two closely linked aspects – liturgical and social – and how participation in
the services performed in the temples was never seen as divorced from the participation outside the
46 See Ion Bria, ‘The Liturgy after the Liturgy’ and Kallistos Ware, ‘Go forth in peace. The Liturgy after the Liturgy.’
47 Ware, ‘Go forth in peace’.
48 Ibidem.
49 Ion Bria, ‘The Liturgy after the Liturgy’.
50 In Ware’s words: ‘Peace is to be something dynamic within this broken world. It’s not just a quality that we experience
within the church walls.’ In ‘Go forth in peace. The Liturgy after the Liturgy.’
51 Ware, ‘Go forth in peace. The Liturgy after the Liturgy.’
52 Ibidem.

13. temple as service within the community. Yet is this theoretical foundation – the starting point of
Orthodox social involvement – in fact actualised within the life of the community? Given the
tremendous importance attributed to Eucharistic worship, there is certainly the risk that the
members of the Church will focus more on this type of participation and grow to ignore their
expected community commitment. Once one’s relation with his/her community becomes ‘nominal’
and ‘de rigueur’, and thus remote from the passionate self-giving and service implied by the ministry
for the ‘altar of the brother’ – one’s whole theological endeavour becomes deficient.
Moreover, as I discovered during my previous research project on Orthodoxy and Ecumenism,53
there is another, more profound risk and potential obstacle for an Orthodox engagement with life
outside the temple. Besides a constant committed societal involvement, one other aspect of the
Liturgy after the Liturgy remains contemplative or spiritual, insofar as the faithful need to constantly
reengage with the theological sources – scriptural or patristic, modern or springing from one’s own
narrative – not merely as a theoretical exercise, but in order to rediscover, to renew and ever purify
their Orthodoxy. The idea that Orthodoxy is an inherited set of doctrines or even an inherited way of
life, that requires no further engagement but merely strict adherence and obedience to the rules can
become a fundamental obstacle for the Orthodox in properly engaging in any theological process.
The concept of ‘renewal’ bears a huge significance and is particularly relevant. Renewal opposes the
idea of an ultimate inherited truth, the definitive nature of which makes any further analysis
redundant or indeed harmful.54
Renewal implies that what we have inherited constitute ‘signposts
on the way’55
but not the way itself. Orthodox life as renewal opposes the idea of Orthodoxy as a
‘given’, a gift received from our forefathers, but presents Orthodoxy as a journey towards the salvific
Truth of Christ, or indeed as a destination that one aspires towards. It presents Orthodoxy as
something that needs to be discovered and then constantly re-discovered, not just by the non-
Orthodox, but by the Orthodox themselves:
Orthodoxy proposes to all Christians a treasure belonging to all and which can serve as a basis for the
renewal of all even in the midst of the communities they may belong to. Even the members of the
Orthodox Church need to rediscover Orthodoxy […] Now all we need to do is to renew this way of
practising and living the faith, our connection with Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit, our
spirituality. […] By keeping this tradition the Church responds today to the needs of the world, making
everything it has kept to shine anew.56
The implications in the above passage from Staniloae for a modern understanding of Orthodoxy are
enormous. Staniloae speaks here of the ‘freshness’ of the Orthodox inheritance, which has an
implicitly contemporary character. This inheritance does not represent a doctrine, but a ‘framework
of spiritual life’ within which the faithful need to renew their experience and living of the faith.57
Far
from being a given set of written rules and doctrines, Orthodoxy, in Staniloae’s view, is a calling to
renewal, it is a way of life responding to the needs of the world, in which the principles of its
inheritance ‘shine anew’. Furthermore, this inheritance does not belong only to the Orthodox but to
the whole of humanity, constituting a potential basis for renewal for the communities outside the
Orthodox Tradition. This view of an out-reaching all-renewing Orthodoxy appears here less
missionary and more vocational – intimately linked, that is, with the very essence and vocation of
Orthodoxy. Being Orthodox implies a responsibility and not simply a ‘gift’, and this responsibility is
53 Razvan Porumb, Orthodoxy and Ecumenism: Towards Active Metanoia (Doctoral Thesis, Anglia Ruskin University, 2014).
Soon to be published.
54 Illustrative in this case is a very popular Romanian religious proverb: ‘One should believe and not examine’.
55 The phrase belongs to Metropolitan Kallistos. See The Orthodox Way, p. 7-27.
56 Marc-Antoine Costa de Beauregard with Dumitru Staniloae, Mica dogmatica vorbita. Dialoguri la Cernica (Short spoken
dogmatics. Dialogues at Cernica) (Sibiu: Deisis, 2000), 41. My translation.
57 Ibidem.

14. not acquired automatically, according to Staniloae: ‘An effort has to be invested so that humans may
become worthy inheritors of the witness of the Apostolic age.’58
Orthodox theology, then, – practical or otherwise – needs to constantly ensure that the life of the
faithful within the Church, starting from their liturgical participation and down to their inter-
personal engagement in society does not succumb to a vision wherein the Orthodoxy of the faithful
is perceived as a safeguarded ‘birth right’ and in which their ‘mechanical’ participation within the life
of the Church as inherited from their forefathers becomes equated with Orthodox life. Life in Christ
needs to be viewed as a constant, dynamic, passionate engagement. Failure to do so constitutes one
of the main obstacles to a genuine dynamic and participatory life of the Orthodox in the activities of
the Church, and this bears particular relevance in the case of practical theology.
Inner life and monasticism
Prayer and spiritual life can then be seen both as a continuation of the prayerful state achieved
during the Eucharistic Liturgy and at the same time a preparation for the Liturgy, for which reason
liturgical life and spiritual life ca be referred to as interdependently related, if not synonymous
concepts. In prayer the human being ‘converses with God, he/she enters, through grace, into
communion with Him, and lives in God’.59
Accompanying prayer but somehow also incorporating it,
and as a preparation for the participation in the liturgical life of the Church is the practice of
withdrawn self-examination or of hesychast life. Hesychasm (from the Greek ἡσυχία, esychia,
meaning ‘silence’ or ‘stillness’) refers to the Eastern tradition of contemplation as practiced mostly in
monastic communities or by hermits, but which remains an injunction for all lay society as well. It is
based primarily on Christ’s instruction in Matthew 6:6: ‘But when you pray, go into your room and
shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will
reward you.’
This silent secluded prayer, which shuts the world out temporarily and focuses intently on our
‘secret’ dialogue with God, on our inner spiritual state – but is also implicitly a reflection on our
participation within the community – is the meeting point between laity and clergy, between the life
of the faithful in society and monasticism. It is the starting point, in the Orthodox view, of all life
within the Church. It is questionable of course how realistic the lay society’s commitment to
hesychasm can be, and to what degree they can aim to achieve that goal. Too literal an
interpretation could ultimately lead to a dysfunctional life within the society – as it has sometimes
happened. Lay people cannot be hesychasts in the same way monastics can, but they can use the
hesychast model of silent still prayer as a paradigm inspiring their spiritual lives.
Jillions emphasized that withdrawn prayer is not a form of quietism, but believes that ‘the invisible
but transformed inner life leads to visibly transformed action. […] Far from abandoning the world,
the transfiguration of the world – society, economics, politics, art, music – becomes possible through
Christian praying, living and acting from within this transfigured inner life’.60
As for hesychasm, this
is nothing else, writes Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, ‘but the spiritual method through
which the heart is cleansed so as to retain only the name of Christ within.’ But then he adds
something essential: ‘And precisely this activity takes on, at the same time, social character, for
when the human person is treated, he/she becomes at once the most sociable of persons’.61
This
58 Ibidem, 41f.
59 Teophan the Recluse, ‘What is prayer?’, in Chariton of Valamo (Igumen) (ed.), The Art of Prayer. An Orthodox Anthology
(London: Faber and Faber, 1966), 21.
60 Jillions, 166.
61 Hierotheos, Metropolitan of Nafpaktos, Orthodox Spirituality. A Brief Introduction (Levadia: Birth of the Theotokos
Monastery, 1994), 12.

15. vision is in close connection with the dynamic character of serving on the ‘altar of the brother’. Note
should be made, however, that prayer cannot be seen in the Orthodox tradition as isolated from the
sacraments of the Church. As emphasised earlier, the Orthodox are sceptical about one’s ability to
maintain a true prayerful state without the ever-inspiring ‘source’ that is the sacrament of the
Eucharist, without basing and arranging one’s life around the worship events of the Church.
When the Orthodox speak of practical theology, in any context – whether it’s Eastern or Western,
whether they refer mainly or only to clergy, or whether they refer to the entire society of the Church
– practical or pastoral tends to imply an interaction with the others, something that happens outside
of yourself, it means reaching out to the others. And yet the Orthodox tend to start from inner life,
from a withdrawal within. This points to an apparent paradoxical polarity: withdrawal from society,
or even rejection of the secular world, but, at the same time, an embracing of the secular world.
While these two directions may seem mutually exclusive they work together as a complementary
pair, as we will see below.
The most emphatic paradigm for this polarity – between the rejection and the embracing of the
secular world, between withdrawal from society and its sanctification by bringing Christ’s presence
in the midst of the secular world – is monasticism.62
Monasticism represents total and complete
devotion to a life in prayer, to a life revolving around the mysteries of the Church. But it is also seen
in the Orthodox context as a rejection of the secular world, world which is inherently bound to a
downward spiral and follows a life different from the life in Christ. Christ Himself tells His disciples
‘you are not of the world’ (John 15:19) and elsewhere He mentions ‘the ruler of this world’ in
ominous undertones (John 14:30).
Is this polarity easily reconcilable in the Orthodox world? The Orthodox believe it is, as they often
see the monastic as an essential model for their own growth within their society, a beacon of faith
and Christian commitment. Monasteries are not closed off to society, their withdrawal does not
imply that they are breaking off with the Church community. They are seen as simply drawing to one
side to pray, while society is invited outside of its comfort zone to explore such spaces where they
can encounter a different paradigm of Christian life. Monasteries interact with society, sometimes
very directly, by organising projects to help the poor, the sick and the suffering, according to the
model of the ancient Basiliades, which were essentially hospitals run by monastic communities (for
instance, in the current-day context, a Romanian monastery offers palliative care to a great number
of people in need – and many more such examples can be found in the Orthodox world). Certainly
there is a great deal of spiritual counselling taking place in monastic communities, and people from
the secular world often use them as alternatives to lay therapy programmes.
So this apparent contradiction is reconciled by a special dynamic that exists between monastic
communities and the secular world. People living in the secular society often see the task of
monastic communities as that of trained ‘special forces’, people who are specifically assigned to pray
continuously and to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice every single day for the sake of the world. In the
words of well-known elder, Father Paisios, monastics are ‘radio operators’ of the Mother Church.
‘[…] therefore if they depart from the world, they do it out of love […] in order to be in better
contact with God and help people more effectively.’63
Monks and nuns are the ‘elite commandos’ of
the Church – as some of my postgraduate Orthodox students put it without any hint of irony. By
withdrawing in the wilderness, the monk or the monastic society avoids the world, but continues to
pray and to offer both an intense liturgical life and a continual spiritual life in contemplation for the
62 This is not an exclusively Orthodox tension/dynamic. The works of Thomas Merton, for example, present a somewhat
similar vision from a Catholic perspective.
63 Quoted in Jiilions, 170.

16. world. Monasticism is not a paradigm whereby a group of people try to save themselves, but it
represents a structure that tries to save the world by withdrawing from the world.
Speaking about these two tendencies in the way the Church addresses the world, withdrawal and
involvement, Orthodox American scholar Stanley Harakas brought a very revealing vision, which
addresses not only the monastic universe, but the Orthodox society at large:
One [tendency] is a radical rejection of the world. In this vision only the “people of God” are holy, while
the world by definition finds itself in full submission to the demonic. […] The other tendency is
contrasted to this essential denigration and rejection of the world in what might be called the
incarnational vision of the world. Here, the Church sees itself as obligated to reach out to the world, to
be somehow a vehicle for injecting at least some measure of the divine in an environment which has
rejected it, but which cannot find its own purpose and fulfilment without it. Christian evangelisation
seeks to convert it; philanthropy to correct its worst effects upon the lives of people; and social concern
to modify its structures for the sake of fairness and justice.64
This incarnational vision of the world is therefore the arena wherein the Orthodox practical and
pastoral theological process takes place, the space in which philanthropy and social concern
constitute vehicles for inoculating God’s presence into the world. These two contrasting tendencies
have been held together by the Orthodox tradition, according to Harakas, in an ‘unresolved, yet
mutually influential paradox.’65
It is as though human persons travel tirelessly back and forth
between contemplative isolation and immersion in the perilous societal reality, bringing Christ’s
divine peace and love to the society, while at the same time carrying the community back with them
into the solitude of prayer. While in seclusion they can only find fullness by relating to the
community which speaks of and connects them with God’s triune society. When in the world they
feel like foreigners in an inauspicious secular land, seen as inherently rejecting the truths of faith.
They are nowhere at home, rotating continuously between the two realities and finding sense and
strength only in the element of communion – communion with God through the sacraments, as well
as the parallel communion with society through a prayerful ministry to the others.
A possible Orthodox model
Could a model then be defined for this Orthodox paradigm that converts all liturgical life in the
Church and all prayerful life towards social involvement and commitment, and, vice-versa, brings all
societal action back into the sacramental life of the Church? How can the basis of ‘practical’ theology
be something so hard to gauge or quantify as prayer, something so theologically abstract as
‘sacramental life’? In order to understand the ‘praxis’ element of prayer and liturgical life we would
argue that one needs to see Orthodox pastoral theology – indeed all theology – as a continuous
undulating inward-outward motion, never ceasing, never breaking up into its constitutive elements.
There is not an ‘inward’ without an ‘outward’, there is never any rest or status quo but always a
dynamic ceaseless pulsation. A model for such a dynamic model was proposed by Dyonisius the
Aeropagite (1st century AC) in a surprisingly explicit geometrical description:
The soul moves with a circular motion when it enters into itself and turns away from the outside world;
[…] when it distances itself from the multiplicity of external objects, so as to concentrate on itself.
When it has reached interior unity […] it is led towards the Beautiful-and-Good […]
The soul moves with a spiral motion, in so far as it is enlightened, in a way appropriate to it, by divine
knowledge.
64 Stanley S. Harakas, ‘Orthodoxy in America: Continuity, Discontinuity, Newness’, in Orthodox Perspectives on Pastoral
Praxis. Papers of the Intra-Orthodox Conference on Pastoral Praxis (24-25 September 1986), Theodore Stylianopoulos (Ed.),
(Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1988), 13f.
65 Ibidem, 14.

17. Its motion is finally longitudinal when, rather than return into itself and aim at spiritual union (for then
as we have just seen its motion is circular), it turns towards the things around it, and relies upon the
outer world as on a complex body of symbols, in order to rise to contemplation.66
The emphasis here is on contemplation and on achieving the union with God, but the three-stage
movement is in fact characteristic for any Orthodox approach to theology: 1. The movement within,
2. The movement within – pulled upwards, 3. The circular motion, freed of its inward centripetal
drive, turns longitudinally towards the external world. This is repeated in a cycle that characterises
the fundamental dynamic of Christian life: retreat to engage, an individual growth in Christ that is
shared with and ‘tranfered’ to one’s community. Humans move inward so that they can move
outward. They move upward so that they can move outward, just so as they move outward so that
they can ascend upward. Although Dyonisius mentions the outward motion as focusing on ‘things’
as ‘symbols’, the internal logic of Orthodox theology implicitly connects this outward movement
with human society. There cannot be theologically any action in isolation, but only within the
community of the Church, according to the Trinitarian model of God, in the image of whom we
function – as one multi-hypostatic being, a vision we encountered when addressing the Trinitarian
focus of Orthodox theology.
This could then constitute an Orthodox conceptual model of practical theology, of pastoral action, of
societal commitment and ministry (figure above): First the focus is on one’s inner exploration, on
one’s intimate dialogue with Christ in the Trinity. This is the stage of spiritual growth when the
faithful reassess their position in relation to God and their fellow humans. When one is ‘recharged’
with God’s gift of love, when one’s thoughts and feelings are re-calibrated and tuned according to
the pattern of the Triune love. This leads to the second stage, that of ascension to holiness – the
state of embarking on the journey of theosis, of acquiring God’s mind, of living our life in Christ and
in allowing Christ to dwell in us. This is the stage where we are invited into the life of the Trinity,
when human communion joins God’s communion as the ultimate fulfilment and plenitude of life.
This communitarian transcendence takes practitioners to the third stage, when rotation becomes
centrifugal (rather then centripetal) and embraces the world and society. This third stage brings
completion and gives meaning to the theological act, and is best encapsulated in the liturgical
gathering centred around the Eucharist and the sacraments, both inside the church within the walls
of the temple, but also outside the church in people’s homes and on the streets of the city.
Thus to quickly sum up the main aspects of the Orthodox paradigm of practical/pastoral theology, as
proposed in this study: The starting premise is that all theology is pastoral, emphasising the
Orthodox view on theology as a whole, wherein the spiritual and practical dimensions are entwined.
The theological concept of theosis, of deification is central as it justifies and nourishes the entire
spectrum of spiritual life. The Orthodox Church strives to become a communion of deification,
66 Quoted in Olivier Clement, The Roots of Christian Mysticism (New City: London, 2002), 198.

18. whence union with God starts in the communion with the other humans. However this love between
human beings finds its nourishment and perpetually grows through the sharing in the sacramental
life of the Church, in the Eucharistic Liturgy.
This sacramental life of the Church, in both its dimensions – the ‘sacrament of the altar’ and the
‘sacrament of the neighbour’ – brings together the liturgical life of the church and the societal
involvement of the faithful. The Orthodox regard any activity within the Church community –
including the pastoral or social one – as ‘implausible,’ should this not be related or connected to the
spiritual, liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. The ‘sacrament of the brother’ – the starting
point of any pastoral/societal process in the Orthodox context – has its roots in the Eucharistic
Liturgy which it continues and completes. By seeking and achieving deification, by entering into
communion with the head of the Church which is Christ, the faithful are implicitly entering into a
special and genuine communion with one another.
The Orthodox vision on pastoral theology is, in short, that of Church life as a community of continual
self-giving, a communion of all of its members with each other but also with Christ. This communion
is actualised through the sacrament of the Eucharist, which informs this communion and directs it
towards deification, the state in which every person eventually becomes ‘the most sociable of
persons.’67
One of the most well-known sayings of St Seraphim of Sarov has a direct relevance here:
‘Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.’68
The pastoral vector follows a
cycle that takes the faithful from inward prayer to social engagement and back, while at the same
time endeavouring to achieve a Godly state. Orthodox practical/pastoral theology takes place in a
sacramental universe wherein the faithful commute between the altar of the church and the altar of
their neighbours.
67 Hierotheos, 12.
68 Cited in Matt Woodley, The Folly of Prayer: Practicing the Presence and Absence of God (Westmont: IVP Books, 2009),
156.