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Born in Greece in 1931, Zizioulas taught at the universities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Thessaloniki, and was known for his theology of communion, which is also referred to using the Greek word koinonia.
In his opening address at the 5-7 November conference, Patriarch Bartholomew paid tribute to the significant contribution of Zizioulas to the ecumenical movement and inter-Christian dialogues.
He referred to the “decisive role” of Zizioulas in the secretariat of the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches (WCC) from November 1967 to September 1970, and as co-chair of the international theological dialogues of the Orthodox Church with the Anglican Communion and with the Roman Catholic Church.
The eucharistic ecclesiology of Zizioulas deepened biblical and patristic ecclesiological tradition and “constitutes a valuable contribution of Orthodox theology to the contemporary global theological dialogue,” said Patriarch Bartholomew.
He referred also to the work of Zizioulas in developing a theological understanding of ecology with direct reference to the holy eucharist. “No discussion on the contribution of Christianity to the protection of the natural environment can ignore his contribution and imprint,” said the Ecumenical Patriarch.
Other speakers at the 5-7 November conference included His Eminence Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon and His Eminence Metropolitan Job of Pisidia.
The author of many academic articles in different languages, Zizioulas was elected by the Ecumenical Patriarchate as Metropolitan of Pergamon 1986, and in 2014 he was elevated to Elder Metropolitan.
Rev. Prof. Dr Martin Illert, WCC programme executive for Faith and Order, described in his presentation to the conference how Zizioulas’ concept of koinonia had played an important role at the WCC’s Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order at Santiago de Compostela in 1993.
The vision of koinonia outlined by Metropolitan John “is a call to witnessing and confessing our Christian faith together,” according to Illert, who is also a professor at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. This perspective underscored the importance of Christian unity and witness in addressing contemporary global challenges.
Metropolitan John saw such challenges as including ecological crisis, bioethical questions raised by rapid progress in science and technology, and the challenge of religious fanaticism, said Illert, and he opened up new eco-theological perspective by emphasizing the cosmic dimension of the eucharist.
Such insights are an important resource, Illert continued, for the WCC’s Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity, on which the WCC embarked following its assembly in Karlsruhe in 2022.
The conference was organized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in collaboration with the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and the Center for Orthodox Christian Studies of Fordham University (New York, USA).
