Christos Yannaras's View on the History of Western Theology from St. Augustine to Nietzsche

Abstract

The article analyzes the anti-Western and radically anti-ecumenical theology of the Greek Orthodox thinker Christos Yannaras and his idea of gradual centuries-old deviation of Western theology from the authentic tradition of the early Church Fathers. The study touches upon such subjects as intellectual influences on the process of formation of Yannaras’s thought, the role of the apophatic mystical tradition in Christian theology, and the basic roots of his radical anti-Scholasticism. The article also contains the detailed survey of Yannaras’s analysis of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’-concept as the natural final point of the Western intellectual discourse’s degradation and dechristianization. There’s also a set of counterarguments from Yannaras’s opponents – Eastern Orthodox theologians Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Vasilios Makrides – who stand for dialogue, openness, ecumenical activity and inclusiveness of the modern Orthodox Church and reject any attempts of its intellectual self-isolation and solipsization.

Keywords

• anti-Westernism
• apophaticism
• Augustine
• “death of God”
• Nietzsche
• Orthodoxy