Mysteriological Theologizing about Man: Prolegomena to St Nicholas Cabasilas’ Ecclesial Anthropology

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Abstract:

The subject of the study is the ecclesiological paradigm within which St Nicholas Cabasilas based his anthropology as a Eucharistic conception of man ἐν Χριστῷ. As the point of departure for his study, the author takes the experiential approach to anthropology, which forms a specific theological discourse revealing the specific ecclesial experience and knowledge about man. In this context, the experiential knowledge about man stems from the experience of the life in Christ and cannot be reduced to some metaphysical theoreticology, but is essentially a Eucharistic and ecclesiological experience and knowledge about man. This experiential approach is adopted to examine the ecclesiological logos of St Nicholas Cabasilas’ Christocentric anthropology. In his thought, anthropology is revealed at two levels which are organically linked – the Christological and the ecclesiological. So, in Cabasilas, all the aspects of anthropology – iconological, hypostasitological etc, can only be correctly understood within the context and framework of ecclesiological and Eucharistic Christocentrism. This is the all-embracing horizon that makes Christocentric anthropology ecclesiologically relevant and functional. Anthropology thus functions as a charismatic ‘interiorized’ Christology and as an experiential ecclesiology in an emphatically Eucharistic and mysteriological context. Cabasilas’ ecclesial anthropology finds its ‘applicability’ in the mysteriological life of the Church as the manifestation and actualization of the new ecclesial mode of existence. The sacramental mysteries are the ways in which man receives his being and hypostasis κατὰ τὸν Χριστόν, and is granted the charismatic riches of the life in Christ and living in the ecclesial Body of Christ through the ultimate mystery of the divine Eucharist. This mysteriological perspective enables Cabasilas to reveal the organic synthesis of ecclesiology and anthropology in a Eucharist key, and to articulate an anthropology which is not only synergetic but also hierurgic, liturgical and Eucharistic par excellence.

Keywords:

man ἐν Χριστῷ, life in Christ, experiential and mystagogical approach to anthropology, Christocentric anthropology, ecclesiological and Eucharistic Christocentrism, charismatic ‘interiorized’ Christology, theology pertaining to human experience, Eucharistic anthropology, Christological and ecclesial premises of anthropology, anthropological content of the mysteries, κατὰ τὸν Χριστόν, Eucharistic or ecclesial mode of existence, synergy, ascetic life, Eucharistic anthropology.

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