TheTheolOfMetropolitanJohnZizioulas (CHST 7130)

Term: Academic Year 2025-2026 Spring

Faculty

	Maxim VasiljevicShow MyInfo popup for Maxim Vasiljevic
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Schedule

Thu, 2:10 PM - 4:30 PM (1/20/2026 - 5/11/2026) Location: MAIN ONL SYNC

Description

This seminar explores the Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizioulas (1931–2023), in dialogue with contemporary Christian and philosophical thought through an integrated study of his life and theology. Tracing his path from Kozani to Athens, Geneva, Harvard, Edinburgh–Glasgow, Rome, Thessaloniki, and finally the Phanar, students examine how formative experiences shaped Zizioulas’ synthesis of personhood and communion, eucharistic ecclesiology and episcopacy, pneumatology, eschatological hermeneutics, and primacy/synodality. Readings include Being as Communion, Communion and Otherness, Remembering the Future, and key ecumenical texts (Ravenna, Crete, For the Life of the World), with particular attention to ecology, bioethics, and major theological developments of the 20th and 21st centuries. The course culminates in a “bio-theology dossier” that integrates primary sources with a critical biographical timeline.