His Eminence the Most Reverend Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) visited Project SOW at the National Hellenic Research Foundation for a very interesting and fruitful discussion on issues concerning the modern dialog between science and religion in the Orthodox world.
The discussion first focused on the tradition of the Fathers of the Church, with His Eminence putting weight on a historical approach rather than a more systematic one. He stressed that Orthodoxy can have a very fruitful contribution to the dialog between science and religion, because of its rich theological tradition on the Creation, which has developed throughout the centuries. This tradition may be extremely useful for issues such as the ecology crisis.
Concerning the inter-Church dialog, (especially with the Roman Catholic and the Anglican Churches) it is interesting to note, in regard to the science-religion dialog, that one of the main topics is the question of the nature of Man; i.e. there seems to be a transposition from ecclesiology to anthropology. This highlights two issues closely connected to the Orthodox tradition: I) the meaning of the word kardia (heart) in Orthodox theology, where the specific term, apart from the organ of the human body, refers to the spiritual center of Man that binds the body with the soul, signifying Man's spiritual orientation. II) the meaning of the word nous (mind), which in the texts of the Fathers does not only signify the intellectual abilities of Man, but also the capability to have a theoretical insight of the Cosmos, through which direct association with God can be established.
His Eminence also referred to another anthropological concept taken from the tradition of the Fathers, which is no other than that of pathos (passion), stressing that for Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas passion, which may, among other, take meanings from fury of love to strong affliction, is something morally neutral, which becomes positive only through its use.
