Deification through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology

of Salvation by Khaled Anatolios (review)

Daniel Galadza

Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies, Volume 5, Number 1, 2022, pp.

150-152 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/joc.2022.0011

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/875114
150 JOURNAL OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN STUDIES

is a special gift. Nowadays, in the context of Paul Evdokimov, as set out in the final pages
fewer priests, most Catholic parish clergy of the substantive part of this book.
live on their own, and their solitary, celibate The importance of this publication is
existence is for many of them a cross that that it will help members of both the West-
does not in the least help them to be more ern Rite and the Eastern Rite of the Catholic
like Christ. Church realize that the very different disci-
This last point is my own—this book pline relating to marriage and priesthood in
does not make aspersions about celibate the Eastern churches and their offshoots in
priests. Instead, in addition to pieces by aca- our Western world is not some exotic rem-
demics, it offers a presentation by a number nant or historical accident, but an ideal that
of married clergy of the Eastern Rite of their exalts marriage and, in consequence, priest-
own experiences in combining priestly duties hood, and is certainly more solidly based on
with the demands made on them by wife and tradition than the mainstream Catholic tra-
children. Unassailable testimony is presented dition of the West.
here on how these clergy learn from their re- I offer one final point of my own. Ev-
sponsibilities as married men to understand dokimov is cited for condemning the notion
and guide the laity better than most celibates that the sexual life is incompatible with a fully
can hope to do. As for the help that the wife developed spiritual life. If this is indeed true,
of a priest can give the parish, a contribution we must question the rules in the Eastern
by a former Anglican bishop, Edwin Barnes, tradition that deny remarriage to widowed
is just as enthusiastic as the Eastern Rite con- priests and restrict episcopacy to celibates.
tributors. Mention is also made, however, in
several of the pieces of the possible downside Richard Price
for the children of married priests, who see Royal Holloway, University of London,

less of their fathers than most children and United Kingdom

whose social life is dominated by church and

parish to an extent that they sometimes find
a burden. This is a small point that I men- Khaled Anatolios. Deification through the
tion to illustrate how this book is a realistic Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of
survey, albeit with an unmistakable message, Salvation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
and not a mere piece of propaganda. 2020. 464 pp.
This book is particularly directed at
those Eastern Catholic communities in the The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
diaspora that have for a century followed explains that the Incarnation was “for our
to the letter the Vatican ban on a married salvation.” What the essence of this sal-
clergy and have yet to revise their discipline vation is, and how it comes about, is the
in the light of Pope Francis’s reform. A wise focus of Father Khaled Anatolios’s Deifica-
contribution by Thomas J. Loya, himself tion through the Cross, which examines the
a celibate priest descended from married implications of Christian doctrine regard-
ones, insists that the return to a largely mar- ing the life, death, and Resurrection of
ried priesthood must not be a secularization Jesus Christ for academic theology and for
but conjoined to a truly Christian vision of Christian life. The centrality of salvation to
apostleship, where spiritual marriage and fa- theological discourse should be apparent,
therhood must be lived by both married and but in his introduction Anatolios shows how
celibate clergy; these two categories of priest certain theologians have overemphasized or
should not be set over against each other. This avoided one or another prominent aspect of
valuable insight receives further expression the Gospel in their construction of soteri-
in the teaching of the Orthodox theologian ological “models” (i.e., ransom, atonement,
 BOOK REVIEWS 151

penal substitution, satisfaction, etc.), often through and through” (92), joyfully inter-
without elaborating upon any experiential twining the salvific efficacy of Christ’s death
access to salvation (23). Instead of adding and Resurrection in its soteriology of ex-
yet another model to the “cafeteria buf- change. The lens of “doxological contrition”
fet,” Anatolios proposes deification as the through which Anatolios views the liturgical
content and goal of salvation, made possi- hymns offers a constructive development
ble by the Son of God becoming a human and perhaps unintentional synthesis of re-
being who suffers the Passion, dies on the cent studies in liturgy not referenced in this
cross, and rises from the dead, granting book—for example, the “penitential self ” in
victory over death and freedom from disor- Derek Krueger’s Liturgical Subjects: Chris-
dered passions; this inspires repentance and tian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the For-
rejection of sin in light of the joyous news mation of the Self in Byzantium (University
of Christ’s already accomplished salvation, of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), and the human
leading to human deification, which con- person’s “doxological vocation” in Brian A.
sists of the glorification of God. Butcher’s Liturgical Theology after Schme-
The thread running through the whole mann: An Orthodox Reading of Paul Ricoeur
book is the “dramatic synthesis of the dialec- (Fordham University Press, 2018).
tic of sorrow over sins and the celebration This book’s rich presentation of doxo-
of divine glory” (81), which Anatolios calls logical contrition offers the reader immense
“doxological contrition.” The soteriology of satisfaction but nevertheless leaves avenues
doxological contrition is constructed in the of investigation open in the realm of lit-
first part of the book on the basis of liturgi- urgy and contemporary Eastern Orthodox
cal experience, Scripture (with a critique of theology. Anatolios points to discoveries
the historical-critical method), and conciliar of explicit correlations in a variety of pa-
Trinitarian and Christological statements tristic authors between contrition, doxol-
from the seven ecumenical councils, before ogy, and Christ’s salvific work that become
building a systematic theology of doxologi- obvious once the reader knows to look for
cal contrition in the second part, which ex- them (222–23), but he sets aside the task
amines sin and reintegration into the life of of unpacking these discoveries for a future
the Trinity. His main thesis is that “Christ’s book. The correspondence between the con-
salvific work includes a representative and tent of Byzantine hymns and soteriological
vicarious repentance on our behalf that has themes throughout the book are instruc-
as its points of departure and destination the tive; an examination of the liturgical and
communion with divine glory” (141). biblical sources in part 1 using, for example,
The starting point for his theology of the recently published thesis of Hieromonk
salvation is the Byzantine Liturgy. Anatolios Macarius (Gerard Bonnet) of Simonope-
begins with an analysis of what the prayers tra, in Mystagogie du Grand Carême: Essai
(more precisely hymns) from Great Lent, de théologie du temps liturgique (Monastère
Holy Week, Pascha, and Pentecost say about de Simonos Pétra, 2018), could reveal even
repentance and salvation, using the lens of a more connections between the liturgical and
“worshipper-response” approach. Doxologi- scriptural sources employed by Anatolios
cal contrition expressed in first-person voice and tangled among the various layers of the
hymns, sung by the “ideal worshipper” (68), Triodion that Schmemann’s Great Lent could
conveys the paradoxical experience and “dia- only allude to.
lectical simultaneity of lost and found glory” The author classifies his work as a “Byz-
(84), so that “the Byzantine liturgy does not antine ‘Eastern Christian’ theology of salva-
prescribe doxology along with contrition; it tion . . . not founded on an a priori dismissal
leads one into a contrition that is doxological of all things Western” (38–39). Indeed, the
152 JOURNAL OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN STUDIES

author’s Melkite Greek Catholic perspective more along the lines of an “Eastern Catholic
lends itself to an examination of the doc- theology,” as articulated by Robert F. Taft, SJ,
trine of the “first” seven ecumenical councils and others (see papers from a colloquium
alongside judiciously chosen representa- on this topic in Logos: A Journal of Eastern
tives of Eastern and Western theology. The Christian Studies 39, no. 1 [1998]). Regard-
writings of Gregory Palamas and Nicholas less of the “Eastern” designation, Anatolios’s
Cabasilas, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas are resulting soteriology, grounded in fidelity to
presented along with comparisons of mod- the entire scriptural witness and tradition
ern and contemporary approaches, such as (which are seen as normative), its herme-
liberation theology, leading to a synthesis of neutic of charity, and its emphasis on life ap-
Western (exemplified by Matthias Scheeben) plication and experience (25–31 and 423), is
and Eastern (as articulated by Dumitru St- a work to be accepted and acclaimed by the
aniloae) Trinitarian theology of “mutual glo- whole of Christian tradition.
rification” and perichōrēsis (chap. 4), to which For those familiar with the Byzantine
humanity is invited through service to God, liturgical tradition, the book will be an aid
participation in the Eucharist, and adoration to stop and contemplate the meaning of
through love of God’s commandments (chap. phrases of hymns learned by rote and sung
5). Humanity is saved from sin and for glo- daily in worship; for those unfamiliar with
rification of God by Christ’s inclusive doxo- liturgical prayer, the emphasis on the expe-
logical repentance (chaps. 6 and 7). Anatolios rience of corporate worship as integral to a
concludes by examining liberation theology systematic soteriology will be illuminating.
(with references to justice and solidarity in The author’s style is clear, with signposts
Byzantine hymns from the Triodion), Girar- throughout, making each chapter an acces-
dian mimetic theory, and penal substitution; sible presentation of an aspect of the soteri-
he finds commonalities to affirm and assim- ology of doxological contrition that could be
ilate into the Christian doctrine of salvation read individually as part of an undergraduate
(chap. 8). syllabus; it will certainly be devoured from
The resulting synthetic view is not a cover to cover as a theological handbook for
work of confessional “Eastern Orthodox” all types of readers, from patristic scholar to
theology and does not spend much time parish worshipper. Deification through the
on modern Orthodox thinkers’ soteriology Cross is serious, systematic scholarship that
(Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky is men- does not distance itself from the implica-
tioned, but not John Meyendorff or John tions of its conclusions for human suffering
Romanides), focusing rather on the Ortho- today—the book was completed during the
dox approach to expressing and testing faith beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic.
in prayer and worship. The comparison of
Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox so- Daniel Galadza
teriologies seeking commonality is perhaps University of Toronto, Canada