And indeed, the disputes about the Person of Jesus Christ, which continued during the first centuries of Christian history, did not have an abstract, academic character. For the words and deeds of Jesus have different significance and different powers, depending on whether they come from an ordinary man or from the Second Person of the Divine Trinity, whether they are regarded as a mere episode in human history or as the unique words and deeds of the Lord of History Himself.

Does God save man only by transmitting His commands from heaven, as Judge and Master, or does He identify Himself with man out of His love for man and reveal Himself to us as "living love"? Disputes about the Person of Jesus Christ have given rise to different approaches. But can this dispute be resolved by a simple reference to historical data? Of course not, for the historical evidence of Jesus not only "constitutes" history, but also calls for the transformation of history, the liberation of man from the categories and conditions of the fallen world. Their true content and significance cannot be reduced to "historical facts" considered from the position of an "impartial observer". Even Jesus' closest disciples understood the meaning of His ministry only after the Spirit had taught them "all things."

Undoubtedly, the knowledge of Christ is based on the experience of eyewitnesses. But Christian Tradition trusts their testimonies only because the Holy Spirit made them apostles: it was He who taught them "all things" and gave them the ability to comprehend the true meaning of the historical events in which they participated. The testimony of the apostles does not at all claim to be the kind of infallibility that rationalist criticism denies them. The question is not posed in such a way that the written testimonies of Mark, Luke, or Matthew, taken separately or in their traditional general opposition to the theological approach of John, contain the concept of Christ offered to us by the Church as true. Rather, on the contrary, the New Testament as a whole corresponds to the vision of the Church, which has a host of witnesses and complementary theologians recognized as such in accordance with the single criterion of the Holy Spirit living in the Church. A historical-critical approach can and should be applied to the study of apostolic testimonies, but it is necessary to take into account not only the views of each of the authors of the New Testament books individually, but the holistic vision of the New Testament, which is a collection of complementary testimonies. Moreover, the New Testament gospel cannot be separated from the ways in which it has been proclaimed in different historical epochs and in the context of different cultures. In order for the Greeks to understand the New Testament, it was not enough to write it in Greek: preachers had to use the categories that were familiar to their hearers.

The present work is an attempt to show that the Church's Tradition in its Christological definitions fully corresponds to the New Testament.

This is possible because Tradition is a continuous sequence not only of ideas, but also of experience. It presupposes not only intellectual coherence, but also live communication on the paths of comprehension of the truth. Thus the truth that is comprehended is not the truth about certain objects, since God Himself is not an object known by the senses or reason, but about God and man. Indeed, for the Greek Fathers, "theology" was inseparable from anthropology.

It is my deep conviction that Byzantine Christological thought, which has nothing in common with the secretly Monophysite, Hellenized form of Christianity as it is sometimes perceived, is in fact capable of satisfying the basic requirements of the modern theological search put forward by the new theology.

A person is truly a man only when he participates in the Divine life. However, this participation is not a supernatural gift, but the very essence of human nature.

There is an extensive literature on the spiritual tradition of Eastern Christianity, on Eastern monasticism and asceticism. Unfortunately, very often this spiritual tradition is considered independently of the biblical, New Testament, i.e. Christological and pneumatological categories and as a result is interpreted as esoteric or mystical. For example, the doctrine of deification often becomes a victim of such a distortion. In examining the Christology of the Byzantine period, the question "Who is Christ?" must precede our understanding of Paul's teaching on life "in Christ."

Since Christology is necessarily soteriological in nature, I have not confined myself strictly to Christological concepts as such. In some cases, it seems necessary to answer the question: how was salvation understood by authors who had a significant influence on the general trend of theological thought, but did not write directly about Christ? In addition, a Christological explanation is also necessary when the understanding of salvation is not based on ecclesiastical Christology. In any case, authors such as Evagrius and Pseudo-Dionysius have had a tremendous – if negative – influence on the development of Christological thought, and I cannot fail to pay special attention to them.

Christology in the fifth century

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 opened a new epoch in the history of Eastern Christian thought. In its representativeness, in the number of participants and in the scale of discussions, it met all the conditions that a truly Ecumenical Council had to satisfy at that time. At the same time, it was this Council that was the cause of the schism of the Eastern Church that continues to this day.

In the pre-Chalcedonian period, the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools represented the two centers of theological thought. However, with the conclusion of the Christological controversies of the fifth century, none of the schools retained its specifically independent direction. The theological authority of the Antiochian school was never restored after the blows inflicted on it by St. Cyril of Alexandria. As for the Alexandrian one, it for the most part, with the exception of the insignificant pro-imperial group of the Melkites, followed the leaders of the anti-Chalcedonian schism and isolated itself in the Monophysite confession of faith. The Persian invasion and Arab conquests, for their part, put an end to the existence of independent centers of church life in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Constantinople, the magnificent capital of the empire and an important center of ecclesiastical life in the East, did not produce an original theological school: intellectually it was strongly dependent on Alexandria and, to an even greater extent, on Antioch. But the circumstances that developed after the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon placed Constantinople in the position of arbiter between East and West and led to the creation of a theology of reconciliation and unification. This type of theology was approved by the emperor, who was not satisfied with the fact that the emergence of the Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian parties divided the empire. Such was the first task of "Byzantine" theology proper. It can be said that the Christological controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries shaped the Byzantine type of theological thinking and predetermined its main theme until the ninth century.

During the time separating Chalcedon from the beginning of the era of Justinian, Byzantine theology managed to carry out a creative synthesis of the Alexandrian and Antiochian traditions. He did not limit himself to a simple combination of heterogeneous elements, but created a new direction of thought, which modern Western researchers, following J. Le Bon, have dubbed "neo-Chalcedonianism." Western historians assert that the new trend, which interpreted the results of the Council of Chalcedon exclusively in the light of Alexandrian theology and in the terms of St. Cyril of Alexandria (somewhat ambiguous) and attributed undeservedly exaggerated importance to Alexandria, failed to reunite the Monophysites with the Church.

If we consider the period of Justinian's reign in isolation, such a conclusion may seem justified. However, with a broader approach, it can be seen that the theology of the Justinian era and the decisions of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (the last and unchanging expression of Neo-Chalcedonian theology) already contain the possibility of new paths of theological development, which led to the creation of the Christological system of St. Maximus the Confessor, in which the positive elements of the Antiochian tradition regain their true meaning. The Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon and the two Councils of Constantinople (553 and 681) represent the great Byzantine Christological synthesis, and the further development of Orthodox theology must be considered in the light of this synthesis.