Analogio, East and West, issue 1 (2001), p. 235.
The 1st issue of Analogio magazine, a quarterly edition of the Holy Metropolis of Servia and Kozani, has as its main subject the outlining of the relations between West and East. In the introductory note, the Most Reverend Metropolitan of Servia and Kozani Mr. Ambrosios Yakalis, defines the necessity and the principles that determined the publication of the magazine, while he provides an introductive reflection on tribute of the issue, which is illustrated by works of Fr. Stamatis Skleris.
The tribute is preceded by a sermon of His Grace Metropolitan of Servia and Kozani Mr. Dionysiosn Psarianos, titled “Time-honoured respect”, where it is stressed that Orthodoxy as the Church and Body Christ and not as secular authority or government service is not “a memory of time gone by, but our life today and the promise of tomorrow”,especially under the treaty of the European unification, which he characterises as a mainly spiritual matter.
Next comes the essay “East and West…” by Marios Begzos, where the theological, philosophical and historical pretexts for differentiation of the eastern from the western culture are investigated. He stresses that we should not raise this differentiation to opposition, adversity or competition.
In the essay of Fr. Nikolaos Loudovikos “The ancient Greek, Byzantine and European sense of self in dialogue”, which is a study on the history of ideas, he presents the partialities of the western metaphysical tradition for the individual ego (self) either from the perspective of idealistic disdain or from the perspective of an “over-elation” of it, as well as the attempts of the philosophical synthesis and overcoming of the partialities. The eastern orthodox theology (Maximus, Palamas), in which the complete self is achieved in a eucharistic frame of overcoming individualism and gregarious sociability, is put forward for exploitation.
The eucharistic relation with God and the fellowmen as the antipode of the contemporary blissful practice is proposed in the article “Orthodoxy and Europe” by Kostas Karras, while the term “Modern World” is introduced by Ioannis Petrou as a tool of Theology for analyzing reality, in replacement of the traditional dipole “East-west”.
Fr. Georgios Tsetsis makes a brief historical retrospection of the orthodox participation in the World Council of Churches, while Archimandrite Gregorios Papathomas examines the parameters of reintroducing the “metropolitan system” of structure of the orthodox Church in the new conditions set by the European unification.
In his article titled “The phenomenon of racism: European and Greek experience. Presuppositions for the cultural unification of Europe” Zissis Papadimitriou calls the West-European societies to evolve consciously into a bulwark of human rights against neo-racism.
Michalis Papakonstantinou negotiates the historical course and future prospect of Greece and the Balkans, our “unknown neighbourhood” as he names them, while “The national and cultural particularities in the prospect of United Europe” is the theme of the interview that the chief-editor of the journal, Theophilos Abatzidis took from Anna Diamantopoulou. Also, an interview of Noam Chomsky titled “The division of the world serves only the elite of the West” is re-published.
Two special theological studies come next, the first by the Reverend Metropolitan of Servia and Kozani Mr. Ambrosios Yakalis, titled “Observations in the Triadology and pneumatology of Basil the Great” and the second by Stavros Yagazoglou, on the topic “Community of eschata. The theological presuppositions of the Church as an eschatological community”. The journal is complemented with the usual material, Idiomela and Bibliostasion.