Analogio, Church and Secularism, issue 4 (2003), p. 171.
The 4th issue of Analogio quarterly edition of the Holy Metropolis of Servia and Kozani, has as its main subject the catagogic pre-conditions of secularism as alienation of the ecclesiastic vision of the Kingdom. In the foreword there is an introductive reflection on the tribute of the issue, which is illustrated with the artistic work of Theocharis More.
In a brief text, “Of the world/ not of the world”, Christos Yannaras defines the Church as freedom from nature, loving trust, self-giving, while the opposites, submission to natural necessity, demanding self-existence and the impetus for self-protection signal secularism.
Fr. Philotheos Pharos considers as symptomatology of the secularism of Church the authoritative phenomenon, the legalism and pietism, the absence of love and freedom. This symptomatology concerns the “Christians” themselves and especially the “Christian shepherds”.
A path through the double danger of “right” and “left” secularism is considered the authentic ecclesiastic event by Fr. Vassilios Thermos. Left secularism exists when the ascetic ethos is lost, as well as the eschatological vigilance before the world, while right or “pious” secularism appears when traditionalism imposes the illiberal observance of signifiers ignoring the depth of the signified of the ecclesiastic event.
The dangers of secularism for orthodox monasticism are examined by monk Moses of Mount Athos, while Fr. Adamantios Augoustidis discusses the subject “secularism and conservatism”. Thanasis N. Papathanasiou in his essay, on the occasion of Peter’s temptation during the Transfiguration, “καλόνεστινημάςώδεείναι”, focuses on the refusal of the eschatological missionary faring of the Church as a “special case of secularism”. Fr. Micheal Kardamakis deals with the difference between Church and religion, and between sanctity and religiosity, with the measure and criterion of eschatology and the aim to clarify the danger of secularism.
On the occasion of the work of the philosopher Ludvig Feuerbach, Fr. Nikolaos Loudovikos explores contemporary attempts of the western intellectual history to disengage from the ontology and history of Power as positive aspects for the beginning of dialogue with orthodox theology.
In the article “Church and Law in a secularized society” Panos Nikolopoulos, after a brief historical retrospection and an examination of the present problems in the relationship between the Church and the State and particularly the issues related to the Law, puts forward proposals for an alternative pastoral tactic so that the traps of secularism be avoided in the meeting of the Church with the sphere of the Law.
The chief-editor of the journal Theophilos Abatzidis took an interview from the Archimandrite Arsenios Meskos on the subject “Secularism and in-Christosis of the Church”. Meskos stresses that the Church is led to the margin of life as it has progressively lost its dynamics and fossilized its living tradition, while Stavros Yagazoglou, in the unity of the theological essays, deals historically and theologically with the development of feminist theology and the issue of the ordination of women in orthodoxy and the west, criticizing the admission of sociological issues in ecclesiology as another tendency of secularism.
The journal is complemented with the usual material, Anthology of poets, Synaxarion, Idiomela, timely and untimely and Vivliostasion.