This session will explore the relationship between vulnerability and agency in Orthodox Christianity, topics that intersect in important and urgent ways in contemporary Orthodox Christian theological anthropology, ecclesiology, and pneumatology. Papers will address the potential of the works of Maximus the Confessor to respond to abuse and trauma in the Orthodox Church; the theological anthropology of Maximus the Confessor as the foundation for a disability-positive virtue ethic; and an analysis of Irenaeus of Lyon’s trinitarian image of the Son and Holy Spirit as “the Father’s Two Hands” as received by Sergei Bulgakov, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Sarah Coakley, and Shelly Rambo, that uncovers the role of the Spirit as freely entering into a “vulnerability” in solidarity with the world that is analogous to the suffering Christ’s.
Clergy sexual abuse and misconduct in ungodly, deeply wrong, and extremely harmful not only to the victims but entire communities and diocese. Clergy sexual abuse happens in the Orthodox Church and it is hardly a rare occurrence. According to some reports, 20% of pastors (of all Christian groups) have misused their power and position to sexual abuse or sexually harass victims in their congregations. It is estimated that 90-95% of victims of clergy sexual abuse are adult women congregants, although most media stories report child victims of clergy sexual abuse. Women are abused three to four times more than children by clergy, making women the “silent” majority used as prey for abusive shepherds. I propose to address this issue in a multi-step process including truth telling, naming the harm, accepting the suffering, and relying on Maximus the Confessor’s practical advice and modern methods to bring restoration and healing to all.
A taxonomy of worth which attributes greater value to rationality and independent agency is often assumed of Patristic figures like Maximus the Confessor. This taxonomy renders persons who do not display independent agency—including those who rely on caregivers, medical or ambulatory devices, or other daily supports—less than fully human. Such a taxonomy is a feature of Aristotelian virtue ethics, so even disability theologians like Shane Clifton and Hans Reinders contend with hierarchical representations of human capacities and scales of value for achieving eudaimonia. I argue that Maximus does not replicate the Aristotelian taxonomy of worth, but instead inverts this model, creating a model for agency which emphasizes the mediation of others in the facilitation of each person, distributing agency to trusted others. I argue that Maximus’ distributed agency forms a latent social model for disability that could provide an alternative disability-positive virtue ethic from the Christian East.
The paper considers the Holy Spirit’s “groaning in labor pains” in Paul’s letter to the Romans in light of Irenaeus of Lyon’s trinitarian image of the Son and Holy Spirit as “the Father’s Two Hands,” and of his maxim, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive, and the fullness of life is the vision of God.” How do these mutually related principles of God’s revelatory action and humanity’s response function when the path of faith is blinded by suffering and life is experienced as tragically less-than-full? The thesis is that the Spirit freely enters into a “vulnerability” in solidarity with the world that is analogous to the suffering Christ’s, which constructively enlarges the scope of Irenaeus’ two principles. Sergei Bulgakov’s reception of Irenaeus’ “two-hand” trinitarianism is compared with that of Hans Urs von Balthasar and then expanded in dialogue with Sarah Coakley and Shelly Rambo.