Remembering Christos Yannaras (1935-2024)

This is an extract of the article published by Jonathan Cole for The Political Theology Network.

The Greek philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras passed away at the age of 89 on 24 August 2024. My journey, and unlikely friendship, with Christos began in the most innocuous of ways. In 2015, a year into a PhD on the political theology of Oliver O’Donovan at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia, a friend and mentor of mine casually mentioned the name Christos Yannaras to me. He assumed that I must of course be familiar with Yannaras and his work as a Greek speaker studying theology. I confess that I had never heard the name. As it happened, I was about to travel to Athens with my Greek wife and then two-year old son to visit her family during the Greek summer. So, I decided to buy a couple of books by this Yannaras in Athens and to make them my holiday reading. I purchased Against Religion and Relational Ontology and promptly devoured them. I recall receiving curious and baffled looks by Greek passengers on the ferry that took us from Athens to the island of Paros, where we spent a week, as I sat there, an Australian of Anglo-decent, reading a book called Οντολογία της Σχέσης (Relational Ontology).

I was immediately taken by Yannaras’ style and approach, which I found novel, refreshing and challenging, particularly as someone formed in a very different theological tradition: a distinctly Australian brand of Anglican Evangelical Christianity. Once back in Australia, I ordered more Yannaras books and soon found myself in the strange situation of writing a PhD on an English, Anglican political and moral theologian while at the same time effectively doing an unofficial shadow PhD on the Eastern Orthodox philosopher-theologian Christos Yannaras. Many thought I was actually doing my PhD on him.

After reading several more of his books, I wrote a letter to Christos expressing my gratitude for his work and telling him about the impact it had had on me. I first reached out to Norman Russell, the person responsible for translating the majority of Christos’s books, and thus the person who more than any other has made his thought accessible to English-speakers, asking if he could put me in touch with Christos, which he kindly did. Before long, I received a moving hand-written letter in return that marked the beginning of a special bond and friendship that defied our geographical, generational, cultural and theological distance.

In March 2017, Christos and I had our first face-to-face encounter at a conference at Cambridge University called “Polis, Ontology, Ecclesial Event: Engaging with Christos Yannaras’ Thought.” I gave a paper called “The Problematic of Greek Identity and Christos Yannaras’ Quest for a Politics of Authentic Existence.” Christos and I had already begun a regular correspondence by the time of the conference and he had read and commented on my paper before I gave it. Christos had always craved an engagement of his work outside and beyond the Greek and Orthodox worlds in which he was a significant, yet controversial, figure. He was genuinely moved by my interest in and engagement with his work. It was the kind of engagement he had always desired, yet had rarely received until then.

To read the complete article, please go to The Political Theology Network.