ZIZIOULAS, JOHN

ZIZIOULAS, JOHN, Metropolitan of Pergamon, theologian (1936– ). For some time he was professor of systematic theology at the University of Glasgow, and more recently at Salonika and London universities. He has lectured at many institutions, including the Gregorian University, Rome, and King’s College. He has been deeply involved in the ecumenical movement (q.v.) and was involved in the work of the World Council of Churches’ Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM) steering group. In the late 1980s he was appointed cochairman of the commission to further Anglican-Orthodox dialogue and has also been a leader in the Orthodox-Roman Catholic dialogue. He is the author of Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (1985), which is particularly valuable for its keen analysis of ecclesiology (q.v.), and is soundly based on penetrating and original historical research. Zizioulas’s doctoral dissertation, regrettably untranslated, dealt with difficulties in the eucharistic ecclesiology of the Russian liturgist, Nikolai Afanasiev (q.v.), in a particularly illuminating manner. He is currently a titular metropolitan of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (q.v.), divides his time teaching at both the universities of Glasgow and Thessalonica, and is one of the most distinguished contemporary Orthodox theologians.