Virtue for Truth

Theological and Anthropological Foundations
of Aretology

In the experience of patristic theology, the point of departure for aretology is faith as the principle of Christian hypostasis and mode of living, as an anthropological and ecclesiological criterion for every authentic ecclesiastical virtue. The foundation and fullness of virtue is love as the aim ofevery existential effort of man to realize the personal mode of existence as a dialogical-koinonic event. The ontological consubstantiality and perichoresis of all virtues in love turn them into tropoi (ways) of realization of the agapic mode of existence as anthropological and ecclesiological limits of the truth about person, and as a summary of all anthropological and ecclesiological aspects of aretology. This is why patristic theology sees in the commandment to love God and one᾽s fellowman the foundation and ultimate expression of every aretology, which allows for its articulation as experiential apophatic and dialogical ethics of one᾽s fellowman. In this perspective, virtue manifests the truth about personal existence and the mode of living according to truth
only within the experiential dialogical relation-communion with God and one᾽s fellowman in the Church, only as complete dedication to the other in devotion and love. Aretology opens up to Orthodox theology the possibility to ground the ecclesiological ethics of love of one᾽s fellowman in the realm of the synthesis of anthropology and ecclesiology, and to reveal the truth about the incarnation of the Eucharistic mode of existence in the life of the concrete person.