Christ as the Watermark of Divine Love: Expanding the Boundaries of Eastern Orthodox Ecumenism and Interreligious Encounter

The article is a personal theological reflection on ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue by one of the commission drafters Ecumenical Patriarchate's 2020 social teaching text For Life World: Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos (=FLOW). argues that FLOW, despite being innovative for Orthodoxy, needs its boundaries expanded theologically. section Christian still quite conservative in character. It acknowledges Church committed to but it does not explicitly acknowledge ecclesiality non-Orthodox churches. author puts forward form qualified ecclesiological exclusivism affirms churches are tacitly containing “a grain Orthodoxy” (Sergii Bulgakov). Strangely, FLOW's much more radical than ecumenism. builds theologically positive affirmation other religions as “seeds Word”, particular, Islam ‘beauty spiritual truths' Judaism Orthodoxy’s “elder brother.” essay ends sketching Trinitarian theology drawing ideas from Maximus Confessor, Bulgakov, Hans Urs von Balthasar Raimundo Panikkar amongst others.