Olivier Clément’s Chalcedonian Anthropology: A New Paradigm

Abstract

The orthodox theologist Olivier Clément reflects, with particular freshness and clarity, on the christian anthropology following the Chalcedonian dogma. The mystery of Christ truly sheds light on the mystery of man, in a perspective where the category person is the keystone. In Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, the human person is recognized as mystery, a being of openness and offering while transcendent and elusive. The experience of religation and existencial dependence, ultimately, of filiation, sheds light on its true identity, accomplishing the highest fulfillment of the human person in the divine communion that does not void its dignity but rather enables it. This enlightens a new educational method and a new vital attitude based on the freedom received as grace and fulfilled in the offering of oneself for love.