The problematic of Greek identity and Christos Yannaras' quest for a politics of authentic existence

Christos Yannaras has a reputation in the English-speaking world for being an unreconstructed and unbalanced critic of the ‘West’. At least, that is the impression one gets reading some Orthodox accounts of Yannaras in English. Norman Russell, for example, has speculated that Yannaras’ ‘reputation for rebarbative anti-Westernism has probably put off scholars from engaging with him’.1 Marcus Plested, who finds ‘much of value in Yannaras’ work’ and describes him as a ‘brilliant thinker’, nevertheless finds him ‘unduly dialectical and unwontedly oppositional’.2 He thinks that Yannaras’ work contains too many ‘sweeping historical judgments and impossibly simple dichotomies’.3 Andrew Louth has referred to the presence of a ‘fierce anti-Western polemic’ in Yannaras’ work, though he, too, is sympathetic to Yannaras’ overall contribution.4 Pantelis Kalaitzidis has described Yannaras’ ‘systematic and structural anti-Westernism’ as ‘a contrived new version of Church history and theology’ and ‘a mocking caricature of the real West’.5