Abstract

This article critiques the theological and moral foundations that undergird the approach of the document For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church to the question of the Church's role in the public sphere. The article's focus is essentially two-fold. First, it strives to clarify For the Life of the World's hermeneutical method through a consideration of its frequent appeals to the authority of the Orthodox tradition. Second, the article seeks to understand the document's tacit reliance upon a Eucharistic model of ecclesiology and its connection to the recurring theme of the ‘transfiguring of the world’.