Divine Energies or Divine Personhood: Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on conceiving the transcendent and immanent God

This essay explores a debate between two contemporary Orthodox theolo‐gians, Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas, over how to adequately conceive the doctrine of the Trinity as an expression of the realism of divine‐human communion, and hence, of the God who is transcendent and immanent. The essay critically analyzes the implications of Zizioulas’s reworking of the patristic category of hypostasis. Zizioulas's theology is suggesting a paradigm shift in contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology insofar as it prioritizes hypostasis over energies for expressing the realism of divine‐human communion. The implications of this study also extend to debates within contemporary trinitarian theologies over the adequacy of the concept of "person" for conceptualizing the Trinity.