The Theology of Ecotheosis by Saint Maximus the Confessor

Over seven decades, Western Christianity has been criticized as a cause of ecological crisis, for being anthropocentric and for allowing the abuse of creation. Ecotheologians such as Laurel Kearns and Willis Jenkins have proposed the models of stewardship, ecojustice and creation spirituality as relevant theological themes to respond to the crisis. However, both stewardship and ecojustice models affirm the anthropocentric view and the virtues faithfulness and integrity respectively. The model creation spirituality asserts the theocentric view that centered on the virtue of love directing towards ecotheosis. This study looks at St.Maximus the Confessor's spiritual view of creation by affirming ecotheosis theology that focuses on the theological themes creation of logoi, divine energies, participation and incarnation. Moreover, for the ecotheosis to be achieved, human beings play a role to reconcile the world with God through cosmic liturgy and the virtue love. Hence, the study argues that the ecotheosis theology provided by Maximus can be used as a relevant theological response in overcoming the ecological crisis as love is the telos of virtues and theosis is the telos of creation.