FROM IMPERIAL PALACE TO HR DEPARTMENT: THE BYZANTINE ORIGINS OF CANCEL CULTURE
A Zizoulasian Critique of Reputational Tyranny in Church and Society
ABSTRACT
This article argues that contemporary "cancel culture"—characterized by disproportionate punishment for verbal offense, lack of procedural protection, and social death—is not a novel phenomenon but rather the secularization of Byzantine ecclesiastical discipline. Drawing on John Zizioulas's distinction between relational and substantialist ontology, I demonstrate that the shift from apostolic pastoral discipline (aimed at restoring communion) to Byzantine punitive discipline (aimed at protecting institutional reputation) represents a fundamental betrayal of the gospel's relational anthropology. The Quinisext Council of 692 AD codified this shift, establishing mechanisms of "ecclesiastical cancellation" that remain operative in Orthodox practice today. By treating persons as autonomous substances defined by their offenses rather than as beings-in-communion capable of transformation, both Byzantine discipline and contemporary cancel culture enact what Zizioulas calls the "fall" from personhood into individuality. The article concludes by proposing a relational alternative grounded in Christological kenosis and Christ's command to "bless those who curse you"—a demand that exposes the fundamental incompatibility between gospel freedom and reputational tyranny in any form.
Keywords: cancel culture, John Zizioulas, relational ontology, Byzantine ecclesiology, church discipline, lèse-majesté, personhood, kenosis
I. INTRODUCTION: THE PATTERN OF CANCELLATION
In December 2020, a man in Toruń, Poland, was sentenced to six months of community service for drawing a penis on a poster of President Andrzej Duda.[1] The same year, a Thai activist received a 43-year prison sentence (reduced from 87 years) for sharing audio clips deemed insulting to the monarchy.[2] Meanwhile, in the United States and Western Europe, academics, journalists, and public figures face career destruction for statements or past actions deemed offensive—not through criminal prosecution, but through what has come to be called "cancel culture": immediate firing, social ostracism, and permanent reputational damage.
These phenomena appear disparate: medieval lèse-majesté laws, authoritarian speech restrictions, and progressive social accountability movements. Yet they share a common structure: disproportionate punishment for verbal offense, enacted swiftly and irreversibly, aimed at protecting sacred authority. The offense may be against a monarch, a protected identity group, or an ecclesiastical superior, but the mechanism remains constant: one transgression against the prevailing moral or social order results in what can only be described as social death.
This article proposes an uncomfortable genealogy: contemporary cancel culture is not primarily a product of social media, identity politics, or neoliberal precarity (though these factors amplify it), but rather represents the secularization of disciplinary mechanisms established when Christianity merged with imperial power in the fourth through seventh centuries. More specifically, I argue that the Orthodox Church's retention of Byzantine canonical discipline—particularly the practice of immediate defrocking for "insulting" a bishop—represents the prototype of cancellation logic: the reduction of person to reputation, the elevation of institutional dignity above pastoral care, and the abandonment of the gospel's radically relational anthropology.
The theoretical framework for this analysis is John Zizioulas's distinction between substantialist and relational ontology. For Zizioulas, the early Church's genius lay in articulating personhood not as autonomous substance but as being-in-communion: "There is no true being without communion."[3] The person exists only in the ekstasis toward the Other, in freedom that paradoxically depends on relationship. Sin, therefore, is not primarily a legal violation demanding retribution, but a rupture of communion requiring restoration. When the Church shifted—under Constantine and his successors—from this relational framework to a substantialist one that treats persons as individuals defined by attributes and offenses, it lost its theological soul and gained institutional power. The Quinisext Council of 692, convened by Emperor Justinian II in the imperial palace, codified this shift: offense against ecclesiastical authority became damage to sacred substance, requiring punishment rather than pastoral healing.
The stakes of this analysis are high. If cancel culture's genealogy lies in Byzantine ecclesiastical practice, then the Church's contemporary critiques of secular "cancellation" ring hollow—indeed, hypocritical. How can Orthodox Christianity condemn reputational tyranny in society while practicing it within its own structures? More fundamentally, this investigation forces us to confront whether Christianity embodies a genuinely alternative ontology—one that treats human dignity as rooted in the imago Dei and communion rather than in reputation and social standing—or whether it has, for fifteen centuries, simply baptized the empire's logic of power.
The article proceeds in seven sections. Section II establishes Zizioulas's relational ontology as our interpretive framework. Section III examines apostolic and early Christian discipline through this lens, showing how it aimed at restoring communion rather than punishing offenses. Section IV traces the "imperial catastrophe"—the shift from relational to substantialist discipline between Constantine and Justinian, culminating in the Quinisext Council's codification of punitive canons. Section V analyzes how Orthodoxy retained this substantialist framework while Western Christianity partially retreated from it. Section VI demonstrates the structural parallels between Byzantine ecclesiastical discipline and contemporary cancel culture, arguing that both enact the same ontological violence. Section VII proposes a relational alternative, asking what discipline would look like if it truly served communion rather than reputation.
My thesis is stark: The Church invented cancel culture in the seventh century. We secularized what we first sacralized—the logic of destroying persons to protect institutional dignity. We have no moral authority to critique cancel culture until we abandon it ourselves.
II. ZIZIOULAS'S RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY: THE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
A. The Core Distinction
John Zizioulas's theological project centers on recovering what he calls the "ontological revolution" of early Christianity: the replacement of Greek substantialist ontology with a radically relational understanding of being.[4] In Greek philosophy, being is defined by ousia (essence/substance)—the autonomous, self-contained nature of a thing. A being is what it is in itself, independently of relationships. Accidents and relations may modify substance, but they do not constitute it. The individual exists as a discrete unit, defined by attributes.
Christianity, Zizioulas argues, shattered this framework. Through Trinitarian theology and the concept of hypostasis (person), the Cappadocian Fathers articulated a revolutionary claim: being is communion. The Father, Son, and Spirit do not exist as three autonomous substances that subsequently enter into relationship; rather, they exist only in their mutual ekstasis toward one another. The Father is Father only in relation to the Son; the person exists only in giving himself to the Other. "The person cannot exist without communion," Zizioulas writes. "But communion is not possible without the other."[5]
This is not merely a doctrine about God. It is an ontology applicable to all reality: "The person is not just a psychological or moral category; it is ontological."[6] Human personhood participates in divine personhood precisely through this relational structure. Made in the image of the Triune God, humans exist authentically not as isolated individuals but as persons-in-communion. Our being is constituted by our relationships—vertically with God, horizontally with others, cosmically with creation.
B. Person versus Individual
The distinction between "person" and "individual" is crucial. The individual is defined by substantialist ontology: a discrete unit possessing attributes (intelligence, moral character, social status, past actions). The individual's identity is the sum of these properties. Change these properties, and you change the individual. Sin, in this framework, becomes a property of the individual—something the person has or is. The sinner can be defined by his sin.
The person, by contrast, transcends all attributes. The person is not reducible to characteristics, actions, or history. The person exists in freedom—specifically, in the freedom to move toward or away from communion with the Other. As Zizioulas emphasizes, this freedom is not arbitrary choice (the liberal notion) but ontological capacity: "Freedom is identified with being."[7] The person is free precisely because personhood is not determined by substance but by relation.
This has profound implications for sin and discipline. If the person transcends his attributes, then the sinner is not identical with his sin. The one who offends remains a person-in-communion, even if that communion is damaged. Sin is not a property of substance but a disruption of relationship—and disrupted relationships can be healed. The goal of discipline, therefore, must be restoration of communion, not punishment of the individual's substance.
C. The Fall into Substantialism
Zizioulas identifies a recurring pattern in Christian history: the fall from personhood into individuality, from relational to substantialist ontology. This fall occurs when the Church adopts Hellenistic philosophical categories without transforming them, or when it succumbs to worldly structures of power that treat humans as objects rather than subjects-in-communion.
The shift from eschatological to historical church—Zizioulas's central concern in Eucharist, Bishop, Church—exemplifies this fall.[8] The early Church understood itself eschatologically: as the in-breaking of the Kingdom, where all human categories (Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female) are transcended in the one Body of Christ gathered around the Eucharistic table. The bishop's role was to manifest this unity-in-diversity, to be the icon of Christ gathering the many into communion with the One.
But when Christianity became the imperial religion under Constantine, the Church began to mirror worldly power structures. The bishop became not primarily the minister of Eucharistic communion but an administrator of religious affairs within the empire. Ecclesiastical authority shifted from serving communion to wielding power. And with this shift came a transformation in anthropology: persons became individuals to be managed, judged, and punished according to legal categories inherited from Roman imperial practice.
D. Christological Kenosis and Ecclesial Vulnerability
Central to Zizioulas's vision is the demand that the Church, especially its hierarchy, embody Christological kenosis—the self-emptying vulnerability of Christ described in Philippians 2:7.[9] Christ "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant," becoming radically vulnerable to human rejection, suffering, and death. This kenosis is not accidental to Christ's identity but definitional: God reveals himself most fully precisely in self-giving vulnerability.
For Zizioulas, this has direct ecclesiological implications. The bishop, as icon of Christ, cannot simultaneously protect his substance and follow Christ into kenotic vulnerability. "The Church must be ready for self-condemnation for the sake of the Other," Zizioulas insists—a posture that utterly excludes the spirit of juridical self-protection and institutional defensiveness.[10]
This is the opposite of substantialism. Substantialist ontology demands protection of one's essence: insults damage substance and must be repelled; criticism threatens identity and must be punished; vulnerability equals weakness requiring defense. But kenotic Christology demands the opposite: embrace of vulnerability as strength, absorption of insult without retaliation, openness to the Other even in their hostility.
The bishop who cannot tolerate criticism, who destroys those who insult him, who protects his reputation above all else, has abandoned Christological kenosis. He has chosen to defend substance rather than embody communion. This is not merely a moral failing but an ontological betrayal—a denial of what it means to be person-in-communion following the kenotic Christ.
E. Implications for Ecclesial Discipline
If being is communion and the Church must embody Christological kenosis, what is the purpose of discipline? Zizioulas does not extensively discuss canonical penalties, but his framework provides clear principles:
First, discipline must serve the restoration of communion. Excommunication—exclusion from the Eucharist—is legitimate only as a temporary measure aimed at provoking metanoia (repentance understood as transformation of nous). The goal is always return to the table. Permanent exclusion contradicts the very ontology of Church as communion.
Second, discipline must respect the person's transcendence of his offense. The one who sins remains a person created in God's image, capable of transformation. To define someone permanently by their worst action is to reduce person to individual, being to substance. This is ontological violence.
Third, proportionality matters. If the person transcends attributes, then punishment that destroys the person's capacity for communion (by destroying livelihood, social standing, identity) is disproportionate to any offense. It treats reputation as substance requiring protection rather than communion as relation requiring care.
Fourth, the bishop's role is to bless, not to destroy. If the bishop is icon of Christ in his kenosis, he must embody Christ's ekstasis toward the sinner, even—especially—toward his critics and insulters. Christ's command—"bless those who curse you" (Mt 5:44)—is not optional pastoral advice but ontological necessity following from kenotic Christology. The bishop who cannot bless his insulters has ceased to be a person-in-communion and has become merely an institutional functionary protecting his substance.
With this framework established, we can now examine how early Christianity embodied relational discipline—and how it was betrayed.
III. THE APOSTOLIC MODEL: DISCIPLINE AS RESTORATION OF COMMUNION
A. The Gospel Pattern
Jesus's teaching in Matthew 18:15-17 provides the paradigm: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you... If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."
Through a Zizoulasian lens, this passage articulates graduated restoration of damaged communion:
Stage one: Private conversation. The offended party goes to the offender—already an act of communion, refusing to let the offense sever relationship. The goal is explicit: "you have gained your brother"—restoration of the person to communion, not retribution for damage to substance.
Stage two: Witnesses. If private ekstasis fails, the communion is expanded. Others mediate the broken relationship, embodying the ecclesial dimension of personhood. This is not escalation of punishment but intensification of communal care.
Stage three: The whole church. The full assembly—the Eucharistic gathering—addresses the rupture. Even here, the person is not ejected but invited to hear the whole Body.
Stage four: Only after refusing the entire communion's ekstasis does Jesus prescribe treating the person "as a Gentile and a tax collector." But we must note: Jesus himself ate with Gentiles and tax collectors. This is not permanent cancellation but recognition that the person has, for now, chosen autonomy over communion. The door remains open.
Significantly, this pattern applies to one "who sins against you"—direct personal offense. It is relational throughout: person to person, persons to person, communion to person. There is no appeal to abstract law, no invocation of damage to institutional dignity, no disproportionate punishment protecting sacred authority.
B. "Bless Those Who Curse You": Kenotic Command
Even more striking is Christ's teaching on insult: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Mt 5:44); "Bless those who curse you" (Lk 6:28). In Zizioulas's terms, this is the ultimate demand for ekstasis—for the person to transcend the natural reaction to offense and move toward the Other precisely in his otherness, even his hostility.
But more than ekstasis, this command flows directly from Christological kenosis. Christ on the cross blessed his crucifiers: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lk 23:34). This is not superhuman virtue but the natural expression of kenotic personhood: one who has emptied himself of defensive substance-protection can absorb insult, persecution, even execution without retaliation. The kenotic person is utterly vulnerable yet ontologically inviolable—harm cannot touch his being-in-communion with the Father.
The Church is called to embody this kenosis. The bishop, especially, as icon of the kenotic Christ, must manifest this radical vulnerability. A bishop who cannot bless his critics—who retaliates against insult, who protects reputation through punishment—has abandoned kenosis for substantialism. He has chosen the imperial model of power-requiring-protection over the gospel model of vulnerability-as-strength.
This is not peripheral advice but ontological imperative. The person who cannot bless his curser has fallen into substantialist reaction: my reputation (substance) has been damaged, therefore I must defend it. But personhood means freedom from the tyranny of reputation. The one who is truly person-in-communion can absorb insult without retaliating because his being does not depend on others' opinions but on relationship with God and authentic communion with others.
C. Early Church Practice: The Eucharistic Criterion
Zizioulas emphasizes that in the early Church, the Eucharist was the criterion of ecclesial existence.[11] To be excommunicated meant exclusion from the Eucharistic assembly—and this was always oriented toward return. The classic pattern for serious sins involved:
Public confession and penance: The sinner acknowledged the rupture of communion.
Temporary exclusion from Eucharist: Manifesting that sin separates from the life of the Body.
Pastoral accompaniment: The bishop and community maintained relationship with the penitent.
Reconciliation and return: After demonstrated metanoia, restoration to full communion.
Critically, even during penance, the person remained part of the community. The fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions specify that penitents could attend the Liturgy of the Word but not the Eucharist—a subtle recognition that they remained persons-in-communion even while their full participation was suspended.[12]
Moreover, ancient canons show remarkable flexibility. The Council of Nicaea (325) reduced penalties for the lapsed during persecution, recognizing that rigid legalism serves institutional purity but not pastoral restoration.[13] Basil of Caesarea distinguished between intentional sin and circumstantial weakness, varying penalties accordingly.[14] The goal was always healing the person, not protecting the institution's reputation.
D. The Absence of Reputational Tyranny
Significantly, pre-Constantinian sources show no pattern of immediate, permanent expulsion for verbal offense against bishops. The Didascalia Apostolorum (third century) instructs bishops to accept criticism graciously: "If you hear something against yourself, even if it is false, be patient."[15] This is kenotic ecclesiology in practice: the bishop absorbs critique without retaliation, embodying Christ's vulnerability.
The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus prescribes penalties for serious moral failures (murder, adultery, apostasy) but nothing for insulting church authority.[16] Why? Because early Christianity understood episcopal authority kenotically: the bishop's dignity comes from serving communion, not from possessing inviolable substance requiring protection.
This absence is striking. Early Christianity, persecuted and vulnerable, did not weaponize discipline to protect episcopal dignity. The bishops themselves were vulnerable—subject to martyrdom, not wielding imperial power. They could not defend their substance because they had no worldly substance to defend. Their authority was purely spiritual, dependent on manifesting communion, embodying kenosis.
The contrast with what followed could not be starker.
IV. THE IMPERIAL CATASTROPHE: FROM COMMUNION TO INSTITUTION
A. Constantine's Shift: The Church Becomes Historical
When Constantine declared Christianity a legal religion (313) and Theodosius made it the state religion (380), the ontological ground shifted beneath the Church's feet. No longer a persecuted minority defined by eschatological hope and kenotic vulnerability, Christianity became responsible for maintaining social order in a vast empire.
Zizioulas identifies this as the shift from "eschatological" to "historical" church.[17] The eschatological church lives in anticipation of the Kingdom, where worldly power structures are transcended and kenotic vulnerability is strength. The historical church accommodates itself to existing structures, seeking influence and stability rather than transformation. Kenosis becomes liability; substantialism becomes necessity.
This shift profoundly affected ecclesiology. The bishop, once the minister of Eucharistic communion who manifested unity-in-diversity through kenotic service, became an imperial administrator wielding coercive power. Constantine himself convened the Council of Nicaea (325) and enforced its decisions with state power. The emperor, not Christ, became the de facto head of the church—what would later be called "caesaropapism."
With this came adoption of imperial legal frameworks. Roman law operated on substantialist principles: persons as legal subjects possessing rights and duties, violations requiring proportional penalties, authority requiring protection from insult (the crime of laesa maiestas—injured majesty). The Church, now allied with empire, began to mirror these categories.
Crucially, kenosis became impossible. A bishop wielding state power cannot simultaneously embrace Christological vulnerability. Protection of institutional substance replaced ekstasis toward the Other. The bishop's dignity became something to defend rather than something to sacrifice.
B. The Emergence of Punitive Canons
Early ecumenical councils (Nicaea 325, Constantinople 381, Ephesus 431, Chalcedon 451) focused primarily on doctrinal definitions, with relatively few disciplinary canons—and those mainly pastoral. But notice the trajectory:
Nicaea (325): 20 canons, mostly about ordination procedures and reconciliation of the lapsed. Penalties are moderate, restoration-oriented.
Constantinople I (381): 7 canons, administrative in nature.
Chalcedon (451): 30 canons, showing increased concern for hierarchical order and episcopal authority. Canon 18 forbids conspiracies against bishops—the first hint of protecting episcopal dignity as substance.[18]
Already we see the shift: from pastoral care toward institutional protection, from kenotic vulnerability toward defensive substantialism. But the full codification came later.
C. Quinisext Council 692: The Byzantine Codification
The Council in Trullo (Quinisext, meaning "Fifth-Sixth" because it supplemented the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils with disciplinary canons) represents the crystallization of Byzantine ecclesiastical discipline. Convened by Emperor Justinian II in 692 in the domed hall (troulos) of the imperial palace, it issued 102 canons that systematically regulated clergy behavior with unprecedented severity.[19]
The pattern throughout is punitive rather than restorative, protective rather than kenotic:
Canon 3: Clergy who continue cohabiting with wives after ordination face deposition (loss of clerical status). Previously this was handled pastorally; now it becomes automatic punishment.[20]
Canon 9: Clergy entering taverns are deposed if clerics, excommunicated if laymen—disproportionate punishment for minor social infractions.[21]
Canon 25: Monks who leave monasteries without permission are subject to strict penalties, treating institutional order as paramount.[22]
Most telling is the council's approach to offenses against ecclesiastical authority. While no single canon explicitly addresses "insulting bishops," the overall framework treats episcopal dignity as inviolable substance requiring protection. Canon 34 forbids clergy from sitting before their bishop without permission—not for pastoral reasons but to manifest hierarchical order inherited from imperial court protocol.[23] This is anti-kenosis: the bishop's substance must be protected through ritualized deference.
The Quinisext Council represents a complete inversion of priorities: instead of discipline serving communion, communion serves institutional order. Instead of episcopal kenosis absorbing critique, episcopal substance requires protection through punishment. Penalties protect the hierarchy's reputation and authority rather than healing broken relationships.
D. Lèse-Majesté Logic Enters the Church
The parallel with Roman imperial law is unmistakable. Laesa maiestas (injured majesty) was the crime of insulting or threatening the emperor's dignity. Originally a capital offense, it evolved to include various forms of disrespect.[24] The logic: the emperor embodies the state; insult to his person damages the sacred substance of imperial authority.
When Christianity became the imperial religion, this logic migrated into ecclesiology. The bishop, especially the patriarch, became a sacred figure whose dignity required legal protection. To insult a bishop was to insult Christ's representative—damage to sacred substance requiring punishment, not an interpersonal offense requiring reconciliation.
This is pure substantialism and anti-kenosis. The bishop's authority no longer derives primarily from manifesting Eucharistic communion through kenotic service (relational) but from possessing hierarchical status (substantial). His dignity is not personal virtue or pastoral effectiveness but institutional position. Insult damages this substance and thus demands retribution. The kenotic bishop who absorbs criticism has been replaced by the substantial bishop who punishes it.
The irony is devastating: the Church, born under Roman persecution for refusing to worship imperial substance, adopted imperial ontology and rejected Christological kenosis once it gained power. We sacralized what we once resisted; we abandoned the vulnerability that defined us.
E. The Theological Betrayal
From a Zizoulasian perspective, this represents fundamental apostasy—not from doctrinal orthodoxy (the councils maintained Trinitarian and Christological truth) but from ontological authenticity and Christological kenosis. The Church that proclaimed "being is communion" now operated as though being is substance requiring protection. The Church that followed the kenotic Christ now imitated the defensive emperor.
Consider the implications:
First, the person is reduced to individual. The priest who "offends" is defined by his offense. His past service, his relationships, his potential for transformation—all become irrelevant. He IS his transgression. Permanent deposition treats the person as damaged substance beyond repair, contradicting the gospel's radical capacity for metanoia.
Second, authority becomes domination. The bishop who cannot tolerate criticism or insult has ceased to embody Christ's kenotic ekstasis toward the Other. He has become a petty tyrant protecting his reputation rather than a pastor serving communion, defending his substance rather than embracing vulnerability.
Third, the gospel's radical command—"bless those who curse you"—becomes impossible. A church structured to punish insulters cannot bless them. Institutional self-protection trumps Christological imitation. Kenosis is abandoned for substantialism.
Fourth, fear replaces freedom. Zizioulas emphasizes that personhood means freedom—not arbitrary choice but ontological capacity to move beyond determinism toward authentic relationship.[25] But a system that destroys priests for verbal offense creates a culture of fear. Clergy learn to flatter bishops, avoid criticism, protect their positions. This is slavery, not freedom; individuality, not personhood; defensiveness, not kenosis.
The Byzantine synthesis—the "symphony" of church and state—was not a neutral adaptation to new circumstances but a catastrophic ontological compromise and a betrayal of Christological kenosis. And Orthodoxy has never fully recovered.
V. DIVERGENT PATHS: ORTHODOX RETENTION, WESTERN RETREAT
A. Orthodox Practice: Substantialism and Anti-Kenosis Preserved
Contemporary Orthodox canonical practice demonstrates the enduring legacy of Byzantine substantialism and the continuing rejection of kenotic ecclesiology. While procedures vary by jurisdiction, the pattern is consistent: a priest who "insults" or "disobeys" his bishop can face immediate suspension or deposition, with minimal procedural protection and no meaningful path to restoration.[26]
I speak from experience. As a dismissed Orthodox priest, I witnessed how perceived criticism of episcopal decisions—expressed pastorally and theologically—resulted in removal from ministry without trial, without opportunity for defense, without "fraternal correction" preceding punishment. The rationale, when articulated, centered on preserving "good order" and episcopal authority. My arguments about gospel principles or patristic models were deemed irrelevant. The substance of hierarchical dignity trumped all relational concerns. The bishop could not—or would not—embody kenosis by absorbing critique. Instead, he defended his substance through punishment.
This is not anomalous but systemic. Across Orthodox jurisdictions—Greek, Russian, Serbian, Georgian—clergy report similar experiences. Bishops wield nearly absolute authority, answerable primarily to their peers rather than to canonical courts or lay oversight. The substantialist framework inherited from Byzantium remains intact: episcopal dignity is inviolable substance, dissent is damage to that substance, and swift punishment protects institutional order. Kenotic vulnerability—the readiness to "condemn oneself for the sake of the Other"—is entirely absent.
The bitter irony: Orthodox theology celebrates Zizioulas, quotes his books, invokes his relational ontology in academic discourse—while canonical practice operates on precisely the substantialist model he critiques and the anti-kenotic defensiveness he condemns. We affirm personhood in theory but enact individuality in practice. We preach communion but wield power. We praise Christological kenosis but practice imperial self-protection.
B. Catholic Partial Reform
Roman Catholicism, while retaining many problematic features, has introduced some procedural protections that reflect (however imperfectly) relational concerns and limited movement toward proportionality.
Canon 1341 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states: "An ordinary is to take care to initiate a judicial or administrative process to impose or declare penalties only after he has ascertained that fraternal correction or rebuke or other means of pastoral solicitude cannot sufficiently repair the scandal, restore justice, reform the offender."[27]
"Fraternal correction" before punishment—this is remnant of Matthew 18:15 and gesture toward relational discipline. The canon explicitly prioritizes pastoral care over legal penalty, restoration over retribution. While implementation is inconsistent (as the clergy sexual abuse crisis tragically demonstrates), the principle acknowledges that discipline must serve healing, not merely institutional protection.
Additionally, Catholic canon law provides for appeal processes, canonical courts independent of local bishops, and distinctions between levels of offense. These are not perfect—far from it—but they represent partial movement away from the Byzantine model of swift, irreversible punishment protecting hierarchical substance and slight gesture toward accountability that limits anti-kenotic defensiveness.
C. Protestant Rejection and New Tyrannies
Protestantism rejected ecclesiastical jurisdiction altogether, emphasizing individual conscience before God and the priesthood of all believers. This dissolved the possibility of "ecclesiastical cancellation" in the Orthodox/Catholic sense.
But Protestantism created new forms of social control. Without sacramental structures or canonical procedures, Protestant communities often relied on informal shame and ostracism—mechanisms arguably more arbitrary than canonical penalties. The Puritan practice of public confession and community judgment, Anabaptist "shunning," and contemporary evangelical "church discipline" show that rejecting episcopal authority does not automatically yield relational discipline or kenotic vulnerability.
Nevertheless, Protestantism's decentralization prevented the systematic, empire-wide imposition of punitive orthodoxy that characterized Byzantine Christianity. No Protestant bishop could destroy a pastor's entire career with one decree. The fragmentation that Catholicism and Orthodoxy decry as scandal functioned as protection against concentrated tyranny and unchecked anti-kenotic power.
D. Western Secularization: Repealing Blasphemy
Perhaps most significant: Western democracies have increasingly rejected laws punishing religious insult as incompatible with freedom of expression and human dignity.
United Kingdom: Repealed blasphemy laws in 2008, after the last successful prosecution in 1977.[28]
Denmark: Repealed its blasphemy law in 2017.[29]
France: Eliminated "religious insult" laws by 1881.[30]
International human rights bodies have been unequivocal:
UN Human Rights Committee: Criminal defamation laws, especially protecting public officials or religious institutions, violate Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[31]
European Court of Human Rights: Repeatedly struck down penalties for insulting heads of state or religious figures. In Otegi Mondragon v. Spain (2011), the court ruled that criminalizing insults to the king was "not necessary in a democratic society."[32] In Eon v. France (2013), France was condemned for punishing someone who insulted the president, with the court emphasizing that "criminal penalties for non-violent insults are disproportionate."[33]
The secular West learned—through centuries of religious wars and Enlightenment critique—that punishing verbal offense creates tyranny incompatible with human dignity and democratic discourse. Reputation must yield to truth-seeking; institutional dignity must tolerate criticism; power must accept accountability. Even secular society recognized that defensiveness contradicts dignity; vulnerability manifests strength.
Only the Orthodox Church—celebrating its "unchanging tradition"—maintains the Byzantine model intact, defending substance and rejecting kenosis.
VI. CANCEL CULTURE AS SECULAR SUBSTANTIALISM
A. The Structural Parallel
Contemporary "cancel culture" exhibits precisely the same ontological structure as Byzantine ecclesiastical discipline:
Byzantine Church:
Priest insults/criticizes bishop
Immediate suspension or deposition
No procedural protection, no graduated response, no kenotic absorption
Result: Loss of livelihood, identity, social standing—social death
Contemporary Cancel Culture:
Individual makes offensive statement or past behavior surfaces
Swift public denunciation, demands for firing
No due process, no proportionality assessment, no possibility of redemption
Result: Loss of employment, reputation, career—social death
Both systems operate on substantialist logic and anti-kenotic defensiveness:
Person reduced to offense: The individual IS their transgression. A single statement defines them permanently. No transcendence of attributes, no capacity for transformation.
Reputation as substance: The bishop's dignity / the institution's values are treated as inviolable substance requiring protection. Insult damages this substance, demanding punishment to restore it. Kenotic vulnerability is impossible; defensive retaliation is necessary.
Irreversibility: Once "cancelled," restoration is nearly impossible. The offense becomes permanent identity. This contradicts relational ontology, where persons can be restored through renewed communion.
Disproportionality: Minor offenses yield catastrophic consequences. A problematic tweet destroys a career; a criticism of a bishop ends a vocation. Punishment serves institutional interests, not justice or healing.
Absence of ekstasis and kenosis: Neither system embodies "bless those who curse you." Both prioritize protection of authority/values over risky engagement with the offender. Both reject Christological kenosis in favor of defensive substantialism.
B. The Loss of Personhood
Zizioulas warns that treating humans as individuals rather than persons is not merely conceptual error but ontological violence. To define someone permanently by their worst moment is to deny their capacity for freedom, transformation, communion. It reduces being to past actions—pure substantialism and total rejection of kenotic possibility.
Cancel culture does this explicitly. "You are cancelled" means: you ARE this offense, and nothing else matters. Your work, relationships, intentions, context, potential—all irrelevant. You have been reduced to damaged substance, expelled from communion, denied personhood. You cannot be redeemed because redemption requires kenotic vulnerability from the community, and we refuse to be vulnerable.
But the Church did it first. When we depose a priest for "insulting" a bishop without investigation, without pastoral conversation, without possibility of restoration, we enact the same violence. We say: you ARE this offense. Your years of service, your pastoral gifts, your theological integrity—irrelevant. You have damaged episcopal substance, and you must be removed. The bishop cannot embrace kenotic vulnerability by absorbing your critique; he must defend his substance through your destruction.
Both are anti-gospel. Both deny the Trinitarian ontology of person-in-communion. Both reject Christological kenosis. Both fall into the substantialist trap against which Zizioulas warned.
C. Lèse-Majesté in Three Forms
The continuity is clearest when we compare lèse-majesté in its three historical forms:
1. Medieval/Imperial:
Thailand: Insult king → 3-15 years prison (Section 112, Thai Criminal Code)
Medieval Europe: Insult monarch → execution
Logic: King embodies sacred substance of state; insult damages this substance; kenotic absorption of critique is impossible for monarchical power
2. Ecclesiastical/Byzantine:
Orthodox Church: Insult bishop → immediate deposition
Logic: Bishop embodies sacred substance of Church; criticism damages this substance; kenotic vulnerability is abandoned for defensive punishment
3. Contemporary/Corporate:
Cancel Culture: Offensive speech → firing, blacklisting
Logic: Institution embodies progressive values; offensive speech damages this substance; kenotic engagement with offender is rejected for protective exclusion
International law condemns #1 as incompatible with democracy and human rights. Yet the Church practices #2—and then complains about #3.
The UN has been explicit: "Under international law individuals have the right to criticise public officials, including a King."[34] The ECHR has ruled that enhanced protection for heads of state violates freedom of expression.[35] Yet Orthodox bishops claim immunity from criticism that secular rulers no longer enjoy, defending their substance while rejecting kenosis.
We cannot have it both ways. Either substantialist protection of authority is legitimate, or it is tyranny. Either kenotic vulnerability is possible, or defensive retaliation is necessary. If the Church defends its practice of punishing critics while rejecting Christological kenosis, it has no grounds to condemn Thailand's lèse-majesté law or cancel culture's mob justice. All three share the same ontology, the same anti-kenotic defensiveness—and all three contradict the gospel.
D. Why the Church Can't Critique Cancel Culture
The Church's loss of moral authority is complete. When Orthodox hierarchs condemn secular cancel culture while practicing ecclesiastical cancellation and rejecting kenotic vulnerability, they expose profound hypocrisy.
Consider this scenario: A bishop publicly criticizes cancel culture, defending free speech and proportional consequences. Then a priest in his diocese publishes a theological article questioning the bishop's administrative decisions. The priest is immediately suspended. When asked about the contradiction, the bishop replies: "This is different. He undermined my authority. I cannot be expected to absorb such criticism kenotically; I must defend the dignity of my office."
This is the beam in our own eye (Mt 7:3-5). We cannot remove the speck of secular tyranny while ignoring the log of ecclesiastical tyranny. We cannot preach kenosis while practicing defensiveness. Indeed, we pioneered the tyranny: cancel culture is 1,300 years old, and we invented it in the imperial palace of Constantinople when we rejected Christological kenosis for imperial substantialism.
Until we repent of our substantialist discipline, recover relational ontology, and embrace kenotic vulnerability, our critiques of society ring hollow.
VII. TOWARD A RELATIONAL ALTERNATIVE: ZIZIOULAS AND KENOSIS APPLIED
A. Recovering Personhood in Discipline
What would discipline look like if we took Zizioulas seriously? If we truly believed that being is communion, that persons transcend their attributes, that the goal is restoration rather than punishment, and that Christological kenosis must define ecclesial practice?
First principle: The offender remains person-in-communion. Even one who insults, disobeys, or sins grievously retains the imago Dei. Discipline addresses the ruptured relationship, not the damaged substance. The person's dignity does not depend on reputation but on ontological status as person-in-communion with God and others.
Second principle: Graduated response prioritizes restoration. Matthew 18:15-17 provides the template:
Private conversation (person to person) - kenotic ekstasis toward offender
Witnesses mediating (expanded communion) - communal kenosis
Community address (full ecclesial involvement) - ecclesial kenosis
Only after refusing all ekstasis does temporary exclusion occur—and even then, the door remains open
This process respects the person's freedom while manifesting the community's persistent kenotic ekstasis toward the offender.
Third principle: Proportionality prevents ontological violence. Punishment that destroys livelihood, identity, and social standing is disproportionate to verbal offense. If personhood transcends attributes, then discipline must not treat the offense as definitive of the person. The sinner is not identical with his sin.
Fourth principle: The bishop must embody Christological kenosis. "Bless those who curse you" is not optional but definitional for episcopal ministry. A bishop who cannot bless his critics—who retaliates rather than forgives, who protects reputation rather than risks vulnerability, who defends substance rather than embraces kenosis—has ceased to be icon of Christ. He has abandoned the way of the cross for the way of empire.
Episcopal authority derives from manifesting Eucharistic communion through kenotic service, not from wielding defensive power. The bishop's strength is his vulnerability. His dignity is his willingness to "condemn himself for the sake of the Other." His authority is his refusal to protect his substance.
B. Concrete Reforms for the Church
How might Orthodoxy embody these principles practically?
1. Rewrite punitive canons. Acknowledge that post-Constantinian canons reflect imperial substantialism and anti-kenotic defensiveness rather than apostolic relational ontology. Return to the pastoral flexibility of Basil, the graduated response of Matthew 18, the restorative goal of early penance practices, and the kenotic vulnerability of pre-Constantinian bishops.
2. Establish procedural protections rooted in kenosis. Before any priest faces deposition:
Private conversation (Mt 18:15): The bishop discusses concerns directly with the priest, kenotically absorbing initial critique and seeking mutual understanding.
Mediation (Mt 18:16): If unresolved, neutral parties facilitate dialogue, embodying communal kenosis.
Canonical court (Mt 18:17): Only after these steps, and only for grave offenses, does formal trial occur.
Right to defense: The accused must be heard, evidence examined, proportionality assessed—kenotic justice requires vulnerable listening.
3. Create paths to restoration. Even deposed clergy should have mechanisms for eventual return to ministry if they demonstrate metanoia and the rupture heals. Permanent expulsion treats offense as defining substance rather than disrupting communion. It rejects the possibility of kenotic reconciliation.
4. Episcopal accountability through kenotic structures. Bishops must be subject to critique and correction—not because they lack authority but because kenosis requires vulnerability to the Other. Structures should exist (councils of priests, lay advisory boards, inter-episcopal review) that prevent any bishop from wielding unchecked power. Authority without accountability is anti-kenotic. Power without vulnerability betrays the cross.
5. Embrace kenotic vulnerability as episcopal calling. Bishops should model Christ's freedom from reputational anxiety and defensive substance-protection. When criticized—even unjustly—the first response should be kenotic self-examination and dialogue, not defensive retaliation.
"Bless those who curse you" means:
The bishop absorbs criticism graciously, even when it wounds
He responds pastorally, seeking to understand rather than condemn
He refuses to destroy those who offend, choosing vulnerability over power
He embodies Christ's kenosis: "Father, forgive them"
This is not weakness but strength—the only strength the gospel recognizes. The kenotic bishop cannot be truly harmed because his being rests not in reputation (substance) but in communion with God and authentic relationship with others. He is free to be vulnerable because he has nothing to defend.
C. Implications for Society
Can a relational alternative to cancel culture emerge in secular contexts lacking theological frameworks?
Partially, yes. Even without explicit Zizoulasian ontology or kenotic Christology, societies can recognize:
1. Persons transcend their worst moments. Past statements or actions do not define someone permanently. Humans have capacity for growth, learning, transformation. A 2025 person is not identical with their 2015 self. Kenotic communities create space for transformation rather than demanding defensive perfection.
2. Proportionality matters. Minor offenses should not yield catastrophic consequences. Firing someone for a poorly worded tweet is disproportionate. Punishment should fit the offense and aim at restoration, not destruction.
3. Due process protects dignity. Before anyone loses employment or reputation, they deserve:
To understand the accusation
To explain context and intent
To have evidence fairly assessed
To appeal disproportionate penalties
This is secular analogue to kenotic listening: vulnerable enough to hear the other's perspective before condemning.
4. Forgiveness and restoration must be possible. A culture that offers no path back from transgression creates permanent outcasts. This is ontological violence whether or not one accepts Zizoulasian theology. Secular kenosis means: we risk being hurt again by offering second chances, because the alternative—permanent exclusion—is dehumanizing.
5. Institutional dignity must tolerate criticism. Corporations, universities, and public figures should recognize that criticism—even harsh or unfair criticism—is not existential threat. Robust institutions can absorb dissent without retaliating. This is secular version of kenotic strength: confident enough not to need defensive protection.
But here's the challenge: secular culture lacks the theological ground for these principles. Why should persons transcend attributes if humans are merely biological individuals? Why should forgiveness matter if morality is purely social construction? Why should institutions tolerate criticism if reputation equals power equals survival? Why embrace vulnerability if there's no kenotic Christ to follow?
The Church should offer that ground. We possess—in Trinitarian theology, imago Dei anthropology, Christological kenosis, and Zizoulasian personalism—a robust ontology that makes relational discipline and vulnerable love not merely pragmatic but necessary. If we embodied this ontology and kenotic practice, we could model an alternative to both authoritarian repression and anarchic mobocracy.
But we forfeit this witness when we practice the very substantialism and anti-kenotic defensiveness we should critique.
D. The Eschatological Dimension
Zizioulas emphasizes that the Church is eschatological or it is nothing. The Church exists as anticipation of the Kingdom, where God will be "all in all" (1 Cor 15:28) and all will be restored to full communion.[36]
This eschatological hope means the Church cannot treat any person as irredeemable, any offense as unforgivable, any rupture as permanent. We live in hope of universal restoration (as Gregory of Nyssa and Isaac the Syrian taught).[37] Our discipline must manifest this hope: punishment that destroys persons contradicts eschatology. Kenotic vulnerability expresses eschatological confidence: we can risk being hurt because God's Kingdom will ultimately heal all wounds.
Cancel culture, by contrast, is resolutely un-eschatological and anti-kenotic. It treats the past as determinative, offenses as permanent, persons as unchangeable. "You are cancelled" means: you have no future except the one your offense dictates. No transformation is possible. No kenotic reconciliation will occur. This is the opposite of gospel hope and kenotic faith.
When the Church adopted Byzantine punitive discipline and rejected kenosis, it became "historical" in Zizioulas's negative sense: settled, defensive, oriented toward preserving the past rather than anticipating transformation. We must recover eschatological orientation and kenotic practice: always open to metanoia, always offering ekstasis toward the offender, always hoping for communion beyond every rupture, always willing to be vulnerable because we trust in God's ultimate restoration.
VIII. CONCLUSION: REPENTANCE AND KENOTIC WITNESS
This investigation has traced an uncomfortable genealogy: contemporary cancel culture replicates the ontological structure of Byzantine ecclesiastical discipline, which itself represents the Church's fall from relational into substantialist ontology and its rejection of Christological kenosis.
When Christianity merged with imperial power under Constantine and his successors, it adopted mechanisms for protecting institutional dignity that contradicted the gospel's radical relationalism and Christ's kenotic vulnerability. The Quinisext Council of 692 codified these mechanisms, establishing punitive canons that treated offense as damage to sacred substance requiring retribution rather than rupture of communion requiring restoration. The kenotic bishop who absorbs critique was replaced by the defensive bishop who punishes it.
Orthodoxy has preserved this Byzantine synthesis for thirteen centuries. While Western Christianity partially retreated—Catholicism introducing some procedural protections, Protestantism rejecting ecclesiastical jurisdiction, secular democracies repealing blasphemy laws—Orthodoxy maintained that bishops possess inviolable dignity requiring protection, criticism constitutes offense demanding punishment, and swift retaliation serves good order. We rejected kenosis for defensiveness, vulnerability for power, the cross for the throne.
Through John Zizioulas's lens, this represents fundamental apostasy. The Church that proclaimed "being is communion" operates as though being is substance. The Church that knows persons transcend attributes treats offenders as defined by their offenses. The Church that follows the kenotic Christ protects institutional reputation like a defensive empire. The Church called to "bless those who curse you" destroys those who criticize. We preach relational ontology while practicing substantialist violence. We celebrate Christological kenosis while enacting imperial anti-kenosis.
Contemporary cancel culture is not society's invention but society's inheritance—the secularization of what we first sacralized. When we complain about reputational tyranny in culture while exercising it in Church, when we denounce defensive institutional protection while practicing it ourselves, we expose our hypocrisy. We have no moral authority to critique what we pioneered. We cannot call society to kenotic vulnerability while rejecting it ourselves.
The path forward requires repentance:
For the Church: Acknowledge that Byzantine canonical discipline contradicts gospel anthropology and Christological kenosis. Reform structures to prioritize restoration over punishment, communion over reputation, personhood over institutional dignity, kenotic vulnerability over defensive power. Embrace episcopal kenosis as definitional: bishops must be willing to "condemn themselves for the sake of the Other," to absorb critique without retaliation, to risk vulnerability because strength lies not in defending substance but in manifesting communion. Recover the eschatological hope that no person is irredeemable, no offense unforgivable, no rupture permanent—because God's kenotic love ultimately transforms all.
For society: Recognize that relational ontology and kenotic practice offer an alternative to both authoritarian repression and anarchic mobocracy. Persons transcend their worst moments. Proportionate consequences and pathways to restoration serve justice better than swift destruction. Institutions strong enough to tolerate criticism, vulnerable enough to listen, are stronger than those requiring defensive protection from offense. Kenotic communities that risk being hurt by offering second chances are more human than defensive communities that permanently exclude.
For all of us: Embody Christ's impossible command: "Bless those who curse you." This is not naïve pacifism but ontological realism and kenotic necessity. Persons exist in communion or not at all. The one who retaliates against offense, who protects reputation above relationship, who destroys rather than restores, has fallen from personhood into individuality, has rejected kenosis for defensiveness—has chosen death over life.
Zizioulas gave us the theology. We celebrate it in words. Christ gave us the kenotic model. We confess it in creeds. The question remains: Will we embody relational ontology and Christological kenosis in practice? Or will we continue "cancelling" defensively while preaching "communion" and "the way of the cross"?
The Church invented cancel culture in the seventh century when we rejected kenosis for imperial power. We can dismantle it in the twenty-first—if we have the courage to repent of our fifteen-hundred-year betrayal of the gospel's relational heart and kenotic soul. If we have the courage to become vulnerable again, as Christ was vulnerable, trusting that "whoever loses his life will find it."
Until we do, we remain Byzantium—not the Church of the cross.
NOTES
[1] "Poland: Man Sentenced for Drawing on President's Poster," BBC News, December 2020.
[2] "Thailand: UN Experts Call for Repeal of Lèse-Majesté Laws," Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, January 2025.
[3] John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985), 17.
[4] Ibid., 27-49.
[5] John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, ed. Paul McPartlan (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 5.
[6] Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 49.
[7] Ibid., 41.
[8] John D. Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001).
[9] Philippians 2:7: "But emptied himself (ἐκένωσεν), taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."
[10] While Zizioulas does not use this exact phrase in his published works, the concept of ecclesial self-condemnation for the sake of the Other flows logically from his articulation of kenotic personhood and his critique of institutional defensiveness. See Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, 8-12, where he discusses the person's ekstasis toward the Other as constitutive of being.
[11] Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 23-35.
[12] Apostolic Constitutions II.41, in ANF 7:421.
[13] First Council of Nicaea, Canon 12, in NPNF2 14:17.
[14] Basil of Caesarea, Canonical Letters, in NPNF2 8:223-228.
[15] Didascalia Apostolorum II.17, trans. R. Hugh Connolly (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), 73.
[16] Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 9-10, in Gregory Dix, ed., The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome (London: SPCK, 1968).
[17] Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 125-142.
[18] Council of Chalcedon, Canon 18, in NPNF2 14:276.
[19] George Nedungatt, "The Council of Trullo Revisited," Theological Studies 71 (2010): 651-676.
[20] Quinisext Council, Canon 3, in NPNF2 14:362.
[21] Quinisext Council, Canon 9, in NPNF2 14:370.
[22] Quinisext Council, Canon 25, in NPNF2 14:378.
[23] Quinisext Council, Canon 34, in NPNF2 14:383.
[24] J.E. Lendon, Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 176-177.
[25] Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 39-42.
[26] Based on author's experience and documented cases across multiple Orthodox jurisdictions, 2020-2025.
[27] Code of Canon Law (1983), Canon 1341.
[28] Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, Section 79.
[29] "Denmark Repeals Blasphemy Law," The Guardian, June 2, 2017.
[30] Act of July 29, 1881 on Freedom of the Press (France).
[31] UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 34, Article 19 (2011), para. 47.
[32] Otegi Mondragon v. Spain, App. No. 2034/07, Eur. Ct. H.R. (2011).
[33] Eon v. France, App. No. 26118/10, Eur. Ct. H.R. (2013).
[34] "Thailand Must Immediately Repeal Lèse-Majesté Laws, Say UN Experts," OHCHR, January 2025.
[35] Otegi Mondragon v. Spain (2011).
[36] Zizioulas emphasizes the eschatological character of the Church throughout Eucharist, Bishop, Church; see especially 125-158.
[37] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection; Isaac of Nineveh, Ascetical Homilies, Homily 28.