Pope Francis and His Legacy in Theology, Canon Law, Interreligious Dialogue, and Religious Leadership

Pope Francis greets believers in Vatican City / Shutterstock

The series brings together a group of Catholic thinkers to reflect on Pope Francis’s pontificate and legacy. The authors discuss the late Pope’s contribution to peacebuilding, human dignity, social justice, and environmentalism in addition to his reforms, often revolutionary, of Catholic theology, canon law, and the Church’s internal life. Pointing to peaks and valleys of the first Jesuit pope’s rule, they depict him as an extraordinary religious leader, tireless promoter of peace across the globe, and persistent defender of the vulnerable.

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Revolutionary in Theology: In Memoriam Jürgen Moltmann

Zoran Grozdanov is an associate professor at the University Center for Protestant Theology Matthias Flacius Illyricus, University of Zagreb.

On 3 June 2024 one of the foremost theologians of the twentieth century, Jürgen Moltmann, died. He was most acclaimed in academia for his book Theology of Hope, first published in 1964 (English translation in 1967) and  featured on the cover of The New York Times in 1968. Moltmann is even more famous outside the academic community for his 1971 book The Crucified God. He authored many books covering all fields of Christian theology: Christology, doctrine of God, eschatology, ecclesiology, and more. Moltmann is also widely acclaimed as the theologian about whom was written the largest number of books during his lifetime—more than 500.

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The Great Inventor: In Memoriam Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon

Andrey Shishkov is a research fellow at the School of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Tartu (Estonia) and a member of the “Orthodoxy as Solidarity” research projects supported by the Estonian Research Council. 

On 2 February 2023, John Zizioulas, Orthodox hierarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and one of the most influential theologians of the past 50 years, passed away at age 92. He is known worldwide for his theology of communion, described in his two major works: Being as Communion (1985) and Communion and Otherness (2006). These books offer an attempt at a systematic theology that brings together various theological disciplines (such as triadology, Christology, ecclesiology, anthropology, pneumatology, and eschatology) based on the idea that being is communion. His opponents regarded him as a heretic and a modernist, while his supporters considered him one of the greatest minds of the Orthodox Church in history.

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