spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

concept of ekstasis into the key of his ontological proposal of relationality. Zizioulas argued that
personhood is formed by the combination of hypostasis and ekstasis. Hypostasis refers to the
unique, distinctive and individual mode of existence, while the hypostatic nature of a human
being is constituted by the ecstatic nature, by the principle of moving out of self-existence,
beyond the boundaries of the ‘self’ and into communion. Ek-stasis is the intrinsic element that is
necessary for a person to be a true human being. In other words, the ecstatic nature of
personhood is the heart of Zizioulas’ communion conceptualization, because ekstasis leads to
communion, and communion leads to true existence, to living in freedom. In his article on
human capacity, Zizioulas (1975:409) indicates his communion conceptualization as follows:
“since ‘hypostasis’ is identical with Personhood and not with substance, it is not in its ‘selfexistence’
but in communion that this being is itself and thus is at all”.
With regard to the Triune God, Zizioulas suggested that the divine communion is founded on the
ekstasis of the Father, from whom the Son is begotten, and from whom the Spirit is generated
(1995:59; see also Grenz 2004:141f). The Father’s ecstatic movement of love refers to the
communion of the three persons of the Trinity, because personhood implies ecstatic nature and
therefore relationality. Zizioulas’ methodological principle allowed him to start with personhood,
and thus with the threeness of the divine being, in order to move to the unity of the Triune God,
that is the koinonia, the communion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Since the notion
of ekstasis is the heart of Zizioulas’ understanding of the Trinity, he was able to conclude that
communion is the being of the Triune God.
God’s ecstatic nature is rooted in His love, since His love is not focused inwardly, but seeks the
existence of others: “Spirit opens God up to what is nondivine, as the divine ecstasy directed
toward the creature” (Pinnock 1996:38). Bergin (2004:271) is also of the opinion that the ecstatic
reality of God can be appropriated to the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit is usually conceived
as creation’s entry point into the divine: “in looking to the Spirit’s connecting with the world we
see that the nature of God as ‘ecstatic’ or, ‘standing out of Godself’ is especially visible when
God engages with what is ‘other’ than God”. An appreciation of the Spirit as ecstatic God
implies that the Spirit may be regarded as the communicator of Trinitarian life. After all, when
the Spirit moves among people, God does not share something extrinsic, but God places Himself
in the middle of creation (Bergin 2004:279).
When the Spirit communicates Trinitarian life, and places God Himself in the middle of human
life, it means that God’s love is made present in everyday life. The image of the three divine
persons in deep communion provides human existence with notions of love, equality, dignity,
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