Fear, a possible gateway to contemplation and communion

This article is the text of the concluding address delivered by Daniel Lossky, secretary general of the Orthodox Fellowship, at the XVIIIth Orthodox Congress. In the form of a meditative synthesis, it takes up the themes of the congress by articulating a biblical and patristic reflection on fear and awe. The central idea is that fear, presented in the Scriptures as an obstacle to faith, hope and love, can nevertheless, when it is transformed into reverent awe of God, become a gateway to contemplation and communion. The article carefully distinguishes between paralyzing fear, linked to sin and death, and reverential awe, which opens one to an encounter with the Wholly Other. Drawing on figures such as Mother Maria Skobtsova, Saint Maximus the Confessor and Olivier Clément, it proposes a theology of crisis as a place of discernment and spiritual maturation oriented toward eucharistic life.