On personhood

Personhood is not self-defining; rather, it is other-defined. The more it breaks away and strives after independence, the less it becomes a person: what exists instead is merely an individual. Along with these differences lies also the concept of freedom. The very notion of individual freedom is understood as the ability to set boundaries around oneself, thereby affirming oneself. On the contrary, personhood exercises its freedom as the ability to “come forward,” to exceed its limits, to take part with others in a community, and finally to confirm its own existence and its very own otherness through someone else. It is paradoxical but true that without You, which confirms the existence of I, I ceases to make sense, it disappears, it ceases to exist. Thus, while the individual is under the threat of non-existence precisely when it unites with other individuals – from here also stems the great danger of collectivism – personhood is threatened with non-existence only when one ceases to be united with other persons, who confirm its hypostasis as “other,” as hypostasis.

- Metropolitan John Zizioulas
The One and the Many