John Zizioulas on Personhood and Freedom

However, when the contribution of the Church is left on one side, the Western philosophical tradition takes us in a different direction. We assume that other people are a threat to us, and that we have to assert ourselves against them.  Fear takes the place of love in our account of the social and natural worlds.  If we define our freedom without reference to love, we believe that we have to make ourselves free by separating ourselves from others on the one hand, and from our embodiment in nature on the other.  The Church insists that love, along with all forms of fellowship and society, is essential to any account of human being.  Freedom and communion are both fundamental. Without a concept of person, either communion is given undue weight over freedom, or freedom over communion.

Metropolitan John Zizioulas,
Lectures in Christian Dogmatics