Sex is a difficult issue for contemporary Christians, but the past decade has witnessed a newfound openness regarding the topic among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Both the theological trajectory and the historical circumstances of the Orthodox Church differ radically from those of other Christian denominations that have already developed robust and creative reflections on sexuality and sexual diversity. Within its unique history, theology, and tradition, Orthodox Christianity holds rich resources for engaging challenging questions of sexuality in new and responsive ways. What is at stake in questions of sexuality in the Orthodox tradition? What sources and theological convictions can uniquely shape Orthodox understandings of sexuality? This volume aims to create an agora for discussing sex, and not least the sexualities that are often thought of as untraditional in Orthodox contexts. Through fifteen distinct chapters, written by leading scholars and theologians, this book offers a developed treatment of sexuality in the Orthodox Christian world by approaching the subject from scriptural, patristic, theological, historical, and sociological perspectives. Chapters devoted to practical and pastoral insights, as well as reflections on specific cultural contexts, engage the human realities of sexual diversity and Christian life. From re-thinking scripture to developing theologies of sex, from eschatological views of eros to re-evaluations of the Orthodox responses to science, this book offers new thinking on pressing, present-day issues and initiates conversations about homosexuality and sexual diversity within Orthodox Christianity.

This book explores the relationship between Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It demonstrates how as these societies undergo substantial transformation Orthodox religion can be both a limiting and an enabling factor, how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how the spheres of religion and politics complement, reinforce, influence, and sometimes contradict each other. Considering a range of thematic issues, with examples from a wide range of countries with significant Orthodox religious groups, and setting the present situation in its full historical context the book provides a rich picture of a subject which has been too often oversimplified.

The "All Night Vigil" held in parish churches on a Saturday evening, is one of the best-known features of the Russian Orthodox Church. This English translation is intended both to help the worshipper to follow the service at the Vigil for Sunday held on Saturday night and to assist the choir in chanting the service. It contains the unvarying texts and rubrics regarding the insertion of the variable parts. The parts of the priest, deacon, reader and choir are clearly indicated.

Christos Yannaras is one of the most significant Orthodox theologians of recent times. The work of Yannaras is virtually synonymous with a turn or renaissance of Orthodox philosophy and theology, initially within Greece, but as the present volume confirms, well beyond it. His work engages not only with issues of philosophy and theology, but also takes in wider questions of culture and politics. With contributions from established and new scholars, the book is divided into three sections, which correspond to the main directions that Christos Yannaras has followed - philosophy, theology, and culture - and reflects on the ways in which Yannaras has engaged and influenced thought across these fields, in addition to themes including ecclesiology, tradition, identity, and ethics. This volume facilitates the dialogue between the thought of Yannaras, which is expressed locally yet is relevant globally, and Western Christian thinkers. It will be of great interest to scholars of Orthodox and Eastern Christian theology and philosophy, as well as theology more widely.

Despite over 200 million adherents, Eastern Orthodox Christianity attracts little scholarly attention. While more-covered religions emerge as powerful transnational forces, Eastern Orthodoxy appears doggedly local, linked to the ethnicity and land of the now marginalized Eastern Europe. But Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age brings together new and nuanced understandings of the Orthodox churches--inside and outside of Eastern Europe--as they negotiate an increasingly networked world. The picture that emerges is less of a people stubbornly refusing modernization, more of a people seeking to maintain a stable Orthodox identity in an unstable world. For anyone interested in the role of Eastern Orthodoxy in the 21st century, this volume provides the place to begin.

In this path-breaking study, Fr. Alexander Webster convincingly demonstrates that a distinctive pacifist trajectory, characterized by the moral virtues of non-violence, nonresistance, voluntary kenotic suffering, and universal forgiveness, has endured through two millennia of Eastern Orthodox history in unbroken continuity with the ancient Church. Webster consults a vast array of primary texts including Holy Scripture, patristic writing through the Byzantine era that terminated in AD 1453, Orthodox canon law from the Seven Ecumenical Councils and other Byzantine Greek legal sources among others. Of interest to historians and to students of theology and religion.

In this path-breaking study, Fr. Alexander Webster convincingly demonstrates that a distinctive pacifist trajectory, characterized by the moral virtues of non-violence, nonresistance, voluntary kenotic suffering, and universal forgiveness, has endured through two millennia of Eastern Orthodox history in unbroken continuity with the ancient Church. Webster consults a vast array of primary texts including Holy Scripture, patristic writing through the Byzantine era that terminated in AD 1453, Orthodox canon law from the Seven Ecumenical Councils and other Byzantine Greek legal sources among others. Of interest to historians and to students of theology and religion.

The Cult of St Anna in Byzantium is the first undertaking in Byzantine research to study the phenomenon of St Anna's cult from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries. It was prompted by the need to enrich our knowledge of a female saint who had already been studied in the West but remained virtually unknown in Eastern Christendom. It focuses on a figure little-studied in scholarship and examines the formation, establishment and promotion of an apocryphal saint who made her way to the pantheon of Orthodox saints. Visual and material culture, relics and texts track the gradual social and ideological transformation of Byzantium from early Christianity until the fifteenth century. This book not only examines various aspects of early Christian and Byzantine civilisation, but also investigates how the cult of saints greatly influenced cultural changes in order to suit theological, social and political demands. The cult of St Anna influenced many diverse elements of Christian life in Constantinople, including the creation of sacred spaces and the location of haghiasmata (fountains of holy water) in the city; imperial patronage; the social reception of St Anna's story; and relic narratives. This monograph breaks new ground in explaining how and why Byzantium and the Orthodox Church attributed scriptural authority to a minor figure known only from a non-canonical work.

This book examines the function and development of the cult of saints in Coptic Egypt, focusing primarily on the material provided by the texts forming the Coptic hagiographical tradition of the early Christian martyr Philotheus of Antioch, and more specifically, the Martyrdom of St Philotheus of Antioch (Pierpont Morgan M583). This Martyrdom is a reflection of a once flourishing cult which is attested in Egypt by rich textual and material evidence. This text enjoyed great popularity not only in Egypt, but also in other countries of the Christian East, since his dossier includes texts in Coptic, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Arabic.

Despite over 200 million adherents, Eastern Orthodox Christianity attracts little scholarly attention. While more-covered religions emerge as powerful transnational forces, Eastern Orthodoxy appears doggedly local, linked to the ethnicity and land of the now marginalized Eastern Europe. But Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age brings together new and nuanced understandings of the Orthodox churches--inside and outside of Eastern Europe--as they negotiate an increasingly networked world. The picture that emerges is less of a people stubbornly refusing modernization, more of a people seeking to maintain a stable Orthodox identity in an unstable world. For anyone interested in the role of Eastern Orthodoxy in the 21st century, this volume provides the place to begin.

Radical Orthodoxy remains an important movement within Christian theology, but does it relate effectively with an increasingly pluralist and secular Western society? Can it authentically communicate the beauty and desire of the divine to such a diverse collection of theological accounts of meaning? This book re-assesses the viability of the social model given by John Milbank, before attempting an out-narration of this vision with a more convincing account of the link between the example of the Trinitarian divine and the created world. It also touches on areas such as interreligious dialogue, particularly between Christianity and Islam, as well as social issues such as marginalisation, integration, and community relations in order to chart a practical way forward for the living of a Christian life within contemporary plurality. This is a vital resource for any Theology academic with an interest in Radical Orthodoxy and conservative post-modern Christian theology. It will also appeal to scholars involved in Islamic Studies and studying interreligious dialogues.

The Russian church is central to an understanding of early Russian and Slav history, but for many years there has been no accessible, up-to-date introduction to the subject in English - until now. The late John Fennell's last book, is a masterly survey of the development, nature and role of the early Church in Russia from Christianization of the country in 988, through Kievan and Tatar poeriods to 1448 when the Russian Church finally became totally independent of its mother-church in Byzantium.

Following the end of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church has canonized a great number of Russian saints. Whereas in the first millennium of Russian Christianity (988-1988) the Church recognized merely 300 Russian saints, the number had grown to more than 2,000 by 2006. This book explores the remarkable phenomenon of new Russian martyrdom. It outlines the process of canonization, examines how saints are venerated, and relates all this to the ways in which the Russian state and its people have chosen to remember the Soviet Union and commemorate the victims of its purges. The book includes in-depth case studies of particular saints and examines the diverse ways in which they are venerated.

This book explores the political relationship between the Muslim majority and Coptic minority in Egypt between 1918 and 1952. Many Egyptians hoped to see the collaboration of the 1919 revolution spur the creation of both a new collective Egyptian identity and a state without religious bias. Traditional ways of governing, however, were not so easily cast aside. Some Egyptians held tenaciously to the traditional arrangements which had both guaranteed Muslim primacy and served relatively well to protect the Copts and afford them some autonomy. Differences within the Coptic community over the wisdom of trusting the genuineness and durability of Muslim support for equality were accentuated by a protracted struggle between reforming laymen and conservative clergy for control of the community. The unwillingness of all parties to compromise hampered the ability of the community both to determine and to defend its interests. The Copts met with modest success in their attempt to become full Egyptian citizens. Their influence in the Wafd, the pre-eminent political party, was very strong prior to and in the early years of the constitutional monarchy, and their formal representation was generally adequate and, in some parliaments, better than adequate. However, this very success produced a backlash which caused many Copts to believe, by the 1940s, that the experiment had failed: political activity has become fraught with risk for them. At the close of the monarchy, equality and shared power seemed motions as distant as in the disheartening years before the 1919 revolution.

The Anastenaria are Orthodox Christians in Northern Greece who observe a unique annual ritual cycle focused on two festivals, dedicated to Saint Constantine and Saint Helen. The festivals involve processions, music, dancing, animal sacrifices, and culminate in an electrifying fire-walking ritual. Carrying the sacred icons of the saints, participants dance over hot coals as the saint moves them. 'The Burning Saints' presents an analysis of these rituals and the psychology behind them. Based on long-term fieldwork, 'The Burning Saints' traces the historical development and sociocultural context of the Greek fire-walking rituals. As a cognitive ethnography, the book aims to identify the social, psychological and neurobiological factors which may be involved and to explore the role of emotional and physiological arousal in the performance of such ritual. A study of participation, experience and meaning, 'The Burning Saints' presents a highly original analysis of how mental processes can shape social and religious behaviour.

Orthodox Christians, as well as other non-Muslims of the Ottoman Empire, have long been treated as insular and homogenous entities, distinctly different and separate from the rest of the Ottoman world. Despite this view prevailing in mainstream historiography, some scholars have suggested recently that non-Muslim life was not as monolithic and rigid as is often supposed. In an endeavour to understand the ties among Christians within the administrative, social and economic structures of the imperial and Orthodox Christian worlds, Ayse Ozil engages in a rarely undertaken comparative analysis of Ottoman, Greek and European archival sources. Using the hitherto under-explored region of Hudavendigar in the heartland of the empire as a case study, she questions commonplace assumptions about the meaning of ethno-religious community within a Middle Eastern imperial framework. Offering a more nuanced investigation of Ottoman Christians by connecting Ottoman and Greek history, which are often treated in isolation from one another, this work sheds new light on communal existence.

This book argues for the inseparability of classical Hellenism from the Greek patristic tradition from a distinctly Eastern Orthodox perspective. Postulating a common striving for truth in both domains, it places emphasis on the contributions of the ancients and Greek paideia to Christian learning and culture. In the spirit of the late Werner Jaeger, the essays contained in the volume provide a fruitful strategy for looking anew at the Greek classical world and Christianity through the eyes of the Greek Fathers, the direct inheritors of the ancient Greek worldview. Collectively, the author and contributors excellently demonstrate that, conflated with the visionary insights of the Jewish prophets and of Jewish messianism, the wisdom of the ancients served to pave the way for the unfolding of the fullness of Christian teaching and its spiritually enlightening revelation.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2005. Originally, the Ethiopian Church received fourteen Anaphora's from the Church of Egypt, yet at the time of publication, only three of them could be accounted for- that of St. Cyril, St. Gregory and St. Basil. Marcos Daoud has therefore devoted this work to the English translation of the remaining three.

The central task of "Being With God" is an analysis of the relation between apophaticism, trinitarian theology, and divine-human communion through a critical comparison of the trinitarian theologies of the Eastern Orthodox theologians Vladimir Lossky (1903-58) and John Zizioulas (1931-), arguably two of the most influential Orthodox theologians of the past century. These two theologians identify as the heart and center of all theological discourse the realism of divine-human communion, which is often understood in terms of the familiar Orthodox concept of theosis, or divinization. The Incarnation, according to Lossky and Zizioulas, is the event of a real divine-human communion that is made accessible to all; God has become human so that all may participate fully in the divine life. Aristotle Papanikolaou shows how an ontology of divine-human communion is at the center of both Lossky's and Zizioulas's theological projects. He also shows how, for both theologians, this core belief is used as a self-identifying marker against "Western" theologies, which both see as excessively rationalistic. Papanikolaou maintains, however, that Lossky and Zizioulas hold profoundly different views on how to conceptualize God as the Trinity. Their key difference is over the use of apophaticism in theology in general and especially the relation of apophaticism to the doctrine of the Trinity. For Lossky, apophaticism is the central precondition for a trinitarian theology; for Zizioulas, apophaticism has a much more restricted role in theological discourse, and the God experienced in the eucharist is not the God beyond being but the immanent life of the trinitarian God. Papanikolaou provides readers with a richer understanding of contemporary Orthodox theology through his analysis of the consensus and debate between two leading Orthodox theologians.

Although its various bodies boast a combined total of at least 300 million members, the Eastern Orthodox Church is widely perceived among members of other denominations to be an exotic branch of the faith, often shrouded in mysticism and misunderstanding that has been exacerbated by the longstanding Eastern-Western split. In 'Purification of Memory', Ambrose Mong casts light on the true nature of Orthodox theology, illuminating the thinking of eight distinguished modern Orthodox theologians who have made important contributions on topics as ecclesiology, ecumenism, Christology, and Mariology. Approaching the work of John Meyendorff, Nicholas Afanasiev, John Zizioulas, Georges Florovsky, Sergius Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Nicolas Berdyaev, and Jaroslav Pelikan from an ecumenical standpoint, Mong deftly draws comparisons with the theology of their Roman Catholic counterparts to reveal points on which the two traditions have much more in common than either side will always admit. The author interweaves these comparisons with a fascinating exposition of the history of the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches to demonstrate decisively that in spite of the bitter mistrust dividing them, they share a common heritage which could, and should, serve as a basis for reunification. Before old wounds can mend, however, a healing process of forgetting, characterized by Pope John Paul II as a 'purification of memory', must take place to clear the path towards a long-awaited return to unity.

Written between the 4th and 15th centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition, the texts published in Greek in 1782 as "The Philokalia" were later translated into Slavonic and then Russian. This is the fourth of five volumes of a translation from the original Greek, and contains some of the most important writings in the entire collection. St Symeon the New Theologian speaks about the conscious experience of the Holy Spirit and about the vision of the divine and uncreated Light; St Gregory of Sinai provides practical guidance concerning the life of the Hesychast and the use of the Jesus Prayer; and St Gregory Palamas discusses the distinction - often misunderstood - between the essence and the energies of God.

"Thou hast redeemed us from the curse of the Law by Thy precious Blood. By being nailed to the Cross and pierced with the Spear, Thou hast poured immortality on mankind. O our Saviour, glory to Thee." - Troparion for Holy Friday Atonement is a contested but inescapable term in contemporary English-language theological discussion. The doctrine of atonement has received little attention in Orthodox Christian circles since the work of Fr Georges Florovsky, who labored to clarify and promulgate the Orthodox teaching on atonement on the basis of his theological leitmotifs of neo-patristic synthesis and encounter with the West. Florovsky saw the doctrine of the person of Christ as the key to apprehending the pattern and the unity of God's redemptive work. Hence he always sought to follow the Church Fathers in weaving together the themes of creation and fall, incarnation and atonement, deification and redemption, liturgy and asceticism, in the variegated yet seamless robe of true theology. The present volume is inspired by Florovsky's legacy. It is composed of two parts. The first is a collection of papers on atonement by contemporary scholars from a patristic symposium in honor of Florovsky held at Princeton Theological Seminary and Princeton University in 2011. The second part is a collection of writings on atonement by Florovsky himself, including previously unpublished manuscripts and other works otherwise hard to access. This book offers incisive and informed neo-patristic voices to any contemporary discussion of atonement, thus responding to the perennial legacy and task to which Fr Georges Florovsky exhorted Orthodox theological reflection.