'Staniloae seeks always to indicate the inner coherence of dogmatic truth and the significance of each dogma for the personal life of the Christian. It is the theologian's task to make manifest the link between dogma and personal spirituality, to show how every dogma responds to a deep need and longing in the human heart, and how it has practical consequences for society. Dogmas, he is convinced, do not enslave but liberate; theology is essentially freedom.' Kallistos Ware>

Thecla, a disciple of the apostle Paul, became perhaps the most celebrated female saint and "martyr" among Christians in late antiquity. In the early church, Thecla's example was associated with the piety of women -- in particular, with women's ministry and travel. Devotion to Saint Thecla quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean world: her image was painted on walls of tombs, stamped on clay flasks and oil lamps, engraved on bronze crosses and wooden combs, and even woven into textile curtains. Bringing together literary, artistic, and archaeological evidence, often for the first time, Stephen Davis here reconstructs the cult of Saint Thecla in Asia Minor and Egypt -- the social practices, institutions, and artefacts that marked the lives of actual devotees. From this evidence the author shows how the cult of this female saint remained closely linked with communities of women as a source of empowerment and a cause of controversy.

The author is a world authority on Orthodox thought. This introduction is written in lively, non-technical language for readers of all religious backgrounds.

This introduction describes the life of the Orthodox Churches of the Christian East from the accession of the Emperor Constantine in 312 up to the year 2000. It discusses the distinctive Orthodox approaches to the themes of liturgy, theology, monastic life and spirituality, iconography, popular religion, mission, politics and the schism between East and West. The final chapter examines the response of the Churches to the new freedom following the collapse of communism and the prospects for the future.

Although there are over 200 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, 4 million of whom live in the United States, their history, beliefs, and practices are unfamiliar to most Americans. This book outlines the evolution of Orthodox Christian dogma, which emerged for the first time in 33 A.D., before shifting its focus to American Orthodoxy--a tradition that traces its origins back to the first Greek and Russian immigrants in the 1700s. The narrative follows the momentous events and notable individuals in the history of the Orthodox dioceses in the U.S., including Archbishop Iakovos' march for civil rights alongside Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Orthodox missionaries' active opposition to the mistreatment of native Inuit in Alaska, the quest for Orthodox unity in America, the massive influx of converts since the 1960s, and the often strained relationship between American Orthodox groups and the mother churches on the other side of the Atlantic. Erickson explains the huge impact Orthodox Christianity has had on the history of immigration, and how the religion has changed as a result of the American experience. Lively, engaging, and thoroughly researched, the book unveils an insightful portrait of an ancient faith in a new world.

The task of man's earthly life is preparing himself for eternal salvation and blessedness. To attain this, a man must live in a holy and pure manner - that is, according to God's will. In this short but incisive treatise the reader is guided on a spiritual journey that begins with the awakening of conscience and the realization of the presence of both sin and virtue in the world, culminating in a union with God: that is "a living, personal relationship with the one we love." In following the path of this ascent the author delineates many of its markers and stresses that these have both personal and societal aspects. This book is suitable for both private reading and group study. Questions for discussion or contemplation are interspersed throughout this edition. A short biography of the author is also included.

This is the first English translation of the major Armenian epic on Adam and Eve composed by Arak'el of Siwnik' in the early fifteenth century. Arak'el writes extremely powerful narrative poetry, as in his description of the brilliance of paradise, of Satan's mustering his hosts against Adam and Eve, and Eve's inner struggle between obedience to God and Satan's seduction. In parts the epic is in dialogue form between Adam, Eve, and God. It also pays much attention to the typology of Adam and Christ, or Adam's sin and death and Christ's crucifixion. By implication, this story, from an Eastern Christian tradition, is the story of all humans, and bears comparison with later biblical epics, such as Milton's Paradise Lost. Michael E. Stone's version preserves a balance between literary felicity and faithfulness to the original. His Introduction sets the work and its author in historical, religious, and literary context.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Orthodox Christianity in Russia has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Many Russians are now looking to the history of their faith as they try to rebuild a lost way of life. Vera Shevzov has spent ten years researching Orthodoxy as it was lived in the
years before the 1917 Revolution. In Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution, she draws on a rich variety of previously untapped archival sources and published works unavailable in the West to reconstruct the religious world of lay people.
Shevzov traces the means by which men and women shaped their religious lives in an ecclesiastical system that was often dominated by bureaucrats and monastic bishops. She finds vivid displays of resistance to the official system and equally vivid affirmations of faith. Focusing on various
"centers" of religious life--the church temple, chapels, feasts, icons, and the Virgin Mary--she traces the rituals, beliefs, and communal dynamics that lent these centers meaning. Shevzov also presents the conflicting voices of ecclesiastical officials. She questions the notion that the only
challenge to Orthodoxy at the end of the ancien regime came from outsiders such as Marxist revolutionaries, atheistic intellectuals, and urban factor workers. Instead, she shows that a different but equally great challenge emerged within the faith community itself. Indeed, the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century is revealed as one of the most dynamic periods in the history of Russian Orthodoxy, characterized by debates analogous to the Reformation or the era of Vatican II. Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution breaks new ground by giving voice to thepreviously-ignored common
people during this period immediately preceding one of the most important events of the twentieth century.

St Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807-1867) is renowned as a writer on the spiritual life in general. What is less well known is that throughout most of his adult life he struggled with chronic illness and disability. Thus his own life experience disposed him to reflect on the meaning of suffering for human existence and how through it we might find "a harbor for our hope." The saint frequently returns to these themes in many of his letters, newly translated into English and excerpted, adapted and presented here in thematic subject groups. For the translator these writings provided a source of consolation and encouragement during her husband's lengthy illness and eventual death. They will equally benefit all who suffer physical or spiritual pain, however great or small, and reveal how the love of God may be experienced in its midst.

Can humans know God? Can created beings approach the Uncreated? The concept of God and questions about our ability to know him are central to this book. Eastern Orthodox theology distinguishes between knowing God as he is (his divine essence) and as he presents himself (through his energies), and thus it both negates and affirms the basic question: man cannot know God in his essence, but may know him through his energies. Henny Fiska Hagg investigates this earliest stage of Christian negative (apophatic) theology, as well as the beginnings of the distinction between essence and energies, focusing on Clement of Alexandria in the late second century. Clement's theological, social, religious, and philosophical milieu is also considered, as is his indebtedness to Middle Platonism and its concept of God.

In this work, the printed Greek confession books are subjected to extensive analysis for the very first time. These books, which appeared at the beginning of the 17th century in the orthodox East, enjoyed unprecedented popularity in their time. This work focuses on analyzing the origins of these confession books and their sources, within the context of church policy. Through new findings, which radically revise the knowledge accrued through previous research, it makes an essential contribution to research on the history of Orthodoxy under Ottoman rule.

In Kyriacos C. Markides's newest book, Eastern Orthodox mysticism meets Western Christianity as the internationally renowned author takes readers on a deep journey back in time to unveil the very roots of authentic spirituality.
In his previous book "The Mountain of Silence," Markides introduced us to the essential spiritual nature of Eastern Orthodoxy in a series of lively conversations with Father Maximos, the widely revered charismatic Orthodox bishop and former abbot of the isolated monastery on Mount Athos. In "Gifts of the Desert," Markides continues his examination of Easter Orthodox mystical teachings and practices and captures its living expression through visits to monasteries and hermitages in Greece and America and interviews with contemporary charismatic elders, both male and female.
Markides's pursuit of a deeper understanding of Orthodoxy takes him to the deserts of Arizona and a stay at a new monastery in Sedona; to the island of Cyprus and a reunion with Father Maximos; on a pilgrimage to holy shrines aboard a cruise ship in the Aegean Sea; and finally to the legendary Mount Athos, home to more than two thousand Orthodox monks. Markides relates his journey and reflections in a captivating style while providing important background material and information on historical events to give readers a highly accessible, in-depth portrait of a tradition little known in the West.
"Gifts of the Desert "will appeal to a wide range of people, from Christians seeking insights into their religion and its various expressions to scholars interested in learning more about the mystical way of life and wisdom that have been preserved on Mount Athos since the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the Great Schism that separated the Eastern and Western Churches. Perhaps most important, however, is the bridge it offers contemporary readers to a Christian life that is balanced between the worldly and the spiritual.

The Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886-912), was not a general or even a soldier, like his predecessors, but a scholar, and it was the religious education he gained under the tutelage of the patriarch Photios that was to distinguish him as an unusual ruler. This book analyses Leo's literary output, focusing on his deployment of ideological principles and religious obligations to distinguish the characteristics of the Christian oikoumene from the Islamic caliphate, primarily in his military manual known as the Taktika. It also examines in depth his 113 legislative Novels, with particular attention to their theological prolegomena, showing how the emperor's religious sensibilities find expression in his reshaping of the legal code to bring it into closer accord with Byzantine canon law. Meredith L. D. Riedel argues that the impact of his religious faith transformed Byzantine cultural identity and influenced his successors, establishing the Macedonian dynasty as a 'golden age' in Byzantium.

This is a collection of texts on prayer, taken from Greek and Russian sources. The spiritual teaching of the Orthodox Church appears here in its classic and traditional form, but expressed in unusually direct and vivid language. The Art of Prayer is concerned in particular with the most frequently used and best loved of all Orthodox prayers - the Jesus Prayer. It deals also with the general question 'What is Prayer?', with the different degrees of prayer from ordinary oral prayer to unceasing prayer of the heart, with the dangers of illusion and discouragement, and the need for seclusion and inner peace.

The tiny, arid Greek island of Patmos is one of the most sacred places in the Christian world, and a place of bewitching power, where people come for a brief summer visit and end up returning, year after year, for the rest of their lives. In A Place of Healing for the Soul, BBC commentator Peter France -- who arrived on the island a hardened skeptic -- tells how he came to change his life perspective. Learning from the island's gregarious inhabitants and its religious eccentrics-hermits, ascetics, monks, and nuns -- he discovered the pleasure and security of living simply and doing without, in a timeless realm where history, myth, and spirituality are endlessly alive.

The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence is the first in-depth investigation into both the Greek and the Latin sides of the debate about the moment of Eucharistic transubstantiation at the Council of Florence. Christiaan Kappes examines the life and times of the central figures of the debate, Mark Eugenicus and John Torquemada, and assesses their doctrinal authority. Kappes presents a patristic and Scholastic analysis of Torquemada's Florentine writings, revealing heretofore-unknown features of the debate and the full background to its treatises. The most important feature of the investigation involves Eugenicus. Kappes investigates his theological method and sources for the first time to give an accurate appraisal of the strength of Mark's theological positions in the context of his own time and contemporary methods. The investigation into both traditions allows for an informed evaluation of more recent developments in the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church in light of these historical sources. Kappes provides a historically contextual and contemporary proposal for solutions to the former impasse in light of the principles rediscovered within Eugenicus's works. This monograph speaks to contemporary theological debates surrounding transubstantiation and related theological matters, and provides a historical framework to understand these debates. The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence will interest specialists in theology, especially those with a background in and familiarity with the council and related historical themes, and is essential for any ecumenical library.

This edited collection considers Greek American formal and informal educational efforts, institutions, and programs, broadly conceived, as they evolved over time throughout the United States. The book's focus on Greek Americans aims to highlight the vast array of educational responses to local needs and contexts as this distinct, yet, heterogeneous immigrant community sought to maintain its linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage for over one hundred years. The chapters in this volume amend the scholarly literature that thus far has not only overlooked Greek American educational initiatives, but has also neglected to recognize and analyze the community's persistence in sustaining them. This book is an important contribution to an understanding of Greek Americans' long overdue history as a significant diaspora community within an American context.

The great city of Alexandria is undoubtedly the cradle of Egyptian Christianity, where the Catechetical School was established in the second century and became a leading center in the study of biblical exegesis and theology. According to tradition, St. Mark the Evangelist brought Christianity to Alexandria in the middle of the first century and was martyred in that city, which was to become the residence of Egypt's Coptic patriarchs for nearly eleven centuries. By the fourth century Egyptian monasticism had began to flourish in the Egyptian deserts and countryside. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine the various aspects of Coptic civilization in Alexandria and its environs, and in the Egyptian deserts, over the past two millennia. The contributions explore Coptic art, archaeology, architecture, language, and literature. The impact of Alexandrian theology and its cultural heritage as well as the archaeology of its 'university' are highlighted. Christian epigraphy in the Kharga Oasis, the art and architecture of the Bagawat cemetery, and the archaeological site of Kellis (Ismant al-Kharab) with its Manichaean texts are also discussed.

This volume contains the contributions presented at the First International Syriac Symposium organised by the newly established Artuklu University in Mardin (April 2012). A substantial number of papers are devoted to the history of Syriac Christianity in Mardin itself, or more generally in Eastern Turkey, with contributions by both Turkish and international scholars. The importance of this Symposium should not be underestimated. Not so many years ago, Syriac and Turoyo were forbidden languages in Turkey and were only allowed in the private sphere, not in public. With this publication, the Artuklu University and the Turkish academic world acknowledge the importance of Syriac culture and Syriac language as elements for understanding the history and present-day situation of Eastern Anatolia.

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768 - 1834) was, in Berlin, an eminent preacher, professor, and member of the academy. He displayed an influential theological and philosophical position between enlightenment, German idealism, and romanticism. The historical-critical edition of Schleiermacher's complete works, his unpublished writings and correspondence, published since 1980, has been divided into the following five sections: I. Writings and Drafts II. Lectures III. Sermons IV. Translations V. Correspondence and Biographical Documents The first editorial section, Writings and Drafts, includes all of Schleiermacher's writings which were printed during his lifetime except those which belong to the editorial sections III and IV. It also includes manuscripts either relating to these printed works or to drafts which do not belong to other editorial sections. In 2003, the final two text volumes (vols. 13 and 14) appeared. In 2005, the index volume with some addenda was published. The second editorial section, Lectures, contains all the material regarding Schleiermacher's extentsive lecturing both in Theological and Philosophical Faculties. Additional material is also drawn from notes made in his lecture by his students. (The Berlin Research Centre has been carrying out the editorial work on this section since 1989.) The third section, Sermons, includes all of Schleiermacher's published sermons authorised by himself, as well as his own handwritten drafts and records by listeners where the original text has not been preserved. (The Kiel Research Centre has been working on this section between 2003 and 2017.) This edition of Schleiermacher's sermons consist of a total of 14 volumes of approximately 600 pages each, plus an index volume. The forth section, Translations, has two main components. Schleiermacher translated Hugh Blair's and Joseph Fawcett's sermons (as well as parts of Mungo Park's Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa) from English into German (volumes 1 and 2). Further this sections will contain Schleiermacher's translation of Platon from Greek into German (beginning with volume 3). Section V. includes the letters from and to Schleiermacher, as well as bibliographical documents. The work on this section started in 1979 in the Schleiermacher Research Center Berlin. So far (May 2020), 13 volumes have been published, documenting letters until December 1816.

This book deals with a sequence of lively and often bizarre episodes within San Francisco's Russian community set in motion in early 1888 by the arrival in San Francisco of a new Russian Orthodox bishop--and his entourage, which included some twenty clergymen and eleven boys.
It did not take long for the bishop to clash with Dr. Nicholas Russel, a colorful Russian revolutionary exile who was one of the leaders of the Russian community. They became bitter enemies, and Bishop Vladimir's three-and-a-half-year tenure in San Francisco was punctuated by a series of remarkable scandals and lawsuits, by an excommunication, by an unconsummated duel, and by a host of lurid allegations that received extensive local publicity--including charges of arson, perjury, attempts to hire potential assassins, bigamy, and, most sensationally, sodomy and child abuse.
All of this centered around the combative bishop and his church administration, and eventually involved, in one way or another, a large part of San Francisco's Russian community, as people took sides with either the bishop or his tireless antagonist, Dr. Russel. These local furors reverberated in high places in St. Petersburg, as the procurator-general of the Holy Synod and officials of the Russian autocracy sought, in vain for the most part, to curb the bishop and bring peace to the local community.
This vivid example of "microhistory" sheds light on a number of intriguing issues, notably the workings of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia, the nature of European ethnic communities in late-nineteenth-century America, the mentality of the two protagonists (who represented widely different Russian social groups), Russian church-state relations, and nineteenth-century legal and sexual mores.

An introduction to the text volume of the first critical edition of the Greek monastic novel The Life of Barlaam and Josaphat, available since the end of 2006. It deals with the question of the authorship a " which can now be regarded as resolved a " the sources of the text and its influence, the contents, the history of the manuscript together with the various illustration cycles, and the direct translations from the Greek. The volume is completed with a characterization of the new edition and a detailed bibliography.

Basilio Petra sees Christos Yannaras (b. 1935) as a philosopher and theologian whose refiguring, on the one hand, of Heidegger's refusal to define being in ontic terms and, on the other, of Wittgenstein's willingness to admit the inexpressible character of the mystical has led him to articulate a powerful vision of true human existence. This bold interpretation outlines the passage from an ontic 'mode of nature' governed by necessity to a 'mode of self-transcendence and self-offering' beyond the limitations of decay and death. In his native Greece, Yannaras revolutionised the way theology had been done for much of the twentieth century. This book examines the trajectory of Yannaras' thought from his initial encounter with Heidegger's philosophy to his formulation (via the tradition of the Greek Fathers) of a modern critical ontology. It is for both advanced students of philosophy and the growing scholarly audience interested in Yannaras' work. Written in accessible language that does not compromise intellectual rigour, it is the only survey of the development of Yannaras' philosophical thought as a whole.

During Russia's late imperial period, Orthodox churchmen, professionally trained theologians, and an array of social commentators sought to give meaning to Russian history and its supposed backwardness. Many found that meaning in asceticism. For some, ascetic religiosity prevented Russia from achieving its historical destiny. For others, it was the means by which the Russian people would realize the Kingdom of God, thereby saving Holy Russia and the world from the satanic forces of the West. Patrick Lally Michelson's intellectual history of asceticism in Russian Orthodox thought traces the development of these competing arguments from the early nineteenth century to the early months of World War I. He demonstrates that this discourse was an imaginative interpretation of lived Orthodoxy, primarily meant to satisfy the ideological needs of Russian thinkers and Orthodox intellectuals as they responded to the socioeconomic, political, and cultural challenges of modernity.