This lavishly illustrated guide to iconography explains through words and pictures the history, meaning, and purpose of Christian icons as well as the traditional methods that religious painters use to create these luminous, spiritually enlivened works of art. / Solrunn Nes, one of Europe's most admired iconographers, illuminates the world of Christian icons, explaining the motifs, gestures, and colors common to these profound symbols of faith. Nes explores in depth a number of famous icons, including those of the Greater Feasts, the Mother of God, and a number of the better-known saints, enriching her discussion with references to Scripture, early Christian writings, and liturgy. She also leads readers through the process and techniques of icon painting, illustrating each step with photographs, and includes more than fifty of her own original works of art. / Deeply inspiring and utterly unique, The Mystical Language of Icons serves to inform both those who are familiar with the rich tradition of religious art and those who are not. Even more, it is a powerful devotional resource that Christians everywhere can turn to again and again. / This beautifully illustrated book provides the reader with an excellent guide to understanding icons. . . . For anyone interested in the production and meaning of icons, this book will be essential reading. Theological Book Review / Solrunn Nes has produced a fine guide to iconography in her Mystical Language of Icons. The book is lavishly illustrated in full color throughout with Nes's own icons, each in the style of one of the various schools with which she is most conversant. All are striking and luminous and fully in accord with the objective canonical tradition. Her work reveals how one committed prayerfully to the latter can nonetheless produce art of obvious creativity. This book is unreservedly recommended. Touchstone"

Although the demographics of World Christianity demonstrate a population shift to the Global South, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, the preponderance of biblical scholarship continues to be dominated by Western scholars in pursuit of their contextual questions that are influenced by an Enlightenment-oriented worldview. Unfortunately, nascent methodologies used to bridge this chasm often continue to marginalize indigenous voices. In contradistinction, Beth E. Elness-Hanson's research challenges biblical scholars to engage stronger methods for dialogue with global voices, as well as encourages Majority World scholars to share their perspectives with the West. Elness-Hanson's fundamental question is: How do we more fully understand the "generational curses" in the Pentateuch? The phrase, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation," appears four times in the Pentateuch: Exod 20:4-6; Exod 34:6-7; Num 14:18; and Deut 5:8-10. While generational curses remain prevalent within the Maasai worldview in East Africa, an Enlightenment-influenced worldview diminishes curses as a phenomenon. However, fuller understandings develop as we listen and learn from each other. This research develops a theoretical framework from Hans-Georg Gadamer's "fusion of horizons" and applies it through Ellen Herda's anthropological protocol of "participatory inquiry." The resulting dialogue with Maasai theologians in Tanzania, builds bridges of understanding across cultures. Elness-Hanson's intercultural analysis of American and Maasai interpretations of the Pentateuchal texts on the generational curses demonstrates that intercultural dialogues increase understandings, which otherwise are limited by one worldview.

This third and final volume of Archbishop Averky's New Testament commentary elucidates the moral and pastoral aspects of the Pauline and Universal Epistles and the Book of Revelation. Discussion of each New Testament book is preceded by an analysis of the authorship, time and place of composition, and major themes within. The final commentary on the Apocalypse, in which Archbishop Averky relies heavily on the ancient commentary of St Andrew of Ceasaria, is provided in the popular translation by Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), together with the Scriptural text itself. The author's approach is thoroughly patristic, constantly turning to the Church Fathers for the elucidation of one or another particular verse, especially to the commentaries and expositions of St John Chrysostom, Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid, Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus, and most particularly to the voluminous Scriptural commentaries of St Theophan the Recluse. The commentary has been copiously annotated with citations to primary sources, which did not appear in the original text. Archbishop Averky's commentaries on the New Testament have become standard textbooks in Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary and have been published in Russia to widespread acclaim. They are an indispensable addition to the library of every student of the New Testament.

Metropolitan Anastasy was a leading figure of the Russian emigration following the Communist takeover of his country. He formed a bridge between two worlds -- the Imperial Court of the last Tzar and the transient 20th century Russian diaspora. These reflections are from his diary during the calamitous post-revolutionary period. They draw upon wisdom from sources as diverse as writers of classical antiquity, authors, composers and inventors of the age of enlightenment, offering unique perspectives.

James Bethune-Baker (1861 1951) was a British theologian who held the position of Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1911 to 1935. In this book, which was first published in 1908, Bethune-Baker provides a detailed discussion of Nestorius and his views, putting forward the viewpoint 'that Nestorius was not 'Nestorian''. Detailed notes are incorporated throughout the text. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Nestorius, theology and the history of Christianity."

This volume brings together in one compass the Orthodox Churches - the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian, Armenian, Ethiopian, Egyptian and Syrian Churches. It follows their fortunes from the late Middle Ages until modern times - exactly the period when their history has been most neglected. Inevitably, this emphasises differences in teachings and experience, but it also brings out common threads, most notably the resilience displayed in the face of alien and often hostile political regimes. The central theme is the survival against the odds of Orthodoxy in its many forms into the modern era. The last phase of Byzantium proves to have been surprisingly important in this survival. It provided Orthodoxy with the intellectual, artistic and spiritual reserves to meet later challenges. The continuing vitality of the Orthodox Churches is evident for example in the Sunday School Movement in Egypt and the Zoe brotherhood in Greece.

In Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Critical Appropriation of Russian Religious Thought, Jennifer Newsome Martin offers the first systematic treatment and evaluation of the Swiss Catholic theologian's complex relation to modern speculative Russian religious philosophy. Her constructive analysis proceeds through Balthasar's critical reception of Vladimir Soloviev, Nicholai Berdyaev, and Sergei Bulgakov with respect to theological aesthetics, myth, eschatology, and Trinitarian discourse and examines how Balthasar adjudicates both the possibilities and the limits of theological appropriation, especially considering the degree to which these Russian thinkers have been influenced by German Idealism and Romanticism. Martin argues that Balthasar's creative reception and modulation of the thought of these Russian philosophers is indicative of a broad speculative tendency in his work that deserves further attention. In this respect, Martin consciously challenges the prevailing view of Balthasar as a fundamentally conservative or nostalgic thinker. In her discussion of the relation between tradition and theological speculation, Martin also draws upon the understudied relation between Balthasar and F. W. J. Schelling, especially as Schelling's form of Idealism was passed down through the Russian thinkers. In doing so, she persuasively recasts Balthasar as an ecumenical, creatively anti-nostalgic theologian hospitable to the richness of contributions from extra-magisterial and non-Catholic sources.

Harianakis Stylianos is the Archbishop and Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in Australia. His consideration of the Church is that it is the most intimate and graced communion not only of human persons but of the entire created cosmos bonded together in a wondrous relationship with the uncreated God - therefore it is infallible.

Although demographically a minority in Kerala, India, Syrian Christians are not a subordinated community. They are caste-, race-, and class-privileged, and have long benefitted, both economically and socially, from their privileged position. Focusing on Syrian Christian women, Sonja Thomas explores how this community illuminates larger questions of multiple oppressions, privilege and subordination, racialization, and religion and secularism in India. In Privileged Minorities, Thomas examines a wide range of sources, including oral histories, ethnographic interviews, and legislative assembly debates, to interrogate the relationships between religious rights and women's rights in Kerala. Using an intersectional approach, and US women of color feminist theory, she demonstrates the ways that race, caste, gender, religion, and politics are inextricably intertwined, with power and privilege working in complex and nuanced ways. By attending to the ways in which inequalities within groups shape very different experiences of religious and political movements in feminist and rights-based activism, Thomas lays the groundwork for imagining new feminist solidarities across religions, castes, races, and classes.

Although biblical texts were known in Church Slavonic as early as the ninth century, translation of the Bible into Russian came about only in the nineteenth century. Modern scriptural translation generated major religious and cultural conflict within the Russian Orthodox church. The resulting divisions left church authority particularly vulnerable to political pressures exerted upon it in the twentieth century. Russian Bible Wars illuminates the fundamental issues of authority that have divided modern Russian religious culture. Set within the theoretical debate over secularization, the volume clarifies why the Russian Bible was issued relatively late and amidst great controversy. Stephen Batalden's study traces the development of biblical translation into Russian and of the 'Bible wars' that then occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Russia. The annotated bibliography of the Russian Bible identifies the different editions and their publication history.

Written close to the end of the great writer's life, Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story The Dream of a Ridiculous Man tells of a transformation of the heart and a journey from despair to joy: a joy that can be known by all through the experience of God that transcends a simply rational discourse. In this eye opening literary study, the title character and his spiritual metamorphosis are examined in depth in light of the ancient concept of Nous as it developed from the Greek philosophers to the Christian fathers. By comparing the "Ridiculous Man" to similar characters in Dostoevsky's corpus, the author shows how an Orthodox Christian understanding of the Nous underpins Dostoevsky's own anthropology and how his literary works in turn guide the reader toward a truer vision of humanity.

A study of the Orthodox understanding of Baptism and Chrismation.

Coptic contributions to the formative theological debates of Christianity have long been recognized. Less well known are other, equally valuable, Coptic contributions to the transmission and preservation of technical and scientific knowledge, and a full understanding of how Egypt's Copts survived and interacted with the country's majority population over the centuries. Studies in Coptic Culture attempts to examine these issues from divergent perspectives. Through the careful examination of select case studies that range in date from the earliest phases of Coptic culture to the present day, twelve international scholars address issues of cultural transmission, cross-cultural perception, representation, and inter-faith interaction. Their approaches are as varied as their individual disciplines, covering literary criticism, textual studies, and comparative, literature as well as art historical, archaeo-botanical, and historical research methods. The divergent perspectives and methods presented in this volume will provide a fuller picture of what it meant to be Coptic in centuries past and prompt further research and scholarship into these subjects.

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.

From diverse international and multi-disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to this volume analyze the experiences, challenges and responses of Orthodox Churches to the foundational transformations associated with the dissolution of the USSR.

William Palmer (1811-1879) was a theologian and ecumenist best known for his attempts to forge links between the Anglican and Orthodox churches. Palmer was elected a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1832, and became an adherent of the Oxford Movement, which emphasised the catholicity of the Anglican church. In the 1840s and 1850s Palmer visited Russia with the controversial aim of studying Orthodox theology and being admitted to communion by the Russian church. His request was refused, however, and his visit deemed a failure. Palmer converted to Roman Catholicism in 1855. Testimonies Concerning the Patriarch Nicon, the Tsar and the Boyars (1873) is Volume 2 of The Patriarch and the Tsar (1871-1876), Palmer's six-volume translation of documents relating to the life of Nicon (1605-1681), Patriarch of Moscow, whose theological reforms brought him into conflict with the Muscovite Tsar Alexis.

The History of the Condemnation of the Patriarch Nicon, composed by the Greek prelate Paisius Ligarides of Scio (1612 1678), is an account of the bitter struggle between the leaders of the Russian church and state during the reign of Tsar Alexis Michaelovich (1629 1676) and the patriarchate of Nicon (1605 1681). The conflict resulted in the exile and deposition of the Patriarch in 1666, decreed by an ecclesiastical council headed by Ligarides. Ligarides' History, a theological and legal essay on the powers of the tsar, is one of the most important polemics produced during the period. The arguments and ideas it contains represented important advances in the developing ideological tradition of the absolute authority of the tsar. This 1873 translation, the third of six volumes on the subject compiled by William Palmer, made this key historical source accessible to English-speaking scholars of Russian ecclesiastical history and political thought.

Inspired by the epistles of St Paul, St John has many things to say to Christian couples and families.

William Palmer (1811-1879) was a theologian and ecumenist best known for his attempts to forge links between the Anglican and Orthodox churches. Palmer was elected a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1832, and became an adherent of the Oxford Movement, which emphasised the catholicity of the Anglican church. In the 1840s and 1850s Palmer visited Russia with the controversial aim of studying Orthodox theology and being admitted to communion by the Russian church. His request was refused, however, and his visit deemed a failure. Palmer converted to Roman Catholicism in 1855. The Replies of the Humble Nicon (1871) is volume 1 of The Patriarch and the Tsar (1871-1876), Palmer's six-volume translation of documents relating to the life of Nicon (1605-1681), Patriarch of Moscow, whose theological reforms brought him into conflict with the Muscovite Tsar Alexis.

This book examines the part played by monks of Mount Athos in the diffusion of Orthodox monasticism throughout Eastern Europe and beyond. It focuses on the lives of outstanding holy men in the history of Orthodoxy who have been drawn to the Mountain, have absorbed the spirit of its wisdom and its prayer, and have returned to the outside world, inspired to spread the results of their labours and learning. In a remarkable demonstration of what may be termed 'soft power' in action, these men have carried the image of Athos to all corners of the Balkan peninsula, to Ukraine, to the very far north of Russia, across Siberia and the Bering Strait into North America, and most recently (when traditional routes were closed to them by the curtain of communism) to the West. Their dynamic witness is the greatest gift of Athos to a world thirsting for spiritual guidance.

In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth. He shows how this rich and diverse world opens up new ways of thinking about spirit and body, prayer and action, worship and social transformation, which go beyond the polarisations we take for granted. Taking in the world of the great spiritual anthology, the Philokalia, and the explorations of Russian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discussing the witness of figures like Maria Skobtsova, murdered in a German concentration camp for her defence of Jewish refugees, and the challenging theologies of modern Greek thinkers like John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras, Rowan Williams opens the door to a 'climate and landscape of our humanity that can indeed be warmed and transfigured'. This is an original and illuminating vision of a Christian world still none too familiar to Western believers and even to students of theology, showing how the deep-rooted themes of Eastern Christian thought can prompt new perspectives on our contemporary crises of imagination and hope.

Orthodox Christian theology is often presented as the direct inheritor of the doctrine and tradition of the early Church. But continuity with the past is only part of the truth; it would be false to conclude that the eastern section of the Christian Church is in any way static. Orthodoxy, building on its patristic foundations, has blossomed in the modern period. This volume focuses on the way Orthodox theological tradition is understood and lived today. It explores the Orthodox understanding of what theology is: an expression of the Church's life of prayer, both corporate and personal, from which it can never be separated. Besides discussing aspects of doctrine, the book portrays the main figures, themes and developments that have shaped Orthodox thought. There is particular focus on the Russian and Greek traditions, as well as the dynamic but less well-known Antiochian tradition and the Orthodox presence in the West.