The only comprehensive critical anthology of theological and historical aspects related to Florovsky's thought by an international group of leading academics and church personalities. It is the only book in English translation of Florovsky's key study in French - "The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church". The contributors tackle a broad range of subjects that comprise the theological legacy of one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. The essays examine the life and work of Florovsky, his theology and theological methodology, as well as ecclesiology and ecumenism. A must-have volume for those who study Florovsky and his legacy.

Georges Florovsky (1893-1979) was one of the most prominent Orthodox theologians and ecumenists of the twentieth century. His call for a return to patristic writings as a source of modern theological reflection had a powerful impact not only on Orthodox theology in the second half of the twentieth century, but on Christian theology in general. Florovsky was also a major Orthodox voice in the ecumenical movement for four decades and he is one of the founders of the World Council of Churches. This book is a collection of major theological writings by George Florovsky. It includes representative and widely influential but now largely inaccessible texts, many newly translated for this book, divided into four thematic sections: Creation, Incarnation and Redemption, The Nature of Theology, Ecclesiology and Ecumenism, and Scripture, Worship and Eschatology. A foreword by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware presents the theological vision of Georges Florovsky and discusses the continuing relevance of his work both for Orthodox theology and for modern theology in general. The introduction by the Editors provides a theological and historical overview of Florovsky theology in teh context of his biography. The book includes explanatory notes, translation of patrisitc citations and an index.

Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology examines the tension between God and the world through a constructive reading of the Trinitarian theologies and Christologies of Sergii Bulgakov (1871-1944), Karl Barth (1886-1968), and Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988). It focuses on what is called 'the problematic of divine freedom and necessity' and the response of the writers. 'Problematic' refers to God being simultaneously radically free and utterly bound to creation. God did not need to create and redeem the world in Christ. It is a contingent free gift. Yet, on the other side of a dialectic, he also has eternally determined himself to be God as Jesus Christ. He must create and redeem the world to be God as he has so determined. In this way the world is given a certain 'free necessity' by him because if there were no world then there would be no Christ. A spectrum of different concepts of freedom and necessity and a theological ideal of a balance between the same are outlined and then used to illumine the writers and to articulate a constructive response to the problematic. Brandon Gallaher shows that the classical Christian understanding of God having a non-necessary relationship to the world and divine freedom being a sheer assertion of God's will must be completely rethought. Gallaher proposes a Trinitarian, Christocentric, and cruciform vision of divine freedom. God is free as eternally self-giving, self-emptying and self-receiving love. The work concludes with a contemporary theology of divine freedom founded on divine election.

Traditional, secular, and fundamentalist-all three categories are contested, yet in their contestation they shape our sensibilities and are mutually implicated, the one with the others. This interplay brings to the foreground more than ever the question of what it means to think and live as Tradition. The Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, in particular, have emphasized Tradition not as a dead letter but as a living presence of the Holy Spirit. But how can we discern Tradition as living discernment from fundamentalism? What does it mean to live in Tradition when surrounded by something like the "secular"? These essays interrogate these mutual implications, beginning from the understanding that whatever secular or fundamentalist may mean, they are not Tradition, which is historical, particularistic, in motion, ambiguous and pluralistic, but simultaneously not relativistic. Contributors: R. Scott Appleby, Nikolaos Asproulis, Brandon Gallaher, Paul J. Griffiths, Vigen Guroian, Dellas Oliver Herbel, Edith M. Humphrey, Slavica Jakelic, Nadieszda Kizenko, Wendy Mayer, Brenna Moore, Graham Ward, Darlene Fozard Weaver

Traditional, secular, and fundamentalist-all three categories are contested, yet in their contestation they shape our sensibilities and are mutually implicated, the one with the others. This interplay brings to the foreground more than ever the question of what it means to think and live as Tradition. The Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, in particular, have emphasized Tradition not as a dead letter but as a living presence of the Holy Spirit. But how can we discern Tradition as living discernment from fundamentalism? What does it mean to live in Tradition when surrounded by something like the "secular"? These essays interrogate these mutual implications, beginning from the understanding that whatever secular or fundamentalist may mean, they are not Tradition, which is historical, particularistic, in motion, ambiguous and pluralistic, but simultaneously not relativistic. Contributors: R. Scott Appleby, Nikolaos Asproulis, Brandon Gallaher, Paul J. Griffiths, Vigen Guroian, Dellas Oliver Herbel, Edith M. Humphrey, Slavica Jakelic, Nadieszda Kizenko, Wendy Mayer, Brenna Moore, Graham Ward, Darlene Fozard Weaver

The only comprehensive critical anthology of theological and historical aspects related to Florovsky's thought by an international group of leading academics and church personalities. It is the only book in English translation of Florovsky's key study in French - "The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church". The contributors tackle a broad range of subjects that comprise the theological legacy of one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. The essays examine the life and work of Florovsky, his theology and theological methodology, as well as ecclesiology and ecumenism. A must-have volume for those who study Florovsky and his legacy.

This book reexamines the concepts of fundamentalism and religious Orthodoxy in the contemporary world. It brings together twelve essays by some of the leading scholars on Orthodox Christianity that explore the relationship between Orthodoxy and fundamentalist ideas and practices, both in countries and regions where Orthodox Christianity has been the dominant and traditional faith, and in the "New World," where Orthodox Christian communities constitute a minority. The main issues that the contributors explore include fundamentalism as a religious and ideological phenomenon, the relationship between fundamentalism, traditionalism and modernity, fundamentalism in the contemporary Orthodox world, fundamentalist responses to the issues of modernization, pluralism, and democracy, Orthodox Christian responses to political liberalism and secularism, and Orthodox theology and the construction of the (fundamentalist) self.

Georges Florovsky (1893-1979) was one of the most prominent Orthodox theologians and ecumenists of the twentieth century. His call for a return to patristic writings as a source of modern theological reflection had a powerful impact not only on Orthodox theology in the second half of the twentieth century, but on Christian theology in general. Florovsky was also a major Orthodox voice in the ecumenical movement for four decades and he is one of the founders of the World Council of Churches. This book is a collection of major theological writings by George Florovsky. It includes representative and widely influential but now largely inaccessible texts, many newly translated for this book, divided into four thematic sections: Creation, Incarnation and Redemption, The Nature of Theology, Ecclesiology and Ecumenism, and Scripture, Worship and Eschatology. A foreword by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware presents the theological vision of Georges Florovsky and discusses the continuing relevance of his work both for Orthodox theology and for modern theology in general. The introduction by the Editors provides a theological and historical overview of Florovsky theology in teh context of his biography. The book includes explanatory notes, translation of patrisitc citations and an index.

The delay of the Parousia-the second coming of Christ-has vexed Christians since the final decades of the first century. This volume offers a critical, constructive, and interdisciplinary solution to that dilemma. The argument is grounded in Christian tradition while remaining fully engaged with the critical insights and methodological approaches of twenty-first-century scholars. The authors argue that the deferral of Christ's prophesied return follows logically from the conditional nature of ancient predictive prophecy: Jesus has not come again because God's people have not yet responded sufficiently to Christ's call for holy and godly action. God, in patient mercy, remains committed to cooperating with humans to bring about the consummation of history with Jesus' return.Collaboratively written by an interdisciplinary and ecumenical team of scholars, the argument draws on expertise in biblical studies, systematics, and historical theology to fuse critical biblical exegesis with a powerful theological paradigm that generates an apophatic and constructive Christian eschatology. The authors, however, have done more than tackle a daunting theological problem: as the group traverses issues from higher criticism through doctrine and into liturgy and ethics, they present an innovative approach for how to do Christian theology in the twenty-first-century academy.