The Patristic Witness of Georges Florovsky


Book Description

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.













BIBLE, CHURCH, TRADITION


Book Description

Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View- Volume One In the collected works of Fr. Georges Florovsky is an excellent introduction to Orthodox biblical exegesis and ecclesiology. It should be read by Protestants, many of whom are unfamiliar with Orthodox views on Scripture, as well as Roman Catholics for an alternative view to their own tradition, as well as Orthodox themselves who are looking for a short, academic but intelligible introduction to this topic. Fr. Florovsky is considered by some to be one of the most outstanding and profound theologians of twentieth-century Orthodoxy. The first section of the book deals with the Church's proclamation of God's revelation to man, the Gospel, in the Holy Scriptures, and the "catholic" nature of the Church itself. The Church is labeled "catholic" because it possesses within itself a distinct universality and applies to all mankind. The Scripture needs to be proclaimed as God's Word revealed to man through the ages: first to the ancient Hebrew tribes in the form of the Old Testament and to the entire world through the New. The Bible should not be treated as a "history" book as such, nor is it a manual on the natural sciences, as many "fundamentalists" of various sects today uphold.







Orthodox Constructions of the West


Book Description

The category of the “West” has played a particularly significant role in the modern Eastern Orthodox imagination. It has functioned as an absolute marker of difference from what is considered to be the essence of Orthodoxy and, thus, ironically has become a constitutive aspect of the modern Orthodox self. The essays collected in this volume examine the many factors that contributed to the “Eastern” construction of the “West” in order to understand why the “West” is so important to the Eastern Christian’s sense of self.




The Sculptor and his Stone


Book Description

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 theancients 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.