The Living Christ: The Theological Legacy of Georges Florovsky 9780567700469, 9780567700483, 9780567700476

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Endorsements for The Living Christ: The Theological Legacy of Georges Florovsky With every year that passes, Georges Florovsky appears more and more clearly as a major figure in twentieth-century Christianity. A theologian of enormous and diverse erudition, he was an original thinker in so many fields—an innovative intellectual historian, a philosopher of history, a sophisticated reader of the Russian cultural and literary tradition, and, of course, a deeply creative interpreter of Eastern Christian thought. This excellent collection of studies bears eloquent witness to the growing interest in his thinking. Dr. Rowan Williams Former Archbishop of Canterbury Former Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge As an editor of the German translations of Sergii Bulgakov, I often encounter Georges Florovsky as Bulgakov’s great antagonist. This critical collection of essays paints a more differentiated and fascinating picture: convergences, continuities, common theological concerns emerge within the Orthodox debates. The title of the anthology displays its program: the new reception of Florovsky gives witness to The Living Christ by a living theology for a living Church in living ecumenical openness. The community of contributors demonstrates the spirit of the “Congresses of Orthodox Theology” and inspires to revive this tradition. Dr. Barbara Hallensleben Professor of Dogmatics and Ecumenism University of Fribourg, Switzerland This magisterial overview of Georges Florovsky’s theological writing, taken together with its companion collection of primary writings (The Patristic Witness of Georges Florovsky), provides English readers with an unmatched entry into the thought of one of the great, if underappreciated, Christian theologians of the 20th century, whose influence comprehended Europe and America both. The book draws together the expertise of preeminent Orthodox scholars, and covers key aspects of Florovsky’s work, including his intellectual biography, his “patristic method,” ecclesiology, ecumenism, and missiology. The Living Christ not only demonstrates how but why Florovsky’s rare combination of Christian “conviction and compassion,” formed by a remarkable intellect, was able to reshape Orthodox theology and ecumenical understanding more profoundly than any other single theologian of his time. The writing here is rich, sensitive, and detailed, and the editing deft. Readers can only be joyfully illumined by engaging this volume. Dr. Ephraim Radner Professor of Historical Theology

Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto

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THE LIVING CHRIST THE THEOLOGICAL LEGACY OF GEORGES FLOROVSKY Edited by John Chryssavgis and Brandon Gallaher

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © John Chryssavgis and Brandon Gallaher, 2021 John Chryssavgis and Brandon Gallaher have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Credits and Permissions on p. xiii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Terry Woodley and Amber Schley-Iragui Cover image: Detail from the fresco of the Resurrection from the Pareklission of Chora church, Istanbul, Turkey. Hercules Milas / Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chryssavgis, John, editor. | Gallaher, Brandon, 1972- editor. Title: The living Christ : the theological legacy of Georges Florovsky / edited by John Chryssavgis and Brandon Gallaher. Description: London ; New York : T&T Clark, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021001944 (print) | LCCN 2021001945 (ebook) | ISBN 9780567700469 (hardback) | ISBN 9780567701855 (paperback) | ISBN 9780567700476 (pdf) | ISBN 9780567700490 (ePub) Subjects: LCSH: Orthodox Eastern Church—Doctrines—History--20th century. | Theology. | Florovsky, Georges, 1893-1979. Classification: LCC BX320.3 .L58 2021 (print) | LCC BX320.3 (ebook) | DDC 230/.19092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001944 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001945 ISBN: HB: 978-0-5677-0046-9 ePDF: 978-0-5677-0047-6 ePUB: 978-0-5677-0049-0 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www​.bloomsbury​.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

Foreword xi Credits and Permissions xiii Abbreviations xv Introduction

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PART I  GEORGES FLOROVSKY: LIFE AND WORK

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1 The Theological Legacy of Archpriest Georges Florovsky Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

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2 The Diachronic Significance of Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Theological Contribution Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon

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3 Three Witnesses: Bulgakov, Florovsky, Lossky Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia

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4 Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy Alexis Klimoff

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5 Georges Florovsky and Sergius Bulgakov: “In Peace Let Us Love One Another” Paul Ladouceur 6 Father Georges Florovsky and Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov: A Theological Encounter Nikolai Sakharov

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7 The Newly Published Correspondence between Fr. Georges Florovsky and Fr. Alexander Schmemann: Reflections on Leadership Paul L. Gavrilyuk 8 A “Theology of Facts”: Christ in the Theological Thought of Fr. Georges Florovsky and Fr. John Meyendorff Joost van Rossum

CONTENTS

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PART II  NEOPATRISTIC SYNTHESIS: THEOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY 151 9 “Waiting for the Barbarians”: Identity and Polemicism in the Neopatristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky Brandon Gallaher 10 Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Toward the “Reintegration” of Christian Tradition Matthew Baker (†2015) 11 The Ecclesial Hellenism of Fr. Georges Florovsky Christos Yannaras 12 The Emergence of the Neopatristic Synthesis: Content, Challenges, Limits Marcus Plested

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13 Christian Hellenism in the Neopatristic Synthesis of Fr. Georges Florovsky 236 Metropolitan Chrysostomos (Savvatos) of Messinia 14 Apophaticism, Cataphaticism, Mystical Theology, and the Christian Hellenism of Fr. Georges Florovsky Pantelis Kalaitzidis

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15 Florovsky’s “Predicament of the Christian Historian” and the Orthodox Church’s Predicament with History Today Vassa Larin

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16 From Synthesis to Symphony John Behr

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CONTENTS

PART III  THEOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY: HISTORY AND MISSION

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17 Beginning with Christ: The Key to Anthropology in the Dogmatic Work of Florovsky Alexis Torrance

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18 Creatio ex nihilo and creatio ex amore: Florovsky, Bulgakov, and Zizioulas in Dialogue on Theological Methodology Nikolaos Asproulis

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19 Ecclesiology in Relation to History: Church and World in the Christian Vision of Fr. Georges Florovsky Will Cohen

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20 Overcoming Florovsky’s Opposition of the Charismatic to the Canonical in “On the Limits of the Church” Alexander Rentel

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21 Fr. Georges Florovsky and Mission: Witness “To,” “With,” or “Beyond” “Sacred Hellenism”? Athanasios N. Papathanasiou

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22 The Timeliness of Patristic Thought, and the Contribution of Fr. Georges Florovsky to Contemporary Theological Dialogue Metropolitan Gennadios (Limouris) of Sassima

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23 Georges Florovsky and the World Council of Churches Archbishop Job (Getcha) of Telmessos 24 Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Understanding of the New Mission in the West Ivana Noble PART IV  THE BODY OF THE LIVING CHRIST: AN ORTHODOX INTERPRETATION OF THE CHURCH 25 Introduction to Georges Florovsky’s The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church Robert M. Arida

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26 The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church 437 Georges Florovsky Translated by Robert M. Arida Contributors 485 Name Index 489 Subject Index 493

FOREWORD

Βeloved readers of this volume: May God’s grace and peace be with you. It is with great joy that we welcome the publication of this volume by T&T Clark on arguably the foremost formative Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century, the ever-memorable Protopresbyter Georges Florovsky (1893–1979). In September 2019, on the fortieth anniversary since the passing of this prominent and paramount patristic and ecumenical scholar, the Ecumenical Patriarchate organized an international conference, gathering scholars from across the globe in Constantinople, the Queen of Cities, on “The Theological Legacy of Archpriest Georges Florovsky.” The event was co-organized by the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies in Thessaloniki, in commemoration and celebration of this extraordinary priest and professor. The contributions to this book comprise the original presentations delivered at the conference by the distinguished participants, complemented by a vital treatise by Fr. Florovsky hitherto unpublished in an English-language volume and supplemented by critical articles from esteemed academics in order to provide a comprehensive compilation and reference compendium. We justifiably take paternal and patriarchal pride in the legacy of Fr. Florovsky, whose work incorporated and life incarnated the vision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate with respect to what Orthodox Christians confess in the symbol of faith as “the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” The Ecumenical

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FOREWORD

Patriarchate could not imagine any more enlightened and open-minded spokesman in the universal Church and ecumenical world than this devoted and devout son of the Church of Constantinople, who represented the patristic worldview and Pan-Orthodox tradition with conviction and compassion. His perspective and promotion of Orthodox theology, inspired by the “Christian Hellenism” of the Holy Fathers, is an essential reminder that theology in every given time and place is called to transcend a sterile repetition and instead tender a creative response to contemporary challenges of the Church, society, and the world, which Fr. Florovsky summarized with the now well-known phrases of “living tradition” and “neopatristic synthesis.” Our sincere hope is that readers will continue to delight in, and that the Church will long be enriched by, the inspired thought of this eminent theologian. At the Ecumenical Patriarchate Prayerfully Yours,

+ Bartholomew Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch

CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS

The editors and the publisher are grateful to Labor et Fides for permission to publish an English translation by Robert M. Arida of Georges Florovsky’s work: “Le Corps du Christ vivant: Une interpretation orthodoxe de l’Église,” in La Sainte Église universelle: Confrontation œcuménique (Neuchâtel CH: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1948): 9–57. We are also grateful to the publication of The Wheel (https://www​ .wheeljournal​ .com) and its Editor-in-Chief, Inga Leonova for permission to reprint (in revised form) the 2018 English translation of Florovsky’s French article by Robert Arida for this volume. We thank John Wiley and Sons Ltd. for permission to reprint Brandon Gallaher, “‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: Identity and Polemicism in the Neopatristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” Modern Theology, Vol. 27, Issue 4 (October 2011): 659–91. We are grateful to the editors, Professors Krawchuk and Bremer, Presbytera Katherine Baker and Palgrave Macmillan/ Springer Nature for permission to reprint the article of the late Matthew Baker: “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition,” in Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (eds.), Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 235–60. We thank St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press for permission to reprint the article (in revised form) by Alexis Klimoff: “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Vol. 49, nos. 1–2 (2005): 67–100. Finally, we are grateful to the journal Contacts for allowing us to publish an English translation (in revised form) of Paul Ladouceur’s “‘Aimons-nous les uns les autres’: Serge Boulgakov et Georges Florovsky,” Contacts, 237 (2012): 56–87. Extracts of archival documents from Florovsky and others are published by permission from the Georges Florovsky Papers, Manuscript Division,

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Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries; Iurii P. Ivask Papers, Amherst Centre of Russian Culture, Special Collections Department, Amherst College Library; Thomas F. Torrance Manuscript Collection, Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries; S. L. Frank Papers, Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture, Columbia University; Sergius Bulgakov Papers, St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology (Paris); World Council of Churches (WCC) Archives (Geneva); and the Georges Florovsky-Andrew Blane Papers, Damascene Foundation (Frs. Joseph Lucas and John Cox). The editors and the publisher have made every reasonable effort to obtain appropriate permission to reprint copyright material included in this book. We apologize if errors or omissions have occurred. On notification, we will make the necessary corrections in future reprints and editions.

ABBREVIATIONS

BLANE, GEORGES FLOROVSKY

Andrew Blane, ed., Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual—Orthodox Churchman (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993).

CW

The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky 14 vols., ed. Richard Haugh (Belmont, MA: Nordland; and Büchervertriebsanstalt: Vaduz, Liechtenstein, 1974–89).

GOTR

Greek Orthodox Theological Review. Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brookline, MA.

PWGF

The Patristic Witness of Georges Florovsky: Essential Theological Writings, edited by Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur (London: T&T Clark 2019).

SVS PRESS

St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood/Yonkers, NY.

SVTQ

St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly.

WGF

Works of Georges Florovsky [in Greek translation] 7 vols. (1st ed.: Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1976–2006; 2nd ed.: Thessaloniki: Athanasios Altitzis, 2018).

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Introduction

AN HISTORIC CONFERENCE To commemorate the fortieth anniversary since the passing of Archpriest Georges Florovsky (1893–1979), the Ecumenical Patriarchate organized an international conference in Istanbul, Turkey, from September 1 to 3, 2019. The event was cosponsored by the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies located in Thessaloniki, Greece. The organizing committee, which was chaired by Senior Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, included Metropolitan Maximos (Vgenopoulos) of Selyvria, Rev. Archdeacon John Chryssavgis, Dr. Konstantinos Delikostantis, and Dr. Symeon Paschalides. The executive secretariat included now Rev. Patriarchal Deacon Alexandros (Koutsis) and now V. Rev. Grand Ecclesiarch Aetios (Nikiforos). Many of the papers delivered during this conference are included in this volume. However, these presentations have also been supplemented and enriched by a number of invited contributions in order to complement the contents and provide readers with a comprehensive critical anthology of diverse theological and historical aspects related to Florovsky’s theology and methodology by an international group of leading academic and church thinkers. In this regard, this volume comprises the first comprehensive critical collection of essays on Florovsky in English. Gratitude is extended to the V. Rev. Abbot Kyrillos and the Community of the Holy Monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos, Prof. Matthaios Melianos (of the Patmian Theological School) and the Monastery’s librarian Mr. Ioannes Melianos for their hospitality and assistance during the course of two visits in preparation of this volume; Dr. Symeon Paschalides and the staff of the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies who generously provided electronic

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copies of all the major Greek translations of Florovsky; and Alexis Liberovsky, the Archivist of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), for information on the history of Florovsky’s service as priest and sharing historic documents and photos. The Editors are especially grateful to Dr. Paul Ladouceur (University of Toronto and Université Laval, Quebec) and Dr. Nikolaos Asproulis (Volos Theological Academy, Greece) for their invaluable help throughout the editorial process and to Terry Woodley and Amber Schley-Iragui for the cover design of the volume. Finally, we thank Frs. Joseph Lucas and John Cox of the Damascene Foundation, Presbytera Katherine Baker, Prof. Alexis Klimoff, and Paul L. Gavrilyuk for helping to provide us with archival photos of Florovsky and access to electronic copies of some of the unpublished Georges FlorovskyAndrew Blane Papers, specifically, the Blane-Bird interviews with Florovsky from 1969 to 1971. We thank the Damascene Foundation for permission to reprint these interviews. The whole range of these archival interviews are drawn on extensively for the first time since 1993 in this Introduction.1 They give us a fuller picture of the intellectual and spiritual complexity and humanity of Florovsky. Although Florovsky was vastly historically important and serves today for many as the “gold standard” of Orthodox theology, his works are very hard to access and the only collected works in English is a fourteen-volume collection long out of print, badly edited and translated. This is one of the reasons most non-Orthodox have only a vague notion of his work and importance and many Orthodox know his name but have not read him. This critical anthology of essays is a companion to the recently published historic collection of Georges Florovsky’s best known writings, The Patristic Witness of Georges Florovsky: Essential Theological Writings, eds. Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur (London: Bloomsbury–T&T Clark, 2019). In this regard, the present volume comprises a fitting celebration of the theological legacy of the most influential Orthodox theologian in the twentieth century. The contents of this volume offer a progressive insight into the theological legacy of Fr. Georges Florovsky through an exploration of his life and work.

The Georges Florovsky Archive of Andrew Blane contains, among thousands of papers, multiple unpublished interview transcripts of Andrew Blane and Thomas E. Bird with Georges Florovsky from 1969 to 1971 prepared with the help of Florovsky’s secretary Maria Vorobiov using a cassette recorder. They were the basis for Andrew Blane’s biographical “Sketch” (Blane, Georges Florovsky, 11–217) in his now invaluable volume of 1993 (but were drawn on, with considerable circumspection, in regard to sensitive subjects). The Georges Florovsky-Andrew Blane Papers, for which the late Fr. Matthew Baker (1977–2015) was caretaker, are now owned by the Virginiabased Damascene Foundation (Frs. Joseph Lucas and John Cox), which is presently arranging for their transfer to the Georges Florovsky Archive of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York. 1

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This begins with a global outline of his theological vision by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Metropolitan John Zizioulas, the most eminent living student of Florovsky. The section then examines the connection and comparison with Florovsky’s prominent contemporaries, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944), Archimandrite (now St.) Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896–1993), Vladimir Lossky (1903–1958), Frs. Alexander Schmemann (1921–1983), and John Meyendorff (1926–1992) (see Part I). This section is followed with a variety of critical reflections on Florovsky’s understanding of the nature and practice of theology, especially his key concepts of “neopatristic synthesis” and “Christian Hellenism” (see Part II). Part III includes theological and ecclesiological, as well as historical and missiological perspectives, including Florovsky’s understanding of and involvement in the ecumenical movement. The last section (Part IV) incorporates the only publication in book form of an English translation by Fr. Robert M. Arida of Florovsky’s most detailed study on ecclesiology, originally composed in French (1948), and entitled “The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church.” In what follows, we shall give first an historical overview of Florovsky’s life and then a brief theological overview of his thought. For more details on both we encourage the reader to look at the individual chapters in the volume.

FLOROVSKY AS ARCHITECT OF MODERN ORTHODOX THEOLOGY Georges Florovsky (1893–1979) was one of the key intellectual architects of the Patristic and liturgy-focused present form of Orthodox theology people know today as well as the pioneer of the archetypal form of the Orthodox engagement with ecumenism. He was a colleague and collaborator of such twentieth-century philosophical, theological, and ecumenical pioneers as Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948), Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), Karl Barth (1886–1968), Paul Tillich (1886–1965), Emil Brunner (1889–1966), Willem Visser ‘t Hooft (1900–1985), Archbishop Michael Ramsey (1904–88), E. L. Mascall (1905–93), and Thomas F. Torrance (1913–2007). He also collaborated with such figures as Yves Congar (1904–95), Jean Daniélou (1905–74), and Louis Bouyer (1913–2004) in the ressourcement movement with its return to the (especially Patristic) classical Christian sources that was happening across the Christian Churches from roughly the late 1920s onward, and which inspired Vatican II. To provide some sense of Florovsky’s pervasiveness in Orthodoxy, for example, it only needs to be mentioned that he was the teacher of such Orthodox theological and spiritual luminaries as Frs. Boris Bobrinskoy (1925– 2020), John Meyendorff (1926–92), John Romanides (1927–2001), and Met. John Zizioulas (b. 1931) and the mentor of other renowned figures synonymous with Orthodoxy in the twentieth century such as Myrrha Lot-Borodine (1882–

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1957), Archimandrite (now St.) Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896–1993), Vladimir Lossky (1903–58), Fr. Alexander Schmemann (1921–83), Jaroslav Pelikan (1923–2006), and Met. Kallistos Ware (b. 1934). All of these latter thinkers broadly subscribe to what most Orthodox now call (it is Florovsky’s signal phrase) “neopatristic synthesis.” Theology, for Florovsky and those who follow him, is called to be Patristic because it follows the patristic spirit and vision; Neopatristic because the Fathers help us face our current problems and queries; and a contemporary Synthesis because we respond in a creative manner inspired by the Fathers to the challenges of our age.2 What is striking about Florovsky is the dynamic and creative understanding of tradition (zhivoe predanie: living tradition) not as the dead letter, something rooted to the exact statements of the Fathers, but their Spirit, their mind, their (famously) phronema. Florovsky argued that we must return to the Fathers but this was not something primarily past oriented but to the future of Christ’s Kingdom that is to come and which is realized in the present in his Body the Church (this is elaborated in his essay, “The Body of the Living Christ,” published later in this volume). The Church, and its preeminent teachers, the Fathers, has, as Florovsky’s student Met. John Zizioulas famously observed, “its roots in the future and its branches in the present.”3 One could only return to the Fathers, return to the future, remember it, understand it both again and for the first time, by taking on this mind of the Fathers, which is the mind of Christ incarnated in the saints, a mind directed to the age to come. But to understand Florovsky’s vision of returning to Fathers one must first understand him as a man in his historical context.

THE HISTORICAL PATH OF AN ORTHODOX THEOLOGIAN Russian Formation Archpriest Georges Vasilievich Florovsky was born on August 28, 1893, in the Russian Empire into a clerical and highly academic family in the provincial town of Elisavetgrad in the Russian Empire (now Kropyvnytskyi, central Ukraine) and at six months moved south with his family to Odessa on the Black Sea. He was the son of a Russian Cathedral Dean and Rector of the Odessa Theological Seminary. He was educated extensively in the humanities and the sciences (obtaining fluency in five foreign languages—ancient and modern— by the age of seventeen)4 both at local schools and then at the University

Georges Florovsky, “‘Theological Will’” (1959), PWGF, 241–4, at 242 and see PWGF, n. 2, 1 and n. 5, 242. 3 John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood in the Church (SVS Press, 1997), 59. 4 Unpublished Interview of Georges Florovsky with Andrew Blane and Thomas E. Bird on April 4, 1969, 17 (Georges Florovsky-Andrew Blane Papers, Damascene Foundation). 2

INTRODUCTION

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of Odessa but also often for long periods at home because “the whole time until I was 20, I had to be under close medical supervision and I simply could not go to school very often [ . . . ] [and I] realize that it was not quite certain that I would survive.” He suffered from a whole battery of ailments, undergoing multiple operations, including liver problems, repeated ear and throat infections (leading to the total loss of hearing in one ear), and could not walk without a cane. More interestingly, and he is nervous to mention this to his biographers, he “had a neurosis of everything: heart, stomach,” that is, most likely, psychosomatic heart palpitations and nervous vomiting.5 His eyes also were terrible and he needed a magnifying glass sometimes to read or access to a very bright light.6 As a child, this led to him, as he observed in an interview in 1969, to being always surrounded by adults and “to reading serious books earlier than under normal conditions a boy would do.”7 When asked if he remembered holidays or “specific pleasures,” his reply was that “I had no pleasures, because the greatest pleasure for me was to be left alone with a book.”8 His poor eyesight meant that he felt more at ease lecturing without notes and could do so quite masterfully for hours, as he claims9 and witnesses attest.10 His lectures, therefore, were prepared “by thinking. Of course, this means much has been lost because nothing has been written.”11 It is highly likely Florovsky had a photographic memory as one will often encounter whole passages from one article separated by years in another article repeated with slight variations, as if reproduced from memory. Moreover, he will often quote from sources with no citation or a slightly incorrect citation. For example, his magisterial The Ways of Russian Theology (1937) is famous for containing many quotations and allusions with no citations given. This voracious appetite for learning, born out of physical disabilities and illness, would later earn him the reputation, even among his critics, such as his colleague Fr. Vasily Zenkovsky (1881–1962), as a “real theological encyclopaedia.”12 Exile: From Odessa to Sofia and Prague Florovsky graduated in arts from Odessa University (1916), subsequently studying for a research master’s in philosophy (focusing on its history)

Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 3, 1969, 3. Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 30. 7 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 3, 1969, 3. 8 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 27. 9 Ibid., 30. 10 Kallistos Ware, “Preface,” PWGF, xi–xiv, at xi. 11 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 30. 12 Vasili Zenkovsky, “Moi vstrechi s vydaiushchimisia liud’mi [Famous People I Have Known],” [3– 52] “Otets Georgii Florovskii” [50–2], Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars in the U.S.A. 27 (1995): 52. 5 6

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(1916–19) (akin to a contemporary Phd in its rigorousness) and briefly lectured at Odessa in philosophy. Fleeing with his family from the threat of an offensive of the Red Army, he left Russia in January 1920 sailing on a French boat bound for Varna, Bulgaria, via Sevastopol in the Crimea. He had the “conviction that I would never return,” a “feeling” that “I was leaving forever.”13 The Florovsky family then went to the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia, where Florovsky’s father had church connections through his former students at the Odessa Seminary. In Bulgaria, Florovsky became involved with the anti-Western, Russian cultural, nationalist, and autocratic Eurasian movement. In the Blane-Bird interviews he is at great pains to distance himself from the movement’s writings and says he was not a Eurasian in doctrine and only responsible for his own writings in their collections. In particular, he claims they very soon became politically driven after 1922 and he therefore broke with them by 1923 (though the interviewers challenge him as to why he wrote an article in 1926 defending them)14 and “I immediately left, for I am not a party man. I do not recognize any party discipline [ . . . ] I cannot commit myself to any party position [ . . . ] I am a born protestor.”15 However, in his Eurasian period writings, following their doctrine, Florovsky did indeed have a polemical attitude toward the West (“the all-permeating rationalism of the Western world”), an emphasis on the “Byzantine-Slavic” inheritance as the wellspring of the “Russian soul” and more broadly argued for a uniquely Orthodox “creative personality” (“the intensity of Russian popular and Orthodox spirit. Here from ancient times lay the foci of cultural creativity”).16 His final break with the Eurasians did not come until 1928.17 The strongest connection to Eurasianism for him in retrospect seems to have been that he felt one should not romanticize the West as the Russian Westernizers tended to do. The Westernizers thought, he said, that the West was a “rock” but the Eurasians frankly acknowledged its instability.18 Moreover, Florovsky admired the fact that the Eurasians considered the revolution an “historical

Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 33. Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 5, 1969, 42. 15 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 21. 16 See Georges Florovsky, “The Cunning of Reason,” CW, XII, 13–22 and “About Non-historical Peoples (The Land of the Fathers and the Land of the Children),” trans. Ilya Vinkovetsky, in Ilya Vinkovetsky and Charles Schlacks, Jr. (eds.), Exodus to the East: Forebodings and Events (Idyllwild, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr. Pub., 1996 [1921]), 30–40 at 38 and 52–68, at 64–6 (On Eurasianism see: Dmitry Shlapentokh, ed., Russia between East and West: Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism [Leiden: Brill, 2007] and Jafe Arnold and John Stachelski, eds. and trans., Foundations of Eurasianism: Volume I [Tucson: PRAV Pub., 2020]). 17 Georges Florovsky, “Evraziiskii soblazn [The Eurasian Seduction],” Sovreminnyia zapiski, no. 34 (1928): 312–46. 18 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 5, 1969, 40. 13 14

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fact,” or, to use a contemporary expression, a “done-deal.” The Eurasians did not, like many he had encountered in the Russian emigration, such as some members of the “Synod” or “Church in Exile” (The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) or the “Church Abroad”), hope to simply defeat Bolshevism and then promptly re-establish the lost world of Imperial Russia. For both the Eurasians and himself, “A new Russia for me must be an overcoming of the revolution, and not just a restoration. Because you cannot restore such a dilapidated building, and there was no sense in doing it. For you will still have the cracks and flaws.”19 In contrast to so many conservative Russian romantics, the Eurasians, at their best, were interested—but sadly this all too soon degenerated into “political schemes”—in how to creatively respond to the new world Russia faced or what Florovsky called “cultural revival.”20 The connection to the Eurasians was also born out of friendship. Florovsky had a close friendship with the Russian linguist and cultural historian Prince Nikolai S. Trubetskoi (1890–1938), who was one of the leaders of the movement. During his time in Sofia, Florovsky earned a little money babysitting Trubetskoi’s children as well as editing for a Russian-Bulgarian press and doing a little lecturing on the side.21 In the end, the Eurasians became aligned with Communism, which, along with right-wing politicking, Florovsky simply could not abide because “I am an antipolitical being: politics is something I do not like.”22 In December 1921, Florovsky moved to Prague after being awarded a scholarship for Russian students by the Czech government (then led by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937)). He then prepared and successfully defended a research master’s thesis (started in Odessa) on the Russian political thinker Alexander Herzen (1812–70) for the Russian Academic Group in June 1923.23 In this period, he lectured at various different Russian institutions in Prague on the philosophy of law and Russian literature (1921–6). The other major landmark in these years was his marriage to Ksenia Simonova in April 1922, though they had first met one another earlier in Bulgaria. The Move to Paris In September 1926, at the invitation of both Metropolitan Evlogii (Georgievskii) (1868–1946), who was then in charge of Russian parishes in Western Europe

Ibid., 42. Ibid., 41. 21 Ibid., 37. 22 Ibid., 43. 23 See See Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “Georges Florovsky’s Monograph ‘Herzen’s Philosophy of History’: The New Archival Material and the Reconstruction of the Full Text,” Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 108, Issue 2 (April 2015): 197–212. 19 20

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under the Moscow Patriarchate (which moved under Constantinople in 1931), and Fr. Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944), who had briefly been Florovsky’s mentor and confessor in Prague, Florovsky moved to Paris to become Professor of Patristics at St. Sergius (“Saint-Serge”) Orthodox Theological Institute, and subsequently Professor of Dogmatics (1926–39, 1945–8). Florovsky’s time at St. Sergius was immensely fruitful but also intensely fractious and the Blane-Bird interviews are taken up with his quarrels with various then long-dead faculty members. In particular, Florovsky was involved in the Sophiology Controversy (1935–7) where Bulgakov, then Dean, was accused of “heresy” (or dubious doctrinal teaching, at best) by the two rival Russian churches to Bulgakov’s own (i.e., ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate (MP)), as well as individuals in Bulgakov’s own church under Constantinople (from 1931). Florovsky’s theology (“neopatristic synthesis”) was developed during his tenure at St. Sergius in reaction to Bulgakov’s controversial Sophiology or theology of Holy Wisdom24 and his proposals for limited episcopally blessed intercommunion in the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius.25 Florovsky strongly opposed Bulgakov’s Sophiology, although (he claimed) he opposed him mostly privately or by tacitly attacking Bulgakov in his own Patristic lectures where the students could tell that “Father Bulgakov was not in the light of tradition” and that Bulgakov’s teaching was being critiqued in comparison to Florovsky’s understanding of the Fathers. He had no difficulty with Bulgakov raising questions as “theology should not be taken, mistaken for Church doctrine” and felt that every theologian has a “certain freedom for hypotheses, which are open for discussion.” However, Bulgakov with his speculative theology (“gnostical, mystical and other deviations in all directions”) was, Florovsky claimed, influenced by “Gnosticism and other things, German philosophy” and went too far and “I, for one, would repudiate and reject critically all contentions of Bulgakov.” Bulgakov’s theology was, Florovsky said, built on the basis of monism, whereas the basis of truly Orthodox theology had to be “dualistic”: “God and Creation—Creator and Created—you cannot fuse them, to make creation [ . . . ] an unavoidable companion of God.” Florovsky felt that Bulgakov was not grounded in the true Patristic foundation of theology that should be the “facts of history”26 and Christ himself in the midst of that history as witnessed to by Scripture and Tradition: “But I was professing theology in the spirit of the Holy Fathers, I don’t find in the patristic teaching anything of

See the essays of Alexis Klimoff and Paul Ladouceur in this volume. See Brandon Gallaher, “‘Great and Full of Grace’: Partial Intercommunion and Sophiology in Sergii Bulgakov,” in William C. Mills (ed.), Church and World: Essays in Honor of Michael Plekon (Rollinsford, NH: Orthodox Research Institute, 2013), 69–121. 26 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 7, 1969, 51–3. 24 25

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what Bulgakov was teaching.”27 Bulgakov, he alleges, in comparison to himself, was “anti-historical, he did not know history—his school was the school of law and economics, which predisposes to abstract thinking [ . . . ] history for him was not reality—he did not feel it.”28 Nevertheless, Florovsky, somewhat unconvincingly after his damning statements on Bulgakov’s teaching, says he did not think Bulgakov was a “heretic” as such (“I would not say heresy— ambiguity, something misleading etc”)29 and acknowledges that it was actually Bulgakov’s encouragement that made him turn to Patristics in the first place.30 Florovsky clearly felt torn about Bulgakov, as would be natural for someone who had been one’s confessor31 and who was an intellectual mentor whom he first read as a teenager.32 He says Bulgakov was a “great man,” a “man of great honesty and large heart” and told their archbishop, Metropolitan Evlogii, who wished Florovsky to sit on a commission investigating Bulgakov, as he knew he opposed his teaching and needed the commission not to be a whitewash (though Florovsky resisted joining for personal reasons), that “I like—I love Bulgakov, I respect him, but my conscience says—he is wrong.”33 Met. Evlogii, as the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the then Diocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Europe under Constantinople (“Exarchate” or “Rue Daru” after the street on which its main Cathedral was located in Paris), set up in late 1935 a theological commission to look into the charges against Bulgakov from ROCOR and the MP (of holding heterodox teaching) that did eventually include Florovsky among others.34 This commission, which held its first meetings in February 1936, split into two camps by June 1936 when it was ready to make its report. The first camp, which included figures such as the philosopher Fr. Vasili Zenkovsky (1881–1962) and the noted historian Anton Kartashev (1875–1960), produced a “majority” report (undated but probably late June of 1936), which, though perhaps overly careful and irenic in tone, denied the charge of “heresy,” but critiqued key elements of Bulgakov’s Sophiology as, at best, disputable and, at worst, counter to Church tradition. The second group, consisting of the then-married spiritual writer and renowned

Ibid., 59. Ibid., 74. 29 Ibid., 55. 30 Ibid., 74. 31 Bulgakov writes in his diary on September 29, 1923: “I had a large (written) confession of G. V. Fl, I accepted him into my heart as a spiritual father. Glory to God!” (Aleksei Kozyrev and Natal’ia Golubkova, “Prot. S. Bulgakov. Iz pamiati serdtsa. Praga (1923–1924),” in Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli. Ezhegodnik za 1998 (Moscow: O. G. I., 1998), 156). 32 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 3, 1969, 9; and Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 29. 33 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 7, 1969, 52, 59. 34 For more details see Chapter 4 in this volume of Alexis Klimoff to which we are indebted. 27 28

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confessor, Fr. Sergii I. Chetverikov (1867–1947; monk from 1942 and a priest once again of the Moscow Patriarchate from 1946), Florovsky’s spiritual father,35 and Florovsky himself, presented a “minority” report, dated July 6, 1936, which was scathing in its criticism of Bulgakov’s Sophiology for its obscurity and divergence from Church tradition. Bulgakov’s Sophiology, the minority report claimed, had encouraged discussions surrounding dogmas of faith that led to the disintegration of Orthodox consciousness. But it reserved its strongest language for the other members of the commission for ignoring whole areas of Bulgakov’s theology that were problematic (e.g., Apollinarianism) and defending the right of a theologian to hold personal theological opinions (as Bulgakov claimed his teaching came under “theologoumena”) when they clearly contradicted Church teaching. The minority report, which was accompanied by a long summary of Bulgakov’s errors that essentially repeated the charges of ROCOR, as well as objecting like the MP to his ignoring rightly constituted teaching authority, stopped short of declaring outright that Bulgakov’s teaching was “heresy.” Chetverikov drafted the minority report himself, and Florovsky, though he agreed with the report and it is consonant with his critique of Bulgakov in the Blane-Bird lectures and correspondence, attempted to avoid becoming involved in the Commission’s work and only reluctantly signed the report in July 1936 after strong pressure from Chetverikov. It seems that he wished, at least ideally, to avoid political and personal infighting. Bulgakov was eventually cleared of the more serious charges of “heresy” by an episcopal assembly of his own church in November 1937 though his teachings were said to be theologically problematic and required multiple corrections. Despite this acrimony, Florovsky was clearly greatly divided about Bulgakov. He typically would begin saying nice things about Bulgakov then launch into scathing critiques. For example, he felt that Bulgakov was a “good man” but then says that Bulgakov took offence that Florovsky was taken to be on the same level as him by other people, such as in the ecumenical movement, and wanted Florovsky as a younger man to look up to him; Florovsky says, rather damningly, “Bulgakov was a strange combination: arrogance and shyness.”36 And, at other points, Florovsky acknowledges, with much admiration and almost bafflement, that Bulgakov “never became an enemy.”37 Instead, Florovsky notes, Bulgakov consistently promoted him, turning over to him his circle of students when he left Prague for Paris,38 though Bulgakov knew Florovsky would go in another direction to Bulgakov’s own teaching with these disciples. Furthermore,

Blane, Georges Florovsky, 57. Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, no date given, Tape 3, side 1, part 2, 99–100. 37 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 7, 1969, 55. 38 Ibid., 52. 35 36

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Bulgakov not only brought Florovsky to Paris to teach at St. Sergius but, as Florovsky relates, when Bulgakov was battling cancer from 1937 and could no longer participate in the Faith and Order movement, “he suggested that I should take his place as the only competent man” to the indignation of other colleagues at St. Sergius who saw Florovsky as the “enemy” of Bulgakov and not, as Bulgakov treated Florovsky, Bulgakov’s own “successor,” but “I was never his enemy. I was always his opponent, that is another thing, but I never did anything against him.”39 Perhaps the key to understanding Florovsky in this episode of his clash with Bulgakov and so many others later in his life is his own bitingly honest judgment on his character, which is that he was a “born protester”40 and “always independent,” which was, he says, “my cross.” He tells the interviewers that he was “psychologically unable” to be “partisan” or to follow any thinker or party-line, for “If I agree, I agree, and I could agree with people whom it is not seemly to agree with. I disagree with people who are on top and must be worshipped. This is alien to my nature.” Following his father, as he himself confesses, he inherited a very high value for both freedom and bluntly telling people the truth, even at great cost. He tells his interviewers that his father told him “‘never agree with me if you think I am wrong,’ ‘never agree with anyone, if you think they are wrong.’ Well it is something that I inherited from my family.”41 This uncompromising nature of Florovsky is perhaps ideal for a theologian as a confessor, and one whose hallmark was his genius for upholding Orthodoxy and recovering its tradition, which had, as he argued, undergone a Western “pseudomorphosis,”42 but it led to much grief for Florovsky in personal relationships and in his rocky path through multiple institutions.43 Ecclesiastical Career44 Florovsky’s ecclesiastical career, in turn, was as complex as his relationships with other scholars, but it has not been as well documented. Florovsky, a “Russian levite,” was ordained as a deacon and a priest in 1932 by Metropolitan Evlogii of the Russian Exarchate under the Ecumenical Patriarchate based in Constantinople. He had wished to be ordained earlier but had faced unspecified

Ibid., 55–6. Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 21. 41 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 8, 1969, 98. 42 See PWGF, n. 12, 4. 43 Paul L. Gavrilyuk, On Christian Leadership: The Letters of Alexander Schmemann and Georges Florovsky (1947–1955) (SVSP, 2020), 93–4 (see the judgment on Florovsky of Archbishop John [Shahovskoy] [1902–89] who had been the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary when Florovsky arrived). 44 In this section we are indebted to the assistance of Alexis Liberovsky, the OCA Archivist, who drew on Florovsky’s file in the OCA archive in helping us trace Florovsky’s history. 39 40

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“obstacles” from the assistant Bishop Benjamin (Fedchenkov) (1880–1961), the Inspector or Dean of the St. Sergius Institute from 1925–31, who, Florovsky says, “made everybody nervous” and eventually was “out of the game” when Bp Benjamin remained with the Moscow Patriarchate upon Met Evlogii’s transfer to Constantinople in February 1931. Florovsky was elevated to Archpriest in 1936 and, on his return to Paris from Serbia after the Second World War, awarded the miter in 1946, both by Met. Evlogii.45 Florovsky and his wife were in Switzerland at the beginning of the Second World War and, as they could not return to Paris, they moved to Yugoslavia that had large Orthodox and Russian émigré communities where Florovsky hoped to find work.46 During the war (1939–45), Florovsky ended up serving under Met. Anastassy (Gribanovsky) (1873–1965) of ROCOR while working as a school chaplain (teaching boys and girls in separate schools) in the Russian émigré colony town of Bela Crkva, close to the Romanian border and east of Belgrade. There is no evidence that Florovsky ever transferred formally from the Russian Exarchate under Constantinople to ROCOR but it seems he simply was a “clergyman with it” during the war. During this period, he seems to have been secretary of the ROCOR Synod’s Education Committee. When the war was finishing, Florovsky and his wife could not get back to Paris once again, so they went to Prague in November 1944 and stayed there until December 1945. Prague was occupied by the Soviets who were anti-clerical, so Florovsky was fearful of being sent to the Gulag, especially as he insisted on wearing his cassock everywhere and lived in a house with NKVD (KGB) officers. He felt he was under “divine protection.”47 It was only through the intervention of Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher (1887–1972), then archbishop of Canterbury, that an exit permit was obtained for the Florovsky family.48 Florovsky had by now extensive contacts in the ecumenical movement and had spent much of the period of the late 1930s lecturing in Church of England and Church of Scotland seminaries and colleges as relationships with his colleagues from 1935 were difficult at St. Sergius given his opposition to Bulgakov’s teaching.49 Archbishop Fisher had been urged to intervene on Florovsky’s behalf by two of Florovsky’s ecumenical contacts, both of whom knew about the Sophiology controversy and were sympathetic to Florovsky, that is, Paul Anderson of the YMCA (1894–1985) and Canon John A. Douglas (1868–1956), sometime editor of The Christian East, and the Secretary of the Church of England

Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 7, 1969, 66. Blane, Georges Florovsky, 79. 47 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 8, 1969, 103. 48 Ibid., 106. 49 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 7, 1969, 54, 63 and Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 8, 1969, 83–5. 45 46

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Council on Foreign Relations. Both Anderson and Douglas were major sources of Russian émigré funding in Paris, especially of the St. Sergius Institute, through their respective organizations and so had enormous influence in the Russian Orthodox community. When Florovsky returned to Paris in late 1945, he was awarded the miter for his services to education during the war in 1946 by Met. Evlogii. From 1948 to 1958, while working at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York (1948–55) and in the years just after he left, Florovsky served under Metropolitans Theophilus (Pashkovsky) (1874–1950) and Leonty (Turkevich) (1876–1965) of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America or “Metropolia” (the predecessor to today’s Orthodox Church in America [OCA] [from 1970]). The Metropolia was, prior to 1924, the North American Archdiocese of the MP. But due to Communism, it declared itself “temporarily self-governing” until the time when normal relations could be reestablished with its Mother Church in Russia. It remained in effective schism with the MP until 1970 and did not see itself as being “administratively within” the MP from 1924 to 1970. During this period, the MP considered the Metropolia to be a subordinate entity and the Metropolia’s hierarchy were under suspension for much of this period. In 1970, the MP granted (quite controversially) autocephaly to the Metropolia without any jurisdictional subordination and the Metropolia became the present day OCA. In this highly chaotic ecclesial situation, as we can see from an ecclesiastical certificate letter dated March 25, 1947 found in the OCA archive signed by Archbishop Vladimir (Tikhonitskii) (1873–1959), the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the then Diocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Europe (sc. the Exarchate), we are told that Florovsky had been a cleric of the Exarchate since his ordination in 1932. Archbishop Vladimir granted him in this letter a temporary leave of absence to the USA.50 This was the document given to the OCA hierarchy by Florovsky when he moved to head St. Vladimir’s Seminary in the autumn of 1948. No document can be found in the OCA archive showing a canonical transfer of Florovsky to the Metropolia/OCA from the Exarchate and he appears to have been a canonical clergyman serving with it from another local church during his many years service in its churches and institutions. It seems accurate to surmise, therefore, that Florovsky, though he served in both ROCOR and the Metropolia (from 1970 the OCA) in a “visiting” capacity, remained canonically a cleric of the Ecumenical Patriarchate continuously without break from his ordination in 1932 until his death in 1979.

“Certificate No. 1000, March 25, 1947 concerning Archpriest Georges Florovsky from Archbishop Vladimir (Tikhonitskii),” OCA Archive (thanks to Alexis Liberovsky for sharing a copy of this document). 50

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On June 2, 1958, as we learn from an official document signed by Archbishop Michael (Konstantinides) (1892–1958) of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America, Florovsky “pledged his ecclesiastical allegiance” to the local Greek Archdiocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.51 This “pledging of ecclesiastical allegiance” to the Greek Archdiocese is significant. No canonical transfer was needed because, we may infer, Florovsky had remained a clergyman of the Ecumenical Patriarchate up until 1958 and simply needed to reaffirm his canonical status under Constantinople and his links to a new diocese of that local church. Archbishop Michael, who died a little more than a month after this document formally reaffirming Florovsky’s links to the Ecumenical Patriarchate was signed, was Florovsky’s “very close friend.” Florovsky describes him in the interviews as “a russified Greek” who had studied at both St. Petersburg and Kiev (“he spoke Russian, he loved Russia, where he had studied”) whom he had first befriended in 1929 when the future archbishop was Dean of the Greek Cathedral in London.52 This friendship with a Greek, he claimed, was held against him by nationalist Russians during his “ouster” from St. Vladimir’s Seminary, partially through his introduction of Greek as part of the curriculum which was taken as a sign of a Greek takeover.53 Florovsky had many chances to leave the Ecumenical Patriarchate and formally join various Russian churches but he seems to have purposefully never followed this course. He clearly considered continued canonical membership of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as being expressive of the universality characterizing his “Christian Hellenism.” In oral conversations in the early 2000’s, Fr Alvian Smirensky (1929–2017), a student of Florovsky in the 1950’s and (briefly) his personal assistant, has said that while Florovsky was at St. Vladimir’s he repeatedly raised with pride the fact that he was a priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (much to the chagrin of some colleagues). In the last years of his life, Florovsky served and attended services (but was not formally within the Metropolia/OCA) at the OCA Chapel in Princeton and, in the final years, at the parish of St. Vladimir’s Church in Trenton, New Jersey (pastored by his friend Fr. Paul Shafran) where Florovsky’s funeral was held. Reflecting years later on what motivated him to become ordained, Florovsky said that “I always thought it was natural for a theologian to be a priest” because it is “not only a matter of learning but of practicing religion” and “a theologian always wants to teach, to propagate ideas, and of course to do so effectively, he must have some position in the church [ . . . ] scholarly authority is not independent of certain recognitions.”54

Statement of Ecclesiastical Allegiance of Archpriest Georges Florovsky, June 2, 1958, Georges Florovsky Papers, Box 23, f.4. Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library (thanks to Paul L. Gavrilyuk for a copy of this text). 52 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 8, 1969, 75; and Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on May 25, 1971, 139; for Florovsky’s thinking on the Moscow Patriarchate’s much contested granting of autocephaly to the Metropolia/OCA in 1970 see “Pisma G. V. Florovskogo A.E. Klimovu,” https://www​.rocorstudies​.org​/ru​/2019​/08​/31​/pisma​-g​-v​-florovskogo​-a​-e​-klimovu/ (last accessed January 3, 2021). 53 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on May 25, 1971, 139. 54 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on April 4, 1969, 35. 51

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Ecumenical Engagement Beginning in the late 1920s, Florovsky started playing a leading part in the ecumenical movement.55 He synthesized the vision of ecumenism now shared by most Orthodox churches, and from 1929 until the Second World War he was a discussant and speaker at the conferences of The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (working with E. L. Mascall, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, and Bulgakov) and in 1937 started serving regularly as a delegate at assemblies of the Faith and Order movement and of the World Council of Churches, eventually rising to its highest ranks (working alongside Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Anders Nygren, and D. M. Baillie). Florovsky helped draft the seminal Toronto Statement (1950), which emphasized that the WCC was not a “super church” and that WCC members (such as the Orthodox Church) were not required to positively approve and acknowledge the theology or ecclesiality of other member churches. What was at the core of all of Florovsky’s ecumenical witness was an appeal to the unbroken millennium of unity of Christian East and West, which, he believed, continued to be embodied by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Thus, ecumenism, for the Orthodox, as Florovsky taught, was at root a witness to Orthodoxy itself, calling other churches to return to the Orthodox Church and the fullness of the Christian faith to which it witnessed. The Move to America In the years following the end of the Second World War, Florovsky found it very difficult to continue to work at St. Sergius given ongoing tensions with his colleagues and the resentment he felt they held against him over his opposition to Bulgakov during the Sophiological affair. Much of these postwar years were therefore spent traveling internationally at work on official ecumenism. At the invitation of the Metropolia church, he moved in September 1948 to New York City to take up a post as Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Patristics at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (founded 1938). In early 1949, Metropolitan Theophilus asked Florovsky to become Dean, though he did not take up the post until 1950.56 As Dean of St. Vladimir’s (1950–5),57 he formed the seminary (elevated to an “academy” in 1949) into a Pan-Orthodox institution with the highest academic standards and an international reputation gained through his well-publicized ecumenical labors within the WCC.

See the chapters in this volume by Met. Gennadios Limouris, Archbp. Job Getcha, and Fr. Matthew Baker as well as Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur, “Introduction,” PWGF, 1–30, at 23–7 and Matthew Baker and Seraphim Danckaert, “Fr. Georges Florovsky,” in P. Kalaitzidis (ed.), Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education (Volos: Volos Academy Publications with WCC Pub. and Regnum Books Intl., 2014), 211–15. 56 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 92. 57 See Gavrilyuk, On Christian Leadership and Blane, 89–113 and Chapter 7 of Gavrilyuk in this volume. 55

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However, in the process, given his strong personality and refusal on principle to compromise, he sadly managed to alienate both his faculty and his own students. Students complained that his lectures were confusing, possibly due to the fact that he lectured over their heads to lay academic auditors interested in Russian philosophy and theology. There was much resentment, in particular, when halfway through term he introduced as mandatory curriculum “elementary Greek”58 to the young, mostly working-class, Slav students, which is quite likely the cause for so many of them dropping out (“there was a revolt—a rebellion of students,—first of all I introduced Greek—there were protests against classical Greek. ‘We don’t need it’”).59 He would later comment that “a theological school without Greek is impossible” and that his opponents thought adding Greek to the curriculum was not only unnecessary but also a sort of Hellenophile conspiracy, especially as he did not socialize with the Russian émigrés in New York and was close friends with the Greek archbishop Michael (as mentioned earlier). The introducing of the study of Greek to St. Vladimir’s was, he says, taken to be a “bad sign. I was an emissary of the Greeks, to subjugate the Russian Church.” His opponents, he claimed, were insincere and did not actually believe this outrageous allegation but simply said he “was betraying Russian interests” in order to alarm people.60 He felt that the all too common Russian suspicion of Greeks (“Why are you friendly with the Greeks?”) as well as the parallel Greek suspicion of Russians (“many Greeks are afraid of Russians, and they say the Russian nation was created by God for a special purpose—to hurt Greeks”) was quite simply “idiotic.”61 The other element, he alleged, counted against him in his “ouster” from the Deanship of St. Vladimir’s was introducing English as the language of all instruction, for up until his Deanship many of the émigré professors insisted on speaking Russian to their uncomprehending American auditors.62 In May 1955, the enormous tensions between Florovsky and the young Fr. Alexander Schmemann, the very popular lecturer in church history and liturgics as well as Dean of students (whom Florovsky had brought over from Paris in 1951), came to a boiling point and Florovsky, acting unilaterally, asked Schmemann and his young family to vacate their seminary subsidized apartment. Schmemann was then removed by Florovsky in June 1955 from his post as Dean of students but remained teaching on the Faculty. It appears that Schmemann then was involved with Bishop John (Shahovskoy) (1902–89), the bishop of

Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, May 25, 1971, 139. Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, no date given, Tape 3, side 2, 119. 60 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, May 25, 1971, 139; cf. See Gavrilyuk, On Christian Leadership, 88ff. 61 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, November, 8, 1969, 75–6. 62 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, Tape 4, May 25, 1971, 139; cf. See Gavrilyuk, On Christian Leadership, 88ff. 58 59

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San Francisco and inspector/Dean of the seminary from 1947 to 1950 before Florovsky had taken up the post, in a protest of the faculty and students to the council of bishops, leading ultimately to the firing of Florovsky by the Metropolia Synod on June 9, 1955. Schmemann was then restored by the Synod as Dean of Students (he declined the post but still remained teaching, head of the chapel and seminary spiritual father) and Metropolitan Leonty, the Seminary’s president, was made Interim Dean. Schmemann eventually became Dean of the Seminary in 1962 and held this post until his death from cancer in 1983.63 Florovsky was understandably deeply wounded for his whole life by this seminary coup d’état (as he saw it) by Schmemann (he called it his “ouster” and said sixteen years later that “I prefer not to remember any of these things”).64 He felt particularly angry at Schmemann’s actions at St. Vladimir’s (saying he was a “hypnotizer [ . . . ] intriguer” and making caustic jokes about Schmemann’s son-in-law, Fr Thomas Hopko (1939– 2015), later Dean at St. Vladimir’s (1992–2002)) as he considered him the spiritual son who had turned against him, as he had indeed turned earlier against Bulgakov at St. Sergius.65 Such was his hurt that he generally never opened any of the issues of the St. Vladimir’s Quarterly (which he had started as a publication) but on principle left them in their envelope.66 We now have substantial evidence that both Schmemann and Florovsky either sought or wished to seek reconciliation with one another in the years before Florovsky’s death.67 Sunset Years Following St. Vladimir’s, Florovsky taught part-time at a variety of schools in Boston and New York. During this period, he taught briefly (1955–9) at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston. He would later teach there again from 1963 to 1965 but was relieved of his position at the instigation of Archbishop Iakovos (Coucouzis) of the Greek Archdiocese (1911–2005). He had come into conflict with the archbishop (as was typical for him) on a point of principle after supporting a group of students in a dispute over more rigorous fasting. This caused Florovsky’s then student at Harvard, Fr. John Romanides, to resign in protest from Holy Cross. In a moment of self-awareness during an interview of 1969, Florovsky felt that the sort of troubles he experienced at the St. Sergius Institute (and to this one might also add, at St. Vladimir’s and Holy Cross) were a more general problem he had with people in authority and

Gavrilyuk, On Christian Leadership, 96–7. Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, May 25, 1971, 138–9. 65 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, Tape 3, side, undated, 127 and Interview with Blane and Bird, Tape 4, May 25, 1971, 136; cf. Gavrilyuk, On Christian Leadership, 100–1. 66 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, May 25, 1971, 136. 67 Gavrilyuk, On Christian Leadership, 102–4, 357–9. 63 64

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institutions, a problem that carried on down into the present (“I am still in the same situation”) in that “I am not in favour of those who have authority, but they never prevent me from doing whatever I want to, for instance—well you know it—Iakovos does not like me, or rather does dislike me, but I still must be sent as the official delegate to the Ecumenical Patriarch on all major business.”68 In early 1956, he landed a position at Harvard Divinity School teaching Byzantine and Slavic Studies—the first ever Orthodox theologian to hold a post there. At Harvard, he was to spend many fruitful years teaching Patristics and Russian culture and history, as well as supervising students who would become leaders in Orthodox theology, such as Fr. John Romanides and the future Met. John Zizioulas. During this period, he continued to work at the highest ecumenical levels and wrote a series of essays on tradition, patristics, and ecumenism, which would later became widely influential and formative of the contemporary notion of Orthodox theology and identity. In the autumn of 1964, he retired to Princeton as Visiting Professor of Slavic Studies and Religion, a part-time position. His sunset years are notable for his work on the first volumes of his Collected Works. On August 11, 1979, Florovsky died at eighty-five years old in Princeton, New Jersey; having been predeceased by his wife Kseniia Ivanova in 1977. He had retained his own sense of himself as an Orthodox Christian to the end through revolution, exile, war, displacement, and life in a score of countries.

A UNIQUE VISION OF THEOLOGY69 Having investigated in detail the humanity of a great thinker and his historical path, let us now try to understand in overview his unique vision of Orthodox theology. Perhaps the phrase most associated with Florovsky’s “neopatristic synthesis” is “the mind of the Fathers” or “the patristic mind”: “‘To follow’ the Fathers does not mean just ‘to quote’ them. ‘To follow’ the Fathers means to acquire their ‘mind,’ their phronema.”70 But what exactly did Florovsky mean by this notion, which is key in understanding his theology? It is arguable that “as a theological method, the acquisition of the ‘mind of the Fathers’ goes beyond knowledge of what the Fathers taught, beyond a flat view of a consensus patrum, to the application of a patristic mode of thought to modern problems. Florovsky never spelled out clearly what actually constitutes

Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird on November 8, 1969, 88; and see Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, Tape 3, side, undated, 126. 69 This section is indebted to Paul Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology: “Behold, I Make All Things New” (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2019), 109–14; and Gallaher and Ladouceur, “Introduction,” PWGF, 1–30 (esp. 20). 70 Georges Florovsky, The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century (1933), CW, VIII, 38; and Florovsky, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960), PWGF, 221–32, at 224–5. 68

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the ‘patristic mind.’” But from indications that he gave over the years, it is clear that his theological project entails “‘learning to think like the Fathers,’ and not merely ‘to quote the Fathers.’”71 Florovsky advocates the recovery of the “patristic style” in Orthodox theology, not the letter of patristic teachings but the spirit of the Fathers: “The road ‘to the Fathers’ in any case leads only forward, never back. The point is to be true to the patristic spirit, rather than to the letter alone,”72 he proclaimed in 1937. Florovsky was well aware of potential danger of merely restating the words of the Fathers, a “theology of repetition,” and he frequently came back to the theme of the need to acquire the “style” or the “spirit” or the “mind” of the Fathers, rather than merely repeating what they said.73 Based on indications that he gave over the years, beginning with his two papers at the first Congress of Orthodox Theology held in Athens in 1936 (“Western Influences in Russian Theology” and “Patristics and Modern Theology”) and the provocative, but prophetic, conclusion to his magnum opus The Ways of Russian Theology in 1937,74 we can identify various elements that constitute the “patristic mind”: (1) First, Scripture is understood as the foundation of all theology. But to understand Scripture for the Orthodox one must understand tradition. Florovsky argued that the Body of Christ, the Church, is a divine-human organism. The Church is “knit together” and “grows” (Col. 2:19) in the unity of the Spirit and love through its perpetual renewal in the Eucharist, guaranteed by the uninterrupted sacramental succession of the hierarchy. Being a divine-human unity, the Church is not bound by time, but, in the celebration of the Eucharist by the bishop, eternally embraces the living and the dead who are all one and alive in Christ through His Spirit. This time-conquering aspect of ecclesial unity is symbolized by “tradition” that is the living ever-renewed connection to the plenitude of the Church’s experience in all ages as founded on the experience of the Apostles in being breathed on by Christ in the Upper Room and in their participation at Pentecost: “Tradition is the constant abiding of the spirit and not only the memory of words. Tradition is a charismatic, not a historical, principle.” Within the life of tradition, through which the Spirit moves, witnesses, reveals and proclaims, the shape and form of the unity of the Church becomes visible as the Gospel itself given within Scripture as a “God inspired scheme or image (eikon) of truth, but not truth itself.”75 Scripture only lives and breathes within tradition.76 It exists in the Body of Christ, who is truth Himself, and, in this Body, Christ, the Word of life, through His Spirit, unchangeably and unceasingly reveals Himself to the world as living tradition.

Gallaher and Ladouceur, “Introduction,” PWGF, 20. Florovsky, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159–83, at 166. 73 Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology, 110. 74 Florovsky, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159–83 and Ways of Russian Theology, I and II, CW, V and VI. 75 Florovsky, “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), PWGF, 257–71, at 265. 76 Florovsky, “Scripture and Tradition” (1963), PWGF, 329–34, at 330–1. 71 72

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(2) Theology, Florovsky argued, must have an historical awareness, both the history of salvation as revealed in Scripture and the history of the Church: Theological consciousness must become historical consciousness and can attain catholicity only to the extent of its historicity . . . . A keen sense of history is a mandatory qualification for any theologian . . . . To theologise in the church is to theologise in the historical mode, because the life of the church (tserkovnost’) is, in fact, Holy Tradition.77 A sense of history, then, is central to the mind of the Fathers; however, if the Christian faith is resolutely historical then this leads to the central aspect of his theology, God taking flesh in history as a particular human being: Jesus Christ. (3) Christian doctrine and spirituality for Florovsky are wholly determined by “the central vision of the Christian faith: Christ Jesus, as God and Redeemer, Humiliated and Glorified, the Victim and the Victor on the Cross.”78 Christian theology is first and foremost Christocentric. Florovsky’s Christology begins with a meditation on the Christological definitions and inheritance of the Council of Chalcedon. Florovsky sees Chalcedonian Christology not as a metaphysical expression, but as an “existential statement” of faith describing Christ the Redeemer as a divine Person, God Himself who takes on human nature and thereby “enters human history and becomes an historical person.”79 Yet Florovsky in no way plays Christocentrism (and with it ecclesiology) over against an emphasis on the Trinity. His approach affirms both Trinity and Christology. In writing on the rule of faith, Florovsky agreed with Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–c. 202) in holding that we can see in Scripture that the Father is truth80 and as truth He is known in the Son81 by the “Spirit of truth” (Jn 15:26),82 both in the world and in Scripture. (4). The next element of the Patristic mind is that “Orthodox theology must be fundamentally Hellenistic.”83 This element is for many perhaps the most controversial part of Florovsky’s legacy. Florovsky argued that the Hellenization of revelation was by no means accidental but part of the providential action of God in the calling of the Gentiles: “Hellenism is a standing category of Christian experience.”84 The fact that Greek (“the fixed mother tongue of the Christian

Florovsky, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 166. Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 289–302, at 297. 79 Florovsky, “The Lost Scriptural Mind” (1951), CW, I, 9–16, at 13. 80 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III​.xiii​​.2. 81 Ibid., IV​.ii​.6 and v.1. 82 Cf. Irenaeus, Dem, §6, Adv. Haer. III​.xxiv​.1 and IV​.xxxiii​​.7. 83 Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology, 110. 84 Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1936), PWGF, 153–7, at 157. 77 78

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Good News”) was selected as the language of the Gospel is no more accidental than that “salvation is from the Jews” (Jn 4:22).85 So too it is no accident that the teaching of the Fathers, understood as the “first authentic interpretation of the Christian message,” was given in “Hellenistic categories.”86 Hellenism, Florovsky admitted, is itself “ambiguous” and “double-faced,” as can be seen in the pagan revivals of the Renaissance and German Romanticism,87 and so Hellenism and pagan philosophy, in particular, had to be “baptized” in the Church, “transfigured,” “canonized,” “biblically engrafted,” “ecclesified,” in short, Christianized.88 This “Christian Hellenism,” another phrase Florovsky frequently adopts, is regarded as the common tradition of the Church in East and West, but embodied above all in the Orthodox Church.89 Florovsky called the Orthodox specifically, but Christians as well more generally, to return to this “Hellenism under the sign of the cross”90 by means of a “spiritual Hellenisation (or re-Hellenisation)” of theology: “let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox.”91 Yet the Hellenistic aspect of Orthodox tradition for Florovsky, despite all its difficulties, is not identical to national Greek culture. Hellenism for him is universal and is not merely localized Graecophilia, and it is the common foundation of the Orthodox Christian faith shared by Greek, Russian, and Romanian and indeed all Orthodox. This is why Florovsky can assert Christian Hellenism, while at the same time denouncing all nationalism (as he does at length in the Blane-Bird interviews). For him, Christian Hellenism, or Orthodoxy, is catholic and universal.92 He rejected the notion that “Russia is a messianic nation,” expressed by Berdyaev and dating back to the Slavophiles and common even today, as “heresy.”93 (5) The Patristic mind, for Florovsky, further involves the true understanding of the Church in relation to the churches that was, for him, the imperative of ecumenism. Florovsky is the architect of the modern Orthodox approach to ecumenism and one of the founders of the WCC, drafting key texts like the Toronto Statement (1950) that explicitly argue that the WCC is not a super

Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology” (1931), PWGF, 115–27, at 122. Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” Theology Today 7, no. 1 (1950): 68–79, at 75. 87 Florovsky, “Preface to ‘In Ligno Crucis’” (1939), PWGF, 65–70, at 67. 88 Florovsky, “The Christian Hellenism” (1957), PWGF, 233–6, at 234. 89 Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1936), PWGF, 157 and “Let us be more ‘Hellenic’ in order that we may be truly Christian” (Florovsky, “The Christian Hellenism” (1957), PWGF, 236). 90 Ibid., 234. 91 Ibid., 236. 92 Florovsky interview with Blane and Bird, Tape 4, November 8, 1969, 74. 93 Ibid., 75; See the close of Chapter 6 by Fr Nikolai Sakharov in this volume. 85 86

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church. Florovsky was very clear that he believed that the Orthodox Church is the true and only Church; she does not witness to a “local tradition of her own” but witnesses to “patristic tradition” or “the common heritage of the Church universal.” Nevertheless, he argued, “the true Church is not yet the perfect Church.”94 All other churches, he argued, had defected from Orthodoxy as the common tradition of the Undivided Church or were “schismatic,” and consequently were called to return and be healed within the unity of the Orthodox Church. Not surprisingly, Florovsky saw the involvement of the Orthodox Church in the ecumenical movement as a kind of “missionary activity”95 or as the witness of the truth of Orthodoxy to the whole Christian world: Christian reunion is just universal conversion to Orthodoxy . . . What is beyond [the Church’s norm of the rule of faith and order] is just abnormal. But the abnormal should be cured and not simply condemned. This is a justification for the participation of an Orthodox in the ecumenical discourse, in the hope that through his witness the Truth of God may win human hearts and minds.96 Although Florovsky firmly believed the Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, he did not hold that only Orthodox were Christians. Florovsky contended that individual Christians in schismatic bodies existed outside the canonical limits of the Orthodox Church but within its spiritual bounds.97 This inclusion of non-Orthodox within the boundaries of the Church should not be taken to mean that Florovsky adhered to the “branchtheory” of Christianity; in fact, he explicitly rejected it. However, for Florovsky, the term “church” was not a magical word reserved only for the Orthodox Church. Other Christian ecclesial bodies, especially the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans, could legitimately be called “churches” since they are close to the ecclesial and dogmatic reality of the Orthodox Church due to many factors, including right belief, the preaching of the Word of God, true devotion, apostolic succession, and validity of their sacraments, above all, their Trinitarian baptism. (6) Last, for Florovsky the patristic mind means that Orthodox theology has an apologetic vocation. More precisely, Orthodox theology has a responsibility expressed in the famous passage from 1 Peter: “Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet.

Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement” (1950), PWGF, 279–88, at 285. Florovsky, “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” Irénikon 22, no. 1 (1949): 5–25 at 9–10. 96 Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty,” 285–6. 97 See Florovsky, “The Limits of the Church” (1933), PWGF, 247–56 (see Chapter 20 in this volume by Fr. Alexander Rentel). 94 95

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3:15). The Christian witness of the saints is the core of Florovsky’s theology. Indeed, the saints, and, in particular, the Church Fathers, are the preeminent instances of what Florovsky called the “catholic consciousness” of the Church. The faith of the Church does not constitute a personal profession but “the testimony of the whole Church. This is because they speak out of the Church’s catholic fullness and depth, theologizing within the medium of ‘sobornost’.”98 The Fathers are not just teachers but “guides and witnesses” to the identity and authority of the Church.99 They do not present ready-made answers; nor can one look to a consensus patrum as some binding empirical agreement of individuals.100 We follow the Fathers creatively and spiritually,101 not in a “mood of repetition”102 or a “theology of repetition.”103 We are above all called to acquire the mind or mind-set (phronema) of the Fathers, the “catholic mind” or fundamental identity of the Church.104

FLOROVSKY AND ORTHODOX THEOLOGY AFTER CRETE Having examined the life and work of Florovsky, we can say that the most important task of contemporary Orthodox theology, as it walks in the theological footsteps of Fr. Florovsky and the creative impetus coming from the Holy and Great Council of Crete in June 2016, is to follow Florovsky and the Council’s common vision of a theology that does not simply go “back to the Fathers” but “forward with the Fathers.” This Patristic impetus is a search for a creative and constructive response to modernity and postmodernity that, again like Florovsky and Crete, remains faithful to traditional Orthodox faith and practice, while avoiding the unhealthy temptation or naïve quest for “relevance” to the present age. This requires a hermeneutical responsibility of interpreting the Gospel through the mind of the Fathers in new contexts unforeseen by them but which their spirit may help us to fathom. Orthodoxy theology must engage Western thinking and creatively appropriate the best of Western thought and resources,

Florovsky, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 166–7 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 295). Florovsky, “On the Authority of the Fathers” (1963), PWGF, 237–40, at 238. 100 Florovsky, “Theological Will” (1959), 242. 101 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology (1937), I, CW, V, “Preface,” xvii and “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 166–72 (CW, VI, II, 294–301) and Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 292ff. 102 Florovsky, “On the Authority of the Fathers” (1963), PWGF, 239. 103 Florovsky, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition and the Tradition of the Fathers,” (1960), PWGF, 225. 104 Florovsky, “Preface,” in Vostochnye Ottsy IV-go Veka (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1931) and see Florovsky, “On the Authority of the Fathers” (1963), PWGF, 239, n. 10. 98 99

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a discovery of how Eastern Orthodoxy is not simply unhappily westernized but can also faithfully draw on the West, while still retaining its traditional Eastern Orthodox roots. The temptation to generalized anti-Western polemics and narrow Eastern-centric theology is meaningless and detrimental to contemporary Orthodoxy. In the wake of the Holy and Great Council of Crete, we should instead aspire to the emergence and renewal of an Orthodoxy freed from all provincialism and ethnicism. Florovsky himself called for such a rebirth as early as the 1930s and 1940s, to find new patterns of ideas and new expressions that articulate the Faith of the Fathers, a Faith that is ever ancient and ever new. Our hope is that this volume, inspired by Fr. Florovsky’s legacy and the creative energy released into world Orthodoxy by Crete, will contribute to that noble mandate. Brandon Gallaher   John Chryssavgis Holy Pascha 2021

PART I

Georges Florovsky Life and Work

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Chapter 1

The Theological Legacy of Archpriest Georges Florovsky ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW

The Ecumenical Patriarchate paid special homage to the fortieth anniversary since the repose of Fr. Georges Florovsky by organizing a special international conference in the city of Constantine and the historical Center of Orthodoxy in honor of this eminent personality of the Church and Theology, a distinguished scholar of the patristic tradition, a professor and author, a renowned theologian, and, according to his student Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, an “ecumenical teacher,”1 who made such an immense and invaluable contribution to the Church of Christ and its sound witness in our age, as well as to the ecumenical movement and to the favorable presence of the Orthodox Church therein. The Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement published by the World Council of Churches describes Florovsky as “a universally recognized Orthodox spokesman in the ecumenical movement.”2

See Metropolitan John of Pergamon, “Fr. Georges Florovsky, the Ecumenical Teacher,” in Georges Florovsky, The Body of the Living Christ (Athens: Armos, 1999), 129–59 [in Greek] (this text is available in English translation in this volume). Translated by John Chryssavgis. 2 “Florovsky, Georges Vasilievich,” in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2002), 477. 1

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The Holy Great Church of Christ always regarded the cultivation of the abundant harvest of patristic wisdom as an extremely profitable task inasmuch as the literature of the Fathers “discloses the excellent interpretation and perfect expression of our doctrinal teachings and moral precepts.”3 This is why, in 1965, it established the Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies with its offices in the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery of Vlatadon on the Acropolis of Thessaloniki with the objective of studying and researching the writings and theology of the Church Fathers. The work of Fr. Georges Florovsky undoubtedly contributed to this decision of the Ecumenical Throne. The admirable publications of the Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies— which include the journal Kleronomia and the series Analekta Vlatadon, the reprinting of Ekklesiatike Aletheia; the precious archives of microfilms and copies of manuscripts that preserve the splendid and scarce treasures of patristic wisdom; the magnificent library; the regular organization of conferences, seminars, and lectures; the academic programs; and other initiatives—all these comprise and characterize the identity of this institute, in which the Ecumenical Throne rightfully takes pride. The work of Fr. Georges Florovsky is and will remain for generations to come a source of inspiration and orientation for the theological enterprise. The central axis of his thought and witness was the “creative return”4 to the Fathers, and it was for an accurate apprehension and application of this return that he invested over fifty years of theological scholarship. The Fathers are “witnesses of the true faith”5 in the life of the Church. This is why invoking the Fathers is not simply a reference to the past. “The ‘mind of the Fathers’ is an intrinsic term of reference in Orthodox theology, no less than the word of Holy Writ, and indeed never separated from it.”6 The teaching of the Fathers constitutes “a permanent category of Christian faith.”7 In this sense, “‘To follow the Fathers’ does not mean simply to quote their sentences. It means to acquire their mind, their phronema.”8

Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos, April 16, 1965, Prot. No. 220. Georges Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 289–302 at 297 (CW, IV, 22) (Also in Greek translation: “Patristic Theology and the Ethos of the Orthodox Church,” in WGF, IV, 24). 5 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 293 (CW, IV, 16) (Greek: WGF, IV, 18). 6 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 293 (CW, IV, 17) (Greek: WGF, IV, 18). 7 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 293 (CW, IV, 17) (Greek: WGF, IV, 17). 8 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 294 (CW, IV, 18) (Greek: WGF, IV, 19–20). 3 4

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Authentic patristic theology is the word about God in the Church, in the divine-human communion of God’s union with man and man’s union with God. “Likewise, by its existence, the Church is the permanent witness of Christ, the pledge and revelation of his victory and his glory. One can say that the Church is the recapitulation of all his work. Christianity is the Church.”9 Theologizing by “following the Fathers” implies “to return creatively to the ‘ancient experience,’ to re-live it in the depth of our being, and to incorporate our thought in the continuous fabric of ecclesial fullness.”10 In this perspective, the opinion of then Prof. Joseph Ratzinger and later Pope Benedict XVI, articulated in his article in the first issue of Kleronomia (1969) is striking: “The theology of the Eastern Church never sought to be anything other than patristic theology.”11 According to Florovsky, a definitive factor of the history and identity of the Church and of theology lies in the encounter of Christianity with Hellenism, whose principal architects are found among the chorus of the prominent Greek Fathers. Florovsky described how they succeeded in formulating—skillfully and without minimalistic banter—“a new, completely new, experience”12 through the language and terminology of Greek philosophy. The “plea for Hellenism”13 as an “eternal category of Christian existence”14 refers to “the Hellenism of dogma, of the liturgy, of the icon.”15 Hellenism is “something more than a passing stage in the Church.”16 Florovsky emphatically reminds us: “The ‘good news’ and Christian theology, once and for all, were expressed from the start in Hellenistic categories. Patristic and catholicity,

See in this volume: Florovsky, The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church (1948); (see PWGF, 273–7, at 277) (Greek: Florovsky, The Body of the Living Christ, 20). 10 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 183–209, at 197 (Compare “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 170, and The Ways of Russian Theology, Part Two (1937), CW, VI, 299) (Greek: WGF, IV, 229–30). 11 Joseph Ratzinger, “Die Bedeutung der Väter für die gegenwärtige Theologie,” Kleronomia I, no. 1 (1969): 15–38, at 22. 12 Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology” (1931), PWGF, 115–27, at 123 (CW, III, 33) (Greek: WGF, III, 37). 13 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 183–209, at 198 (Compare “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 171, and The Ways of Russian Theology, Part Two (1937), CW, VI, 299) (Greek: WGF, IV, 230). 14 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195 (Compare “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 168 and The Ways of Russian Theology, Part Two (1937), CW, VI, 297) (Greek: WGF, IV, 226). 15 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195 (Compare “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 168 and The Ways of Russian Theology, Part Two (1937), CW, VI, 297) (Greek: WGF, IV, 227). 16 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195 (Compare “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 169 and The Ways of Russian Theology, Part Two (1937), CW, VI, 297) (Greek: WGF, IV, 227). 9

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historicity and Hellenism are the joint aspects of a unique and indivisible datum.”17 In this context we should also understand the famous statement by Florovsky at the First Theological Congress of Athens in 1936: “let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox.”18 In the life of the Church, there is “an ultimate spiritual and ontological identity,” and also “the same faith, the same spirit, the same ethos”19 are preserved. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, nurtures, renews, and directs the Church perpetually—throughout its whole journey, “no less effectively as in the ancient times.”20 For Florovsky, the determination of the place of Byzantine theology in the history of the Church is consistent with this approach. “Byzantine theology was much more than just a ‘repetition’ of Patristic theology, nor was that which was new in it of an inferior quality in comparison with ‘Christian antiquity.’ Indeed, Byzantine theology was an organic continuation of the Patristic Age.”21 Florovsky’s faithfulness to the “tradition of truth” as the continuous presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church did not prevent him from becoming involved in the ecumenical movement, but also inspired and informed his interest in and contribution to ecumenical service. He participated in inter-Christian dialogue; he assumed a critical role in the foundation and promotion of the World Council of Churches; he studied the writings of Western theologians and entertained conversations with them, referring to their work without hesitation; and he advocated the importance of the Church Fathers for a rediscovery and awareness of the common heritage of all Christians. According to Florovsky, Christians everywhere “somehow belong together.”22 It is not a question of “parallel traditions” but of a single tradition, which was distorted and divided. There is an “original kinship in the common past,”23 which we are always called to remember. Despite their peculiarities,

Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195–6 (Compare “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 169 and The Ways of Russian Theology, Part Two (1937), CW, VI, 297) (Greek: WGF, IV, 227–8). 18 Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1939), PWGF, 153–7, at 157 (Original publication: George Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” in Hamilcar S. Alivizatos (ed.), ProcèsVerbaux du Premier Congrès de Théology Orthodoxe à Athènes (29 Nov.–6 Déc. 1936) (Athens: Pyrsos, 1939), 238–42, at 242). 19 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 292 (CW, IV, 14) (Greek: WGF, IV, 15). 20 Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960), PWGF, 221–32 at 226 (CW, I, 112) (Greek: WGF, I, 2nd ed., 154). 21 Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960), PWGF, 227 (CW, I, 112) (Greek: WGF, I, 2nd ed., 154). 22 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 301 (CW, IV, 28) (Greek: WGF, IV, 32). 23 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 301 (CW, IV, 29) (Greek: WGF, IV, 33). 17

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“East and West belong organically together in the unity of Christendom.”24 They cannot be conceived in and of themselves; they do not comprise “parallel developments”; they are not self-sufficient or self-understood. “And, again, they have had, in the course of their history, rather numerous points of contact, or collision, or conflict. One may call them sister-civilizations. And I venture to suggest these sisters were Siamese twins.”25 East and West are parts of one Christian world, which according to God’s plan “ought not to have been disrupted.”26 “The tragedy of division is the major and crucial problem of Christian history.”27 If we can comprehend this, then there is solid hope for the restoration of Christian unity. On this matter and for the achievement of this goal, the Orthodox Church has a special role and mission: “She is a living embodiment of an uninterrupted tradition, in thought and devotion. She stands not for a certain ‘particular’ tradition, but the Tradition of ages, for the Tradition of the Undivided Church.”28 When Florovsky proclaims that “Christian reunion is just universal conversion to Orthodoxy,”29 he means a return to that Church, which incarnates the unwavering faithfulness to the common tradition of the undivided Church. This is the self-consciousness also championed by the Holy and Great Council of Crete: The Orthodox Church, as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, in her profound ecclesiastical self-consciousness, believes unflinchingly that she occupies a central place in the matter of the promotion of Christian unity in the world today . . . . The Orthodox Church, which prays unceasingly “for the union of all,” has always cultivated dialogue with those estranged from her, those both far and near. In particular, she has played a leading role in the contemporary search for ways and means to restore the unity of those who believe in Christ, and she has participated in the Ecumenical

Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 301 (CW, IV, 29) (Greek: WGF, IV, 33). 25 Florovsky, “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology” (1949), PWGF, 185–91, at 186 (Greek: “The Legacy and Purpose of Orthodox Theology,” Theologia 81, no. 4 (Athens) (2010): 21–9, at 22). 26 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 302 (CW, IV, 29) (Greek: WGF, IV, 33–4). 27 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 302 (CW, IV, 29) (Greek: WGF, IV, 34). 28 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 302 (CW, IV, 29) (Greek: WGF, IV, 34). 29 Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement” (1950), PWGF, 279–88 at 285 (Greek translation: Issues in Orthodox Theology [Athens: Artos Zois, 1973], 219). 24

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Movement from its outset, and has contributed to its formation and further development.30 Such was the spirit of the Ecumenical Patriarchate throughout its extended participation in the ecumenical movement, not only as a mere partner but as one of its founders. Without theological minimalism, we approach the Orthodox tradition in its historical reference to the rest of the Christian world, in a shared conviction with Fr. Georges Florovsky that “all reaches of the Orthodox tradition can be disclosed and consummated only in a standing intercourse with the whole of the Christian world.”31 We believe that the official inter-Christian theological dialogues are strengthened by the involvement of Theological Schools and academic circles, through the “dialogue of life” in the daily life of Christians, but also through a communication and encounter with leaders of other Churches and Confessions. In general, we maintain that the ecumenical movement released exceptional creative potential in the Christian world. Inasmuch as the word of the Orthodox Church is profoundly authentic, it cannot remain on the margin of discussions about critical contemporary questions and problems. While no period in human history was ever “ideal,” and despite the fact that we are not accustomed to judge modern civilization on the basis of “the criterion of sinfulness,” we would like to emphasize that the great challenges of our time are the consequence of so-called modern sins, the heart of which lies in the self-saving autonomous freedom in the “enclosed individual” with its claim for rights and the misunderstanding of sacrificial love as “the ethos of the weak.” Nevertheless, it is in this kind of world that the Orthodox Church lives and moves, blessed by God as the giver of all good to serve as successor and defender of the sacred deposit of the Apostles and Fathers, embracing the Saints and Martyrs of faith, the liturgical life and unbroken unity of faith in God and love for one’s neighbor, the godly zeal of the sacred clergy, the ascetical struggles of the monks and nuns, the life of the Christ-like plenitude of the Church grounded in the crucifixion and resurrection, the spiritual delight of service to humankind and the world, as well as the hope of eternal life. The life proposed by the Orthodox Church within the “non-culture” of individuality,32 as described by Prof. Christos Yannaras, in response to the rendering of ecclesial life into a mere religious behavior, is the “culture of personhood,” the “common freedom” nurtured in the Church “through which

Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World, paras 1 and 4. Florovsky, “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology” (1949), PWGF, 191 (Greek: “The Legacy and Purpose of Orthodox Theology,” 29). 32 See Christos Yannaras, “On an Unaccommodating Ecology and Christmas,” Kathimerini Newspaper, December 23, 2007. 30 31

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Christ liberated us” (Gal. 5:1). Christ is our liberator and His Church is “a movement of lived freedom.” In the Church, conversion toward the “ego” is considered a loss of freedom, a shrinking of existence. The supreme freedom of a Christian is the “end of all rights,” which are identified with self-centeredness and “seeking one’s own interests.” Freedom in Christ and according to Christ does not merely involve sacrificing what we have, but “especially sacrificing what we are.”33 Not only does Christ reject the foolish rich man who “lays treasures upon himself ” (Lk. 12:21), but he also condemns the Pharisee who justifies himself with pride (Lk. 18:9-14). This ethos of freedom and the values that it embodies are a reversal of our contemporary consumeristic, economic-centered, and technocratic mindset. The Orthodox way of life is a witness to a culture of solidarity, of a sense of community, of an ethos of resurrection and unshakeable faith in the eschatological “common resurrection.” This living witness of an already accomplished regeneration in Christ in expectation of the fulfillment of the Divine Economy cannot be conveyed by a “closed” and somber Orthodoxy. A lamp placed “under the bushel” (Mt. 5:15) cannot illumine the world. Never in the course of history has introversion either essentially expressed or benefited the Church; after all, enclosure is not an accurate interpretation of its characteristic as “not [being] of the world.” The Church of Christ is “the miracle of the New” in the world; it is not the “adversary” but the “emancipator” of history. What authentically expresses the life of the Church is a theology with an existential depth and meaning, a theology that derives its origin from the endless source of tradition and personal participation in the ecclesial event. For Fr. Florovsky, the criterion of authenticity in theology is neither our subjective worldview nor the civilization of the time, but Christ and our fidelity to Him. The Word of God cannot be easily adjusted or accommodated to the fleeting customs and attitudes of any particular age, including our own time. Unfortunately, we are often inclined to measure the Word of God by our own stature, instead of checking our mind by the stature of Christ. The “modern mind” also stands under the judgement of the Word of God.34 Our “ecumenical teacher” rightly underlines that it is “illusion” to believe “that the Christological disputes of the past are irrelevant to the contemporary situation. In fact, they are continued and repeated in the controversies of our own age.”35

M. Kardamakis, The Truth about Freedom (Athens: Akritas, 1985), 16. (In Greek). “The Lost Scriptural Mind,” CW, I, 9–10 (Greek: WGF, I, 2nd ed., 39–40). 35 “The Lost Scriptural Mind,” CW, I, 14 (Greek: WGF, I, 2nd ed., 46). 33 34

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The theologian is traditional and pioneering. Or more precisely, inasmuch as traditional, he is also a pioneer; and inasmuch as a pioneer, he essentially draws from tradition. Someone who is genuinely traditional is not conservative. He appreciates the old not in and of itself, but because within the historically old lie the values of the old. Such a theologian is aware that he cannot respond to his vocation unless he feels the pulse of his contemporaries and understands the time within and for which he is obliged to interpret the Gospel in order to articulate theological truth. The genuine theologian also recognizes that “fundamentalist babble” is, at least in its Christian expression, a monophysitic denial of the universality and luminosity of the Gospel of freedom in Christ. The magnificent texts of the Fathers are an inexhaustible source of theological inspiration. Florovsky frequently highlighted the existential character of patristic theology and its striking relevance. “I often have a strange feeling,” he writes: [W]hen I read the ancient classics of Christian theology, the fathers of the church, I find them more relevant to the troubles and problems of my own time than the production of modern theologians. The fathers were wrestling with existential problems, with those revelations of the eternal issues which were described and recorded in Holy Scripture. I would risk a suggestion that St. Athanasius and St. Augustine are much more up to date than many of our theological contemporaries. The reason is very simple: they were dealing with things and not with the maps, they were concerned not so much with what man can believe as with what God had done for man.36 In the writings of the Fathers, we do not of course discover ready-made prescriptions and responses. We require much study, careful theological work, “a vigilant mind,” and “a pure heart” in order for the wealth of patristic wisdom to be revealed and in order for us to discern responses to many misconceptions of Orthodox teaching promulgated today inside and outside the Orthodox Church. What is of particular interest is the fact that such positions that present Orthodoxy as closed, ethnocentric, and without any real concern for dialogue with the rest of the Christian world or for encounter with contemporary civilization are formulated by those outside the Church with a judgmental and condemnatory attitude, whereas by those inside the Church they are portrayed as praise for an allegedly genuine Orthodox mindset and fidelity to the tradition of the Fathers. In the face of all these challenges, we all recognize the significance of unity for the Orthodox Church and of a common witness for Orthodox theology.

“The Lost Scriptural Mind,” CW, I, 16 (Greek: WGF, I, 2nd ed., 49).

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We experience with intensity the disagreements among Orthodox Churches on the matter of our relationship with the contemporary world. Moreover, we also experienced the fragility of Panorthodox unity when we convened and realized the Holy and Great Council in Crete, as well as in the matter of autocephaly in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the Eucharistic and eschatological identity of the Church is threatened today not only by the spirit of secularism, but also by tendencies of a sterile spirituality and devotion within the body of the Orthodox Church, as well as by tensions within inter-Orthodox relations. We are called to serve the truth of the Eucharistic realization of the Church. It is from the Divine Eucharist that the entire life of the Church, along with its spirituality and pastoral ministry, is nourished. Everything in the Church—its structure, divine worship, and ministry—is a manifestation of its Eucharistic identity. It is only when the Church functions as “a Eucharistic community” that it becomes a transformative force in society and an authoritative witness in the world. As a Eucharistic community, the Church proposes freedom in the place of legalism, fellowship, and relationship in the place of individualism, the absolute and unique value of the human person in the place of a faceless mass and reduction of human beings to a calculable quantity or replaceable object. In fact, the objectification and adaptation of the Divine Eucharist into a means of exercising ecclesiastical politics and persuasion reveal an estrangement and disassociation from the fundamental principles of Eucharistic ecclesiology, which together with the “return to the Fathers” and the related development of a theological anthropology of personhood constitutes the definitive contemporary contribution of Orthodoxy to Christian theology and the spiritual culture. Prof. Christos Yannaras reminds us that, in his Ways of Russian Theology, Fr. Georges Florovsky describes the journey of Russian Christianity after the fall of Constantinople as “alienation, and estrangement with regard to the patristic Greek tradition,”37 as a gradual dismissal of every “residue of Greekness”38 in church experience. This invariably implies disassociation from the “rationale of Orthodox ecclesiology” and association of the patriarchal status bestowed on the Russian Church with “nationalist ambitions for autonomy and secular ‘power.’”39 Prof. Yannaras perceives the “spiritual catholicity”40 of Hellenism as embodied and expressed in the supranational institution of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which “represents a potential for life always pertinent.”41

Christos Yannaras, Metaphysics as a Personal Adventure: Christos Yannaras in Conversation with Norman Russell, trans. Norman Russell (Yonkers, NY: SVS Press, 2017), 143 (Greek: Athens: Ikaros, 2018, 187). 38 Ibid., 142 (Greek: Athens: Ikaros, 2018, 186). 39 Ibid., 141 (Greek: Athens: Ikaros, 2018, 184–5). 40 Christos Yannaras, The Privilege of Despair (Athens: Grigori, 1973), 107. [In Greek] 41 Ibid., 109. 37

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The ecclesiological functionality of this supranational character of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is also underlined by Metropolitan John of Pergamon, who observes: The nature of its ministry and its destiny is to serve all Orthodox, irrespective of nationality, race and language. This is why it should not be associated with places and contexts that are narrowly ethnic. Divine Providence destined (the Ecumenical Patriarchate) precisely where it is, so that no one might invade or challenge its supranational character, on the basis of which it is also called to play a decisive role in our day.42 The solution to the current problems of the Orthodox Church can be achieved only through absolute fidelity to the tradition of the Church and on the basis of its theological, canonical, and ecclesiological criteria. If, as Fr. Florovsky argues, East and West are unable to exist as independent entities, it is inconceivable for the Orthodox Church to function as self-sufficient organisms without transforming the nucleus of ecclesiology and the vital principle of conciliarity.

Metropolitan John of Pergamon, Ransom for the World: Theological Texts on Salvation in Christ and the Church (Megara: Evergetis, 2014), 279. (In Greek). 42

Chapter 2

The Diachronic Significance of Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Theological Contribution METROPOLITAN JOHN (ZIZIOULAS) OF PERGAMON

There are certain teachers and writers, whose work and contribution transcend the boundaries of their period and acquire diachronic significance for future generations and their existential challenges. Such teachers become “fathers” that “beget” students for all periods, much like what occurs par excellence with the Fathers of the Church. With the inspired decision of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew along with the Holy and Sacred Synod, the Ecumenical Patriarchate honored—with a special conference held at the Phanar in September 2019 and through the volume at hand—the memory of one such teacher, who despite the fact that forty years have passed since his passing remains timely in our own age. The late Fr. Georges Florovsky was born in Russia, but global turbulence of his time compelled him to spend the longest and most creative part of his life first in Europe and eventually in America, where he completed his earthly time. These circumstances offered him the opportunity to transmit the witness of Orthodox theology to a broader and, at least for his generation, ecumenical environment—originally as professor at

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the Institute of St. Sergius in Paris and subsequently as dean of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary in New York, later as professor at Harvard University, and finally as professor at Princeton University in the United States. During this extensive academic journey, Fr. Florovsky actively participated in the ecumenical movement, which at that time was at its pinnacle, as a founding member of the World Council of Churches in 1948 and as a dynamic member of the Faith and Order Commission but also as a member of the Orthodox delegation at the General Assembly of Evanston in 1956, where he left the indelible mark of Orthodox testimony. Endowed with an extensive knowledge of languages, which he had already acquired from childhood (born into and nurtured by a family of intellectuals)—he was very fluent in English, German, and French; he was quite conversant in modern Greek; and he was entirely proficient in classical Greek and Latin—he moved comfortably among the highest circles of the international academic community, which repeatedly conferred him with the highest distinctions, including honorary doctorates from various universities. This venerable teacher’s broad horizons were firmly stamped on his theological thought and work. Like the great Fathers of the ancient Church, he too set about with a profound knowledge of contemporary philosophy (which he even taught for a certain period) with a view to submitting its dilemmas and questions to—but also search for the answers in—the study of the Church Fathers, to which he ultimately and unwaveringly devoted himself from the time of his teaching at the St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris. In this way, he was able to bring the word of the Fathers— and by extension of Orthodoxy—very seamlessly into dialogue with the contemporary intellectual world, while rendering it esteemed among its foremost representatives. It is within this context that Fr. Florovsky developed and advanced his conviction that Orthodox theology is inseparably linked to “Hellenism.” This approach was not at all associated with ethnic identity but with the conviction that the patristic and dogmatic teaching of the Church was incarnated and presented in categories borrowed from Greek philosophy and consequently remains inaccessible unless we are acquainted with Greek categories of thought.1 This is why his first concern on becoming dean of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary was to require the instruction of Greek in the teaching program, provoking an extreme reaction that, among other reasons, led to his removal from the position of dean. (Other reasons for his departure included his effort to elevate the academic status of the seminary to acquire equivalence

Cf. Georges Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 183–209 (see “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159–83); “The Christian Hellenism” (1957), PWGF, 233–6. 1

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with other academic institutions in America, which drew the further criticism that not only would he lead the seminary to “Hellenization” but also to “Americanization.”) At the root of all these issues lay the essential dilemma as to whether Orthodoxy would be incorporated into the contemporary world by entering into dialogue with its cultural surroundings, or else remain a continuation of the Russian tradition in exile. Fr. Georges always envisioned Orthodoxy in dialogue with the contemporary world, and it is to this vision that he dedicated his whole life. This observation leads to the central theme of this chapter. In other chapters in this volume, prominent scholars address and debate in detail specific aspects of Fr. Florovsky’s theological work. This chapter presents a general introduction to the vital question regarding the topics of concern to this great theologian that remain at the forefront of interest to the Orthodox Church and to Orthodox theology today. What answers to contemporary questions can we derive from the writings of Fr. Florovsky? In this way, we shall be able to glean the relevance and significance of his theological contribution for the contemporary reality of the Orthodox Church and Orthodox theology.

THE TRANSMISSION OF PATRISTIC THOUGHT IN OUR AGE The Orthodox Church received its faith from the Church Fathers. Fidelity to the patristic teaching comprises the foundation of its identity.2 This principle is the cornerstone of Orthodox theology in every age. However, how is this teaching transmitted from the past to the present, from one cultural environment to another? Here is what Fr. Florovsky observes on the occasion of the formal opening of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary in New York in 1948: A modern man can and must persist in his loyalty to the traditional faith and to the Church of the Fathers without compromising his freedom of thought and without betraying the needs or requests of the contemporary world . . . the task of a contemporary Orthodox theologian is intricate and enormous . . . above all he has to realize that he has to speak to an ecumenical audience . . . simply because his Orthodox, that is, the patristic, tradition is not a local one, but basically an ecumenical one. And he has to use all his skill to phrase this ecumenical message of the Fathers in such a way as to secure an ecumenical, a truly universal, appeal.3

2 3

See “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), PWGF, 293. “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology” (1948), PWGF, 190.

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And he continues very characteristically: This obviously cannot be achieved by any servile repetition of the patristic letter, as it cannot be achieved by a biblical fundamentalism either. But servility is alien both to the Bible and to the Fathers. They were themselves bold and courageous and adventurous seekers of the divine truth . . . . No renewal is possible without a return to the sources. But it must be a return to the sources, to the Well of living water, and not simply a retirement into a library or museum of venerable and respectable, but outlived relics.4 Fr. Florovsky then proposes two ways for us to secure a living transmission of the patristic tradition to our generation. The first is to interpret the patristic and dogmatic tradition of the Church through its worship and liturgical life. Fr. Florovsky believed that the patristic and dogmatic teaching are experienced through the liturgical life of the Church and conveyed in this way as a living tradition in every age. The lex orandi and lex credendi must once again, as in the age of the Fathers, become sources that mutually nurture one another.5 And so he adds: “The true theology can spring only out of a deep liturgical experience.”6 But such a hermeneutic transmission of the patristic and dogmatic tradition (which, unfortunately, our academic theology has never adopted) only concerns the believers of the Church, who participate in its liturgical life. How can this tradition be transmitted and interpreted to non-Orthodox Christians or even to those outside of the Church, to the cultural environment of our age? In this case, Fr. Florovsky suggests what he calls a neopatristic synthesis. And so, in the same work, he writes: We are perhaps on the eve of a new synthesis in theology—of a neopatristic synthesis, I would suggest . . . . This seems to be one of the immediate objectives of the Church in our age.7 What exactly does Fr. Florovsky mean by this proposal? Some may interpret this as an abandonment of the Fathers, as a proposal of a “meta-patristic” theology? Yet this would be an inconceivable notion for a theologian, who dedicated his life to the study and advancement of the Church Fathers. The true meaning of this idea lies precisely in the opposite: How can we make the

Ibid. “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), PWGF, 298: “The Lex credendi and the Lex orandi are reciprocally interrelated.” See also “Preface to In Ligno Crucis” (1939), PWGF, 70. 6 “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology” (1948), PWGF, 191. 7 Ibid. 4 5

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Fathers speak once again in our age? That is to say, how can their teaching be expressed in the language and with the concepts, through which people express themselves in a specific age and in a particular culture? This hardly differs from what the Fathers themselves did when they transmitted the biblical tradition in their own time by adopting terms that previously did not exist in Holy Scripture—such as essence, nature, hypostasis, and person—and which were terms borrowed from the age in which they lived. This did not result in the “Hellenization of Christianity,”8 as Harnack accused the Fathers, but to a Christianization of Hellenism, as Fr. Florovsky ingeniously calls the patristic age.9 Just as the Christianization of Hellenism would not have been achieved without the adoption of Greek philosophical concepts of the time on the part of the Church Fathers, so too the transmission of the patristic teaching from one age to another can only occur through the concepts and dilemmas of the time and culture where the patristic message is transmitted. In light of this, Fr. Florovsky maintains that it is insufficient to collect and cite passages from the Fathers, or simply to explore the meaning of the words of the Fathers in their age. There must be a hermeneutic of the Fathers; and hermeneutic differs from exegesis, which merely conveys the meaning of their words from one language into another. In his iconic study entitled “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” which he contributed to the volume in honor of Paul Tillich,10 Fr. Florovsky adopts the notion of Benedetto Croce,11 according to which the task of the historian is “hermeneutical”—namely, a dialogue between individuals of one generation and those of another, a dialogue that poses questions and seeks answers. In the hermeneutic approach of the Fathers, we can only address questions that emerge from our own time, which potentially did not define the patristic period (matters of bioethics, psychology, social relations in a technological age, and so forth). Moreover, in order for the responses from the Church Fathers to bear any meaning for modern man, they must adopt the concepts and categories of our contemporary age. All of these arguments demonstrate the enduring relevance in our times of Fr. Florovsky’s proposal about what he called a “neopatristic synthesis,” which relates to the “incarnation” of the patristic word in the world that we inhabit so that this word can engage in our existential problems and present answers to these challenges.

“Eschatology in the Patristic Age” (1956), PWGF, 318. “Preface to In Ligno Crucis” (1939), PWGF, 67. 10 “The Predicament of the Christian Historian” (1959), PWGF, 193–220 (Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich, ed. W. Leibrecht (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959, 140–66). 11 “The Predicament of the Christian Historian” (1959), PWGF, 198–9. 8 9

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THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH WITH OTHER CHRISTIANS The ardent participation of Fr. Florovsky in the ecumenical movement, particularly in the formation of its early programs and agencies, has already been mentioned. This contribution emanated from his theological principles and convictions—he was, after all, above and beyond all else a theologian— and was associated with his ecclesiology. What were these principles, and what could their significance be for the attitude of Orthodoxy today on the matter of the unity of Christians? Before proceeding to the ecclesiological presuppositions of Fr. Florovsky’s involvement in the ecumenical movement, it should be observed that he was not in agreement with the way in which the Protestant founders perceived the ecumenical movement. Instead of a convergence or fellowship of existing Christian entities, which reflects the current situation, Fr. Florovsky supported what he called an “ecumenism in time,”12 namely, a reconciliation of Christians on the basis of the tradition of the Church, which should also be the criterion for every Christian entity: any deviation from the common tradition of the ancient undivided Church should be denounced and this should form the premise for the unity of Christians that is sought. It is noteworthy that this was also the position of the Ecumenical Patriarchate when it became involved in the ecumenical movement: that the reunion of Christianity should take place on the foundation of the ancient undivided Church of the first millennium. For Fr. Florovsky, this matter constituted a broader fundamental ecclesiastical principle. He was convinced—and emphatically and repeatedly declared in his writings—that East and West once comprised what he would characteristically described as “Siamese twins,”13 which could not be severed from one another without impacting on the life of both. This is why he believed and proclaimed that the schism between East and West influenced the catholicity of both parts, while their reunion is ecclesiologically necessary for both sides. With this approach, Fr. Florovsky does not imply that the Orthodox Church is not the Una Sancta. He categorically rejects the “branch theory,”14 which reduced the Orthodox Church to one church among many. The Orthodox Church is the faithful continuation of the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,” but this does not mean that it can also be conceived or exist without

“The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), PWGF, 302; “Ecumenical Dialogue” (1964), PWGF, 306. 13 “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology” (1949), PWGF, 186. 14 “The Limits of the Church” (1933), PWGF, 255. 12

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experiencing the “tragedy” (as he referred to it)15 of the schism—that is to say, without seeking the healing of the schism, the painful absence of our sibling. In this way, Fr. Florovsky endeavors to dispute the notion among the Slavophiles (Khomiakov and others) that the East is self-sufficient and has no need of the West. He calls this notion an “historical fiction, a sinful and dangerous fiction” that is regrettably espoused by many Orthodox even today. He writes, “The inveterate illusion of self-sufficiency must be broken down.”16 In this context, the controversial matter of the boundaries of the Church also arises, and Fr. Florovsky’s position on this has evoked much debate. This question is the subject of another chapter in the present volume; so this brief introductory address will simply present the general contours of Fr. Florovsky’s perspective in order to demonstrate his overall ecclesiological approach. The reasoning of Fr. Florovsky sets out from an historical observation. According to St. Cyprian, every separation or heresy results in a complete absence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.17 Therefore, all the sacraments performed by schismatics and heretics are deprived of divine grace and are “nonexistent.”18 However, St. Cyprian’s line of thought does not appear to have been embraced in practice by the Church. Already Basil the Great makes a distinction between heretics, schismatics, and counter-assemblies (παρασυναγωγαί),19 where the last is an assembly without the permission of the bishop. St. Basil exempts the repetition of baptism in the last two instances, whereas the Second Ecumenical Council (canon 7) extends the non-repetition of baptism in many cases of even heresy, including that by Arians. How does one theologically explain this stance of St. Basil and an ecumenical council, which actually extends to the sacrament of ordination with the recognition of this sacrament among heretics as well? The solution proposed by modern Orthodox theologians using the concept of oikonomia (recognition “by oikonomia” or “dispensation”) does not satisfy Fr. Florovsky theologically: How is it possible, he asks, for the Church to recognize “by oikonomia” a reality (such as the presence of divine grace in the performance of a sacrament) that is nonexistent? If divine grace was not active in the performance of the sacrament of baptism or ordination of schismatics, then how can the Church recognize these as sacraments? Or conversely, if the Church recognizes these sacraments “by oikonomia” as performed in the Holy

“Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement” (1950), PWGF, 284; “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), PWGF, 302; “The Ecumenical Dialogue” (1964), PWGF, 305. 16 “The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter,” in E. J. B. Fry and A. H. Armstrong (eds.), Rediscovering Eastern Christendom: Essays in Memory of Dom Bede Winslow (London: Dartman, Longman and Todd, 1963), 63–76, at 67. 17 “The Limits of the Church” (1933), PWGF, 247–8. 18 Ibid. 19 Cf. St. Basil, Letter 188 (First Canonical Epistle). 15

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Spirit, then how is St. Cyprian’s principle—according to which schismatics are deprived of divine grace—valid at all?20 Fr. Florovsky considered the problem of schism as the gravest ecclesiological issue faced by Orthodox theology; this is what he stressed in his classes at Harvard, even assigning this to me as a seminar topic in his postgraduate program. Acknowledging that the Church early diverged in practice from the position of St. Cyprian, and dissatisfied with the notion of oikonomia for the above mentioned reasons, he advanced the idea of the Blessed Augustine whereby the canonical and charismatic boundaries of the Church do not coincide: the grace of the Holy Spirit continues in some way to remain active, even despite human frailty. Here is how Fr. Florovsky himself articulates this argument: For Augustine it was not so important that the sacraments of schismatics are “unlawful” or “illicit” (illicita); much more important is the fact that the schism is a dissipation of love. But the love of God overlaps and surmounts the failure of love in man. In the sects themselves and even among heretics the Church continues to perform the saving and sanctifying work. It may not follow, perhaps, that we should say, the schismatics are still in the Church . . . it would be truer to say, the Church continues to work in the schisms in expectation of the mysterious hour when the stubborn heart will be melted . . . when [it] will burst into flame and burn the will and thirst for communality and unity. The “validity” of the sacraments among schismatics is the mysterious guarantee of their return to Catholic plenitude and unity.21 Fr. Florovsky recognizes that the sacramental theology of St. Augustine was unknown to the East and to Byzantium in the early Church, while the Orthodox teaching on sacraments has been influenced in more recent years by Roman Catholic scholasticism. So he does not expect his suggestion for the solution to the problem of the validity of schismatic and heretical sacraments on the basis of Augustine’s ecclesiology to be readily accepted. Nevertheless, he outlines the problem and demonstrates in a convincing manner why it is both urgent and unresolved. Indeed, as determined by the current debate pertaining to the recognition of autocephaly for the Church in Ukraine, there remains a confusion within the Orthodox Church with regard to this matter. The recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of ordinations by former schismatics in Ukraine provoked the reactions on the part of some Orthodox, precisely on the basis of

Cf. “The Limits of the Church” (1933), PWGF, 249–50. “The Limits of the Church” (1933), PWGF, 254–5.

20 21

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a rationale that schismatics do not possess sanctifying grace inasmuch as they are separated from the Catholic Church. In this way, however, people overlook the fact that, throughout the long tradition of the Church—from St. Basil and the ecumenical councils to more recent times with the lifting of the Bulgarian schism—the sacraments of schismatics and heretics are not repeated when the schism is healed. This is precisely because—as underlined by great canonists, such as Demetrios Chomatenos and St. Nikodemus the Haghiorite—they are considered to be “valid.”

THE “ASCETIC ACHIEVEMENT” From very early on in the writings of Fr. Florovsky, we encounter the Russian term podvig,22 which is not easily translated into another language and is usually rendered with the phrase “ascetic achievement” or “creative victory,” or other similar phrases.23 This concept is connected to his broader worldview, on which the most fundamental elements of his theology depend. Thus, it is imperative to refer, albeit along very general lines, to this issue, which at any rate also has critical existential implications for every age. In order to comprehend the meaning of this term, we must resort to Fr. Florovsky’s studies related to the dogma of creation. It is revealing that, when asked which of his writings he considered most consequential, Fr. Florovsky replied: “My study on the concept of creation in St. Athanasius and the Church Fathers.”24 Fr. Florovsky saw in this dogma25 the immense divide wrought in the history of philosophy by patristic thought. For classical Hellenism, God and the world were inseparably linked in a cyclical eternity;26 the accidental and the radically novel did not create true “being”; “there is nothing new under the sun.” In the fourth century, in light of the challenge of Arianism, Athanasius the Great spoke of the world (creation) as the product of divine will, not divine nature, which signifies that the existence of the world is the product of freedom, and not necessity.27 Therefore, within history, both God and man alike can create entirely new events, which are not dictated by the necessity of nature, but from freedom. Such freedom is able to overcome every necessity, including the laws of nature.

See “Creation and Createdness” (1928), PWGF, 60, 62–3; “Breaks and Links,” (1937), PWGF, 161, 165, 179. 23 “Creation and Createdness” (1928), PWGF, n. 30, 38. 24 In his “Theological Will” (1959), PWGF, 242, he refers to his essays on the “Doctrine of Creation” and on the “Doctrine of Redemption” as his best achievements. 25 See especially his “Creation and Createdness” (1928), PWGF, 33–63. 26 “Eschatology in the Patristic Age” (1956), PWGF, 316. 27 “Creation and Createdness” (1928), PWGF, 37–8, 44–5, 57. 22

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It was this potential of freedom to amend and transcend nature and its laws that Fr. Florovsky discerned in the martyrs and ascetics of the Church. Moreover, he believed that this “ethos” is related to baptism and the life of every Christian, inasmuch as it originates from the life of Christ himself, and especially from his Cross and Resurrection. All the saints of the Church realize this “ascetic achievement” in one way or another, while all members of the Church are called to exercise their freedom in this direction. This notion attends the entire corpus of Fr. Florovsky’s work, particularly the volumes referring to the Byzantine ascetic Fathers.28 (In this context, the foreword composed by Fr. Florovsky for the book by the late Elder Sophrony about St. Silouan the Athonite29 is of special interest; Fr. Florovsky had personally met St. Silouan on Mt. Athos, and I recall that he always kept his photograph in his office.) A basic notion that lies at the core of the “ascetic achievement” is the boundless power of freedom.30 At this point, Florovsky meets Dostoevsky. Florovsky writes that God’s grace is able to conquer nature, but not will. Man’s will can only be healed by freedom. The “ascetic achievement” (podvig) is grounded in this truth. It is on the premise of the same truth that the irrational mystery, as he calls it, of eternal hell rests: not even God’s love can violate the will of those who want to remain far from God eternally. In this way, the central importance of the concept of personhood emerges. Fr. Florovsky explicitly refutes the opinion of some that the concept of the human Person is absent from patristic thought, writing as he does about the Church Fathers: “The idea of personality itself was probably the greatest Christian contribution to philosophy.”31 The theological thought of Fr. Florovsky remains even on this subject always timely.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHURCH When Fr. Florovsky advocates the concept of “ascetic achievement,” it appears at first glance to lead to an understanding that the center of the life of the faithful is a struggle for individual salvation. However, a more comprehensive study of his work is sufficient to convince the reader that for Fr. Florovsky there is no “individual” achievement that is able to secure salvation. As he underlines repeatedly, invoking the ancient proverb, unus christianus--nullus christianus.32

See Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers, CW, X. See “Starets Silouan” (1958), PWGF, 325–7. 30 See “The Predicament of the Christian Historian” (1959), PWGF, 207: “Man remains a free agent even in bonds.” 31 “Eschatology in the Patristic Age” (1956), PWGF, 322. 32 The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church (1948), translated with an introduction by Robert M. Arida (Boston: The Wheel Library, 2018), 30 [This work is reprinted in revised form in this volume. (Eds.)]; “On the Veneration of the Saints,” CW, III, 202. 28 29

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Already from the earliest years of his teaching career, the Church is at the very center of his theology. “Christ reveals Himself to us not in our isolation, but in our mutual catholicity, in our union.”33 His extensive work, entitled The Body of the Living Christ. An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church,34 which is published in this volume, bears witness to the importance that he attributes to the Church for all theology, and especially for Christology. The Church is the fullness of Christ; the Head is inconceivable without the Body. In the footsteps of St. Nicholas Cabasilas,35 Fr. Florovsky does not hesitate to identify the Church with the Holy Eucharist.36 He held that the Church lives in the Eucharist and through the Eucharist: “It was in the Eucharist, and through it that the Church could be alive.”37 Fr. Florovsky is undoubtedly an exponent of so-called Eucharistic Ecclesiology. Without sharing the specific positions of Afanasiev, he is not reluctant to identify the “Body of Christ” both with the Church and with the Eucharist. Christ, Church, and Eucharist comprise a single unity; one expresses the other, and all of them constitute the “Body of Christ.” The Church, however, especially in the form of the Holy Eucharist, is inseparably bound with the theological thought of Fr. Florovsky and with other areas of theology, to which he devoted a substantial portion of his work. I am referring here particularly to anthropology and eschatology. His approach to these issues presents distinct interest. Fr. Florovsky demonstrates exceptional sensitivity to the manner with which Orthodox theology should deal with the Platonist notion of the soul. Invoking the Fathers of the early centuries, such as the apologists Athenagoras,38 Tatian, and St. Irenaeus,39 he firmly stresses the significance of the body for man’s identity. He frequently cites passages from Athenagoras: “God gave independent being and life neither to the nature of the soul itself, nor to the nature of the body separately, but rather to men, composed of soul and body.”40 As Fr. Florovsky explains, man would no longer exist if this fullness of this structure

“Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), PWGF, 270. The Body of the Living Christ (1948). 35 Sacrae liturgiae expositio, 38, 1, PG 150, 452CD. 36 “In Ligno Crucis: The Church Father’s Doctrine of Redemption” (1948), PWGF, 79: “The Eucharist is the heart of the church”; “The Worshipping Church” (1969), PWGF, 345: “The Eucharist is a manifestation of the mystery of the Church, or rather of the mystery of the Whole Christ”; see also “The Immortality of the Soul” (1952), CW, III, 237. 37 “St. John Chrysostom: The Prophet of Charity” (1955), CW, IV, 81 and see “The Church: Her Nature and Task” (1948), CW, I, 63: “The Church of Christ is one in the Eucharist, for the Eucharist is Christ Himself, and He sacramentally abides in the Church, which is His Body.” 38 See “The Lamb of God” (1949), PWGF, 89; “Eschatology in the Patristic Age” (1956), PWGF, 314, 322. 39 “The Lamb of God” (1949), PWGF, 89. 40 De resurr. mort., 13.1, 15.2, 6, PG 6 1000B, 1004–1005. See “Eschatology in the Patristic Age” (1956), PWGF, 322. 33 34

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was dissolved. And he quotes Athenagoras again: “If there is not resurrection (of bodies), man’s nature is no longer human.”41 For Fr. Florovsky, “A body without a soul is but a corpse, and a soul without body is but a ghost.”42 Now if this is how things are, then what happens with death? For Platonist anthropology, death liberates the soul from its “prison,”43 the body, and thus lives eternally. The concept of immortality of the soul,44 which was also adopted by patristic thought, is of Platonist origin and must be received with great attention, according to Fr. Florovsky. He will add that the heresy of the natural immortality of the soul without God is more serious than that of the simultaneous death of the soul and body until the resurrection. Elsewhere he explains his position: It is the body that becomes corruptible and liable to death through sin. Only the body can disintegrate. Yet it is not the body that dies, but the whole man. For man is organically composed of body and soul. Neither soul nor body separately represents man.45 With this approach, Fr. Florovsky wishes to call attention to the crucial importance of the expectation of the resurrection of the body for Orthodox faith. Any complacency involving the survival of man after death based solely on the natural immortality of the soul is not Christian. After death, the soul does not cease to sense the absence of its body, but delightfully expects its reacquisition in the future resurrection. This intense anticipation demonstrates that death is the “last enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26) of man, as St. Paul describes it. The compromise with death, which very often is unfortunately proclaimed by the Church itself, is not in harmony with either biblical or patristic anthropology. It is an outright surrender to Platonism. This is precisely where the vital importance of the Church arises for anthropology. If man survives only by expecting the reacquisition of his body, how is it possible to avoid the danger of nonexistence? How can man derive existence from the future, from something that has yet to occur? Fr. Florovsky did not develop any philosophical response to this question, which

Ibid. “The Lamb of God” (1949), PWGF, 89; See also “Let Us Choose Life” (1953), PWGF, 347; “Eschatology in the Patristic Age” (1956), PWGF, 360. 43 “In Ligno Crucis: The Church Fathers’ Doctrine on Redemption” (1948), PWGF, 73. 44 “The Lamb of God” (1949), PWGF, 89. See also “The ‘Immortality’ of the Soul” (1952), CW, III, 213–40; “Preface to In Ligno Crucis” (1939), PWGF, 69. 45 “Redemption,” CW, III, 106; “In Ligno Crucis: The Church Fathers’ Doctrine of Redemption” (1948), PWGF, 74. 41 42

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might have led to such a vital eschatological ontology46 for Orthodox theology. Nevertheless, he offers a response through ecclesiology, and especially through Eucharistic ecclesiology. This he writes: Death is a catastrophe. But persons survive, and those in Christ are still alive—even in the state of death. The faithful not only hope for life to come, but are already alive, although all are awaiting for the Resurrection.47 How does this happen? Fr. Florovsky provides the answer in another text: “Within the Church, death itself has lost its power to separate because death is already destroyed by the resurrected Lord. The eternal life in which all the members of Christ, in the Holy Spirit, already participate, unites them and links them in a perfect communion.”48 We can say, therefore, that those who are asleep, and resting in Christ, are still living because in Christ they are all one. It is for this reason that Fr. Florovsky observes: In the Eucharist the essential unity of Christians finds its perfect expression. This unity is not restricted or confined to those who are taking actual part in a particular celebration on a particular day. Each celebration is in reality universal, and the Eucharist is ever one. Christ is never divided. Every Liturgy is celebrated in communion with the whole Church, Catholic and Universal. It is celebrated in the name, and by the authority, of the whole Church. Spiritually, in every celebration the whole Church, “the whole company of heaven,” takes an invisible, yet real, part. This unity extends not only to all places but also to all times. It includes all generations and all ages. The living and the departed are to be “commemorated” at every celebration of the Divine Liturgy. It is not only a remembrance, in a narrow and psychological sense of the word, not only a witness or our human sympathy and concern, but rather an insight into the universal fellowship of all believers, living and departed, in Christ, the common Risen Lord. In this sense, the Eucharist is a manifestation of the mystery of the Church, or rather of the mystery of the Whole Christ.49 Therefore, our survival after death does not have to be sought in the Platonist immortality of the soul. For us Orthodox, it is sufficient to believe in the “communion of saints,” in the body of Christ, in the Church, as experienced

See my Remembering the Future: Towards an Eschatological Ontology (London: T&T Clark, forthcoming). 47 “The Last Things and the Last Events,” CW, III, 259–60. 48 The Body of the Living Christ (1948), 49. (See also translation in this volume). 49 “The Worshiping Church” (1969), PWGF, 344. 46

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in the Holy Eucharist. There, in the Cup of eternal life, death loses its divisive power; and in the communion of the Eucharistic Body, the living and the dead are united in the foretaste of their Resurrection. This is what St. Ignatius and St. Irenaeus had in mind when they called the Eucharist “medicine of immortality, the antidote against death.”50 Eucharistic ecclesiology suffices—there is no need to resort to Platonism—in order for us to seek the response to the question about life after death. *** The rich contribution of a theological giant like Fr. Georges Florovsky cannot be exhausted in the limited space of an introductory chapter. What was respectfully submitted here constitutes simply a few indicative aspects of the work of this great teacher based on the relevance of his thought for our age. A number of other specific topics will be examined in depth in the chapters that follow. Fr. Florovsky did not leave behind a comprehensive systematic exposition of his teaching. Nonetheless, his theology was so creative in its evaluation and presentation of the interconnection and coherence of the various dogmas of the Church using as his principal axis not just the words, but the “mind” of the Church Fathers, as well as his anguish about how to transmit their thought to the contemporary world. As his humble student over seven years, blessed by divine providence to be initiated into the thought of the Church Fathers under his prudent guidance, I direct my own thought to his memory with gratitude but also with thanks to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, to which Fr. Florovsky conscientiously chose to belong as a clergyman for the greater part of his life. May his memory be eternal and blessed in Christ within the “communion of saints” that he loved so dearly.

St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians 20:2, PG 5, 661A.

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Chapter 3

Three Witnesses Bulgakov, Florovsky, Lossky1 METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS (WARE) OF DIOKLEIA

At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established. Deut. 19:15

TRIBULATION AND OPPORTUNITY It has been said that the Chinese word for “crisis” includes two characters: one representing danger, the other opportunity.2 This certainly applies to the history of the Orthodox Church during the first half of the twentieth century. It was a time of deep tribulation, but also a time of exceptional opportunity and renewed hope. Within a period of five years two developments occurred, which have permanently marked the outward situation of Eastern Orthodox Christendom: the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia, followed by the persecution of the Church; and the Asia Minor disaster of 1922, followed by the exchange

Revised version of an address given in Sigtuna (Sweden) on December 12, 2019, at the symposium in honor of Fr. Andrew Louth. 2 Christopher Lamb, in The Tablet, March 21, 2020, 27. Compare the words of Pope Francis: “Every Crisis Contains Both Danger and Opportunity” (The Tablet, April 11, 2020, 7). 1

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of populations between Greece and Turkey. In themselves these were both profoundly negative events, so far as the Orthodox Church was concerned. Yet the risen Christ is Lord of history, and He has the power to bring good out of evil. This was notably the case with the 1917 Russian Revolution. For, as a result of the collapse of the Orthodox Empire of Russia and of the antiChristian campaign by the Communists, great numbers of Russians fled to the West; and among the members of this Russian diaspora, particularly in Paris, there occurred during the period 1920–45 a remarkable flowering of Orthodox theology, a creative renewal of Holy Tradition, from which we Orthodox in the twenty-first century are continuing to derive immeasurable benefit. Here I shall attempt to assess three aspects of this “Russian religious renaissance,” as it has commonly been termed:3 first, the understanding of the nature of theology held by members of the twentieth-century Russian diaspora, and more particularly their insistence upon the integral connection between theology and prayer; second, their appeal to the Fathers, their “neopatristic” program; and third, their appreciation of divine beauty. As regards the first point, I shall refer especially to Vladimir Lossky (1903–58);4 as regards the

The best general account of this creative renewal is still the work of Nicolas Zernov, The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1963), despite the minor errors that it contains (the author even gives incorrect publication dates for some of his own writings). Dr. Zernov had the advantage of knowing personally the leading figures in this “renaissance.” 4 Lossky is best known for his classic work The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke, 1957). Regrettably this English edition contains many misprints and other errors; for these Lossky himself, who was meticulous in his scholarship, should not be considered responsible. Before publication, I saw the proofs that had been carefully corrected, presumably by Lossky himself; but these corrections, due to the incompetence of the editorial director at James Clarke, were never entered in the published text. I believe that Lossky, who died not long after the appearance of the English translation, was fortunately unaware of these mistakes, which would certainly have distressed him. Lossky’s other writings include The Vision of God (London: Faith Press, 1963); In the Image and Likeness of God (SVS Press, 1974); Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (SVS Press, 1989), which has been reissued in an extensively revised form as Dogmatic Theology: Creation, God’s Image in Man, and the Redeeming Work of the Trinity (SVS Press, 2017); and Seven Days on the Roads of France June 1940 (SVS Press, 2012). All these, together with The Mystical Theology, were originally published in French, with the exception of Dogmatic Theology. Lossky’s doctoral dissertation, uncompleted at the time of his death, Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: Vrin, 1960), has not as yet appeared in English, although plans exist to publish a translation. Lossky made important contributions to the volume written jointly with Leonid Ouspensky, The Meaning of Icons (Olten: Urs-Graf Verlag, 1952; revised edition, SVS Press, 1982). Lossky’s teaching is carefully analyzed by his disciple Olivier Clément, using many unpublished writings, “Vladimir Lossky, un théologien de la personne et du Saint Esprit,” Messager de l’Exarchat du Patriarche russe en Europe occidentale 30–1 (1959): 137–206. Unfortunately, the English text of the excellent DPhil. thesis of Rowan Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky: An Exposition and Critique (Oxford: University of Oxford, 1975), has remained unpublished. 3

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second, to Archpriest Georges Florovsky (1893–1979);5 as regards the third, to Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944).6 These, then, are my three witnesses. All three worked in Paris. Bulgakov was Dean of the Orthodox Theological Institute of St. Sergius in that city; and here Florovsky also taught, before he migrated in 1948 to the United States. Both of them belonged to the Russian Exarchate in Western Europe that was headed by Metropolitan Evlogy (1864– 1946), and which from 1931 onward was under the canonical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Lossky for his part did not teach at the Institute of St. Sergius, for he belonged to the much smaller body in France that was subject to the Moscow Patriarchate; and during the period with which we are chiefly concerned (1920–45) there was much hostility between the two groups.7 Today fortunately the situation is greatly improved, although

Florovsky’s Collected Works have appeared in fourteen volumes, ed. Richard S. Haugh (Belmont, MA and Vaduz: Nordland and Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1972–89); this has become a bibliographical rarity, and the later volumes should be used with caution. For a representative selection from Florovsky’s writings, with more accurate translations, see Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur (eds.), The Patristic Witness of Georges Florovsky: Essential Theological Writings (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2019). Further bibliographical details can be found in Andrew Blane (ed.), Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Christian (SVS Press, 1993), and in Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: University Press, 2013). More recently, several of Florovsky’s articles have been edited by Matthew Baker and others under the title On the Tree of the Cross: Georges Florovsky and the Patristic Doctrine of Atonement (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Publications, 2016). There is also much important information about Florovsky in Paul L. Gavrilyuk’s more recent publication, On Christian Leadership: The Letters of Alexander Schmemann and Georges Florovsky (1947–1955) (SVS Press, 2020). 6 Most of Bulgakov’s numerous writings have been published in French by L’Age d’Homme, and in English by Eerdmans. For his controversial teaching concerning Divine Wisdom, see his work The Wisdom of God: A Brief Summary of Sophiology (New York and London: Paisley Press and Williams & Norgate, 1937). On the 1935 dispute concerning Bulgakov’s Sophiology, see in particular Bryn Geffert, “The Charges of Heresy against Sergii Bulgakov: The Majority and Minority Reports of Evlogii’s Commission and the Final Report of the Bishops’ Conference,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 47– 66; and in the same issue, Alexis Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 67–100 [this text has been reprinted in this volume]. Largely neglected in the half-century following his death, Bulgakov has more recently been the subject of a growing number of serious studies. Among the most helpful are Rowan Williams, Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999); Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov. Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 227–403; and Aidan Nichols, Wisdom from Above: A Primer in the Theology of Father Sergei Bulgakov (Leominster: Gracewing, 2005). 7 Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh once told me that, as a young man brought up in the Moscow Patriarchate jurisdiction in Paris during the 1930s, he was convinced that the Russian émigré parishes under Constantinople possessed no valid sacraments and were deprived of divine grace, because they were not subject to the church authorities in Moscow. This was not his opinion in later life! For a brief overview of the ecclesiastical divisions within the Russian diaspora, see Timothy Ware (Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia), The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity, 3rd ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2015), 170–3. 5

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problems still remain. Bulgakov and Florovsky were both priests, whereas Lossky was a layman; all three were married. In singling out Bulgakov, Florovsky, and Lossky, I do not in any way underestimate the many others in Paris who contributed significantly to the Russian religious renaissance, such as Nicolas Berdyaev, Bishop Cassian Bezobrazov, Myrrha LotBorodine, Fr. Kyprian Kern, and Paul Evdokimov. More recently their disciples have numbered Fr. Alexander Schmemann and Fr. John Meyendorff, who both emigrated from Paris to the United States, and Fr. Boris Bobrinskoy, who remained in France. Other Orthodox in Paris who were not Russians but who were directly influenced by the Russian diaspora include Élisabeth Behr-Sigel and also Fr. Lev Gillet—“A Monk of the Eastern Church,” to use his nom de plume—who moved to Britain in 1938. Sometimes all of these are designated collectively as members of the so-called Paris school, but it is somewhat misleading to use the title “school,” for they did not all subscribe to a single, clearly defined doctrinal standpoint, but there were many differences between them. These members of the Russian religious renaissance constituted together an astonishing and brilliant constellation. We Orthodox in the twenty-first century remain profoundly indebted to them. Behind them all, as their spiritual godfather, there stands a major figure who never emigrated from Russia: the New Martyr Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), author of the epoch-making work The Pillar and the Ground of Truth, published in Moscow in 1914.8

THEOLOGY AND PRAYER The first outstanding feature shared by most members of the Russian religious renaissance was their insistence upon the essential interdependence between theology and spirituality, between doctrine and mystical experience. They agreed with the saying of Evagrius of Pontus (346–99), disciple of the Cappadocian Fathers and recluse in the Egyptian Desert: “If you are a theologian, you will pray in truth; and if you pray in truth, you are a theologian.”9 The “renaissance” writers were strongly opposed to any understanding of theology that viewed it primarily as an academic discipline, as a “science” that is rational and systematic in character. In the words of Vladimir Lossky: The eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology; between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the

See Avril Pyman, Pavel Florensky: A Quiet Genius. The Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Russia’s Unknown Da Vinci (New York and London: Continuum, 2010). 9 On Prayer 60 [61] (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 79, 1180B). 8

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dogma affirmed by the Church . . . . Far from being mutually opposed, theology and mysticism support and complete each other. One is impossible without the other. If the mystical experience is a personal working out of the content of the common faith, theology is an expression, for the profit of all, of that which can be experienced by everyone . . . . There is, therefore, no Christian mysticism without theology; but, above all, there is no theology without mysticism. “The mystical element of religion,” he concludes, is “the perfecting and crown of all theology”; it is “theology par excellence.”10 Theology, viewed in this perspective, is both positive and negative. There is, in Lossky’s view, an antinomy, a balanced tension, between the two doctrinal “ways” the cataphatic and the apophatic. Theology, writes Lossky, “can and must express itself through words”; but, combining the apophatic approach with the cataphatic, it leads us through words “to a state of silence.” Theological enquiry “must move the mind towards contemplation, towards pure prayer where thought ends.”11 Yet the apophatic approach is not exclusively negative, for its purpose is precisely to bring us to the “personal presence of the hidden God.”12 Lossky’s insistence on the link between theology and prayer is re-echoed by his two colleagues. Bulgakov’s thought is strongly Eucharistic in spirit; characteristically he affirmed, “Theology ought to be drunk from the bottom of the eucharistic chalice.”13 Florovsky for his part maintained, “The true theology can spring only out of a deep liturgical experience.”14 “My theology,” he said, “I have learned not in the school, but in the Church, as a worshipper. I have derived it from the liturgical books first, and much later, from the writings of the Holy Fathers.”15 The interconnection between spirituality and doctrine is clearly evident when we analyze the sources on which theology is based. Along with Scripture and dogmatic texts such as the five theological orations of St. Gregory of Nazianzus and the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John of Damascus, theology—as understood, for example, by Lossky—draws upon patristic mystical treatises such as St. Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Life of Moses, the Areopagitic corpus, St. Isaac of Nineveh’s Ascetic Homilies, and the Hymns of Divine Love by St. Symeon the New Theologian. A further source of decisive

Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 8–9. Lossky, Dogmatic Theology, 15–16. 12 Lossky, Dogmatic Theology, 25. 13 Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 119. 14 Georges Florovsky, “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology” (1949), PWGF, 191. 15 Florovsky, “‘Theological Will,’” PWGF, 241. 10 11

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importance, as Florovsky indicates, is the testimony of the liturgical service books of the Church. In a saying that I have heard attributed to Kiprian Kern, “The choir desk (kliros) in church is a chair of theology.” A markedly different understanding of theology is to be found in a standard work of Greek twentieth-century theology, the three-volume Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church by Panagiotis N. Trembelas. This appeared in Greek in 1959–61, and in French translation in 1966–8. Trembelas quotes very extensively from the dogmatic writings of such Fathers as St. Athanasius, St. Basil, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus. But he ignores Patristic spiritual texts, and also the liturgical tradition of the Church. In the course of some 1,700 pages, so far as I can recall, he refers only three times to St. Gregory Palamas—the doctrinal importance of the Hesychast Controversy is totally overlooked—and St. Isaac of Nineveh and St. Symeon the New Theologian are never mentioned at all.16 Trembelas’s Dogmatics is an outstanding example of what Christos Yannaras has described in pejorative terms as “academic scientism.”17 Bearing in mind what Lossky says about mysticism as “theology par excellence,” it may be stated that our power of rational thinking—what the Greek Fathers often term the dianoia—is indeed a gift from God that is to be used to the full. Inaccuracy and muddled arguments are not a gift from the Holy Spirit. But on a higher level we possess another faculty, superior to the dianoia, which the Fathers call the nous, and which is perhaps best translated as the “intellect.” Whereas the dianoia functions by formulating abstract concepts and then arguing on this basis to a conclusion reached through deductive reasoning, the nous apprehends truth by means of immediate experience, ascetic intuition, and what in Patristic writings is called “simple cognition.”18 Theology, understood as an activity of the nous as well as the dianoia, is therefore much more than a rational system. In the view of our three witnesses, it is a field of vision, in which all things on earth are seen in their relation to things in heaven, first and foremost through liturgical celebration. In the words of Yannaras, “It is a gift of God, a fruit of the interior purity of the Christian’s spiritual life. Theology is identified with the vision of God, with the immediate vision of the personal God, with the personal experience of the transfiguration

See the review of Trembelas’s work by myself in Eastern Churches Review 3:4 (1971), 477–80. This provoked a response from Trembelas’s assistant, Nicolas Vasiliades: see Eastern Churches Review 4:2 (1972), 179–82.  17 “Theology in Present-Day Greece,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 16:4 (1972), 195–214, at 198. 18 On the nous/dianoia distinction, see the glossary in G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (eds.), The Philokalia, vol. 1 (London and Boston: Faber, 1979), 357–67, especially the words “intellect” and “reason.” This glossary is reprinted in later volumes of the English Philokalia. It should be noted that the Patristic usage of terms applying to the human person is not always consistent, and there are writers who fail to distinguish clearly between nous and dianoia.  16

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of creation by uncreated grace.”19 In this connection we do well to keep in view the double meaning of the term “Orthodoxy.” Doxa signifies, on the one hand, belief or opinion, and on the other hand both glory and praise. So Orthodox theology involves at one and the same time both right belief about God and right glory of God. The two are inseparable.

NEOPATRISTIC SYNTHESIS A second distinctive feature of the theologians of the twentieth-century Russian diaspora is the appeal that they make to the Fathers, an appeal summed up by Florovsky in his slogan “Neopatristic Synthesis.” I do not recall that this particular phrase was employed by Vladimir Lossky, but his work The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church can be seen exactly as an expression of what Florovsky had in mind; indeed, Florovsky himself, reviewing Lossky’s book, welcomed it as “an essay in what can be described as a ‘neopatristic synthesis’.”20 Assessing Florovsky’s slogan, full value should be given to the terms “neo” and “synthesis.” As Florovsky says, in the text of an address that he wrote at the end of his life, the Neopatristic Synthesis . . . should be more than just a collection of patristic sayings or statements. It must be a synthesis, a creative reassessment of those insights which were granted to the Holy Men of old. It must be Patristic, faithful to the spirit and vision of the Fathers, ad mentem Patrum. Yet it must be also neopatristic, since it is to be addressed to the new age, with its own problems and queries.21 In other words, according to Florovsky it is not enough to ask, “What did the Fathers say in the fourth or seventh century?” but “What would the Fathers be saying now, if they were alive today?” We are to regard them not as voices from the distant past but as contemporary witnesses. He was firmly opposed to what he termed a “theology of repetition,” which in fact “is just a peculiar form of imitative ‘scholasticism’.”22 “‘To follow’ the Fathers does not mean just to ‘quote’ them,” he insists. “‘To follow’ the Fathers means to acquire their

“Theology in Present-Day Greece,” 195. See Florovsky’s review of Lossky’s Mystical Theology in The Journey of Religion 38 (1958), 207; cited in Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 240. 21 Florovsky, “‘Theological Will,’” PWGF, 242. 22 See Florovsky’s lecture “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” delivered at Thessaloniki in 1959, on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the death of Palamas: in PWGF, 225.

19 20

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‘mind,’ their phrōnema.”23 When appealing to Patristic tradition, Florovsky emphasized that it has always to be understood as living tradition. To put the matter briefly (in words that he himself did not actually use) his motto was not so much “Back to the Fathers!” but rather “Forward with the Fathers!” As well as using the slogan “Neopatristic Synthesis,” Florovsky also employed the phrases “Christian Hellenism” and “Hellenism under the Sign of the Cross.” “Hellenism,” he maintained, “has actually become, as it were, the perennial category and pattern of Christian thought and life . . . Let us be more ‘Hellenic’ in order that we may be truly Christian.”24 But, as with Neopatristic Synthesis, he insisted that this did not mean a slavish reproduction of the past but a critical “dissection.” “Indeed,” he wrote: [T]o be Christian means to be Greek, since our basic authority is forever a Greek book, the New Testament. [The] Christian message has been forever formulated in Greek categories. This was in no sense a blunt reception of Hellenism as such, but a dissection of Hellenism. The old had to die, but the new was still Greek—the Christian Hellenism of our dogmatics, from the New Testament to St. Gregory Palamas, nay, to our own time.25 These last words, “nay, to our own time,” provide a vital indication of the way in which Florovsky envisaged the patristic heritage. If we ask, “When did the age of the Fathers come to an end?” we find different answers in various parts of the Christian world. In Anglicanism it has been customary to limit the Patristic era to the first five centuries, and to regard it as concluding with the fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451). This is reflected, for example, in the syllabus of the Oxford School of Theology. Other church historians have seen the patristic era as ending with the seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II, 787), so that St. John of Damascus is classified as the last of the Fathers. Others again, unwilling to impose a sharp contrast between “Patristic” and “Byzantine” writers, place the end-point of the patristic era at the fall of Constantinople (1453), so that they include among the Fathers St. Gregory of Sinai and St. Gregory Palamas, with Gennadios Scholarios reckoned as the last of the Fathers. Florovsky for his part rejected all these supposed dates of closure. For him there is no decisive termination to the age of the Fathers; it is open-ended, and in our own day there could emerge new witnesses to tradition equal in stature

Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960), PWGF, 224–5.  “The Christian Hellenism” (1957), PWGF, 234–6 (compare “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1939), PWGF, 157). Whenever I quote these words, speaking to a Greek audience, there is warm applause! 25 Florovsky, “‘Theological Will,’” PWGF, 244 (see Blane, Georges Florovsky, 155). 23 24

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to the early Fathers. Tradition in this way reflects a “victory over time”;26 it is “a charismatic, not a historical principle.”27 In a memorable definition he stated, “The Church is the living image of eternity within time.”28 Developing the point, he asserted, “That is why loyalty to tradition means not only concord with the past, but, in a certain sense, freedom from the past, as from some outward formal criterion.”29 Tradition, understood in this sense, is inexhaustible. “The gracegiving experience of the Church . . . has not been exhausted either in Scripture, or in oral tradition, or in definitions. It cannot, it must not be, exhausted.”30 Florovsky’s notions of “Neopatristic Synthesis” and the “Patristic mind” have been called into question by a number of critics. He has been accused of oversimplification and of vagueness.31 What precisely is meant by this “synthesis”? What teachings does it embrace, and what does it exclude? By what criterion is the common “mind” of the Fathers to be discerned? In speaking, therefore, of “synthesis,” and in referring to “the Patristic mind,” as if this were something single and homogeneous, is he not in danger on conflating the Fathers, with all their theological diversity, too closely into a unified whole? Indeed, does not Florovsky himself, in the four volumes that he devoted to the Fathers,32 indicate in convincing detail how the early period of Christian theology was a time of variety, conflict, and vigorous controversy? Moreover, are there not difficulties with Florovsky’s concept of “Christian Hellenism”? It is true that, when he said “Let us be ‘Hellenic,’” he did not have in view a Hellenism that was nationalistic or narrowly ethnic, but he regarded “Christian Hellenism” as fundamentally catholic and universal. Nevertheless, how far was he correct to insist that the Patristic mind is essentially “Greek”? Surely he needed to allow more explicitly for the Latin Fathers as expressing a form of the Patristic tradition that exists in its own right. What about St. Augustine of Hippo, whom Florovsky frequently cites with approval? When he says that Augustine “was really an Eastern Father,”33 this is an unconvincing

Florovsky, “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), PWGF, 264. It was this article, together with the writings of Alexis Khomiakov, that persuaded me to join the Orthodox Church when I first read them in 1956–8. 27 “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), PWGF, 265 (italics in the original). 28 Ibid., 264. 29 Ibid., 265 (italics in the original). 30 Ibid., 266 (italics in the original). 31 See Kallistos Ware, “Orthodox Theology Today: Trends and Tasks,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 12:2 (2012), 105–21, especially 112–13. 32 See Florovsky’s works: (1) The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century; (2) The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century; (3) The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth to Eighth Century; (4) The Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers. These constitute volumes vii–x of The Collected Works, ed. Richard S. Haugh (Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1987). 33 See Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 209. 26

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evasion. In addition, besides the Latin Fathers, we should not forget the Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Armenian writers who can also be described as “Fathers.” Summing up our critique of Florovsky’s “Neopatristic Synthesis,” it has to be admitted that he himself has failed to provide a clear and concise inventory of the specific doctrines that comprise this “synthesis.” For a possible such inventory, we might look in particular at two books by other authors. First, there is The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimir Lossky, which, as we have noted, Florovsky himself praised as an expression of “Neopatristic Synthesis,” without entering into precise details. Secondly, there is the last part of John Meyendorff ’s Byzantine Theology, a book which might with equal appropriateness have been entitled Orthodox Theology.34 But in the extensive corpus of Florovsky’s own works, we fail to discover a comprehensive summary parallel to those of Lossky and Meyendorff. Nonetheless, despite these shortcomings, Florovsky may be applauded for providing an inspiring ideal for theological enquiry, a visionary charter for doctrinal exploration that is challenging in its possibilities and deeply Orthodox in its principles. Certainly it is an approach that has motivated me in my own study and writing over more than half a century. The three leading Greek theologians during the past seventy years, Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, Fr. John Romanides, and Professor Christos Yannaras, all belong in a broad sense to the movement of “Neopatristic Synthesis” advocated by Florovsky. Metropolitan John, in particular, studied under Florovsky, and has dedicated his book Communion and Otherness to Fr. Georges.35 The concept of Romiosyne, upheld by Romanides, bears a certain similarity to Florovsky’s “Christian Hellenism,” although Romanides is far more radical than Florovsky in his development of this theme. Even Sergius Bulgakov can be seen to an important extent as an exponent of “Neopatristic Synthesis.” Often a distinction is made between those Russian thinkers who advocated a “return to the Fathers,” such as Florovsky and Lossky, and the members of the “Russian religious renaissance,” who drew on the Western philosophical tradition and who were interested in social and political issues; and Bulgakov is placed in the second group.36 Yet in fact Bulgakov’s works are full of material taken from the Fathers. The distinction between the “patristic” and the “renaissance” trends has a certain validity, but it must not be pressed too far. Bulgakov belonged to both trends at once; the

Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham, 1974), 128– 227. 35 Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: T&T Clark, 2006). 36 For this distinction see, for example, Alexander Schmemann, “Russian Theology: 1920–1972. An Introductory Survey,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 16:4 (1972), 178–81. 34

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same is true of Paul Evdokimov. Certainly Bulgakov shared Florovsky’s notion of living tradition. Whereas Florovsky maintained, “One has to learn to be at once ‘ancient’ and ‘modern,’”37 Bulgakov for his part asserted, “The life of the Church includes within itself not eternity alone, but also time, not only the static element, but also the dynamic one, not only the mystical givenness, but also development.”38 Even though he did not use the phrase “Neopatristic Synthesis,” this was not a concept that he in any way rejected.

DIVINE BEAUTY The divine beauty, acting as the source and the fulfillment of all things beautiful in the created world, constitutes a third theme in the theological vision of the Russian diaspora. Emphasized in particular by Sergius Bulgakov, it has a clear biblical foundation in the words in Gen. 1:31, which is usually translated, “God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”39 This somewhat insipid rendering fails to do justice to the original, which in the Septuagint version reads kala lian. A better translation (or at any rate paraphrase) would be, “Behold, it was altogether good and beautiful.” The Greek significantly uses the word kalos, not agathos. The distinctive element of beauty, as distinct from goodness, is that it is immediately attractive, which is not always the case with goodness. The Greek adjective kalos is linked to the verb kalein, meaning “to call.” And that is exactly what beauty does: it “calls out” to us, drawing us to itself, extending an invitation and evoking a response on our part. Bulgakov’s theology of beauty is set forth, in summary form, in his article “Religion and Art,”40 which embodies ideas that he expounds at greater length in his essay “The Icon and Its Veneration,”41 and in The Lamb of God, the first volume of his major trilogy On Divine Humanity.42 In “Religion and Art,” Bulgakov begins with the magisterial affirmation, “God is good; He is Goodness itself. God is true; He is Truth itself. God is glorious, and His Glory is Beauty itself.” At once he goes on to establish a link between this divine beauty and the figure of Wisdom (Sophia):

Florovsky, “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), PWGF, 236. Bulgakov, “The Church Universal,” Journal of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius 25 (1934): 12. 39 For other biblical texts that refer to God’s beauty, see (especially in the Septuagint version) Pss. 44 (45):3, 49 (50):2, and 95 (96):6. 40 This appears in E. L. Mascall (ed.), The Church of God: An Anglo-Russian Symposium by Members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (London: SPCK, 1934), 175–91. 41 See Bulgakov, Icons and the Name of God (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 1–114. 42 See Bulgakov, The Lamb of God (Grand Rapids MI and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008). 37 38

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God’s revelation of Himself in the Holy Trinity, God’s Wisdom, is the primordial reality in which the Divine all, contained in the Word (Logos), is realized in Beauty, and is clothed in Glory. The divine Wisdom-Glory is the self-revelation of Godhead existing pre-eternally . . . . It is the Divine foundation of the world.43 Developing this point, Bulgakov asserts: “Beauty is an objective principle in the world, revealing to us the Divine Glory . . . . It reveals and renders transparently clear the meaning of the names of things . . . . Things are transfigured and made luminous by beauty; they become the revelation of their own abstract meaning.”44 We humans, Bulgakov continues, are invited not only to gaze passively on this beauty, but actively to extend it. “Man,” he writes, “has been called to be a demiurge, not only to contemplate the beauty of the world, but also to express it.” Such is our vocation: “human participation in the transfiguration of the world.” So he concludes: “Is it not of this that the words of Dostoevsky speak: ‘Beauty will save the world and will rebuild its primordial image, of which the Creator saw that “it was good”.’”45 This “human participation in the transfiguration of the world” is carried out in a number of different ways, secular as well as ecclesiastical: through science and technology, through town planning and ecological initiatives, through poetry, music, and art. One of the most striking of these different ways is iconography. So Nicolas Zernov (1898–1980), spiritual child of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, states concerning what he terms obraza or “religious pictures” that they were not merely paintings. They were dynamic manifestations of man’s spiritual power to redeem creation through beauty and art. The colors and lines of the obraza were not meant to imitate nature; the artists aimed at demonstrating that men, animals, and plants, and the whole cosmos could be rescued from the present state of degradation and restored to their proper “Image.” The obraza were pledges of the coming victory of a redeemed creation over the fallen one . . . . The artistic perfection of an icon was not only a reflection of the celestial glory—it was a concrete example of matter restored to its

“Religion and Art,” in E. L. Mascall (ed.), The Church of God, 175. In the original, “word” lacks an initial capital; but it is immediately followed by “Logos,” which is capitalized.  44 “Religion and Art,” 176, 177–8. 45 “Religion and Art,” 191. Compare Kallistos Ware, “Beauty Will Save the World,” Sobornost: Incorporating Eastern Churches Review 30:1 (2008), 7–20. Here I emphasize that in a fallen world beauty, as well as being theophanic, can also become seductive and demonic. 43

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original harmony and beauty, and serving as a vehicle of the Spirit. The icons were part of the transfigured cosmos.46 Bulgakov’s and Zernov’s understanding of iconography is reaffirmed by another member of the Russian diaspora in Paris, Paul Evdokimov (1901– 1970). “Drawing the world out of nothing,” he writes, “the Creator, as a divine Poet, composed His ‘symphony in six days,’ the Hexaemeron, and in each of His acts He ‘saw that it was beautiful’ (compare Genesis 1:31).”47 According to Evdokimov, in agreement with Zernov, the beauty of the icon does not merely look back to the beginning, recalling the primordial glory of the original creation, but it also looks forward to the end, to the final glorification of the cosmos at the Second Coming. Eschatological as well as protological, the beauty of the icon acts as “an open window on the ‘Eighth Day’.”48 Yet, while emphasizing in this way the joyful character of the icon in its beauty, Evdokimov is careful to avoid a sentimental romanticism, for he insists that the appreciation of the icon “presupposes an ascetic culture.”49 This theology of the divine beauty, as expressed by Bulgakov and Evdokimov among others, has not remained simply a theoretical ideal, but it has been accomplished in practice during the second half of the twentieth century by a notable recovery of the authentic tradition of Orthodox icon painting. We are all of us familiar with the way in which, from the seventeenth century in Russia and from the nineteenth century in the Greek world—indeed, at a considerately earlier date in Crete—icons have come to be depicted in a realistic Westernizing style, imitating Renaissance artists such as Raphael and Murillo. In the last eighty years, however, there has come to pass a truly inspired retrieval of the aesthetic vision of Byzantine and Slav religious art of the “Golden Age,” as promoted by Panselinos, Theophan the Greek, and Andrei Rublev, among others, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the Greek world this retrieval—we might almost call it an iconographical revolution—was instigated above all by Photios Kontoglou (1896–1965), through his wall paintings and his panel icons, but more especially through his sharply outspoken writings.50 At the same time the Russian diaspora has played its own part in this movement of decisive renewal, chiefly through the work of Leonid Ouspensky (1902–1987), who, like Kontoglou, was not only

Nicolas Zernov, The Russians and Their Church (London: SPCK, 1945), 107–8. L’art de l’icône. Théologie de la beauté (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1970), 11–12. 48 Ibid., 62. 49 Ibid., 170. 50 See Constantine Cavarnos, Byzantine Sacred Art: Selected Writings of . . . Fotis Kontoglous [sic] (New York: Vantage Press, 1957). 46 47

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a theologian of religious art but himself a working iconographer.51 During the twenty-first century this iconographic reawakening has continued unabated. With thankfulness we may acknowledge that we are living in an era of visible radiance.

A SENSE OF WONDER The beginning of philosophy, according to Plato, is to feel a sense of wonder;52 and the same may be said of theology. Without an openness to the unexpected and the marvelous, without a desire for creative exploration, we shall never be true theologians. The luminaries of the Russian diaspora—Vladimir Lossky, with his insistence on the bond between theology and prayer; Georges Florovsky, with his project of “Neopatristic Synthesis”; and Sergius Bulgakov, with his dedication to divine beauty—have each in his own way effectively aroused our sense of wonder. All of us have serious reasons to be grateful to them. May their memory be eternal!

See Leonid Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, 2 vols. (SVS Press, 1992). Theaetetus 155d.

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Chapter 4

Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy1 ALEXIS KLIMOFF

While the term “Sophia” (Greek for “wisdom”) has stood for a variety of allegorical concepts in mystical and occult teachings over the centuries, the most significant attempt to develop a doctrine of Sophia within an explicitly Christian framework belongs to a trio of Russian thinkers: Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), and Sergius Bulgakov (1871– 1944).2 Sophiology, as the doctrine elaborated by these men has come to be known, is preeminently concerned with the way in which the link between God

This chapter is an updated and slightly abridged version of the study published in 2005: SVTQ 49:1–2, 67–100. See note 17 on changes in references to the Georges Florovsky Papers held at Princeton University. 2 Solovyov’s attempt to formulate the Sophia concept in theological terms received its most consistent form in La Russie et l’église universelle (Paris, 1889). Twenty-five years later Fr. Pavel Florensky developed the theme in his monumental Stolp i utverzhdenie Istiny (Moscow, 1914). And Fr. Sergius Bulgakov devoted most of his publications in the 1920s and 1930s to a detailed elaboration of this idea, with the last of his formulations contained in a book initially available only in translation: Sergius Bulgakov, The Wisdom of God: A Brief Summary of Sophiology (New York: Paisley Press; and London: Williams and Norgate, 1937; rev. ed. Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1993). [Russian edition: София. Премудрость Божия. Очерк софиологии (Białystok, 2010). (Eds.)]. 1

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and His created world is effected and manifested. In contrast to the dominant patristic view whereby Sophia, the Divine Wisdom, is identified with Christ in accordance with a well-known scriptural passage (1 Cor. 1:24), the proponents of Sophiology argue that the mediation between God and world is accomplished through the quasi-personal entity they call Sophia, the exact nature of which (or whom) has, however, never received a clear definition and has for this reason been open to charges of incompatibility with accepted Orthodox teaching.3 Indeed Sophiological theories have given rise to controversy from the start, although it took several decades before official Orthodox Church bodies subjected Sophiology to a formal examination. The reasons for the slow reaction can be briefly indicated. In the case of Vladimir Solovyov, it has been pointed out that his mystical visions, partially embodied as they were in poetry and a treatise published only abroad, were not taken seriously by professional philosophers and theologians of Solovyov’s day, gaining adherents mostly in literary circles.4 Florensky, who developed Solovyov’s Sophiological themes in his Stolp i utverzhdenie Istiny [The Pillar and Ground of the Truth] (1914), avoided official criticism by submitting a special abridged edition of his book to his examining committee when he stood for the theological degree of Magistr Bogosloviia (master’s degree in Theology): the chapters on Sophia were simply omitted here.5 And the turbulent events set off by the Russian Revolution in the following years, above all the catastrophes that befell the Russian Orthodox Church as a result of Bolshevik persecutions, understandably enough delayed any careful institutional examination of the multifaceted issues raised by Sophiology, which had meanwhile gained a forceful and productive champion in the person of Bulgakov.6 Only after Fr. Bulgakov (who was forced

In the words of Paul Valliere, a recent student of the problem, the “Sophia” of Sophiology has been variously interpreted as “revisionist trinitarian doctrine, or as an expression of the feminine divine, or as a metaphysical concept, or as a gnostic or kabbalistic category.” See his “Sophiology as the Dialogue of Orthodoxy with Modern Civilization,” in Judith D. Kornblatt and Richard F. Gustafson (eds.), Russian Religious Thought (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 176. Each of these interpretations presents a challenge to traditional Christian doctrine, which is precisely Valliere’s point. 4 See A. F. Losev’s “Filsofsko-poeticheskii simvol Sofii u Vl. Solov’eva,” in his collection Strast’ k dialektike (Moscow: Sovestskii pisatel’, 1990), 204–5. 5 Florenskу’s bishop had warned him that these and several other sections in Stolp could prove unacceptable to the traditionally minded hierarchs who would be reviewing the text. The bishop’s letter is quoted in Igumen Andronik (Trubachev), “Sviashchennik Pavel Florenskii—professor Moskovskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii i redaktor ‘Bogoslovskogo Vestnika,’” Bogoslovskie trudy 28 (1987), 297. This publication includes Florensky’s statement that the excluded chapters had constituted “the philosophical and theological telos of the book” (ibid., 298). [Pavel Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, trans. and ed. Boris Jakim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) (Eds.)]. 6 Bulgakov’s diary entry on September 21, 1921, expresses his genuine sense of mission: “God has chosen me, a weak and unworthy man, to be a witness to the Divine Sophia and to Her revelation.” 3

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into emigration in late 1922) had published numerous treatises in which he attempted to reinterpret major aspects of traditional Christian doctrine in Sophiological terms did Russian Orthodox Church bodies—both in Russia and abroad—undertake a formal review. But by then the entire Russian Orthodox diaspora was embroiled in bitter jurisdictional disputes, and the virtually simultaneous 1935 condemnation of Sophiology by the Moscow Patriarchate and, independently, by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad inevitably lost force by being all too easily ascribable to non-theological motives.7 With the seemingly abstruse theological debate thus politicized, the issue attained great notoriety in Russian émigré communities, especially in Paris. The present chapter will examine this divisive episode in the life of the Russian emigration, focusing on the writings and activities of Georges Florovsky (1893–1979), a prominent church historian and ecumenical activist whose continuing efforts to expose what he viewed as the fallacies of Sophiology were constrained by formidable personal and political considerations. *** At the time of the 1935 events Florovsky was an ordained Orthodox priest and a member of the teaching faculty of the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, where Bulgakov (also a priest) was his administrative superior as well as a faculty colleague.8 The two men had met in Prague in 1923. Bulgakov had arrived in the capital of the new Czechoslovak republic soon after his banishment from Soviet Russia in late 1922, having been invited to occupy the Chair of Canon Law (церковное право) at the Russian School of Law that had been established in Prague under the auspices of the Czech government’s so-

See Vestnik RKhD 170 (1994), 32. A complete bibliography of Bulgakov’s voluminous writings appears in Kliment Naumov, Bibliographie des oeuvres de Serge Boulgakov, Bibliothèque Russe de L’Institut D’Études Slaves, Tome LXVIII/1, Série: Écrivains russes en France (Paris: Institut D’Études Slaves, 1984). [Sergij Bulgakov Bibliographie: Werke, Briefwechsel und Übersetzungen, ed. Regula M. Zwahlen, Ksenija Babkova (Münster Westfalen, DE: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2017). (Eds.)]. 7 The ukaze (decree) published by the Moscow Patriarchate (Указ Московской Патриархии) was dated September 7, 1935. It was followed less than two months later (October 30, 1935) by the declaration issued by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad: Oпpеделение Aрхиерейского Собора Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей от 17/30 октября 1935 г. These texts and other major documents and statements generated by the dispute are gathered in vol. 39 (2016) of Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars in the U.S.A. Subsequent references to this volume will appear as Transactions 39. 8 Mitropolit Evlogii, Put’ moei zhizni. Vospominaniia, izlozhennye po ego rasskazam T. Manukhinoi (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1947), 450. Bulgakov taught dogmatic theology at the Institute, while Florovsky specialized in patristics. [For English see My Life’s Journey: The Memoirs of Metropolitan Evlogy as Put Together according to His Accounts by T. Manukhin, trans. Alexander Lisenko, 2 vols. (SVSP, 2014) (Eds.)].

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called Action Russe.9 Florovsky was more than twenty years Bulgakov’s junior, and his station in life was accordingly much more modest. In 1921 he had received a scholarship to pursue a graduate degree at the earlier-named Prague institution and in 1923 he successfully defended a thesis on Herzen and began his career as a teacher.10 Florovsky’s familiarity with the writings of Bulgakov dates from well before 1923.11 And in 1921 and 1922 he had expressed reservations in print about the Solovyov-inspired trends in modern Russian theology—which included Bulgakov by implication, as will be shown subsequently. Nevertheless his respect for Bulgakov the man is evidenced clearly enough by his decision, soon after meeting Bulgakov, to choose him as his father confessor (духовный отец).12 We know from Bulgakov’s diary that there were unresolved disagreements between him and Florovsky on this level, but Bulgakov has not spelled them out beyond recording his chagrin at the inability to convince Florovsky of a certain point of view.13 It seems probable that this involved philosophical differences rather than mundane pastoral matters; in any case, disputes of that kind were characteristic of the relationship between the two men from the beginning of their acquaintance and are reflected in the surviving correspondence.14 Two episodes from the early period will serve to illustrate the tensions that existed between them. In the fall of 1923 Bulgakov was chosen to head the newly formed Brotherhood of St. Sophia, an organization uniting a small number of émigré intellectuals who pledged to devote themselves to the study and propagation of Orthodox Christian beliefs.15 Florovsky was one of the fourteen original signatories of the statutes, but within only a few months—and to the considerable dismay of Bulgakov—he was ready to quit the Brotherhood due to his unease about the philosophical views of the other members.16 A

Monakhinia Elena, “Professor protoierei Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944),” Bogoslovskie trudy 27 (1986): 140; Thomas Riha, “Russian Émigré Scholars in Prague after World War I,” Slavic and East European Journal 16:1 (1958), 22–6. 10 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 40–7. 11 See, e.g., Florovsky’s 1911 letter to Prof. N. Golubinskii, in Marina Skliarova, ed., Sosud izbrannyi: Istoriia rossiiskikh dukhovnykh shkol (St. Petersburg: Borei, 1994), 111. 12 Noted in Bulgakov’s Prague diary on September 29, 1923. See Aleksei Kozyrev and Natal’ia Golubkova, “Prot. S. Bulgakov. Iz pamiati serdtsa. Praga (1923–1924),” in Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli (subsequently IPIRM). Ezhegodnik za 1998 (Moscow: O. G. I., 1998), 156. 13 “I haven’t been able to set G.V.F. on the right track” (не могу поставить на рельсы Г.В.Ф.). See “Iz pamiati serdtsa,” 171. 14 Catherine Evtuhov has published substantial excerpts from Bulgakov’s letters to Florovsky in “The Correspondence of Bulgakov and Florovsky: Chronicle of a Friendship,” Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 38 (1996), 37–49. This publication is based on only one side of the correspondence. 15 “Bratstvo sviatoi Sofii: Dokumenty (1918–1927),” in IPIRM. Ezhegodnik za 1997 (St. Petersburg: Aleteiia, 1997), 99–113. 16 “Iz pamiati serdtsa,” 234 and M. A. Kolerov, “Bratstvo sv. Sofii: ‘Vekhovtsy’ i evraziitsy (1921– 1925),” Voprosy filosofii, no. 10 (1994), 150–1. See also Evtuhov, “The Correspondence of Bulgakov and Florovsky,” 39. 9

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very similar situation arose in late 1924 when Florovsky, once again to the annoyance of Bulgakov, expressed doubts about the possibility of accepting a position at the Paris Theological Institute (then in the planning stage) due to what he felt would be his philosophical incompatibility with the other members of the teaching faculty.17 Not explicitly mentioned in the above instances but quite clear from the context was a profound disagreement in evaluating the legacy of Vladimir Solovyov. Bulgakov regarded the Russian philosopher with sincere gratitude for having guided him away from the materialism of his youth.18 In his eyes Solovyov also deserved enormous credit for having been the first to formulate an Orthodox concept of Sophia, however imperfect this pioneering effort might have been.19 Florovsky saw things very differently. Although he exhibited a scholarly interest in Solovyov throughout his life—his first published article was a survey of several new books on the philosopher, and the full bibliography of Florovsky’s works contains nine other entries focused on Solovyov20—he viewed the influence of Solovyov on Russian intellectual history as unequivocally pernicious. In his correspondence with Bulgakov (after the latter had moved to Paris), Florovsky voices this judgment with a harshness that leaves little doubt that the criticism is meant to include the post-Solovyovian theological ambience to which Bulgakov very much belonged. The first of these letters is dated December 30, 1925. Florovsky here relates that his continuing studies of Solovyov as well as the discussions he has had with N. O. Lossky about the philosopher’s religious evolution have convinced him that his former critical attitude toward Solovyov had been much too mild. And he continues somewhat playfully: “Do you know who propelled me toward

Bulgakov’s August 18/31, 1924 letter to Florovsky in the Georges Florovsky Papers, Princeton University Library, Special Collections, Box 15, folder 45. Subsequent citations of materials from this source will be prefaced by “GFPrin.” All materials from the Princeton collection are published by permission of the Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. The Florovsky Papers were partially recatalogued in recent years with the result that some of the references to this collection appearing in the present article do not coincide with the references cited in the 2005 version of my article. 18 As Bulgakov puts it in the English-language edition of The Wisdom of God, 24: “I regard Soloviev as having been my philosophical ‘guide to Christ’ at the time I was moving ‘From Marxism to Idealism’ and even further, to the Church.” (Bulgakov refers here to his 1903 collection of essays entitled Ot marksizma k idealizmu [From Marxism to Idealism], which includes a piece on Solovyov.) 19 Bulgakov subjected his evaluation of Solovyov to a critical review in 1924, possibly influenced by his polemic with Florovsky. See Aleksei Kozyrev, “Prot. Sergii Bulgakov. O Vl. Solov’eve (1924),” in IPIRM. Ezhegodnik za 1999 (Moscow: O. G. I., 1999), 199–222. See also “Iz pamiati serdtsa,” 199. 20 “Novye knigi o Vladimire Solov’eve” (1912). Cited in the bibliography section of Blane, Georges Florovsky, 349, under number 5. See further the bibliographical entries numbered 132, 140, 155, 171, 175, 176, 213, 278, and 337. 17

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greater intolerance? The author of Tikhie dumy [Quiet Thoughts].”21 The author in question is of course Bulgakov himself, and his 1918 collection of essays referred to here includes a lengthy article on some of the least “Orthodox” aspects of Solovyov: the quasi-erotic longings for the Eternal Feminine-cumSophia expressed in his poetry and an account of his bizarre relationship with Anna Schmidt.22 Florovsky continues: As far as I am concerned, I see the rejection of Solovyov in toto (по всей линии) as a personal religious duty and as a task that needs to be undertaken in due course by contemporary Russian religious and philosophical thought. By means of this rejection we shall liberate ourselves from the whole murky tradition . . . for I believe that it has been this very tradition that has shackled our creative powers. . . . What Solovyov needs now are not panegyrics or the well-nigh religious adoration (чуть ли не акафисты), but tearful prayers beseeching God to grant rest to a troubled soul.23 Bulgakov responded to this letter with considerable delay: he had fallen gravely ill and was at one point thought to be near death.24 The experience affected him deeply, causing him to rethink many aspects of his past, including his intellectual debt to Solovyov. In his extraordinarily irenic letter to Florovsky, he granted virtually all of the latter’s criticisms of Solovyov but confessed that for emotional and psychological reasons Solovyov would remain one of the “fathers” to him personally. As for the task of ridding the Church of Solovyov’s influence that Florovsky had set for himself, Bulgakov continues, this must be done gently so as not to antagonize those individuals (“our contemporaries”) in whose hearts Vladimir Solovyov “continues to live” and who are in need of help rather than prohibitions.25 Florovsky’s long reply dealt mostly with a proposed course that he might have to teach in Paris in view of Bulgakov’s illness. But it ends with a few sentences on Solovyov that evidently take their cue from the mild tone of Bulgakov’s letter and in this sense seem to suggest a shift toward a more moderate view of the Russian philosopher. Florovsky restates his position that Solovyov is “extrinsic” to the spirit of the Church, but then adds the following

Quoted in Kozyrev, “Prot. Sergii Bulgakov. O Vl. Solov’eve,” 206. The three essays, originally published separately, were here presented as three parts of a larger piece entitled “Vladimir Solov’ev i Anna Shmidt.” See Sergei Bulgakov, Tikhie dumy (Moscow, 1918; reprinted, Paris: YMCA-Press, 1976), 71–114. 23 Quoted in Kozyrev, “Prot. Sergii Bulgakov. O Vl. Solov’eve,” 207. 24 Bulgakov, “Moia bolezn,’” in his Avtobiograficheskie zametki (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1946), 136–9. 25 Letter of February 21, 1926. Quoted in Evtuhov, “The Correspondence of Bulgakov and Florovsky,” 43. 21

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notable qualification: “no matter how much we love him, or how much we are (or should be) grateful to him.”26 Not surprisingly, Bulgakov read these words as signaling a change of heart. In his response he expresses joy that Florovsky seems to have moved beyond his stubbornly held anti-Solovyov position (Вы сдвинулись с мели своего антисоловьевства) and is—so Bulgakov hopes—on the way to recognizing the importance of the Sophia concept.27 Evidently Florovsky protested strongly against such an interpretation, for in his next letter Bulgakov expresses regret at Florovsky’s “Sophiaclasm” (софиоборство), and warns that this will inevitably lead him to dubious conclusions.28 This in turn led to the most militant of Florovsky’s letters that have come to light. Written two weeks after the last-quoted letter of Bulgakov, this text combines an uncompromising condemnation of Solovyov’s concept of Sophia with a carefully phrased criticism of Bulgakov. I cite two passages from this lengthy document. I have long insisted that there exist two doctrines of Sophia, one might even say two Sophias, or, more exactly put, two images of Sophia: a true and genuine one on the one hand, and an illusory one on the other. In the name of the former, holy temples were erected in Byzantium and ancient Rus, while the latter served to inspire Solovyov and his Masonic and Western predecessors, all the way back to the Gnostics and Philo. Solovyov simply had no knowledge of Sophia of the Church; he knew the Sophia of Boehme and his followers, the Sophia of Valentinus and the Kabbalah. And this Sophiology is heretical and uncanonical (еретическая и отрешенная). What you have found in Athanasius belongs to the other Sophia [i.e., to the Sophia of the Church—A.K.]. There is even more about Her in Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa—the direct predecessors of Palamas.29 There follows a densely written passage in which Florovsky cites various theological assertions about the nature of Sophia, and denies the validity of all those that have arisen in the wake of Solovyov. He continues:

Quoted in Kozyrev, “Prot. Sergii Bulgakov. O Vl. Solov’eve,” 207. Letter of April 27/May 10, 1926. GFPrin, Box 15, f. 4 28 Letter of July 7/20, 1926. Quoted in Evtuhov, “The Correspondence of Bulgakov and Florovsky,” 42. 29 Quoted in A. M. Pentkovskii, “Pis’ma G. Florovskogo S. Bulgakovu i S. Tyshkevichu,” Simvol 29 (1993), 205–6. On Solovyov’s interest in occult notions of Sophia see Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, “Solov’ev’s Androgynous Sophia and the Jewish Kabbalah,” Slavic Review 50:3 (1991), 486–96. 26 27

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Putting it bluntly, in Solovyov everything is superfluous, while the main thing is completely absent (у Соловьева всe лишнее, а с тем вместе главного нет вовсе). . . . I believe that in your case, too, Solovyov long hindered you in your search for the main thing. For the road to discovering it lies through Christology, not through Trinitology, since only with Christ Jesus did the worship of the Trinity become a reality. The point here is that only in history, in the realm of historical experience, are we capable of understanding the createdness of creation (тварность твари).30 The total rejection of Sophiology together with the entire tradition leading from Solovyov to Bulgakov could not have been more plainly expressed than it is in this and the earlier letters. Remarkably, however, Florovsky adopted an entirely different strategy of approaching the issue in his printed works. And it is particularly startling to discover that there seems to be absolutely nothing in the corpus of writings published by Florovsky in his lifetime that could qualify as an explicit attack on Sophiology. Florovsky comes closest to direct criticism in two early essays in which he rejects the ambivalent attitude toward evil that he considers a philosophical corollary of Solovyov’s view of the world. In a 1921 address on Dostoevsky as well as in a 1922 survey of Russian works on religious philosophy, he takes issue with what he believes is Solovyov’s inadequate understanding of sin, evil, and tragedy. He notes that Solovyov saw evil as ultimately part of the divine plan, in this sense justifying it, and argues that Solovyov’s conclusion is based on the profoundly mistaken notion that “Divine Wisdom” can be grasped by human reason. The contrary is true, states Florovsky, since Divine Wisdom (Премудрость Божия) remains unknowable in principle (ведь Она недоведома человеку), and attempts to claim otherwise will inevitably produce such unacceptable results.31 But beyond these rather sparse published comments dating from a period before his meeting with Bulgakov, Florovsky’s writings after the mid-1920s abound in what can be characterized as indirect criticism of Sophiology. These are scholarly studies that aim to expose weaknesses in the theoretical or historical underpinnings of the Sophiological edifice, doing so, however, without referring to Sophiological teaching by name. The overall intent is nevertheless quite unmistakable, and the late Fr. John Meyendorff has argued that opposition to

Quoted in Pentkovskii, “Pis’ma G. Florovskogo S. Bulgakovu i S. Tyshkevichu,” 206–7. Georgii V. Florovskii, “Blazhenstvo strazhdushchei liubvi,” Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars 25 (1992–3): 98, and “Chelovecheskaia mudrost’ i Premudrost’ Bozhiia,” Mladorus’ 1 (1922), 51–3. It is relevant to add that the problem of justifying evil arises with special force in Bulgakov, who has argued that the Apostle Judas in his betrayal of Jesus must have been fulfilling a divine mission, the purpose of which was to make the Atonement possible (чтобы послужить делу Искупления). See Vestnik RKhD 123 (1977), 25. 30 31

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Sophiology was in fact the principal motivating factor throughout Florovsky’s scholarly career. In support of this view, Meyendorff recalls what had been Florovsky’s frequent comment in his lectures on patrology at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris (where Meyendorff had been a student). The great theologians of the early Christian centuries, Florovsky had constantly reminded his listeners, were almost invariably moved to theologize by the need to oppose some heretical teaching. In the same way, Meyendorff contends, Florovsky was spurred to produce many of his works in protest against Sophiology and the non-Orthodox influences that he believed to be its source and inspiration.32 Meyendorff ’s hypothesis is entirely consistent with the orientation of a significant proportion of Florovsky’s writings both before and after 1935. A few examples dating from the earlier period are sufficient to illustrate this point. In 1928 Florovsky published a densely written and massively documented article entitled “Tvar’ i tvarnost,’” rendered as “Creation and Createdness” in the English translation.33 There is no mention in the text of Sophia, of Solovyov, Florensky, or Bulgakov, and for readers unversed in theology it might seem to have no polemical intent whatever. The point, however, is that Bulgakov’s Sophiological system is grounded upon a very specific theory of creation, one that cannot be reconciled with the patristic views on this subject. Florovsky stresses the radically free nature of the act of creation in traditional Christian thought (God had no need to create the world), as well as the “utter and ultimate hiatus” between God and the created world. This contradicts Bulgakov’s Sophiological views on both counts, since Bulgakov contended that God created the world in order to apply His love and, of course, held to the fundamental tenet of the Sophianic vision according to which Sophia acts as a link between God and the world.34 Another example. At a 1930 conference in Bulgaria, Florovsky presented a detailed account of the historical context in which churches were dedicated to St. Sophia and icons thought to be associated with Sophia, the Wisdom

Prot. I. Meiendorf [John Meyendorff], “Predislovie,” in Prot. Georgii Florovskii, Puti russkogo bogosloviia, 4th ed. (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1988), vi–vii. 33 Georgii V. Florovskii, “Tvar’ i tvarnost,’” in Pravoslavnaia mysl’ [Paris] 1 (1928), 176–212. English translation in “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 33–63. Speaking about his life’s work, Fr. Florovsky named this essay as one of his two most significant scholarly achievements. See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 154. 34 Florovsky has articulated the distinctive features of the patristic doctrine of creation in somewhat briefer form in “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” The Eastern Churches Quarterly 8:3 (1949), 55–77, which is a free English version of a French article published in 1928: “L’idée de la création dans la philosophie chrétienne,” Logos: Revue internationale de la synthèse Orthodoxe 1 (1928), 3–30. The Rev. Winston F. Crum reported in a personal letter to the present author that Florovsky, the director of Crum’s dissertation at Harvard, had characterized his Eastern Churches Quarterly essay on creation as the “gist” of his response to Bulgakov. (Quoted with permission.) 32

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of God, were venerated.35 Once again, Bulgakov and his predecessors are not explicitly mentioned, although the essay appears to be a point-bypoint rejoinder to Bulgakov’s 1927 attempt to establish the traditionality of the Sophiological enterprise.36 By amassing historical evidence which demonstrated—contrary to Bulgakov’s claim—that in Byzantine and early Russian practice, “Sophia, the Wisdom of God” was in the overwhelming majority of cases identified with Christ, and that, furthermore, the extant iconographic images of a feminine Sophia are almost certainly the result of Western influences, Florovsky was denying Sophiology any authentically Orthodox roots.37 In the same year, 1930, Florovsky published a theoretical article in which he focused on what he considered the irreconcilable differences between the abstract categories of German idealistic philosophy and the historically grounded concepts of Christian belief.38 The opposition of historicism to abstract theorizing would soon become one of Florovsky’s principal criteria in evaluating religious constructs like Sophiology. Thus, in a review also published in 1930, Florovskii asserts that Pavel Florensky’s celebrated Stolp i utverzhdenie Istiny fails because its author has no feeling for Christian history and no appreciation for the crucial fact that the Incarnation had been an irruption of real historical time into absolute categories. And this accounts for the Christological shallowness that Florovsky considered the most striking feature

G. V. Florovskii, “O pochitanii Sofii, Premudrosti Bozhiei v Vizantii i na Rusi,” in Trudy V-go s’ezda russkikh akademicheskikh organizatsii za granitsei v Sofii 14-21 sentiabria 1930 goda (Sofia, 1932), Pt. I, 485–500. Reprinted in Russia in the collection: Georgii Florovskii, Dogmat i istoriia (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Sviato-Vladimirskogo Bratstva, 1998), 394–414. 36 Bulgakov, “Dokladnaia zapiska, predstavlennaia professorom protoiereem Sergiem Bulgakovym mitropolitu Evlogiiu vesnoi 1927 g.,” 61–3. This 1927 text was later published as an appendix to Bulgakov’s formal response to the 1935 ukaze of the Moscow Patriarchate in his brochure O Sofii Premudrosti Bozhiei (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1935). Its original purpose was to refute the criticism of Bulgakov’s “modernism” by ROCOR bishops. See note 47. 37 Lev Zander, a devoted follower of Bulgakov, has challenged Florovsky’s historical arguments in “Die Weisheit Gottes im russischen Glauben und Denken,” Kerygma und Dogma 2:1 (1956), 33–6, 40–6. The claim that medieval iconography prefigured, and thus confirmed and justified, modern Sophiology was first made by Vladimir Solovyov in his 1898 essay on Auguste Comte: Sobranie sochinenii, ed. S. M. Solov’ev and E. L. Radlov, 2nd ed., 9 (St. Petersburg, 1914), 187–8. [“The Idea of Humanity in Auguste Comte,” trans. Judith Deutsch Kornblatt in Judith Deutsch Kornblatt (introd., trans., ed.) with Boris Jakim and Laury Magnus (trans.), Divine Sophia: The Wisdom Writings of Vladimir Solovyov (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 211–29 (Eds.)]. 38 Georgii Florovskii, “Spor o nemetskom idealizme,” Put’ 25 (1930): 51–80. Reprinted in Georgii Florovskii, Iz proshlogo russkoi mysli, 412–30. [English translation from German version: CW, XII, 23–41 (Eds.)]. It is relevant to add here that Florovsky has singled out Bulgakov’s lack of interest in history as a major failing. See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 216, n. 50. 35

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of Florensky’s book.39 Florensky is also accused of an inordinate interest in the occult, a correlative feature of his non-patristic inspiration.40 The principal objections of Georges Florovsky to Sophiology could be summarized as follows: ●●

●●

●●

●●

Sophiology diverges from traditional (patristic) Orthodox teaching on fundamental questions like creation. It falsely claims to be sanctified by historical precedent. It represents a retreat from the reality of a historical religion into the abstractions of speculative philosophy. Its sources are not only non-patristic, but to a significant degree nonOrthodox (Protestant mysticism) and non-Christian (the occult).

Yet it is true that to make up a list of this sort, one has to go a step beyond Florovsky’s actual words. Nowhere in his published writing is there any sustained—to say nothing of systematic—criticism of the Sophianic vision. Even more noticeable is the complete absence of the name of Sergius Bulgakov in the polemically charged essays of Florovsky to which I have made reference. To say that this is unexpected is to say very little, for Bulgakov the theologian was known above all as the most prominent and persistent champion of Sophia, the Wisdom of God. One can suggest three plausible reasons why Florovsky refrained from open public polemics with Fr. Bulgakov. The most obvious is Florovsky’s sense of loyalty to a senior colleague who always treated him with respect and generosity of spirit despite their difference in views.41 Of undoubtedly equal importance was Florovsky’s desire to stay clear of the political and jurisdictional disputes that had become intertwined with the Sophiological controversy. There is also the related issue of Florovsky not wishing to be associated with what he has characterized as the flagrantly dishonest campaign to vilify Fr. Bulgakov launched by Florovsky’s erstwhile colleagues in the Eurasian movement. In fact he cites this as one of the reasons for his break with the Eurasians. I quote

Georgii Florovskii, “Tomlenie dukha,” Put’ 20 (1930), 102–7. With some changes and additions this review was incorporated into Florovsky’s Puti russkogo bogosloviia, 495–8. 40 Puti russkogo bogosloviia, 497. This charge is more explicitly formulated in Florovsky’s review of Nicolas Zernov’s The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century (London, 1963). See Christianity Today 8:25 (September 25, 1964), 29. Florensky’s interest in the occult was noted by his contemporaries. See, e.g., Leonid Sabaneeff, “Pavel Florensky—Priest, Scientist, and Mystic,” Russian Review 20:4 (1961), 312–25. And V.V. Zenkovsky recalls being unpleasantly startled in the pre–First World War days by the news that Florensky and Bulgakov were thinking of ways in which the occult could be used to reinforce Orthodoxy. See “Moi vstrechi s vydaiushchimisia liud’mi,” Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars 26 (1994), 22. 41 The Bulgakov letters to Florovsky give ample evidence of this spirit. See also Blane, Georges Florovsky, 66–8. 39

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from a previously unpublished section of Florovsky’s letter to Iurii Ivask in which Florovsky refers to the early 1920s: “Despite my highly critical view of the Sophiological orientation, I shall never forget or forgive the despicable hounding (травля) of Fr. Sergius.”42 But by the 1930s other factors began to affect what had been Florovsky’s carefully maintained stance of public deference to Bulgakov. Both men had become active in the ecumenical movement, with particular emphasis on dialogue between Anglicans and Orthodox. The establishment of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius in 1928 led to yearly conferences in which both Florovsky and Bulgakov regularly participated.43 It is in this context that the theological disagreements between them began to acquire an increasingly public dimension. One can safely assume that their differences came to be highlighted by virtue of the fact that Bulgakov’s persistent emphasis on Sophiology did not receive much understanding or sympathy from his Anglican audiences, who were far more attracted to the biblical and patristic orientation of Florovsky.44 There was also the major episode at a Fellowship conference in 1933, when Bulgakov startled his listeners by arguing for the need to begin intercommunion within the ranks of the Fellowship without waiting for formal sanction from Church authorities. Both Anglicans and Orthodox reacted to this proposal with consternation and uncertainty, while Florovsky’s opposition to the idea was so outspoken and strenuous that one commentator has described his role as that of an “anti-Bulgakov.”45 It seems very likely that it was with this controversy in mind that Florovsky wrote his 1934 essay entitled “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church,” where he argued—once again without direct reference to

Florovskу to Iurii Ivask, letter of April 8, 1965. In Iurii P. Ivask Papers (Box 3, folder 15), Special Collections Department, Amherst College Library. Quoted by permission of Amherst College Library. The greater part of the April 8 letter appears in Vestnik RKhD 130 (1979), 45–7. P. N. Savitskii, Florovsky’s brother-in-law and former colleague in the Eurasian movement, seems to have been the most militant and persistent ideological critic of Bulgakov. See Kolerov, “Bratstvo sv. Sofii: ‘Vekhovtsy’ i evraziitsy (1921–1925),” 163–6. 43 See Nicolas Zernov, “Russkii religioznyi opyt i ego vliianie na Angliiu,” in Nikolai P. Poltoratskii (ed.), Russkaia religiozno-filosofskaia mysl’ XX veka (Pittsburgh: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, 1975), 128–9. 44 Ibid., 129, and Blane, Georges Florovsky, 64. 45 A. F. Dobbie-Bateman, “Footnotes (IX),” Sobornost 30 (N.S.) (1944), 8. See also Roger Lloyd, The Church of England in the Twentieth Century, vol. 2 (London: Longmans Green, 1950), 280–6. Although Sophiology does not seem to have been explicitly addressed in this dispute, it is worth noting that Bulgakov had earlier published a Sophiological reading of the Eucharistic doctrine: “Sofiologicheskoe istolkovanie evkharisticheskogo dogmata,” Put’ 21 (1930): 21–31. [Part of a larger essay on the Eucharist (Part I: Put’ 20 (1930): 3–46 and Part II: Put’ 21 (1930): 3–33): “The Eucharistic Dogma,” in The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, trans. and ed. Boris Jakim (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Books, 1997), 63–138, at 126–38 (Eds.)]. Sergei V. Nikolaev explores the issue in “Spiritual Unity: The Role of Religious Authority in the Dispute between Sergii Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky Concerning Intercommunion,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 101–23. 42

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Bulgakov—that true catholicity must always entail unity in truth, not just in the sense of empirical universality.46 The official condemnation of Bulgakov’s Sophiology by the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) and, independently, by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) in the fall of 1935 inevitably brought the issue into broad public view.47 What followed was the equally inevitable politization of the whole situation, given the historical context of the time. The purely theological arguments had become inseparately linked to issues of political orientation and disputes over jurisdictional matters. The Theological Institute in Paris where both Bulgakov and Florovsky held teaching positions was under the direct supervision of Metropolitan Evlogy, who had become embroiled in acrimonious disputes first with the ROCOR and then the MP. The conflict with ROCOR came to a head due to irreconcilable disagreements about the extent of jurisdictional authority of each party over the Russian Orthodox diaspora in Europe, but what was basically a power and “turf ” struggle was simultaneously depicted (and perceived) by ROCOR as a defense of pure Orthodoxy against the inroads of questionable theological innovations that were said to be flourishing at Evlogy’s Institute, while the Parisian camp found the monarchist pronouncements emanating from ROCOR as unpalatable as the hard-line theological conservatism that was espoused in ROCOR circles.48 In 1927 Metropolitan Evlogy formally broke relations with the Church Abroad, placing himself in the jurisdiction of the MP.49 However the new affiliation entailed a commitment to “remain neutral” on political matters relating to the USSR, a position that soon became morally untenable in view of the furious onslaught on the Church in Soviet Russia that was unleashed by the Bolshevik regime in the late 1920s. Evlogy joined in prayers for the suffering Church, was immediately condemned by the MP, and turned to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, who duly received him in his jurisdiction in 1931.50 In October 1935 Evlogy traveled to Serbia at the

In E. L. Mascall, ed., The Church of God (London: SPCK, 1934), 51–74 (reprinted: PWGF, 257–71). 47 The Moscow Patriarcate statement (“Ukaz Moskovskoi Patriarkhii”) pronounced Bulgakov’s views to be “alien” (чуждыe) to the “Holy Orthodox Christian Church,” while ROCOR’s declaration (“Opredelenie Arkhiereiskogoi Sobora . . . ”) ruled Sophiology a heresy. 48 Criticism of Bulgakov’s views began well before 1935. A major example is the 1927 epistle addressed to Met. Evlogy by Met. Antony together with six other ROCOR bishops in which Evlogy is accused of “patronizing modernism” at the Theological Institute by providing a platform to purveyors of “dubious theology” like Bulgakov. See “Poslanie Arkhiereiskogo Sinoda,” reprinted in IPIRM. Ezhegodnik za (1997), 115–21. 49 Met. Evlogy relates his version of the conflict in Put’ moei zhizni, 610–18. See also Michel D’Herbigny and Alexandre Deubner, Evêques Russes en exil: Douze ans d’epreuves (1918–1930) (Rome: Pont. Institutum orientalium studiorum, 1931), 137ff. 50 Evlogii, Put’ moei zhizni, 618–27; D’Herbigny and Deubner, Evêques russes, 174–7. 46

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invitation of Patriarch Varnava of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who hoped to bring about a reconciliation between Evlogy and ROCOR. And indeed at the Serbian meeting Metropolitan Evlogy signed a document that was perceived as at least a partial restoration of the status quo ante, yet upon his return to Paris he yielded to the protests of his entourage, repudiated the agreement, and reaffirmed his link to Constantinople.51 These jurisdictional conflicts had by now become matters of passionate public debate, with the result that the 1935 accusations against Bulgakov were immediately interpreted as a thinly disguised attack on the legitimacy of Metropolitan Evlogy and the Theological Institute he had cofounded with Bulgakov.52 A couple of incidents will give an inkling of the overwrought atmosphere that prevailed in Paris at the time. When it became known that the Moscow statement condemning Bulgakov had been precipitated by a report submitted to the MP by the Paris theologian Vladimir Lossky, reaction was so bitter that after a public debate chaired by Berdyaev on the theme of “intellectual freedom within the Church” (свобода мысли в Церкви), one of Lossky’s colleagues was physically assaulted by a professor of the Theological Institute in the midst of a verbal altercation.53 And when Vladimir Losskу presented a copy of his published critique of Bulgakov to Mother Maria (Skobtsova), she returned the brochure to him unread, inscribed with the following indignant message: “I refuse to read texts signed by writers of denunciations!!” (Литературы, подписанной доносчиками, не читаю!!).54 Given this highly charged context, one would have expected Florovsky to take pains to avoid being drawn into the controversy. And although this was indeed the stance that Florovsky soon adopted, his papers reveal just how far removed he was from any detached scholarly view of the matter.55 The most striking evidence in this regard is contained in a letter to Florovsky from Militsa Zernova (the wife of Nicolas Zernov), dated November 3, 1935. Mrs. Zernov here voices her anguish at the harshness with which Florovsky had reacted to the news of the two official condemnations of Sophiology. The letter

Evlogii, Put’ moei zhizni, 634–44. This would have been especially true in the case of the ROCOR statement declaring Bulgakov’s theories heretical, since it was published at the time of the Serbian meeting sponsored by Patriarch Varnava, with Met. Evlogy directly confronted by this charge against the most prominent member of the teaching faculty at his Theological Institute. 53 N. O. Losskii, Vospominaniia: Zhizn’ i filosofskii put’ (Munich, 1968), 266–71. (The philosopher Nicolas O. Lossky was the father of the theologian Vladimir Lossky.) 54 Cited by N. O. Lossky in a letter to Florovsky dated December 29, 1935. See Transactions 39: 50. 55 It is worth noting that Florovsky’s first reaction to the news appears to have been the decision to abstain from signing an open letter of support for Bulgakov that had been drawn up by his faculty colleagues at the Theological Institute after the publication of the Moscow Patriarchate statement. See Transactions 39: 143–50. 51 52

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is extremely emotional in tone, but there seems to be no reason to doubt the essential accuracy of the facts conveyed.56 Zernova claims to have been “stunned” (oшеломлeна) by Florovsky’s militant position. She writes that at the time of Florovsky’s visit to the Zernov home she had intended to ask him what he could propose in the way of defending Bulgakov. To her dismay she instead heard Florovsky pronounce Bulgakov guilty of heresy and to proceed to the following conclusions: Bulgakov should be permanently stripped of his public position (свести со сцену до его смерти) and separated from his activities in the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (oттеснить из работы). Such views are not only grossly unfair and devoid of Christian love, Mrs. Zernov protests, but would, if implemented, result in terrible damage to the Paris religious community, especially to the Theological Institute. She then throws out a grave accusation by insinuating that Florovsky’s views had been motivated by raw personal ambition: “Don’t think that you will become head of the Institute” (Не думайте, что Вы станете ректором). It is not surprising that there are no further letters from Militsa Zernova in the Florovsky files: one may safely assume that Fr. Georges did not respond. Because there are no other documents reflecting anything like the militancy of spirit on the Bulgakov affair that is here ascribed to Florovsky, it would seem that this angry outburst represents a very brief phase of his response. But that Florovsky was sorely agitated there can be no doubt. Several letters from his Anglican friends indicate that he had communicated a sense of acute distress.57 And letters from his sister Klavdiia (“Dusia”) show that he had exchanged messages with Archbishop Serafim, the author of the book attacking Sophiology.58 Florovsky had also asked his sister to extract an unnamed manuscript of his on Sophia from the files of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.59 But it would seem that by the end of 1935 Florovsky had already resolved to abstain from public comment. Thus we have a December 22 letter from Arthur Dobbie-Bateman, an acquaintance active in the St. Sergius and St. Alban Fellowship, who voices relief at Florovsky’s decision to stay clear of the conflict: “My detailed views would have been, and are, decidedly in favor of the line you have yourself chosen, to avoid all controversy.”60

Letter of November 3, 1935. GFPrin, Box 41, f. 14. For example the letter from Rev. Ivan Young of January 3, 1936 (erroneously dated “1935”). GFPrin, Box 40, f. 70. 58 Letters from “Dusia” to “Egorik” of December 8 and 30, 1935. GFPrin, Box 20, f. 3. Archbishop Serafim had authored Novoe uchenie o Sofii Premudrosti Bozhiei (Sofia: Tipografiia Rakhvira, 1935), which had served as the principal source in ROCOR’s condemnation of Bulgakov. 59 It seems probable that this was an early version of the 150-page-long manuscript, still unpublished, briefly described by George H. Williams in the journal version of his survey of Florovsky’s career as a theologian (The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 9, no. 1 [1965]: 39). 60 Letter from A.F. Dobbie-Batemen of December 22, 1935. GFPrin, Box 18, f. 8. 56 57

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While I am not aware of any explicitly stated reasons for Florovsky’s change of mind, it seems probable that the alarm expressed by his Anglican friends contributed to Florovsky’s decision. In two letters, Dobbie-Bateman characterized the potential scandal as a “disaster” and urged Florovsky to avoid all involvement.61 And the Rev. Ivan Young, another acquaintance in the Fellowship, counselled extreme caution in what he called “this most unfortunate and difficult situation.” Stirring up the affair, Young warned, “would make things very difficult in the Russian Clergy and Church Aid Council,” and could threaten the very existence of the Fellowship as well as “the cause of Reunion with the Orthodox as a whole.”62 When added to the unhealthy public agitation of which Florovsky would of course have been only too aware, and the potential for a gross misrepresentation of his views that had been brought home by the Zernova letter, the arguments of his English friends were bound to be significant, especially since Florovsky set great store by his contacts with ecumenically minded Anglicans. Yet Florovsky was nevertheless unable to avoid highly visible further involvement in the Bulgakov controversy.63 In late 1935, Metropolitan Evlogy appointed a commission to look into the charges of heresy that had been leveled at Fr. Bulgakov by ROCOR. The commission was drawn primarily from the teaching staff of the Theological Institute (where, awkwardly enough, Fr. Bulgakov was Dean) and included several prominent Paris theologians and Church historians.64 Florovsky relates that he strenuously resisted being inducted into this body, but finally had to yield to the behests of the Metropolitan, who

Letters of October 25 and December 22, 1935, ibid. Letter of January 3, 1936, Box 40, f. 70. 63 The part of the dispute involving institutions has been fairly well documented. This is especially true of the well-informed and evenhanded account by Dom C. Lialine, “Le Débat Sophiologique,” Irénikon 13:2 (1936), 168–205. (It has been translated into Russian in Transactions 39: 375–409.) See also Bernhard Schultze, S. J., “Der gegenwärtige Streit um die Sophia, die Götterliche Weisheit, in der Orthodoxie,” Stimmen der Zeit 137 (1940), 318–24; the useful, but not always reliable brochure by Igumen Gennadii (Eikalovich), Delo prot. Sergiia Bulgakova: Istoricheskaia kanva spora o Sofii (San Francisco: Globus Pub., 1980); Prot. Vasily Zenkovsky’s very brief “Delo ob obvinenii o. Sergiia Bulgakova v eresi,” Vestnik RKhD 149 (1987): 61–5 and the excellent collection of documents by N. T. Eneeva, Spor o sofiologii (Moscow: Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN, 2001). For a broader view of the problem, see John Meyendorff, “Wisdom-Sophia: Contrasting Approaches to a Complex Theme,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 391–401. 64 Mitr. Evlogii, Put’ moei zhizni, 642. It is noteworthy that the commission was formally charged with reviewing only the accusations of heresy formulated in the resolution of the Church Abroad of October 17/30, 1935 (“Opredelenie Arkhiereiskogo Sobora”) and was not asked to address the similar but less decisive accusations made by the Moscow Patriarchate. One assumes that this reflected a judgment that the explicit indictment expressed by the ROCOR declaration demanded a formal institutional response, while in the case of the less decisive charges made by the Moscow Patriarchate, Bulgakov’s published 1936 rebuttal (reprinted in Transactions 39, 239–63) was deemed sufficient. 61 62

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argued that without Florovsky’s presence the work of the commission would be seen as a whitewash of Bulgakov’s theories.65 The deliberations of the Bulgakov Commission proceeded in two phases. Meetings began in February 1936,66 and were chaired by Fr. Sergy Chetverikov, a priest attached to the Vvedenskaya Chapel of the Russian Student Christian Movement in Paris where Fr. Florovsky also frequently conducted services after his ordination in 1932.67 The minutes of these meetings have not been published and are not represented in the Florovsky papers housed at Princeton, but we do have a number of letters from Chetverikov to Florovsky commenting on the ongoing work of the Commission. The very fact that such letters exist tends to corroborate the claim of one commission member, Fr. Vasily Zenkovsky, that Florovsky took part in the deliberation of only one formal session.68 The Commission quickly became polarized, with the majority defending Bulgakov against the charge of heresy, and the minority, represented by Chetverikov and Florovsky (the latter usually in absentia), expressing grave reservations. By June 1936, the Commission was ready to draw up its preliminary findings, albeit a determination that reflected the unresolved split in opinion. Chetverikov wrote three letters to Florovsky asking, then begging him to set down his thoughts on paper or else to comment on a draft statement Chetverikov had prepared.69 Florovsky resisted and Chetverikov produced the minority report himself, finally persuading Florovsky to sign it by arguing that if he wished to sign neither the majority nor the minority report, he would have to draw up his own document.70 The minority report, dated July 6, 1936, and bearing the signatures of Chetverikov and Florovsky, was presumably submitted to Metropolitan Evlogy shortly thereafter.71 It stated that although the charges of heresy against Bulgakov had been presented in an inadequate and hasty manner, his views did indeed “provoke great anxiety” (вызывают большую тревогу) and constitute a

Blane, Georges Florovsky, 66. Notice of the first meeting to be held on February 10, 1936. GFPrin, Box 59, f. 9. 67 Fr. Chetverikov was at first the acting chairman, replacing the ailing Fr. Iakov Smirnov, but upon the latter’s death assumed formal chairmanship. 68 “Delo ob obvinenii o. Sergiia Bulgakova v eresi,” 64. However Florovsky also took part in some informal discussions while in England. 69 Letters of June 6, 10, and 12, 1936. Transactions 39, 68–70. 70 Letters of June 16 and 26, 1936. Transactions 39, 70–2. 71 The full title is “Osoboe mnenie k otzyvu bol’shinstva Komissii po delu o knigakh o. S. Bulgakova” [Dissent from the report by the majority of the commission charged with considering the works of Fr. S. Bulgakov]. The Russian text appears in Transactions 39, 271–5 and English translations of both the majority and minority reports are presented with extensive commentary in Bryn Geffert’s article “The Charges of Heresy Against Sergii Bulgakov,” SVTQ, 49:1–2, 47–66. V. V. Zenkovsky submitted a substantial critique of the minority report to Met. Evlogy later that summer. See Transactions 39, 275–8. 65 66

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danger to Orthodox thinking, a danger the Commission’s majority had chosen to ignore. (The majority report had been prepared some weeks earlier by A. V. Kartashev, V. V. Zenkovsky, and others. It flatly rejected the charge of heresy but brought forward serious objections to certain aspects of Sophiology.)72 Although neither report has ever been released for official publication, Florovsky would seem to be in error when he suggests that nothing was submitted to the Metropolitan.73 In any case, when Metr. Evlogy spoke to a diocesan conference on July 14 of that year, he gave an account of the Commission’s work, noted the unresolved differences among its members, and asked the members of the Commission to continue their examination of Bulgakov’s views in the hope that they might reach a unanimous determination.74 One potentially awkward aspect of Florovsky’s position at the time these texts were being composed was that he found himself in close daily contact with his philosophical opponents in various nonacademic contexts. In the spring and summer of 1936 he was engaged in Fellowship work in England together with Bulgakov, Kartashev, Zenkovsky, and others. This involved presentations on, and discussions of, topics of presumed mutual interest to Orthodox and Anglican participants in various English cities. To Florovsky’s sorrow and annoyance, Bugakov in his speeches and comments dwelled on the Sophia theme so incessantly that (as Florovsky wrote in one letter to his wife) the Russian delegation had become restive and sought to demonstrate its independence from Sophiology.75 And in a letter a few days later he reports that his friend Dobbie-Bateman was actively trying to prevent the publication of Bulgakov’s English-language summary of Sophiology because he feared that beyond doing great damage to Bulgakov’s reputation, this book could compromise Russian theology as a whole by giving the impression that Russians think in obscure and incomprehensible ways.76

The title of the majority report is “Otzyv Komissii po delu o sochineniiakh prot. o. S. Bulgakova” [Report of the commission considering the works of Presbyter S. Bulgakov]. The Russian text appears in Transactions 39, 264–71, and an English translation is presented in Bryn Geffert’s article (see note 71). The authors are identified in Chetverikov’s letter to Florovsky of June 26, 1936, from which we also learn that the text was sent from England, where the authors—together with Florovsky—were engaged in Fellowship work. See Transactions 39, 72. 73 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 67. 74 See Transactions 39, 278–80. 75 Letter to Kseniia Ivanovna, May 4, 1936 in Transactions 39, 66. 76 Letter to Kseniia Ivanovna, May 6, 1936 in Transactions 39, 66–8. Florovsky’s letter makes clear that he did not share Dobbie-Bateman’s concern, and the reason he gives is an interesting measure of Florovsky’s attitude: he sees no danger in publication because the book will then be open to direct criticism. The book in question is Bulgakov’s The Wisdom of God, published in the following year (1937). There was at least one extremely negative review of it: John P. Arendzen in Eastern Churches Quarterly 3:1 (1938), 14–18. 72

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A further delicate circumstance was that the Orthodox delegation consisted almost entirely of individuals who had been inducted into the Bulgakov Commission. The very men charged with evaluating Bulgakov’s ideas thus found themselves exposed to his thoughts on a daily basis, at times discussing the issues right after Bulgakov had made a presentation. Florovsky reports on two such semiformal meetings in which he seems to have taken an active antiSophiological role.77 At some point soon after Florovsky had received copies of both majority and minority reports, he shipped them, together with a number of other documents bearing on Sophiology, to his friend A. F. Dobbie-Bateman with the request that the latter give a candid and strictly confidential opinion of these materials. Dobbie-Bateman responded with a lengthy analysis that is a model of clear thinking and lucid writing. He found the minority report technically and logically flawed (“anxiety is not a judicial category,” he noted) but considered the criticisms of Bulgakov’s theories contained in the majority report essentially fatal to Bulgakov’s entire conception, a conclusion he appeared to welcome.78 Writing again in the fall of that year, Dobbie-Bateman made what strikes me as a very cogent summary of the split inside the Commission: “They divide,” he wrote of the commission members, “into those whose sincere purpose is to vindicate sound theology, and those whose equally sincere purpose is to defend Fr. Sergius.” Such incompatible aims cannot be meaningfully reconciled, Dobbie-Bateman suggests, and he concludes: “Perhaps after all your own idea for the future is the best: namely, silence.”79 Meanwhile the commission on Bulgakov resumed its deliberations in the fall of 1936, beginning its work with the discussion of a detailed statement in which Fr. Chetverikov had attempted to lay out the most controversial aspects of Sophiological teaching.80 Chetverikov’s 48-page-long summary of what he modestly calls his “perplexities” (недоумения) in fact reproduces most of the charges made against Bulgakov by ROCOR in 1935 (“Opredelenie Arkhiereiskogo Sinoda . . . ”), but presented in a quieter tone and without the earlier document’s conclusion that obvious heresy was involved. Florovsky

Letters to Kseniia Ivanovna of April 28 and May 6, 1936. See Transactions 39, 63 and 66–8. That would explain the otherwise puzzling comment in Chetverikov’s letter of June 26 (Transactions 39, 72) to the effect that Florovsky might have had a hand in producing the majority report. I have not found any evidence either to confirm or to deny this supposition. 78 Letter of August 9, 1936, Transactions 39, 73–87. In his obituary of Dobbie-Bateman (Sobornost, Series 7:1 [1975], 47–9), Nicolas Zernov suggests that Dobbie-Bateman was a devotee of Bulgakov, an opinion made somewhat dubious by this and other letters in the Princeton collection. 79 Letter of November 12, 1936. See Transactions 39, 96–9. 80 Chetverikov’s cover letter is addressed to the members of the Commission and is dated September 20, 1936. His statement bears the title “O plane raboty Komissii po delu o sochineniiakh professora protoiereia o. Sergiia Bulgakova v nastupaiushchem godu.” See Transactions 39, 281–322. 77

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evidently found Chetverikov’s text very much to his liking, writing to Chetverikov that he had read it “with great satisfaction” (с большим удовлетворением).81 However Florovsky did not heed Chetverikov’s repeated requests to submit written answers to a series of questions on the whole issue of Sophiology that Chetverikov had attached to his statement.82 Florovsky’s stubborn “passive resistance” to all attempts to draw him into a meaningful participation in the Bulgakov Commission was presumably a manifestation of his hope that he could thus avoid being associated with the Commission’s findings, whether pro or con. For although it is obvious that Florovsky rejected Sophiology, he was clearly convinced that a negative pronouncement on Bulgakov would only feed unjustified jurisdictional and political passions. It was a moral position that one can appreciate, but one that certainly did nothing to allay the frustration that must have been felt by Chetverikov. Florovsky spent the fall and early winter of 1936 in England and Greece and could presumably evade taking part in the formal deliberations of the Bulgakov Commission for that reason alone. But a glance at Florovsky’s scholarly activities of this period reveals that he continued to be very much concerned with the issues raised by Bulgakov, doing so, however, in the indirect way that had been his method all along. The most significant theme in Florovsky’s work at this time was his emphasis on the unceasing relevance and the ever-salutary role of the patristic tradition in religious culture. That is the central motif of his Puti russkogo bogosloviia (The Ways of Russian Theology)—completed in England in the fall of 193683—as well as the explicit subject of Florovsky’s speech at the Congress of Orthodox Theology in Athens in December of that year.84 To a very significant degree this emphasis represents a polemical reaction to Bulgakov’s insistence that the patristic legacy is in many ways inadequate to the problems of the contemporary world.85

Chetverikov thanks Florovsky for these words in his letter of October 1, 1936. See Transactions 39, 93. 82 Letters of October 1 and November 1, 1936 in Transactions 39, 93 and 93–6. 83 The preface to the book is dated September 2/15, 1936 and summarizes Florovsky’s conviction that “an Orthodox theologian of our day can find reliable criteria as well as a living source of creative inspiration only in the patristic tradition” (xv). 84 “Patristics and Modern Theology,” 238–42 (PWGF, 153–7). 85 Fr. Bulgakov’s critical comments about what he believes has been an overreliance on patristic authority are sprinkled throughout his works, but are most forcefully expressed in his essay “Dogmat i dogmatika,” in the collection Zhivoe Predanie: Pravoslavie v sovremennosti (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1937), esp. 12–16, 23–4. [“Dogma and Dogmatic Theology,” trans. Peter Bouteneff, Tradition Alive, ed. Michael Plekon (Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward, 2003), 67–80 (Eds.)]. The charge that Bulgakov exhibited an unacceptably disparaging attitude toward the Fathers of the Church is one of the major accusations against him in the ROCOR declaration. See the examples cited in “Opredelenie Arkhiereiskogo Sobora” (Transactions 39: 209–14). Bulgakov defends his record on this particular score in Dokladnaia Zapiska (Transactions 39: 258–61), but Chetverikov 81

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Florovsky’s clear-cut philosophical opposition to Bulgakov on this and other matters, however, stopped short of active participation in the ongoing quasi-judicial review of Bulgakov’s works, which continued into 1937. The Commission’s chairman, Fr. Chetverikov, evidently did not grasp the depth of Florovsky’s conviction on this score, and the Princeton collection holds letters in which Chetverikov pleads with Florovsky to take part in drawing up the final report, even appealing to his wife to intercede.86 Chetverikov finally declared that he would have to resign his chairmanship if Florovsky continued to withhold his participation, and, with Florovsky remaining implacable, he appears to have carried out his intention.87 As far as I could establish, no final report of the Commission’s work has been published anywhere. We do have access to a draft of the formal resolution of a bishop’s conference that had been convoked by Metropolitan Evlogy on November 26–9, 1937, with the express purpose of closing the Bulgakov affair.88 This text states that the bishops had reviewed a report prepared by Fr. Chetverikov, augmented by a more detailed descriptive account of the Commission’s work written by Archimandrite Cassian. On the basis of these materials the bishops concluded that the accusations of heresy against Bulgakov were unjustified, but that his theological opinions nevertheless exhibited serious flaws and stood in need of correction. The text ends with an exhortation to Bulgakov to subject those aspects of his teaching that have provoked criticism to a close scrutiny, and “to eliminate whatever could prove troubling to simple souls unversed in theology and philosophy” (изъять из них то, что порождает смущение в простых душах, которым недоступно богословско-философское мышление).89 But the bishops’ statement, at least in the available draft form, does not include any request that Bulgakov make an actual repudiation of Sophiology, to say nothing of a public renunciation, and I am not aware of any documentary evidence in support of Florovsky’s contention that Bulgakov had to undergo

in his review (“O plane raboty”) finds Bulgakov’s rebuttal inadequate and adduces a number of other instances where Bulgakov is highly critical of the Church Fathers (Transactions 39: 303–10). 86 Letters of January 21 and February 13, 1937 to Florovsky (GFPrin, Box 16, f. 22), letter to Kseniia Ivanovna of February 5, 1937 (GFPrin, Box 68, f. 6). 87 While the latest document produced by the Commission is dated May 14, 1937 (“Doklad prot. o. Arkhimandrita Kassiana” – Transactions 39: 366), Fr. Chetverikov’s letter of March 30 already speaks of his immense relief at no longer having to “sift through the casuistries of Sophiology” (рыться в ухищрениях софианства), and the next letter, dated April 16, makes no mention of the Commission (GFPrin, Box 16, f. 22). 88 “Akt Soveshchaniia Episkopov Pravoslavnykh Russkikh Tserkvei v Zapadnoi Evrope ot 26, 27 i 29 noiabria 1937 g., rassmatrivavshikh bogoslovskie mneniia prot. S.N. Bulgakova o Sv. Sofii, Premudrosti Bozhiei,” in Transactions 39: 368–71. 89 Ibid., 370–1.

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such a procedure.90 We do have Fr. Vasily Zenkovsky’s brief mention in his memoirs that Bulgakov made a formal declaration to Metropolitan Evlogy to the effect that he would not promote Sophiology in his lectures at St. Sergius Theological Institute. In truth, however, as Zenkovsky notes with some bitterness, Bulgakov continued to champion his theories exactly as before.91 The official discussion of the whole painful issue was, however, at an end. *** Although the formal examination of Bulgakov’s works was now closed, the repercussions for Florovsky were far from over. The decision to distance himself from the work of the Commission had exacted a heavy psychological toll, all the while doing nothing to repair his standing with colleagues at the Paris Theological Institute who considered him to have “betrayed” Bulgakov.92 Letters received by Florovsky during this period show that he had complained bitterly to his correspondents about his unhappiness and had expressed his desire to leave Paris for good.93 As it happened, the extensive ecumenical contacts Florovsky had established in England during the preceding years now bore fruit and made frequent departure from Paris possible.94 On one of these occasions, furthermore, there was an incident directly linked to Bulgakov that seems to have been instrumental in propelling Florovsky from the relatively minor activity of the Fellowship of St. Sergius and St. Alban into the ecumenical big leagues. This occurred in Edinburgh in 1937, where Florovsky, Bulgakov, and two other professors from the Theological Institute had traveled as delegates to the Second Conference of Faith and Order, a body that was later transformed into the World Council of Churches. The Paris delegation was accompanied by Metropolitan Evlogy, who writes that he had decided to go along in part due to his anxiety about possible dissention within this group.95 And indeed these fears were soon realized. As Evlogy describes it, Florovsky delivered a “pointed and caustic” attack on the concept of “pure-hearted” piety that lacks any sound philosophical basis—this right after Bulgakov’s speech in which the latter had downplayed the importance of doctrinal differences in the ecumenical enterprise. The Metropolitan was scandalized by what he considered an attack on Bulgakov, but notes that a number of influential

Florovsky’s comment in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 67. Reprinted in Transactions 39: 373. 92 See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 67–8. 93 See esp. the letter from Dobbie-Bateman of April 10, 1937, in Transactions 39: 105–8. 94 On Florovsky’s travels out of Paris, see Blane, Georges Florovsky, 68–78. 95 Evlogii, Put’ moei zhizni, 589, 593. The Florovsky-Bulgakov relationship was presumably the only one in which any conflict could have arisen. 90 91

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non-Orthodox delegates were much impressed by Florovsky’s tough stance.96 The result was entirely unexpected: Florovsky was elected to the Executive Committee that was charged with drafting a constitution for the proposed World Council of Churches.97 One can thus legitimately speak of a causal relationship between Florovsky’s stance in the entire Sophiological controversy and his ever-increasing involvement in ecumenical affairs. While these activities were necessarily curtailed during the war years, it was ventures of this kind that came to predominate in Florovsky’s life in the two decades following the Second World War. Yet despite this major shift in emphasis, a number of publications from Florovsky’s later years are unambiguously linked to his polemic with the Sophiological orientation. Of the several postwar essays that relate most clearly to this theme, I shall comment very briefly on four. In “The Ever-Virgin Mother of God” (1949),98 Florovsky rejects the abstract manner in which the Incarnation has all too often been treated in modern times. He asserts that Mary must be recognized as a co-actor in the Incarnation, as a historically real human being endowed with free will who had consciously agreed to serve the divine purpose. This is in opposition to the tendency to envisage Mary in purely symbolic terms as a perfect manifestation of the Sophiological principle.99 In 1951 Florovsky published “The Lamb of God,” an essay in which the title clearly suggests a response to Bulgakov’s 1933 monograph Agnets Bozhii [Lamb of God].100 This is a vigorous restatement of a theme central to Florovsky’s theological vision throughout his career: an assertion of the historicity and personal nature of the Christian religion, and of the fundamental inadequacy of metaphysical speculation in this regard. Two essays dealing with patristic issues also appear to be linked to the polemic with Bulgakov. “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960)101 seeks to reaffirm the place of Palamas within mainline patristic tradition, in this sense refuting Bulgakov’s claim that St. Gregory can be seen as one of the originators of Sophiology.102 And in “The Concept of

Evlogii, Put’ moei zhizni, 593–4. Blane, Georges Florovsky, 74. 98 In E. L. Mascall, ed., The Mother of God (London: Dacre Press, 1949), 51–63 (reprinted: PWGF, 95–106). 99 For example in Bulgakov’s Kupina Neopalimaia (Paris, 1927), 189. [The Burning Bush: On the Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God, trans. Thomas Allan Smith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). (Eds.)]. 100 Scottish Journal of Theology 4:1 (1951), 13–28 (reprinted: PWGF, 81–94). 101 The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 5:2 (1960), 119–31 (reprinted: PWGF, 221–32). 102 For example in Bulgakov’s Nevesta Agntsa (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1945), 23. [The Bride of the Lamb, trans. and abridged by Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). (Eds.)]. 96 97

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Creation in St. Athanasius” (1962)103 Florovsky builds on his earlier works on creation but includes what seems to be the very deliberate attempt to counter Bulgakov’s detailed argument that St. Athanasius could likewise be considered a precursor of Sophiology.104 The self-imposed taboo against publishing remarks openly critical of Bulgakov qua theologian remained in force, however, reaching some sort of extreme in 1971, when Florovsky wrote an entry on Bulgakov for a handbook on Church history in which he managed to avoid mentioning the Sophia concept entirely.105 In a 1975 letter to Paris, Florovsky confirms that his critical silence in this respect was a conscious and deliberate policy. He chides his friend for believing rumors about him: Myths are being generated in that Paris of yours. The late Paul Evdokimoff asserted in print that I had “furiously” [“яростно”] attacked Fr. Sergius. The fact is that I have never written on Fr. Sergius and have tried to avoid oral criticism.106 But one must note that the ban on public comment that Florovsky had imposed on himself did not extend to informal conversation and private correspondence, and in this regard I quote from a 1976 letter to Iurii Ivask in which Florovsky openly addresses a theme that was clearly never very far from his mind: [Florensky] wrote a book on Christianity which lacks even a short chapter on Christ. As a result the whole picture is skewed. The late Fr. Sergius Bulgakov dedicated a whole volume to the theme of “The Lamb of God,” but he nevertheless began with the periphery—the Virgin, John the Baptist, angels.107 In a private conversation he admitted that he had turned to

Studia Patristica 6:4 (1962), 36–57. Reprinted with a somewhat altered title: “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” in Florovsky, CW IV, 39–62, 283–5. 104 In Bulgakov’s Kupina Neopalimaia, 266–88. 105 The Westminster Dictionary of Church History, ed. Jerald C. Brauer (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1971), 138–9. Florovsky’s authorship of this unsigned entry is attested by Rev. Winston F. Crum, a former doctoral student of Florovsky’s, who in a letter to the present author states that he had arranged the contact between Florovsky and the editor. Florovsky’s unnatural reticence here may be contrasted with the terse but accurate statement in Puti russkogo bogosloviia to the effect that the teaching of Sophia constitutes the principal theme (основная тема) of Bulgakov’s theology (493). 106 Letter of June 23, 1975 to Fr. Igor’ Vernik, GFPrin, Box 45, f. 21. 107 Florovsky is commenting on the sequence of Bulgakov’s books: Kupina Neopalimaia—on the Virgin (1927); Drug Zhenikha—on John the Baptist (1927); Lestvitsa Iakovlia—on angels (1929); followed in 1933 by Agnets Bozhii—on Christ. [The Burning Bush (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); The Friend of the Bridegroom: On the Orthodox Veneration of the Forerunner, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003); Jacob’s Ladder: On Angels, trans. and ed. Thomas 103

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Christology under my influence. But I do not consider his Christology to be very satisfactory. In his early book, Svet nevechernii [Unfading Light, 1917], only the beginning chapters are Christological—they were written before he was swayed by Florensky.108 The point is not that they both occasionally do understand Christ, the point is that He does not stand at the center.109 This critical appraisal of Bulgakov’s theological position is representative of views that remained essentially unchanged throughout Florovsky’s life. It is important to emphasize, however, that the fundamental philosophical differences between the two men resulted in strained personal relations only in the mid-1930s. Both before and after this period the relationship was mutually respectful and even cordial. In any case, very soon after “the Bulgakov case” was officially resolved, the status quo ante of their dealings with each other was fully reestablished, no doubt mostly due to the amazingly forgiving nature of Fr. Sergius. As Florovsky has noted in his oral reminiscences, Bulgakov turned out to be the only individual at the Theological Institute who did not hold Florovsky’s position in the “affair” against him.110 What is more, when in 1939 Bulgakov was unable to participate as a delegate in the meetings of the ecumenical Commission on Faith and Order, he chose Florovsky to take his place, a decision that generated perplexity and dismay among Florovsky’s colleagues at the Institute—and profound gratitude in Florovsky.111 In letters from Serbia, where Florovsky spent most of the war years, his warm feelings for Bulgakov are expressed with special clarity. An example are the following lines from Florovsky’s 1943 message penned in connection with the twenty-fifth anniversary of Bulgakov’s ordination to the priesthood: May the Lord keep you, may He bless you when you come in and when you go out,112 may He strengthen you in the service of His Truth. I am acutely

Allan Smith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010); and The Lamb of God, abridged trans. and ed. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). (Eds.)]. 108 On Bulgakov’s close friendship with Pavel Florensky see Irina B. Rodnianskaia, “S.N. Bulgakov i P.A. Florenskii: K filosofii druzhby,” in Michael Hagemeister and Nina Kauchtschischwili (eds.), P.A. Florenskii i kul’tura ego vremeni (Marburg: Blaue Hörner Verlag, 1995), 115–27. 109 Letter of June 3, 1976. GFPrin, Box 45, f. 9. This letter was not included in the selection Ivask published in Vestnik RKhD 130 (1979), 42–52. 110 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 68. 111 Florovsky makes this point most energetically in a 1975 letter to Iurii Ivask: “Fr. Sergius was saddened by my disagreement with him, but nevertheless chose me as his replacement in the ecumenical movement to the great indignation of his male and female admirers.” Iurii P. Ivask Papers (Box 3, folder 5), Amherst Center of Russian Culture, Amherst College. Published with permission. 112 Cf. Deut. 28:6.

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aware that despite all our differences and disputes we are serving one and the same cause, and toiling in the same vinyard.113 It is only natural that with time this personal warmth removed the edge from Florovsky’s harsh rejection of Bulgakov’s views, yet without negating the fundamental philosophical disagreement. Perhaps the best expression of this temperately phrased opposition to Bulgakov is contained in Florovsky’s letter to Tatyana Frank, the widow of the philosopher S. L. Frank. Florovsky is here responding to the disappointment voiced by Mrs. Frank on connection with Florovsky’s essay on the late philosopher: 114 I am in absolute agreement with everything you say about S.L.’s faith, and I attempted to emphasize the profound devotion and conviction that is so characteristic of him. However, and this is the point I was trying to make, the philosophical articulation of his faith did not correspond to the religious depth of his beliefs . . . I would have said the same thing, perhaps even more forcefully, about Fr. Sergius Bulgakov and many others. My “criticism” is not directed at S.L.’s faith, but, in essence, only at Christian platonism. This is an ancient and venerable tradition, but in my opinion one that is unreliable and insufficient.115 This is a fine summary of Georges Florovsky’s final judgment of Sergius Bulgakov’s theology.

Letter of April 11/24, 1943. Papers of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov at the St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology, Paris. Cited with permission. 114 The essay in question is Prot. Georgii Florovskii, “Religioznaia metafizika S.L. Franka,” in V. V. Zen’kovskii (ed.), Sbornik pamiati Semena Liudvigovicha Franka (München: publisher not identified, 1954), 145–56. 115 Letter of December 6, 1954. BAR Frank Papers. Microfilm 89–2007. Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture, Columbia University. Published by permission. 113

Chapter 5

Georges Florovsky and Sergius Bulgakov “In Peace Let Us Love One Another”1 PAUL LADOUCEUR

Outside the Church’s freedom there is neither any living Church life, nor any good shepherding. . . Spiritual freedom is a great holy treasure of the Church. Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky) 2

TWO RUSSIAN THEOLOGIANS IN EXILE For much of the twentieth-century Orthodox theology was dominated by two towering figures, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944) and Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893–1979). Each powerfully marked modern Orthodox thinking in his own way, and Orthodoxy is still assimilating their rich legacies. Both

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Contacts (Paris) 64:237 (2012): 56–87. I am grateful to the late Fr. Matthew Baker for valuable comments on the original article. Extracts of archival documents are published by permission from the Georges Florovsky Papers, Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. 2 Evlogy Georgievsky, My Life’s Journey: The Memoirs of Metropolitan Evlogy, Vol. 2 (SVS Press, 2014), 746. 1

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were priests, both came to theology from other disciplines, both taught at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, both were committed and active participants in the ecumenical movement. Yet they clashed over several major theological issues. This chapter traces the personal relationships of these eminent Orthodox personalities in the context of their theological differences. Sergius Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky first met in Prague in 1923. Despite many commonalities, their training, intellectual and theological orientations, and their personalities were dissimilar. They belonged to different generations. Bulgakov, twenty-two years senior to Florovsky, was a mature intellectual and clergyman. His personal spiritual journey led him from the Orthodox faith of his childhood to Marxism, then to idealism, and finally back to Orthodoxy. Bulgakov and other Orthodox intellectuals of his generation were leaders of the Russian religious renaissance prior to the First World War, heirs of the Slavophiles and the controversial philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900). Georges Florovsky was thirty at the time of their meeting and was not an active participant in the pre–First World War religious renaissance. Florovsky’s early intellectual passions were history and philosophy. He later described the differences between himself and the leaders of the religious renaissance: [Sergius Bulgakov and Nicolas Berdyaev] and also [Anton] Kartashev and [Vasily] Zenkovsky, and to some extent [Georges] Fedotov, belonged to the generation responsible for the so-called religious renaissance. I was a youngster when it was going on, and of course I was impressed and interested, but more so than that, I was stimulated by my own thinking and research. . . . For most of these people their personal story was of a return to the believers, and thus from involvement in “anti-church.” . . . They could never forget this renaissance, for them it was basic and decisive. Whereas for me this had no meaning, for I never knew a period when I was dissatisfied with the church as the foundation and pillar of truth.3 Even in Prague, major philosophical-theological differences appeared between them, differences that increased in Paris as Bulgakov expanded and articulated his theological project centered on Divine Wisdom (Sophia), and as Florovsky immersed himself in patristic theology. From the outset, intellectual divergences revolved around differing perceptions of Solovyov’s legacy. For Bulgakov and most Russian thinkers in exile, Solovyov’s philosophy constituted a Christian response to non-Christian philosophies in late nineteenth-century Russia, whereas for Florovsky, Solovyov’s influence on Russian thought was entirely negative. Since Bulgakov adopted several of Solovyov’s key ideas, Bulgakov

3

Cited in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 61.

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is implicitly included in Florovsky’s critique of Solovyov. In December 1925, Florovsky wrote to Bulgakov: I see the rejection of Solovyov in toto as a personal religious duty and as a task that needs be undertaken in due course by contemporary Russian religious and philosophical thought. By virtue of this rejection, we shall liberate ourselves from the whole murky tradition . . . . What Solovyov needs now are not panegyrics or well-nigh religious adoration, but tearful prayers beseeching God to grant rest to a troubled soul.4 In reply, Bulgakov conceded most of Florovsky’s criticisms of Solovyov, but he affirmed that Solovyov nevertheless remained “a father” to him and that the task of eliminating his influence in the church must be undertaken with delicacy, so as not to alienate those who hold the great philosopher to heart. In another letter (July 1926), Florovsky criticized Bulgakov himself: “I believe that in your case, too, Solovyov long hindered you in your search for the main thing.”5 Bulgakov arrived in Paris in the spring of 1925. Ignoring Florovsky’s criticisms, he convinced the other professors at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute and Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky) (1868–1946) to invite Florovsky to join the Institute as professor of patristics. Florovsky arrived in Paris in September 1926, and for the next thirteen years, they were colleagues, Bulgakov as dean and professor of dogmatics, and Florovsky, professor of patristics. During this period Bulgakov and Florovsky crossed swords over several issues, two of which stand out, Sophiology and ecumenism.

DIVINE WISDOM One of Solovyov’s main philosophical-theological ideas is “Sophia,” Divine Wisdom, which sought to elucidate the relationship between God and creation. Bulgakov, influenced by his friend Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), already proclaimed his adherence to Sophiology in several books published before his exile, notably Unfading Light (1917), his first properly theological book. In

Alexis Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 73 [an abridged version of this essay is published in this volume (Eds.)]. On some issues, Florovsky later had a more nuanced assessment of Solovyov, for example, concerning Solovyov’s social theology and his ecumenism. See “The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church” (1950), in CW II, 131-42; and “The Orthodox Churches and the Ecumenical Movement Prior to 1910,” in Ruth Rouse and Stephen Neill (eds.), A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517-1948 (London: SPCK, 1954), 169-215 (reprinted: CW, II, 161-231, 242-5). 5 Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 75. 4

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the late 1920s and early 1930s, Bulgakov developed Sophiology into a holistic theological system, attractive in many ways, but speculative and complex, with questionable scriptural, patristic, and historical foundations. Following the criticism of Unfading Light, Bulgakov carefully distanced himself from aspects of the Sophiology of Solovyov and Florensky, in particular the possibility that Divine Sophia was a kind of divine “fourth hypostasis.” In an essay published in 1925, he asserted that Sophia is not a fourth hypostasis, but a divine principle that is “hypostasied” in the three divine Persons (uncreated Sophia) and in human persons (created Sophia).6 Overt criticism of Bulgakov’s Sophiology began in the mid-1920s, initially from the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia (ROCOR). In 1927, the ROCOR primate, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) (1863–1936), and six other bishops signed a letter to Metropolitan Evlogy criticizing the “modernism” of the St. Sergius Institute and in particular the teachings of Bulgakov.7 Although Florovsky struggled against Sophiology for much of his academic career, he never criticized Sophiology directly in his writings. Instead, he sought to undermine arguments advanced by the Sophiologists, notably appeals to the Fathers and to the iconographic tradition, and by attacking Solovyov and Florensky—by implication followers such as Bulgakov. At the end of the 1920s, Florovsky, now thoroughly immersed in the study of the patristic tradition, developed his theological project based on a “return to the Fathers,” a re-framing of Orthodox theology in the line of “sacred Hellenism.”8 In advancing a theological project grounded in what Florovsky considered its one and only true foundation, Greek-Byzantine theology, Florovsky was proposing a patristic revival as an alternative to religious philosophy. First manifestations of this approach included three papers of neopatristic inspiration at the ecumenical discussion group organized by Nicolas Berdyaev in Paris: “Creation and Creativity,” “Death on the Cross,” and “Mysticism and Liturgy.”9 In the first, exposing patristic thought on creation as an entirely free divine act— by his nature, God has no obligation to create—without mentioning Sophiology, Solovyov, or Bulgakov, he contradicts Sophiological teaching on creation, according to which God’s nature obliged him to create the world and humanity as objects of his love.10 By the early 1930s, the teaching staff of the St. Sergius Institute was increasingly divided. Bulgakov and a majority of professors were heirs to religious

See Brandon Gallaher and Irina Kutoka, “Propresbyter Sergii Bulgakov: Hypostasis and Hypostaticity: Scholia to The Unfading Light,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 17–41. 7 Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” nn. 49 and 50, 82–3. 8 Alexander Schmemann, “Roll of Honour,” SVTQ 1 (1952), 6. 9 See George Williams, “Georges V. Florovsky: His American Career,” GOTR 11:1 (1965), 32. 10 Georges Florovsky, “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 33–63. 6

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philosophy, open to addressing the problems of the contemporary world and to speculative theology, but, argued their critics, too far astray from Orthodox tradition and too strongly influenced by Western thought. For Florovsky and younger theologians such as Vladimir Lossky (1903–58), religious philosophy was an unhealthy construct blending biblical and patristic Christianity with modern philosophies far removed from true Orthodox tradition. In the mid-1930s, Florovsky refined his approach. He published four books on the Greek Fathers, based on his courses at St. Sergius.11 In January 1935, he spoke at the Institute on “The Tasks of Russian Theology,” largely inspired by his extensive research into Russian theology, published in 1937 as The Ways of Russian Theology.12 The 1935 talk summarizes Florovsky’s condemnation of much of Russian theology (both “academic theology” and religious philosophy) and his advocacy of a return to the Fathers. In late 1936 Florovsky presented his project at the First Congress of Orthodox Theology, held in Athens. Both Bulgakov and Florovsky represented the Institute at the congress, but history remembers Florovsky’s two papers: “Western Influences in Russian Theology,” a summary of the main theses of The Ways of Russian Theology, then in press; and “Patristics and Modern Theology,” a sort of “neopatristic manifesto”: This call to “go back” to the Fathers can be easily misunderstood. It does not mean a return to the letter of old patristic documents. To follow in the steps of the Fathers does not mean iurare in verba magistri [to swear by the words of the master]. What is really meant and required is not a blind or servile imitation and repetition, but rather a further development of this patristic teaching, but homogeneous and congenial. We have to kindle again the creative fire of the Fathers, to restore in ourselves the patristic spirit.13 Florovsky speaks little of Sophia in The Ways of Russian Theology. In his discussion of Solovyov, he almost ignores the philosopher’s principal theme. His remarks on Bulgakov, which touch only on works published before Bulgakov’s exile, are moderate, even sympathetic, though Sophiology had already featured in several of Bulgakov’s books even prior to The Unfading Light. In contrast, Florovsky’s criticism of Pavel Florensky, especially Florensky’s book The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (1914), is harsh, even merciless. Florovsky accuses Florensky of a total lack of historical sensitivity, reflected in an inadequate, even absent, Christology in his theology, and of an undue interest in the occult.14 In

See CW, VII–X. Georges Florovsky, The Ways of Russian Theology, CW, V–VI. 13 Georges Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1936), PWGF, 155. 14 CW, VI, 277–81. 11 12

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attacking Florensky, Florovsky was indirectly criticizing Bulgakov, who retained many of Florensky’s ideas, even if Bulgakov abandoned the notion of Sophia as a kind of “fourth hypostasis.” Florovsky writes of Bulgakov: Bulgakov accepted Solovyov’s doctrine of Sophia, which became the basis of his entire system. The same is true for Florensky . . . . The force of German philosophy greatly affected [Bulgakov], and the influence of Schelling’s philosophy of economics and even Kantian transcendentalism was particularly intense. This is expressed in the very religious-philosophical problem posed in The Unfading Light: “How is religion possible?” The power of German philosophy is also evident in Bulgakov’s limited romantic horizon, in his religious Naturphilosophie, and in his unrestrained lurch towards the “philosophy of identity.” Yet Bulgakov confidently returned from religious philosophy to theology, and this provided him with a historical advantage and filial freedom.15 For Florovsky, religious philosophy, far from constituting a positive Christian alternative to non-Christian philosophies which seduced the Russian intelligentsia, was a false path which “was only a return to the experience of German idealism and German mysticism . . . one of the most western episodes in Russia’s development.”16 Florovsky’s main strategy was to cast doubt on arguments used by Bulgakov and others to support their thesis that Sophiology has long been present in the church, but hidden over the centuries. Bulgakov and other Sophiologists saw in the dedication of several churches to Holy Wisdom, in particular Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and in Kiev, and in icons of Divine Wisdom, “a revelation bequeathed by Greek genius to future ages, a mysterious revelation whose deep meaning could not find an adequate expression in Byzantine theology but which remained alive in the iconographic tradition of the Russian church.”17 At a conference in 1930 in Sofia (!), Florovsky argued from history that “Sophia, the Wisdom of God,” was almost always identified with Christ and that the representations of a female Sophia were due to Western influences.18 He returned to this theme in a paper for the Sixth International Congress of Byzantine Studies to take place in Algiers in 1939. The summary of the paper contains its principal conclusions: from an ancient date, the “Wisdom of God” referred to Christ and not to the Mother of God or to some abstract notion; the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople

CW, VI, 276. CW, VI, 275. 17 Élisabeth Behr-Sigel, “La sophiologie du père S. Boulgakov,” Le Messager orthodoxe 57 (1972), 21. 18 Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 77–8. 15 16

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is dedicated to Christ, as are the many other Byzantine and Slavic churches bearing this dedication; in iconography, Christ is sometimes represented as the Wisdom of God in the form of an angel, “the Angel of Great Counsel”; and although Wisdom is occasionally presented as a virgin, the church does not attach particular importance to this.19 The publication of The Ways of Russian Theology ignited a veritable conflagration in the Russian community in Paris. The conjunction of the perception of Florovsky’s role in the Sophiological affair and the publication of the book put him in an awkward position. Criticized from all sides, he felt compelled to absent himself from Paris as much as possible, absences facilitated by his ecumenical engagements and his research activities.

ECUMENISM: PROPHETIC OR PATRISTIC? The post–First World War ecumenical movement obliged the Orthodox to review their ecclesiology and to define motivations and goals for their involvement with Western Christianity. Although both Bulgakov and Florovsky were both deeply committed to ecumenism, their perspectives were different and conflicting. Bulgakov considered that real unity among Christians is possible because this unity already exists in the Holy Spirit; the task is to discover and articulate this hidden unity. “This meant that the unity given and ‘already present’ in the church (Divine Wisdom),” writes Antoine Arjakovsky, “was to be realized in history (created Wisdom) by the assembly of the faithful (ekklesia) participating in a common task (the liturgy).”20 Bulgakov emphasized what unites Christians: “their prayer, their understanding of the Gospel as a verbal icon of Christ, their spiritual life, their common recognition of the sacrament of baptism,”21 rather than what divides them. This openness coexists with a total loyalty to Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Church is the fullness of Truth: “Orthodoxy is the Church of Christ on earth,” he writes in his book The Orthodox Church (1932).22 Bulgakov’s ecumenism is mystical, sacramental, charismatic, prophetic, and eschatological; the Kingdom of God is not only to come, but is already present in the real unity of Christians. For Florovsky, the division of the churches “has a primarily dogmatic sense” and will be overcome “not so much through gentleness and brotherly love as through

The Algiers congress was canceled, but abstracts of papers were published: Résumés des rapports et communications, Sixième Congrès international d’études byzantines (Paris: Comité du Congrès, 1940). 20 Antoine Arjakovsky, The Way: Religious Thinkers of the Russian Emigration in Paris and Their Journal 1925–1940 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 365. 21 Antoine Arjakovsky, Essai sur le père Serge Boulgakov (Paris: Parole et silence, 2006), 53. 22 Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church (1935) (SVS Press, 1988), 1. 19

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agreement and unity of thought.”23 He places such demands on church reunification that he believes little will come of “theological conferences” or “meetings of hierarchs”; reunification will occur only “in the eschatological twilight and on the eve of the Second Coming.”24 In this perspective, testimony to the truth of the Orthodox tradition justifies Orthodox participation in ecumenical undertakings, since the truth of Christ subsists in its plenitude only in the Orthodox Church. Florovsky’s ecumenical perspective is dogmatic, historical, patristic, and exclusive. In 1928 Florovsky became a member of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, founded to promote dialogue and rapprochement between the Anglican and Orthodox Churches. Bulgakov, strongly supported by Metropolitan Evlogy, was the most prominent Orthodox participant in the Fellowship until 1937. Florovsky, thanks to his erudition, eloquence, personal charm, and excellent command of English, quickly became a major Orthodox participant. Even if Bulgakov, enjoying great personal prestige, was the main Orthodox theological voice in the Fellowship, the Anglicans never warmed to his Sophiology; they were more attracted by the biblical and patristic orientations of other Orthodox participants such as Florovsky, Fr. Lev Gillet (1893–1980), and Fr. Sergius Chetverikov (1867–1947). Differences in approach to ecumenism between Bulgakov and Florovsky reached their peak around the question of possible intercommunion during Fellowship meetings. In June 1933, after six years of meetings, Bulgakov advanced a proposal for “partial intercommunion”: with the blessing of the Anglican and Orthodox bishops concerned, the Anglicans would commune at the liturgies celebrated by Orthodox clergy during the meetings of the Fellowship and vice versa. Affirming the pre-eminence of Eucharistic unity achieved at the altar, Bulgakov nevertheless posed certain conditions: a “dogmatic minimum” consisting of agreement on the Eucharistic doctrine, especially the “real character” (and not merely symbolic or memorial) of the Eucharist, “the true Body and Blood of Christ,” while leaving open the “theory” of the change of the holy elements; adherence to the Trinitarian theology and the Christology of the church; acceptance of the first seven ecumenical councils; and the sacrament of order in the apostolic succession.25 Lev Zander summarizes the common experience of Anglicans and Orthodox in Bulgakov’s perspective: [They] opened up to each other and recognized for the first time that the differences which separate the two churches are completely erased before

Georges Florovsky, “The Problematic of Christian Reunion: The Dangerous Path of Dogmatic Minimalism” (1933), CW, XIII, 16. 24 Ibid., 35. 25 Sergius Bulgakov, “Ways to Church Reunion,” Sobornost 1:2 (1935), 7–15. 23

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the holiness and the importance of what unites them. This opening could more correctly be called “revelation,” because it belonged to the order of mystical experience and did not consist in the discovery of a similarity at the level of dogma or doctrine, but in a penetration into holiness, into the Spirit rich in blessings . . . . In this prayerful encounter before the altar, they discovered and recognized the unity of the mysterious life which sustains the two churches.26 It was in this spirit that Bulgakov addressed the Fellowship in June 1933: Our common prayer at these conferences is a revelation—we are people who have been separated from each other for ages, praying together. We are called by God to be together. It is spiritually dangerous and unsound to continue forever in mere discussion of differences. We have been led up to the high wall of partition and we cannot continue to stare at it. Having come to this point we have a personal responsibility for the work of Reunion. . . . God calls us to action here and now.27 For Bulgakov, there exists between the Orthodox and the Anglicans of the Fellowship a true meeting, a “partial meeting” of the two churches, which should be sealed by a “partial intercommunion.” Without denying the relevance of canonical authority in the Orthodox Church, Bulgakov affirms that there is another authority, that of love, of spiritual experience, by virtue of which, and in agreement with canonical authority (bishops on both sides), this partial intercommunion should be allowed, constituting thereby a step toward full unity between the churches. Bulgakov’s bold proposal received strong support from leading Orthodox personalities such as Nicolas Berdyaev, Georges Fedotov, Anton Kartashev, Lev Zander, and Nicolas Zernov, but raised protests from others, notably Florovsky and Nicolas Arseniev. Florovsky’s objections to intercommunion, however “partial,” arise from his ecumenical perspective. Since important theological questions separate the two churches, complete dogmatic agreement must precede intercommunion. As Bulgakov sums up this position, “dogmatic agreement is the prius, and the eucharistic, the posterius, as sort of result of the

Cited in Barbara Hallensleben, “‘Intercommunion spirituelle’ entre Orient et Occident: Le théologien orthodoxe russe Serge Boulgakov,” in Guido Vergauwen (ed.), Le Christianisme: Nuée de témoins – beauté du témoignage, Cahiers Oecuméniques, 33 (Fribourg, CH: Éditions universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1998), 87-104, at 96. 27 “Summary of Speech by Fr. Sergius Bulgakov,” in “General Report of the Fellowship Conference, June 1933,” Journal of the Fellowship of St. Alban & St. Sergius 20 (1933), 12. 26

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first.”28 For Florovsky, full dogmatic agreement, unity in faith and in truth, must take precedence over unity of love and common prayer, and canonical authority over the experience of common prayer.29 Florovsky’s other objections were that the participants in the Fellowship were not representatives of their respective churches and could not make such a decision on their own; and that communion cannot be “partial” because communion is a “catholic,” not a “private” act,30 and he disagrees with Bulgakov’s idea that partial intercommunion would be a step toward ecclesial reunification. Concurrently, Bulgakov and Florovsky engaged in an epistolary duel. Bulgakov’s first shot was his article “At Jacob’s Well.” Taking as a starting point Jesus’ teaching to the Samaritan woman that God must be worshipped “in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:21), Bulgakov presents a mystical vision of the church, founded on the recognition of Christ and animated by mutual love. Christian unity reposes on common prayer: “The way toward the reunion of East and West does not lie through tournaments between the theologians of the East and the West, but through a reunion before the altar. The priesthood of the East and the West must realise itself as one priesthood, celebrating the one Eucharist.”31 Florovsky’s articles “The Problematic of Christian Reunion” and “The Limits of the Church,” both published in 1933, constitute responses to Bulgakov. In the first, without naming Bulgakov, Florovsky characterizes one approach to dogma, which he calls “moralism,” as “a kind of dogmatic minimalism, if not outright ‘adogmatism,’” emerging “from a kind of dogmatic insensibility, or indifference, or nearsightedness,” from “the unnatural abrogation and opposition of Truth and Love.” For Florovsky, “only in Truth is there real and spiritual love, and not merely soulfulness and languor.”32 Instead of “minimalism,” Florovsky calls for “maximalism”: “unity of faith, not only unity of love” and “unity of life—that is, the unity and communion of sacraments,” “realized only in the Truth—that is, in wholeness and strength, not in weakness and insufficiency.”33 In his seminal article “The Limits of the Church,” Florovsky invokes historical arguments, particularly the attitude of certain Fathers toward the heretics and schismatics of the first centuries, and the practice of the reintegration of the

Bulgakov, “Ways to Church Reunion,” 9. See Florovsky, “The Problematic of Christian Reunion,” 17. 30 See Arjakovsky, Essai sur le père Serge Boulgakov, 369; and Sergei Nikolaev, “Spiritual Unity: The Role of Religious Authority in the Disputes between Sergii Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky Concerning Intercommunion,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 114–15. 31 Sergius Bulgakov, “By Jacob’s Well—John 4:23 (On the Actual Unity of the Divided Church in Faith, Prayer and Sacraments)” (1933), in Michael Plekon (ed.), Tradition Alive: On the Church and the Christian Life in Our Time-Readings from the Eastern Church (London: Sheed & Ward, 2003), 64–5. 32 Florovsky, “The Problematic of Christian Reunion,” 16–7. 33 Ibid., 17. 28 29

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“lost ones” within the church. Ignoring the teaching of Cyprian of Carthage on the absence of grace outside the (Orthodox) Church, Florovsky instead follows Augustine in recognizing that the Holy Spirit acts beyond the canonical limits of the church.34 Nonetheless the path of Christian reunion supposes the reintegration of all Christians into the Orthodox Church.35 In this light the very idea of “partial union” and “partial intercommunion” in the absence of full dogmatic agreement between the churches is unacceptable. The differences in approach to ecclesiology and ecumenism between the two theologians is fully evident in these articles. Florovsky and other Orthodox were not alone in opposing Bulgakov’s daring proposition; there was also reluctance among the Anglicans. Faced with Orthodox opposition and Anglican hesitation, Bulgakov retreated. At the 1933 Fellowship conference, Bishop Walter Frere (1863–1938), one of the leading Anglican participants in the Fellowship, stated that “we make acts of spiritual communion at our Eucharists and experience common worship and a very real, though not fully sacramental, communion with each other.”36 In an article in the Fellowship’s journal Sobornost in September 1935, the AngloCatholic theologian Charles Gillett suggested that the Anglicans should make a “spiritual communion” during the celebration of the Orthodox liturgy, and vice versa, as solemn expressions “of a common contrition, a common purpose, and a common eagerness for the fulfilment of that common purpose in all its sacramental completeness.”37 In response, Bulgakov recognized that his proposal for intercommunion had floundered: “Opinion was sharply divided, but I would say that, on the whole, conviction prevailed (a conviction which sprang not so much from the voice of a loving heart, as from the arguments of ‘sober reason’!) that the time was not yet ripe for my suggestion.”38 Bulgakov rallied to the minimalist notion of “spiritual intercommunion,” which represented Florovsky’s view: “Though we are deprived of communio in sacris, we are, nevertheless, already in a state of spiritual communion (or intercommunion).”39

SOPHIOLOGY ON TRIAL In the 1930s Bulgakov’s Sophiology caused a deep rift within the Russian community in exile. The quarrel took on a disproportionate scale following the intervention of two ecclesial authorities. The Russian Orthodox community in

See Georges Florovsky, “The Limits of the Church” (1933), in PWGF, 247–56. See Georges Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement,” PWGF, 279–88. 36 Charles Gillett, “Impressions of the Conferences,” Sobornost 2:3 (1935), 24. 37 Charles Gillett, “Intercommunion,” Sobornost 2:3 (1935), 23. 38 Sergius Bulgakov, “Spiritual Intercommunion,” Sobornost 2:4 (1935), 3. 39 Ibid., 4. 34 35

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Western Europe was divided among three jurisdictions. In 1927, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragodorsky) (1867–1944) (Patriarch of Moscow from 1943), the de facto head of the Moscow Patriarchate, made a declaration of accommodation to the Soviet power. As a result, the Synod of Russian bishops in exile based at Karlovtsy (Yugoslavia) broke ties with Moscow, whereas Metropolitan Evlogy remained faithful to the mother church suffering from persecution. By 1931 Evlogy’s position became untenable and he, along with most of the clergy and faithful of his archdiocese, placed themselves under the Ecumenical Patriarchate; only a handful of clergy and faithful remained with Moscow. The first to sound the alarm against Bulgakov’s Sophiology were two young Orthodox theology students, Vladimir Lossky and Alexis Stavrovsky. At the request of Metropolitan Elevtherius (Bogoiavlensky) of the Moscow Patriarchate (1868–1940), they prepared a report on Bulgakov’s Sophiology. This report, and a more detailed second report, sent to Metropolitan Sergius, presented Bulgakov’s teaching on Sophia as contrary to the dogmas of the church, in particular by confusing nature and hypostasis in the Holy Trinity. Based on Lossky’s account and not on Bulgakov’s writings, Metropolitan Sergius, on his own authority, issued decrees (ukazy) on September 7 and 25, 1935, condemning Bulgakov’s Sophiology, declaring it “foreign to the holy Orthodox tradition”—but without referring to it as “heretical.” Independently of Moscow, in October 1935 the Karlovtsy Synod (Russian Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR)) more explicitly condemned Sophiology as “heretical.”40 Bulgakov replicated with several texts responding to the condemnations and also to Lossky’s booklet entitled Spor o Sofii (The Dispute over Sophia) (1936). Even though Florovsky had personal ties with Lossky, he played no role in triggering the “Sophiological crisis,” which apparently occurred without his knowledge until the reception of Metropolitan Sergius’s ukaz in Paris. In public, Florovsky tried to avoid the controversy, but in private he could be very harsh toward Bulgakov. During a private dinner in November 1935, he accused Bulgakov of being guilty of heresy and stated that Bulgakov should be removed from his public responsibilities and separated from the Fellowship, much to the chagrin of his hosts, Nicolas and Militsa Zernov.41 But it seems that Florovsky’s strong reaction was a fairly short phase of his reaction to the situation, because a few weeks later he assured the Anglican Arthur Dobbie-Bateman that he was trying to avoid controversy.42

See Paul Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology: ‘Behold I Make All Things New’ (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 89. 41 Letter of Militsa Zernov to Florovsky, cited in Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 85. 42 Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 86. 40

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Florovsky could not, however, extract himself from all involvement. In late 1935, Metropolitan Evlogy appointed a commission to study the accusations of heresy brought against Bulgakov. Evlogy hoped to include on the commission personalities known for their opposition to Bulgakov’s speculative theology, especially Florovsky and Sergius Chetverikov, chaplain to the Russian Student Christian Movement (ACER). Florovsky, who did not want to participate, recounts his discussion with Evlogy: I told him—“Allow me to stay away. You know that I disagree with Bulgakov’s teaching, and I also think there may be in it some ambiguity, I will not say heresy, but something misleading. I do not attack it, but I teach the other side. I would prefer not to be on the commission, because if you want a complete rehabilitation of Bulgakov, saying there is no reason for concern, I cannot say this, because there are reasons for concern.” . . . And the reply of the metropolitan was—“You must be on the commission, otherwise it will be in vain.”43 The commission was chaired by Fr. Iakov Smirnov, rector of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, until his death, then by Chetverikov. As a member of the commission, Florovsky could not avoid taking a position on Bulgakov’s theology, but he nevertheless sought to minimize his involvement on the commission. It seems that Florovsky attended only one formal meeting.44 The commission was deeply divided, with the majority absolving Bulgakov of accusations of heresy, while raising questions about Sophiology. Florovsky left it to Chetverikov to write a minority report, which expressed more serious reservations. Florovsky’s position was quite clear: as erroneous as Bulgakov’s opinions were, they could not be considered heretical. Blane writes, citing Florovsky: Bulgakov had made no effort to “substitute his teaching for the teaching of the church.” And although “. . . a theologian is, of course, responsible, . . . theology should not be taken, or mistaken, for church doctrine. I for one . . . would repudiate and reject critically the contentions of Bulgakov . . . . And Zenkovsky never concealed that he said that the starting point of the whole of the theological system of Bulgakov was wrong . . . but it is a theological dispute.”45

Blane, Georges Florovsky, 66. Bryn Geffert, “The Charges of Heresy against Sergii Bulgakov: The Majority and Minority Reports of Evlogii’s Commission and the Final Report of the Bishop’s Conference,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 49. 45 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 66–7. 43 44

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Both reports were apparently submitted to Metropolitan Evlogy in July 1936. The majority report rejected the charges of heresy against Bulgakov, especially accusations of Gnosticism and ditheism, but questioned certain aspects of his Sophiology, while declaring the “disputed theses” to be “personal theological opinions or theologumena, which do not infringe upon the limits of the dogmas accepted by the Orthodox Church.”46 The minority report by Chetverikov, which also bears Florovsky’s name in the English translation, while rejecting the accusation of heresy, affirms that Bulgakov’s teachings cause “great anxiety,” not reflected in the majority report.47 The majority and minority reports were received by the bishops at the diocesan assembly of Evlogy’s jurisdiction in June 1936, but Sophiology received little attention. The bishops postponed a final decision, pending continuation of the study. This was in effect a second commission, but this time Florovsky refused to be part of it. The report of this second commission, in which Chetverikov appears to have played the key role, has not been found. The bishops assembled in November 1937, wanting to close the Sophiology affair, rejected accusations of heresy against Bulgakov, while accepting that his theological opinions showed weaknesses requiring correction.48 Despite their diverging perspectives, both Bulgakov and Florovsky enjoyed the esteem of Metropolitan Evlogy, who nevertheless recognized the merits of certain critiques of Bulgakov’s thought. Evlogy wrote that Bulgakov “devoted himself to the service of the church with all the zeal of his soul purified by suffering. He became a man of prayer, a very good preacher and confessor, a priest who celebrated the Eucharist with great fervour.” Metropolitan Evlogy protests against the harassment of Bulgakov: What about the attacks on Fr. Sergius Bulgakov? The Karlovcians [i.e. ROCOR] couldn’t come up with one kind word about him—all they do is condemn him, saying, “He’s arrogant! He’s a heretic! Censure him! Shut him up!” Is such a merciless, cruel, and pharisaic attitude true Christianity, is it a Church-like approach to a person? It’s not out of a passion for contradiction, nor out of a wish to win popularity that I’m defending Fr. Sergius but because I know the most treasured qualities of this gifted and highly spiritual pastor.49

Geffert, “The Charges of Heresy,” 61. Ibid., 62. 48 Ibid., 53; Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 94. 49 Georgievsky, My Life’s Journey, 745. 46 47

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There were neither “winners” nor “losers” in the Sophiological affair, only victims. Neither Bulgakov nor Florovsky wanted this confrontation. If there was a “hero” in this sad affair, we agree with Paul Valliere: [Metropolitan Evlogy] felt an intellectual and spiritual kinship with Bulgakov. He may not have agreed with everything Father Sergii wrote and taught, but he supported Bulgakov’s project. . . . [Bulgakov] was the creative genius set upon by his critics, but he was not the hero of the Sophia affair. The hero was Metropolitan Evlogy.50 Neither of the ecclesial condemnations of Bulgakov’s Sophiology was canonical: Metropolitan Sergius acted in his own name, as self-appointed locum tenens for the deceased Patriarch Tikhon (Bellavin) (1865–1925). The Karlovtsy Synod, which had severed ties with Moscow, was no longer in canonical relation with any patriarchate. In some accounts of the affair, the role of proper ecclesial authority is too easily overlooked. The incident nevertheless left a bitter aftertaste among all those involved and it raised, without resolving it, the question of freedom of theological thought in the church.

THE AFTERMATH OF THE SOPHIOLOGY AFFAIR In the wake of the Sophiological affair and the publication of The Ways of Russian Theology, Florovsky was increasingly uncomfortable in the Parisian Russian environment, especially at the St. Sergius Institute where he was persona non grata for his colleagues. He continued to teach, but took advantage of the many opportunities offered by his ecumenical contacts to be absent from Paris. He spent summers in England and Scotland between 1933 and 1939, participating in Fellowship meetings, teaching in Anglican and Presbyterian colleges, and preaching in many churches. Welcomed by his British friends, he continued his research and writing. Florovsky did not contribute to the book Living Tradition: Orthodoxy in the Modern World (1937),51 a remarkable collection of essays written by almost all the other professors of St. Sergius—who wanted, by the very title of the book, to assure readers that they were well in the Tradition of the church, but without identifying with the emerging neopatristic orientation. In August 1937, Bulgakov and Florovsky, with Metropolitan Evlogy, participated in the second Faith and Order Conference in Edinburgh, predecessor, with the Faith and Work Conference, of the World Council of

Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Solovyov, Bulgakov (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 289–90. 51 Zhivoe predanie: pravoslavie v sovremennosti (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1937). 50

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Churches. Florovsky, attending his first major ecumenical meeting, stood out as an Orthodox spokesperson: he was invited to chair the subcommittee on ministry; elected to the “Committee of Fourteen” responsible for preparing the foundation of the WCC; and the prestigious University of St. Andrews awarded him an honorary doctorate. Bulgakov, in another commission, succeeded in having a resolution adopted on the Mother of God, the angels, and the saints—a controversial matter in a milieu dominated by Protestants. But tensions between the two theologians were not completely allayed. Metropolitan Evlogy mentions critical remarks by Florovsky at the conference, directed, in a roundabout way, against Bulgakov’s downgrading of the significance of disagreements over secondary theological issues, remarks picked up by some Anglicans favorable to Florovsky and transformed into a reference to Bulgakov as “a heretic.”52 In 1938 Florovsky spent eight months in Greece and Bulgaria and visiting Mount Athos. At the end of August 1939, he went to Switzerland for a meeting of the Faith and Order Standing Committee, replacing Bulgakov then recovering from throat cancer surgery. Bulgakov himself had suggested that Florovsky replace him on this important committee, to the chagrin of his friends, who continued to show great hostility toward Florovsky. The Second World War broke out during the meeting in Switzerland, and Florovsky and his wife decided to take refuge in Yugoslavia rather than return to Paris. The Florovskys spent most of the war years in Yugoslavia. In October 1944, with the advance of the Soviet army and Tito’s communists, the Florovskys fled with a good part of the Russian colony, compromised by its close association with pro-monarchists and even open support to the Germans. With difficulty, the Florovskys reached Prague, where they had relatives. But Czechoslovakia fell under Soviet control, and the NKVD harassed Russian emigrants. With the help of American and British friends, the Florovskys returned to Paris. In the meantime, Bulgakov had died on July 13, 1944, and the situation at St. Sergius had changed considerably. In 1940, with Florovsky absent, the Institute appointed Archimandrite Cyprian Kern (1899–1960) to teach patristics. Although the new dean of the Institute, Fr Vasily Zenkovsky (1881– 1962), had opposed Florovsky in the 1930s, at the end of the war he could hardly refuse Florovsky’s reinstatement to the faculty. Florovsky was offered Bulgakov’s subjects, dogma, and morals. Florovsky resumed his involvement in meetings and preparatory work for the foundation of the World Council of Churches, which took place in Amsterdam in August 1948. Shortly after, he left France for the United States, becoming professor of dogmatic theology and patristics at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York, and later its dean. He left St.

See Georgievsky, My Life’s Journey, 674–5.

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Vladimir’s in 1955 and taught at Harvard University and Princeton University, becoming an éminence grise of American Orthodoxy. As he had resolved in the 1920s, Florovsky continued to refuse to criticize Bulgakov and Sophiology openly, resorting instead to articles undermining arguments favorable to Sophiology. In a 1949 essay on the Mother of God, he rejects a “modern” way of considering the Incarnation and the role of the Virgin Mary, affirming that the Mother of God must be seen as an active participant in the Incarnation, a historic person who willingly consented to the divine plan. This stands in contrast to Bulgakov’s tendency to see Mary in an abstract and symbolic way, as a perfect manifestation of the union between uncreated and created Sophia.53 Other postwar Florovsky essays are also likely responses to certain affirmations of Sophiology. A 1951 essay on “The Lamb of God” unambiguously reaffirms the historical and personal nature of Christianity; “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960) situates Palamas squarely in the patristic tradition (whereas Bulgakov saw him as an initiator of Sophiology); “St. Athanasius’ The Concept of Creation” (1962) seems directed against Bulgakov’s argument that Athanasius was also a precursor of Sophiology.54 Florovsky’s self-censorship of his critique of Bulgakov’s Sophiology and other ideas did not extend to correspondence and private conversations, although with the passage of time, Florovsky mellowed in his criticisms. In 1954, writing to Tatiana Frank, widow of the philosopher Simon Frank (1877– 1950), Florovsky said about his recent essay on the philosopher: His [Frank’s] philosophical articulation of his faith did not correspond to the religious depth of his beliefs . . . . I would have said the same thing, perhaps even more forcefully, about Fr. Sergius Bulgakov and many others. My “criticism” is not directed against S.L.’s faith [Frank’s], but, in essence, only at Christian Platonism.55 In a 1976 letter—three years before Florovsky’s death—writing in response to an article by Yuri Ivask (1907–1986) favorable to Pavel Florensky,56 Florovsky refers to Bulgakov:

See Georges Florovsky, “The Ever-Virgin Mary Mother of God” (1949), PWGF, 95–106; and Bulgakov, The Burning Bush: On the Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God (1927), trans. Thomas Allan Smith (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009). 54 Georges Florovsky, “The Lamb of God” and “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” PWGF, 81–94 and 221–32; “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 39–62. 55 Letter of December 6, 1954, cited in Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 99. 56 Yuri Ivask, “Rozanov i. o. Pavel Florenskii,” Vestnik RKhD 42 (1956): 22–6. 53

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In a private conversation he admitted that he had turned to Christology under my influence. But I do not consider his Christology to be very satisfactory. In his early book, Unfading Light [1917], only the beginning chapters are Christological—they were written before he was swayed by Florensky. The point is not that they both occasionally do understand Christ, the point is that he does not stand at the centre.57 Toward the end of his career, Florovsky came partially out of his public silence and directly criticized religious philosophy, distinguishing the personalities from their ideas. At a symposium in March 1968 on idealist philosophy in Russia, Florovsky describes Russian religious philosophy as “a blind alley and an impasse,” immediately adding that this “doesn’t mean that I don’t respect and esteem these men. I would even say that I love them. But I disagree [with them] and I think they are wrong.” Recognizing the spiritual underpinning of Sophiology, Florovsky situates his critique in a philosophical and theological context, rather than as dogmatic and canonical: The spiritual drive behind this movement was quite overt. It was a search for unity with God, and the desire to have the whole world divinized. But I think it was a complete failure, because if divinization is only the exposition of life in divinity, there is no divinization at all. There is no real encounter. Does all this mean that we must reject, forget, condemn Russian Sophiology and declare that it was nothing? I would not say so. It is a typical temptation of the human spirit, and these systems raised basic and very deep, very profound philosophical problems, precisely the limits of ontology, the real nature of confrontation between God and man, the real character of God as professed in Christianity as a central doctrine, unity of divine and human in a single and indivisible divine personality of Christ, and everything would follow.58

“LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER” Sergius Bulgakov was at the epicenter of two major theological controversies in modern Orthodoxy, and Georges Florovsky was his principal foil in both. Together, they are the most influential modern Orthodox theologians. Bulgakov represents the apogee of the Russian religious renaissance and he

Letter of June 3, 1976, cited in Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 97–8. 58 Georges Florovsky, “The Renewal of Orthodox Theology: Florensky, Bulgakov and the Others: On the Way to a Christian Philosophy,” Symposium on “La philosophie idéaliste en Russie,”Aixen-Provence (March 1968), in Paul Ladouceur, “Georges Florovsky and Russian Idealism: Two Unpublished Papers,” SVTQ (forthcoming 2021). 57

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had a powerful influence on his generation. He also marked the generation of theologians whom he taught at the St. Sergius Institute, more by his personality and example than by his teachings, because this generation largely opted for the neopatristic approach to theology.59 Bulgakov was the most prominent figure in the dialogue between Orthodox and Anglicans in the 1930s, but the Anglicans were never at ease with his Sophiology. Bulgakov also had a notable influence on certain leaders of the Catholic theological renewal in the twentieth century.60 The conflict over Divine Wisdom exposed a deep divide in the Orthodox theological community. Its outcome signaled the eclipse of Sophiology as a living theology, and was a milestone in the decline of Russian religious philosophy.61 But it provided a major stimulus in the launching of neopatristic theology. Even Bulgakov’s faith, vision, and zeal were insufficient to overcome the objections and hesitations to his proposal for intercommunion between Anglicans and Orthodox. After 1935, the fallout from the Sophiological controversy muddled the activities of the Fellowship; the possibility of restored communion between the Orthodox and Anglican Churches disappeared from the agenda. The kairos, an opportune moment, passed and would not return. By the end of the 1930s and after the war, the Fellowship was overshadowed by the wider ecumenical movement, dominated by Reformation communities and preparations for the foundation of the World Council of Churches. Anglicans and Protestants were more receptive to Florovsky’s teachings, more firmly grounded in Scripture, history and patristics than Bulgakov’s speculative theology. Florovsky became the dominant influence on Orthodox theology after the Second World War, so much so that his neopatristic synthesis almost became synonymous with Orthodox theology as a whole. Fr. John Meyendorff (1926–92) considers that opposition to Sophiology was the main motivation for Florovsky’s entire academic career. Recalling his studies at St. Sergius, Meyendorff writes that Florovsky often repeated that the Fathers were almost always motivated to develop doctrines in response to heretical teachings; likewise, writes Meyendorff, Florovsky was led to write many of his works in reaction to Sophiology.62

Among Bulgakov’s students who rejected Sophiology but held Bulgakov personally in high esteem were Paul Evdokimov and Alexander Schmemann. See Paul Evdokimov, Le Christ dans la pensée russe (Paris: Le Cerf, 1970), 179–95; and Alexander Schmemann, “Trois images” (Three Images [of Sergius Bulgakov]), Le Messager orthodoxe 57 (1972), 2–20. 60 Hallensleben mentions Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Hans Urs von Balthasar, to whom can be added Louis Bouyer. Hallensleben, “‘Intercommunion spirituelle’ entre Orient et Occident,” 91. 61 See Paul Ladouceur, “Revolution, Exile and the Decline of Russian Religious Thought,” Analogia 8 (2020), 93–5. 62 John Meyendorff, “Predislovie” (Preface) to Georges Florovsky, Puti russkogo bogosloviia (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1981), vi. 59

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Why, for most of his life, did Florovsky refuse to criticize Bulgakov and Sophiology openly, when he did not hesitate to castigate Solovyov and Florensky? Despite differences in age and theologies, Florovsky had a sense of loyalty to his senior colleague, who always treated him with respect and generosity. Florovsky did his best to avoid being involved in the political and ecclesiastical controversies in which Sophiology was mired in the mid-1930s: “Out of respect for the charisma and the personality of his revered dean,” writes George Williams, “he was unwilling to attack sophiology directly, finding it inopportune to criticize Bulgakov openly in the atmosphere of a heresy hunt.”63 In addition, Florovsky did not want to be associated with what he considered “the flagrantly dishonest campaign to vilify Bulgakov launched by Florovsky’s erstwhile colleagues in the Eurasian movement.”64 In 1965 Florovsky wrote in a letter: “Despite my very critical view of the Sophiological orientation, I shall never forget or forgive the despicable hounding of Fr. Sergius.”65 Can we see in the personal relationships between Bulgakov and Florovsky a model of Christian friendship between two theologians holding opposing views? The respect between the two theologians was certainly mutual; it flowed from the same source: their Christian faith and commitment. One touching occasion when Bulgakov publicly manifested his consideration for his theological adversary occurred in the fall of 1938, just after the storms of 1935–7. The Anglican Archbishop William Temple, president of the important Committee of Fourteen responsible for planning the World Council of Churches, visited the St. Sergius Institute. Addressing the students in English, with Florovsky providing Russian translation, the archbishop praised Florovsky, saying that the Institute was blessed to have him as a teacher because of his ability to grasp complex theological problems and his ecumenical contributions. Florovsky neglected to translate these words, but Bulgakov interrupted him and he translated Temple’s praise of Florovsky.66 It is also remarkable that Bulgakov and Florovsky had a warm correspondence during the Second World War. Bulgakov was the only one of Florovsky’s former colleagues at St. Sergius to maintain contact with him. Remembering his relations with Bulgakov many years later, Florovsky insisted with his interlocutor: The only man who never became angry with me was Father Bulgakov. I think he suffered very much, but he never became an enemy and this is the

Williams, “Georges V. Florovsky: His American Career,” 28. Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 80. 65 Cited in Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 80. 66 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 77. 63 64

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measure of the man. Proof is that when he was taken ill—he had a cancer operation in the spring of 1939—and could not participate in meetings of the Commission on Faith and Order, he suggested that I should take his place, for I was the only competent man, this to the indignation of many who said that apparently because of his illness, Father Bulgakov did not realize what he was doing by naming his enemy as his successor. But I was never his enemy. I was always his opponent, it is true, but that is another thing.67 Sometime after this interview, Florovsky, commenting on Alexis Kniazeff ’s book on the St. Sergius Institute,68 further nuanced his thoughts on his relationship with Bulgakov, relating their conflicting theologies to the history of theology itself: “We were not opponents. It is our positions which were opposed. The one suggests a personal struggle of enemies, whereas the encounter of different poles of thought has always been native to theology itself.”69 Sergius Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky were leaders and indeed icons of the two main currents of modern Orthodox thought, religious philosophy, and neopatristic theology. They also represented different generations, different eras: Bulgakov, the generation that reached maturity and the peak of its influence in the early decades of the twentieth century, the generation characterized by the “return of the prodigal” to the church, whose principal concern was to articulate a Christian response to the problems of modernity; Florovsky, the generation that grew up in the church and sought a return to the ancient sources of tradition, the generation that dominated Orthodox thought during the second half of the century. But more than icons of divergent theologies, the two great theologians are striking examples of fraternal relationships between two seekers of Truth, responding to the best of their ability to the call of the Spirit. As Florovsky wrote to Bulgakov on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Bulgakov’s ordination in 1943, just a year before Bulgakov’s death: May the Lord keep you, may he bless you when you come in and when you go out [Ps. 120:8], and may he strengthen you in the service of his Truth. I am acutely aware that despite all our differences and disputes, we are serving one and the same cause, and toiling in the same vineyard.70

Cited in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 68. Alexis Kniazeff, L’Institut Saint-Serge, de l’académie d’autrefois au rayonnement d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974). 69 Blane, Georges Florovsky, n. 75, 185. 70 Cited in Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” 99. 67 68

Chapter 6

Father Georges Florovsky and Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov A Theological Encounter NIKOLAI SAKHAROV

Various works on Fr. Georges Florovsky’s legacy contain almost no references to monasticism.1 For many people the theme of monasticism may appear to have a rather remote connection to such a great theologian as was Fr. Georges. The purpose of this presentation is to show that this initial impression is misleading, and that the theme of monasticism is an underlying substratum of Fr. Georges’s theology. In Fr. Georges’s Collected Works, the tenth volume, The Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers, is entirely dedicated to monasticism. In it Fr. Georges provides a historical and theological analysis of the rise of monasticism, highlighting the contribution of major ascetic fathers to the development of the Eastern monastic spirituality. His personal admiration for monastic life radiates

See Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Andrew Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present (London: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 77–93; Brandon Gallaher, “Georges Florovsky,” Sourozh: A Journal of Orthodox Life and Thought, no. 111 (November 2016), 86–97. 1

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from every page, and he vehemently defends the ascetic way of life against any attempts of the modern world, and particularly of the then contemporary Protestantism, to denigrate monasticism as incompatible with the biblical message. In order to reveal fully Fr. Georges’s viewpoint, it is very apposite to focus on his contact with the well-known Elder, now Saint, Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896–1933), with whom he had a long-lasting correspondence. What emerges from this correspondence is a remarkable convergence, a veritable theological symphony, of two worlds, two minds. It covers not only their theological views but also their spiritual path within Orthodoxy. It emerges that Fr. Georges was much more at home with monastic writers in general and with Fr. Sophrony in particular, than with many of the masterminds of the Russian religious renaissance. Likewise, for Fr. Sophrony there was no other “academic theologian” among the Russian émigrés with whom monks could feel such a profound mutual understanding as with Fr. Georges. Through their remarkable dialogue (spiritual, academic, and personal) the engagement of Florovsky with monasticism emerges at its best. The life stories of Fr. Sophrony and Fr. Georges have in fact much resemblance, especially if we look at the beginning of their journey. In the first decades of the twentieth century both were forced into exile, together with other Russian intellectuals fleeing the chaos of the Russian Revolution. Many of the Orthodox intelligentsia were left spiritually disoriented, virtually orphans. This prompted them to search for their spiritual and intellectual roots so as to retain their integrity and identity. As Brandon Gallaher rightly puts it: “The older and younger generations of Russian intellectuals in exile [. . .] sought an identity in Orthodoxy and the Byzantine legacy that would permit them to rise above the tragedy of exile.”2 While many Russian religious thinkers turned to “modernism” in theology— the movement later termed “the Parisian school”—Florovsky turned, or rather re-turned, Orthodox theology back to its roots—the Fathers of the Church. Already while in Prague (1921–6), in order to counteract the then-fashionable trends of the Russian Religious Renaissance, he devoted himself to the study of the Church Fathers, in whom he saw the principal foundation of Orthodoxy. On the basis of his interest in the Fathers, Florovsky was offered, in 1926, a post in patrology at St. Sergius Institute in Paris, where he taught for some sixteen years (1926–39 and 1945–8). His principles put him at odds with many professors there because of their vision of Orthodoxy: “I am a born protester,” as he once put it in an interview.3 He complains to Fr. Sophrony in one of his letters:

2 3

Gallaher, “Georges Florovsky,” 87. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 6–7.

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Just imagine [. . .] When my books on the Fathers were published [. . .] one of the reviews said: “It is unnecessary and even dangerous! Acquaintance with the Fathers will reveal deficiency of our Orthodox study books and will instil mistrust. It is better to forget the Fathers!”4 Fr. Sophrony spent a few months at St. Sergius Institute in 1925 but he did not meet Fr. Georges there, because he left for Mount Athos before Fr. Georges’s arrival. However, their vision of Orthodoxy and theology, their “protest,” was profoundly identical. What was at the core of their vision? It is often mentioned that Florovsky’s legacy can be termed a “neopatristic synthesis,” marked by a firm conviction that theology as it was known in the Byzantine times was always a reflection of personal ascetic and liturgical experience. Why were the Fathers so crucial for Fr. Georges? One of the reasons is that Fr. Georges was profoundly aware that Orthodoxy in general (and theology in particular) is not an abstract intellectual exercise, but a reflection of the living experience of God, achieved through personal effort, podvig, “ordeal,” as he would term it. Thus, authentic theology is an empirical science. Most of the Fathers of the Church were monastics and ascetics, whose personal spiritual journey was the prime source of inspiration for their writings. That is why when we say “the Fathers of the Church,” we imply monastic ascetic experience. Here lies the implicit and most profound connection between Fr. Georges and monasticism, which helped him to establish the main criterion for theology: “the patristic mind,” that is, the mind that reflects experience of God, rather than intellectually conceiving what God must be like. No wonder, therefore, that Fr. Georges starts his volume on monasticism with the striking assertion that the ascetic ideal lies at the very core of the New Testament message, of the life of the Early Christian Church: he says that every Christian ought to be an ascetic. In his love for monasticism he goes so far as to quote with admiration Germain Morin, who says: It is not so much the monastic life which was a novelty at the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, but rather the life of adaptation to the world led by the mass of Christians at the time when the persecutions ceased. The monks actually did nothing but preserve intact, in the midst of altered circumstances, the ideal of the Christian life of the early days.5

Sophrony Sakharov, Perepiska s Protoiereem Georgiem Florovskim [in Russian] (Correspondence with Protopresbyter Georges Florovsky) (Sergiev Posad: St. Trinity Lavra, 2008), 121. English: Nicholas Sakharov, ed.; Nicholas Kotar, trans., The Cross of Loneliness: The Correspondence of Saint Sophrony and Archpriest Georges Florovsky (Waymart, PA: St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 2021). 5 Georges Florovsky, The Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers, CW, X, 59. 4

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The Church Fathers were the true heirs of the spirit of Early Christianity. The most intellectually complex writings, such as St. Maximus’s or St. Gregory Palamas’s, had their foundation in their authors’ own ascetic strivings, without which there could be neither a true theologian, nor authentic theology. Fr. Georges particularly focused on St. Maximus’ legacy. The Chalcedonian Definition—a core of Orthodox theology—was unfolded by St. Maximus in all its theological brilliancy. Florovsky argued that St. Maximus attempted a “transformative synthesis,” subsuming in his teaching Origen, the Cappadocians, Evagrius, and the Areopagite.6 Yet even St. Maximus, as Florovsky believed, did not write his works as a mere compilation of previous patristic opinions; rather, he integrated the ideas of his predecessors through his personal ascetic struggle and mystical experience.7 Fr. Georges saw that the Fathers acknowledge the need for personal ascetic experience and deification of the mind, if one wants to come to the knowledge of God, and to theologize.8 There is a remarkable convergence of attitude on this point with Fr. Sophrony, who returned to Orthodox Christianity in Paris and there set out on his spiritual journey, but who also was not satisfied with a mere intellectual abstract teaching. The concept of the “patristic mind,” which in itself characterizes the true theologian, provides the stamp of authenticity that has sealed Orthodox theologizing since Fr. Georges. His message implies that Orthodoxy is unthinkable without monasticism. The “patristic mind” is the union of praxis and theoria—asceticism and dogmatic theology based on communion with God. No wonder Fr. Georges’s and Fr. Sophrony’s views on most contemporary theological issues were very much in tune. Both of them would never accept any ideas that are not confirmed by the ascetic experience of the Church. In this way their unanimous voice was an answer to the academic world: they would both sense the slightest dissonance in any theological statement that to one extent or another was detached from the golden tradition of the Fathers. Thus, they both disagreed with Bulgakov’s abstract theology and his model of the Trinity, as we see from their letters. Fr. Sophrony writes to Fr. Georges: “Having read the ‘Chapters on Trinitarity’ by Bulgakov,9 I cannot share his idea of God as an ‘absolute three-hypostatic subject’ where there is no order of hypostases [. . .]

Cf. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 198. Ibid., 153. 8 Ibid. 9 This text by Sergii Bulgakov is the following: “Glavy o Troichnosti,” Pravoslavnaia Mysl’ 1 (1928), 31–88 and 2 (1930), 57–85. Republished: Trudy o Troichnosti, ed. Anna Reznichenko (Moscow: O.G.I., 2001), 54–180. No English translation has yet been published of this important Trinitarian work, but a translation is forthcoming by T. Allan Smith from T&T Clark. An abridged Italian translation exists: “Capitoli sulla Trinitarietà,” trans. Graziano Lingua in Piero Coda, Sergej Bulgakov (Brescia: Editrice Morceliana, 2003), 67–171. There is also an abridged German 6 7

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Has Bulgakov forgotten about the monarchy of the Father Who ‘begets’ and ‘generates’?”10 They would both dissociate themselves from some of Vladimir Lossky’s exaggerated apophaticism in his mystical theology. Fr. Georges also highlights the dangers of false “higher mysticism” that would permeate some circles of the Russian diaspora, especially among people of the so-called New Religious Consciousness: I accidentally discovered something terrible. Already a priest, I had to receive one “pious” parishioner at 10 Rue Montparnasse and she revealed her “secret” to me, convinced that such a “learned” priest cannot be so oldfashioned as not to engage in “higher mysticism.” It was a real struggle— after a two-hour conversation I felt as if I was beaten up, sweating . . . . Such people surround the late Nikolai Berdyaev, who trusted in this “higher mysticism” and at the same time vehemently rejected the genuine asceticism and teaching of the Holy Fathers.11 One of the points that Fr. Georges and Fr. Sophrony “confessed with one mind” was their perception of the Church’s dogmatic legacy. Dogmas of the Church are the supreme articulation of the Divine Revelation, the voice of God that translates Divine truths into human language. Fr. Georges and Fr. Sophrony share St. Athanasius’s conviction that without assimilating these dogmas in our living experience our salvation is impossible. No one among their contemporary Russian theologians was so sensitive to the nuances of doctrines as was Fr. Georges. Fr. Sophrony as an ascetic would share this “dogmatic imperative” as the foundation of his very life. And both of them found themselves in the same boat: their intense interest in dogmas was not always shared in the Church. In his letters Florovsky complains to Fr. Sophrony about the indifference toward dogmatic theology among the Orthodox believers: “I am afraid ‘theological culture’ is passing away together with our generation.”12 “There is no theological creativity, and there is no trace of any thirst for theology . . . . That is why our faith is growing thin . . . . Many experience disappointment and even despondency.”13 Fr. Georges continues: At Harvard I am teaching a course on Eastern Christian monasticism to a small group [of students] and conducting a seminar on St. Gregory of

translation: “Capita de Trinitate,” Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift 3 (1936) and 4: 144–67; 210–30 and 1/2 (1945), 24–55. 10 Sakharov, Perepiska, 63. 11 Ibid., 84. 12 Ibid., 89. 13 Ibid., 120.

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Nyssa. All of my non-Orthodox students had read Vladimir Lossky’s book [The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1944 in French original and 1957 in English translation)]14 immediately after its publication in the English translation, whereas the Orthodox think it is “difficult” and uninteresting: little related to “practical life,” that is, to everyday hustle and bustle (which is, fortunately, true).15 Fr. Georges felt profoundly isolated, as he writes: I would be delighted to discuss theological issues with you by correspondence. All of us have to bear the cross of loneliness . . . Ι prefer to teach theology to Christians of other denominations than to the Orthodox. While preparing for their pastoral and liturgical ministry, they, alas, show indifference not only to theology in the technical sense of the word, but to our beliefs in general . . . . Nowadays “pastors” are no longer expected to bear witness to the Truth, but to cover services and “needs.”16 Fr. Sophrony, across the Atlantic, found himself in a similar environment. He replies: By your expression “the cross of loneliness” that we have to bear, you struck at the very core of what I feel at this very moment. There are hardly any minds and souls which live by dogmas, that is who are theologians in their inner predisposition.17 For him, Church dogmas directly define the content of our life: they become our typicon—that is, the “rubrics” that are the basis of daily life, shaping it in the image of God. In a letter to Fr. Georges he writes: “I consider any act to be imperfect that does not proceed from a ‘dogmatic mind.’ True faith cannot be ‘non-dogmatic.’ In the majority of cases people are content with their ‘predogmatic’ faith.”18

14 See Florovsky, Review of Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke, 1957), The Journal of Religion 38, no. 3 (July 1958): 207–8 and “Christ and His Church: Suggestions and Comments,” in 1054–1954: L’Église et Les églises—neuf siècles de doloureuse separation entre l’orient et l’occident: Études et travaux sur l’unité chrétienne offerts à Dom Lambert Beauduin, 2 vols. (Chevetogne: Éditions de Chevetogne, 1954–5), vol, 2: 159–70, at 168–70. 15 Sakharov, Perepiska, 48. 16 Ibid., 46–7. 17 Ibid., 55. 18 Ibid., 55–6.

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The two friends valued and cherished their contact, not as a letter-writing pastime, but as an expression and act of sobornost, catholicity. Individual theology is not authentic theology, but mere creativity. The “patristic mind” is always a conciliar, catholic mind. Sharing and exchanging their views was their inner imperative, a checkpoint and a guarantee of their abiding within the confines of Orthodoxy. I find it remarkable that even after so many years on Mount Athos, and so many contacts with saintly monks, Fr. Sophrony never loses his theological vigilance. Again and again, he checks his own views with Fr. Georges as a patristic expert. Thus in one of his letters to Fr. Georges he lays down his theological “schema” as he calls it—a short summary of the points he wishes to put into an article: I submit my thoughts to your judgement with the hope that you will help me to cling firmly to the royal way of our Fathers. Due to my lack of experience and knowledge I would not want to say anything that is not in line with my beloved Orthodoxy.19 It is known that Fr. Georges “was hardly a paragon of collegiality”: “he thrived on conflicts,” as Paul L. Gavrilyuk puts it.20 Nevertheless, he and Fr. Sophrony shared a remarkable communion of minds, spiritual and theological. Fr. Georges found all Fr. Sophrony’s points pleasingly harmonious with his own theological framework. They both assert and reassert that Chalcedonian Christology and Triadology, as stated in the Athanasian creed, are the pillars of their theological vision.21 However, while Fr. Georges’s vision was profoundly Christocentric, Fr. Sophrony gives stronger emphasis to triadology, as he believed that “the life of each and every Christian confession is conditioned at all levels by its conception of the Holy Trinity.”22 He underlines that in our vision of the Holy Trinity any loss of balance between “personhood” and “essence” will inevitably result in loss of Orthodoxy. When “essence” (ousia) is given preference over the personhood (hypostatic principle), we end up with “objectivism”—such as we find in Latin theology; and when the personhood is given preference over essence we end up with “subjectivism,” which pertains to Protestant religious consciousness.23 Fr. Georges replies: “I agree with all that you say

Ibid., 52. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 5. 21 Sakharov, Perepiska, 57–8; for Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Christocentrism, see Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers, 92. 22 Sophrony Sakharov, “Foreword,” in Wisdom from Mount Athos: The Writings of Staretz Silouan, 1866–1938 (SVS Press, 1974), 15. 23 See Sakharov, Perepiska, 48–50. 19 20

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about antinomies of the Trinitarian Being.”24 “The primacy of ‘essence’ is a very dangerous starting point in theology indeed.”25 Behind their vision lies a very important point. If “essence” is given preference over “person,” “general” over “individual,” it painfully affects our personal lives in a very concrete way. If we apply this principle to anthropology we arrive at various forms of depersonalization: Marxism, materialism, positivism, utilitarianism, and so on—in short, any system or framework where general needs prevail over individual needs, where institution, state and nation suppress the individual. Fr. Georges vehemently opposed such ideology as antiChristian—he was a fervent adherent of personalism.26 He writes: “History is a realm of personal agency . . . . Person is the true subject of history.”27 “The idea of personality itself was probably the greatest Christian contribution to philosophy.”28 Fr. Sophrony expounds the roots of the mystery of personhood in the dogma of the Trinity, where each Hypostasis-persona is a “Being in communion.” Florovsky also worked extensively along the same lines, discerning the idea of personhood in patristic theology. This was also developed later by Vladimir Lossky and notably by Metropolitan John Zizioulas.29 Perhaps the most dangerous result of the imbalance where ousia is given preference over hypostasis is the depersonalization of ecclesiological principles, turning the Church from a living organism (the Body of Christ) into a dead mechanism where an impersonal rule or imposed authority suppresses the “personeity” of living relationships. Hence both Fr. Georges and Fr. Sophrony reject the Latin model of ecclesiology, which in their view does not take the personal element sufficiently seriously. No institution can automatically make someone infallible simply by virtue of his position (ex officio), without his having personal sanctity, even if his position is that of a Vicar of Christ, that is the Pope. Fr. Sophrony writes: The dogmatic justification of papacy derives from the stress on the Essence, where the actual person of the Pope doesn’t play any significant role; it is simply subdued under the supremacy of nature. Hence, in the theology of

Ibid., 78. Ibid., 81. 26 See Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 82–5; Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers, 86. 27 Georges Florovsky, “Evolutsia i Epigenez” [in Russian] (“Evolution and Epigenesis”), in Vestnik i Kultura (Messenger and Culture) (St. Petersburg, 2002), 439. Original publication: “Evolution und Epigenesis. (Zur Problematik der Geschichte),” Der Russische Gedanke 1:3 (1930), 240–52. 28 Florovsky, “Eschatology in the Patristic Age,” PWGF, 311–23, at 322 (Studia Patristica 2:2 (1957), 235–50, at 249). 29 See: John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (SVS Press, 1985). 24 25

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sacraments emerges the mechanics ex opere operato, and in soteriology—the juridical element, and so on.30 On Mount Athos, Fr. Sophrony learned to view Orthodox ecclesiology through the lens of monastic obedience. For Eastern Christian monasticism, obedience is rendered neither to an impersonal rule (such as that of St. Benedict, or St. Francis) nor to an institution, as it is found in Roman Catholic spirituality, but always to a person. The same point was highlighted by Fr. Georges too: “There are no monastic orders in Eastern Christianity.”31 Although Fr. Georges agrees with Fr. Sophrony’s Trinitarian perspective, he offers a slightly different starting point for his analysis of Latin theology. He sees Christology, not Triadology, as the crux of the matter in the dogmatic differences between the East and the West. He replies to Fr. Sophrony: [Latin ecclesiology] may be deducted rather from some Christological misconceptions of Western theology, which are yet to be clarified. At this stage I can only say . . . that the Ascension of Christ was misunderstood in such a way that historical and ontological planes become disjoined. The historical existence of the Church becomes “autonomous.”32 As Fr. Georges saw it, for the Catholics the Pope replaced the absent Christ ascended into Heaven. He stresses the centrality of Christ’s presence: Personally, I believe, that theology should begin not with the mystery of the Holy Trinity but from the mystery of the Incarnation, which is directly reflected in the reality of the Church in the “new being” of a Christian. We know the mystery of the Trinity only because One of the Trinity became man. Otherwise we shall fall into metaphysics and never reach theology.33 Their different emphases are complementary rather than contradictory. Fr. Georges very justifiably asserts that the Holy Fathers rarely speak of the Trinitarian perspective when discussing the image and likeness of God. Yet, on the other hand, there is nothing that contradicts the Fathers in asserting, as Fr. Sophrony does, that man is created after the image of God the Trinity: “Let Us create man . . .” (Gen. 1:26).

Sakharov, Perepiska, 51. Florovsky, The Byzantine Ascetic Fathers, CW, X, 143. 32 Sakharov, Perepiska, 80. 33 Ibid., 81. 30 31

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St. John’s Gospel in particular focuses on interrelationship within the Trinity: how total is the love of the Father toward the Son and vice versa, and how total is the love of the Holy Spirit toward the Son and the Father, and vice versa. These texts are not set out in the form of commandments, but they do become mandatory if the Trinity is our model and Prototype. They provide an example of authentic relationship, and make of our relationships day by day the prime and reality that defines us as humans. The ideal of the relationship is set out in the final prayer of Christ: “That they may be one as We are one” (Jn 17:11). This oneness, therefore, is seen by Fr. Sophrony as the ultimate will of God for humankind. Deriving the ascetic implications of the dogma of the Trinity is the most significant contribution of Fr. Sophrony to modern Orthodox theology and spirituality. He writes in his own Testament: “The monastic community sets out to achieve unity in the image of the oneness of the Holy Trinity. Each one of us in some sense is, within his own hypostasis, the centre of all. There is no one greater, no one lesser.”34 The Trinity thereby becomes the prime model and target of all our ascetic endeavors. At this point we might raise the question: how patristic is this idea? Or is it a novelty? A closer analysis of Eastern monastic spirituality would show that Fr. Sophrony’s explanation simply makes explicit what was always implicit. Fr. Georges himself highlights the importance of the community ideal in monasticism as it was articulated by St. Basil. The quotes that he selects from St. Basil as the most illustrative, as well as Fr. Georges’s own comments, are remarkably similar to the Trinitarian perception of monasticism in Fr. Sophrony. Fr. Georges writes: “The community ideal received its principle foundation in the fourth century from St. Basil the Great, who viewed the cenobitic life as a microcosm of the Church as a social organism.”35 He cites texts showing St. Basil’s understanding of community: Nothing is as consonant with our nature as to enter one another’s society, to have need of one another.36 In the solitary life what we have is without usefulness and we are without assistance in what is lacking, for God, Our Creator, has decided that we should have need of one another.37 A community of brothers is then a stadium in which athletes are exercised, a continual training [. . .] Its end [. . .] preserves the example of the saints of whom the Book of Acts of the Apostles tell us “All those believing together had all

Sophrony Sakharov, Dukhovnye besedy [in Russian] (Spiritual Discourses) (Moscow: Palomnik, 2004), 327. 35 Florovsky, The Byzantine Ascetic Fathers, CW, X, 139. 36 Ibid., 140. 37 Ibid. 34

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things in common.”38 No one in solitude recognizes his own defects [. . .] How shall a man manifest his humility when he has no one to whom he can show himself the inferior? How shall he manifest compassion, cut off from the community of many?39 These statements are “Trinitarian” par excellence. Fr. Sophrony follows this great tradition, in his profound conviction that unity shapes or rather reshapes us. Cenobitic monasticism is a divine workshop where our personhood is molded by passing through the “grinding millstones of unity,” making us fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. This does not mean obliteration of our individuality, of our character; it does not mean our disappearance within the impersonal whole. That happens in the army, but not in the monastery. Military discipline is the opposite of monastic obedience. And Fr. Sophrony was very careful to avoid “discipline,” as it compromises the very essence of Christianity—love. The monastery is designed not to kill the person, but to nourish it. Our personhood grows from within the matrix of this personal “whole”—the community: “The persona does not determine himself by opposition (isolation). His is an attitude of love. Love is the most profound content of his being, the noblest expression of his essence.”40 Fr. Sophrony once said: “If in our monastic life we do not learn to love, then I don’t find any justification for monasticism as a way of life. Monasticism is a form of love.”41 Fr. Georges would entirely agree with this. While commenting on St. Isaac the Syrian he writes: Only love is the legitimate door to contemplation [. . .], first of all love for one’s neighbour in which it is possible to become Godlike. [. . .] The saints covet this sign—to be like God in the perfection of their love for their neighbour.42 In an ineffable way any community—be it a family unit or a monastic brotherhood—is a microcosm, which reflects in itself the life of the whole world. In his talks and letters Fr. Sophrony used to say that “the waves of cosmic life pass through each one of us.”43 The life of the whole world is ineffably imprinted in each of us and even more in the community as a whole. Conflicts or peaceful symbiosis on a wider scale—between nations or civil communities—are inevitably

Ibid., 141. Ibid., 142. 40 Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, His Life Is Mine (Oxford: Mowbrays, 1977), 43. 41 Sakharov, Dukhovnye besedy, 223. 42 Florovsky, Byzantine Ascetic Fathers, CW, X, 237. 43 Sakharov, Dukhovnye besedy, 45. 38 39

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reflected within each smaller unit—the family, or the monastery. Fr. Sophrony put it like this: “If you learn to live in unity with such and such member, it means you live in unity with millions of persons like him or her.”44 With this concern for unity, Fr. Sophrony once said: “I am afraid of two things in my monastery: quarrels and nationalism.” In their dislike of nationalism Fr. Sophrony and Fr. Georges display marvelous unanimity. Their universalistic vision of the Orthodox Church brought them both to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and to a worldwide vision of Orthodoxy where it is seen not as national heritage, but as the sole bearer of the fullness of the truth, and its undistorted witness. Living within the conditions of the diaspora, Fr. Sophrony and Fr. Georges were surrounded by multiple Orthodox churches with their different jurisdictions, usually based in nationality. Furthermore, they both witnessed how sometimes Orthodoxy was also “nationalized” when it is considered as an appendix to national culture. It was very painful for both of them to see how Orthodoxy was reduced from the universal truth to a narrow-minded cultural phenomenon. Fr. Georges complained to Fr. Sophrony: Archbishop Nikodim [(Rotov) of Leningrad/St. Petersburg (1929–78) (Eds.)] really disappointed me and surprised me by his question: “Don’t you regret, deep down, that you are not in the Russian Church where you were baptized?” To which I replied with bewilderment: “I never thought that I was baptized in the Russian Church, or that such a thing exists. There is only One Orthodox Church.” The archbishop was perplexed. This denigration and oblivion of the universality and catholicity of Orthodoxy really offend me and hurt me.45 Fr. Sophrony himself was deeply troubled when someone would show inability to overcome his chauvinism in his spiritual life. Once someone said to Fr. Sophrony: “Father, let’s face it. It is impossible to overcome nationalism within oneself in particular and in the Church in general.” Fr. Sophrony replied that if that were really the case, “then salvation is impossible.”46 After this short overview of the correspondence between Fr. Georges Florovsky and Archimandrite Sophrony, we can note the remarkable consensus between the two authors and the profound congruity of their theological vision. In them we have a wonderful contemporary example of academic theology and ascetic experience which “with one mind confess the Trinity consubstantial and undivided.”

Cf. Sakharov, Dukhovnye besedy, 46. Sakharov, Perepiska, 164–5. 46 Sakharov, Dukhovnye besedy, 44. 44 45

Chapter 7

The Newly Published Correspondence between Fr. Georges Florovsky and Fr. Alexander Schmemann Reflections on Leadership PAUL L. GAVRILYUK

The history of Orthodox Christianity in North America began with remarkable missionaries and saints. However, until well into the twentieth century, the United States did not have a single notable Orthodox theologian. This situation changed in 1948, when a Cunard Line ship arrived at the port of New York City. Aboard this ship was America’s first significant Orthodox theologian. His name was Fr. Georges Florovsky. This chapter will address a largely unknown chapter of Florovsky’s scholarly career: his leadership of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and his friendship with Fr. Alexander Schmemann. I discovered the letters of Schmemann to Florovsky when I was working on my monograph Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford, 2013) in Florovsky’s

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archive at Princeton University’s Firestone Library in 2011.1 Consider these lines from a twenty-five-year-old Schmemann, written to Florovsky, who was fifty-three, more than twice his age at the time: Meeting you [in Paris] is so valuable because out of all theologians I feel you to be the most congenial. Certainly, I am not yet a theologian, but my vague theological “tendencies” find their expression precisely in your theology. Historicism, Christological and sacramental ecclesiology, the Eucharistic nature of the Church—those categories have always been on my mind. This is why it would bring me great happiness to work under your supervision.2 Having stumbled upon this letter, I knew that I had struck gold. As I gradually became familiar with the rest of Schmemann’s letters, it became increasingly clear to me that the value of the correspondence was immense, not only for understanding Florovsky’s influence upon Schmemann but also for the history of twentieth-century Orthodox theology. The next summer I traveled to St. Vladimir’s Seminary, where to my pleasant surprise, I uncovered Florovsky’s surviving letters to Fr. Alexander among the Schmemann Papers in the Florovsky Library. In 2019, I published the original of the correspondence with St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University Press in Moscow, with a substantial historical introduction, biographical index, and extensive annotations.3 Here I will quote the letters in my own English translation, published by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press in 2020.4 The bulk of the letters were written during the period of 1948–51, when Schmemann had begun teaching at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris after the war, and Florovsky had just moved from Paris to New York in order to lead St. Vladimir’s Seminary. The remaining letters were sent either from other parts of Europe, when one or both addressees were away from Paris, or from the United States, when they were working together at St. Vladimir’s. The correspondence tells a story of two cities, Paris and New York; the story of two theological schools, St. Sergius and St. Vladimir’s; and the story of Orthodox émigré subcultures on two continents, postwar Europe and North America.

The monograph was published by Oxford University Press in English in 2013, then translated into Romanian (2014), Russian (2017), and Greek (2021). 2 Paul L. Gavrilyuk, ed. and trans., On Christian Leadership: The Letters of Fr Alexander Schmemann and Fr Georges Florovsky, 1947–1955 (SVS Press, 2020), 108. 3 Prot. Aleksandr Shmeman. Prot. Georgii Florovskii. Pis’ma, 1947–1955 (Moscow: St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University Press, 2019). 4 See note 2. 1

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The catalyst for the European émigré subculture was the so-called Philosophy Steamer.5 This steamer was a vessel, or to be more precise, several vessels that carried Russian religious thinkers, expelled on Lenin’s orders from Bolshevik Russia, to various parts of Europe. Sergius Bulgakov, Vasily Zenkovsky, and Georges Florovsky eventually ended up in Paris, where, with the oversight of Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky), they became the founding faculty of the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute (est. 1925 with Florovsky joining in September 1926). During the Second World War, Schmemann studied at St. Sergius with Bulgakov, Zenkovsky, Anton Kartashev, and Archimandrite Kiprian Kern, among others. While Schmemann was never Florovsky’s student, reading Fr. Georges’s works had a formative impact on him. As Fr. Alexander related to Florovsky in his letter of April 3, 1951: It is precisely the reading of your Ways of Russian Theology when I was sixteen that lit in me the fire of theological eros, which has convinced me forever that theology is a service to the Church and is impossible without living service to the Church “with word, life, and faith.”6 In the summer of 1951, at Florovsky’s bidding, Schmemann left France in order to join Florovsky in building up Orthodox seminary education in the United States. Other junior faculty of St. Sergius would follow after Schmemann: Serge Verkhovskoy in the same year and John Meyendorff in 1959. The correspondence between Florovsky and Schmemann is a chapter in the story of what I prefer to call the “Second Steamer,” or the “Theology Steamer across the Atlantic.” This vessel brought to the United States not only the religious thinkers of the Russian emigration, but also Florovsky’s students of Greek descent, such as Fr. John Romanides and Metropolitan John Zizioulas. In my monograph, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, I reflect on the importance of the circumstances of the emigration for the development of twentiethcentury Orthodox theology, as well as on Florovsky’s impact on the younger generation of theologians.7 My main conclusion is that the circumstances of the exile made the formulation of Orthodox Christian identity vis-à-vis the Christian West inevitable. The critique of the “western corruption” or, to use Oswald Spengler’s term, “pseudomorphosis” of Orthodox theology could be understood precisely in the context of “exilic” or émigré theology, which had to grapple with the identity question like never before. Negatively, the main

The expression was introduced by Sergei Khoruzhii and popularized by Leslie Chamberlain, The Philosophy Steamer: Lenin and the Exile of the Intelligentsia (London: Atlantic Books, 2007). 6 A. Schmemann, Letter to G. Florovsky, April 3, 1951, in On Christian Leadership, 297. 7 See especially Chapters 3 and 14. 5

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impact of Florovsky was to make the “modernism” of the Russian religious renaissance unattractive to his successors. Positively, Florovsky called for a re-engagement of the Church Fathers and for what he termed a “neopatristic synthesis.” As a result, neopatristics established itself as the leading paradigm of Orthodox theology in the second half of the twentieth century. In this chapter, I will focus on main features of religious leadership, as exemplified in the correspondence between Florovsky and Schmemann. These main features are as follows: (1) Mentorship; (2) Sense of Calling; (3) Courage to Confront Problems; (4) Clarity about Mission.

MENTORSHIP Florovsky and Schmemann were outstanding mentors, partly because when they were young, they also had outstanding mentors. As a young man, Florovsky corresponded with Nikolai Glubokovsky and Pavel Florensky, seeking their guidance.8 In Florovsky’s neopatristic synthesis, the category of “Christian Hellenism” is borrowed from Glubokovsky and the category of “ecclesial experience” is borrowed from Florensky.9 Young Florovsky asked them whether he should study at a state university, which offered excellent secular education, or at a seminary, which was his inclination. Glubokovsky and Florensky provided guidance by sending long letters in reply, so that Florovsky could make an informed choice. For health reasons, Florovsky ended up pursuing a largely secular education in natural sciences, history, and philosophy, at Novorossiyskiy University in his hometown of Odessa. As a result, in theology and patristics, Florovsky remained an autodidact, following the path of several other prominent religious thinkers, including Sergius Bulgakov. For a time Bulgakov was Florovsky’s spiritual father and nudged him toward teaching patristics. Upon completing his master’s thesis on Alexander Herzen’s philosophy of history,10 Florovsky planned to write a doctoral dissertation on Vladimir Solovyov. In 1924, Florovsky shared his rationale for the dissertation topic in a letter to his wife, Kseniia:

For the discussion of this correspondence, see my Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 30–7. 9 See N. N. Glubokovsky, “Orthodoxy in Its Essence,” The Constructive Quarterly 1 (1913), 282– 305; P. A. Florensky, Stolp i utverzhdenie istiny, 2 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Pravda, 1990), vol. I (1): 3 [The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, trans. Boris Jakim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997 [1914])]. 10 The full text of this dissertation has not been found. For my reconstruction of the dissertation, see “Florovsky’s Monograph Herzen’s Philosophy of History: The New Archival Material and the Reconstruction of the Full Text,” Harvard Theological Review 108, no. 2 (April 2015): 197–212. 8

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I feel that I must write it [the doctoral dissertation on Solovyov], and that everything else will be in vain until I write it: one must push up in order to jump. This plan must be completed, even if nobody supports it. This would not be a book about Solovyov, it would not be an exposition or interpretation of someone else’s ideas. As I see it, the book will present my own ideas, formulated in opposition to the ideas which have been my own for a long time, but are now foreign to me, by means of which I with great difficulty articulated my own point of view.11 This is a remarkable confession. Apparently, Solovyov’s philosophy held its sway over Florovsky for a long time. According to Florovsky, he came to formulate his own position by pushing Solovyov’s ideas away “in order to jump.” At this time, Bulgakov, whom Florovsky met in Prague, dissuaded him from undertaking such a project: “I do not support your decision to write on Solovyov, whom you dislike and disrespect philosophically; you need Solovyov only as a springboard. With such an attitude I would not write about anyone, and I still wish you would write on a patristic topic.”12 In light of Florovsky’s own admission that one must “push up in order to jump,” Bulgakov’s judgment about Solovyov functioning as a convenient “springboard” was right on target. At the St. Sergius Institute, Florovsky initially hoped to teach the history of philosophy, for which he had formal university training. Bulgakov, however, invited him to teach Greek patristics. Florovsky hesitated, because he did not have a very strong background in the area. He had only recently begun a sustained reading of the Church Fathers at an informal reading group started by Nicolas Lossky in Prague. In time, Florovsky would discover, with Bulgakov’s nudging, that the study of patristics was his true vocation. Schmemann was originally trained as a Byzantine church historian under Kartashev and Kern. The correspondence tells a story of Schmemann beginning his postgraduate research on the fifteenth-century Byzantine author Mark of Ephesus and his treatise On the Resurrection, which Fr. Alexander planned to transcribe, edit, and publish in the original Greek. However, during this period Schmemann was also gradually losing interest in the technical aspects of historical research and turning to liturgical studies instead. Interrupted by the move to the United States, the dissertation was left unfinished, although

Florovsky, Letter to K. I. Florovskaya, September 1 (14), 1924, Georges Florovsky Papers, Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton University, Box 67, folder 1; emphasis in the original. Cf. Florovsky, Letters to N. S. Trubetskoy, December 14 (27), 1922 and February 10, 1924, Istoriia filosofii 9 (2002), 154 and 172. 12 Bulgakov, Letter to G. Florovsky, April 3, 1923, in Ekaterina Evtukhova, “S.N. Bulgakov: Pis’ma k G. V. Florovskomu (1923–1938),” Issledovaniia (2002), 200. 11

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Schmemann succeeded in publishing his findings about Mark of Ephesus in several papers. It was Florovsky who asked Schmemann to teach liturgics at St. Vladimir’s, thereby nudging his younger colleague away from Byzantine church history and toward liturgical theology. The correspondence between Schmemann and Florovsky provides a unique window into a shift in Schmemann’s orientation and self-perception. In a letter of April 1951 to Florovsky, Schmemann made the following valuable confession: Generally speaking, in the future I do not plan to focus on Byzantine theologians, for this is a task for you, the patrologists. I have fully realized that my field is History and Worship, where there is no shortage of topics to explore. Again, I believe that the main presupposition of any genuine and creative theological endeavor today is a constant taking stock of the real state of the Church by serving it. This means that, as you wrote a while ago, we have to shift from [artificially nurtured] “greenhouse”-type scholarship to incarnational theology in the name of and for the Church, its rebirth and renewal.13 Later Schmemann also confessed that his move away from Byzantine church history had to do with the fact that he was no longer persuaded by the idealizations of Byzantium, including Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism. As Schmemann wrote toward the end of his life: I recall how after several years of fascination with “Byzantinism” (under the influence of Fr. Kiprian, of course), at some point in my life Byzantium became dull and unappetizing to me. I realized that the identification of Orthodoxy with Byzantinism was harmful and threatened to limit the Orthodox consciousness. Orthodoxy needs to evaluate Byzantinism in the history and life of the Church instead of merely returning to Byzantinism. What happened instead was a “return” which turned Byzantium into an idol. This is sheer idolatry, regardless of whether it is directed towards the West or towards Byzantium.14

A. Schmemann, Letter to G. Florovsky, April 3, 1951, in On Christian Leadership, 295–6. A. Schmemann, Journal Entry of Friday, March 1, 1974, here translated directly from Dnevniki 1973–1983 (Moscow: Russkii Put’, 2009), 80. The entry was not included in the English edition [The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1973–1983, trans. and ed. Juliana Schmemann (SVS Press, 2000)]. Schmemann alludes to the tendency of Russian Westernizers to idealize the West, as well as the tendency of some academic Orthodox theologians to accept Western methods of inquiry uncritically. 13 14

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While in this journal entry, Schmemann attributes his fascination with Byzantinism to Archimandrite Kiprian Kern, who taught him liturgics at St. Sergius, Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism and his insistence on the normativity of Byzantine Orthodoxy were equally important in Schmemann’s development. We should recall that young Florovsky was fascinated by Vladimir Solovyov and his Sophiological insights, only to reject them as his own understanding of Orthodox theology matured. Similarly, young Schmemann tended to idealize the Church’s Byzantine heritage under the influence of Kern and Florovsky, only to acquire a more critical stance toward such idealization as he came of age as a liturgical theologian. Mentorship played a pivotal role for both of them: Bulgakov’s prodding of Florovsky in the direction of patristics proved career-defining for Fr. Georges; Florovsky’s prodding of Schmemann in the direction of liturgical theology proved to be equally significant in the intellectual biography of Fr. Alexander.

SENSE OF CALLING Mentorship is closely connected with the second feature of leadership, namely, the sense of calling. Schmemann’s decision to move his large young family, which consisted of his wife, three children, and a nanny, to America was an exceedingly difficult one. Numerous friends and relatives whom he was leaving in Europe repeatedly tried to dissuade him. As he discussed with Florovsky the particulars of his move to the United States, new employment opportunities came up in Europe. For example, Schmemann was invited to Oxford to replace Nicolas Zernov as a Spalding Fellow for a year.15 Additionally, had he stayed in Europe, he could have received the Rockefeller Fellowship, which would have tripled his income at St. Sergius. While enticing and lucrative, these opportunities were not enough to change Schmemann’s sense of calling. As he wrote to Florovsky in October 1950: “I have declined these offers because I believe in your undertaking, consider it useful to the Church and see in your appeal God’s call to go and serve Him in America.”16 As Schmemann would reflect on the matter in his journal entry of June 8, 1976: On this day, exactly a quarter century ago we left [Paris on a train] from Gare St. Lazare to Cherbourg, embarked on the Queen Mary ship, and departed for America. This morning, as I woke up, I thought: why did we leave? It is truly marvelous that the most significant, the most fortuitous decisions are not made with one’s mind, by means of compelling, logical argumentation,

This was a position that Florovsky lost to Zernov in 1948, which is why, in the absence of a fulltime position at the St. Sergius, he decided to move to the United States. 16 A. Schmemann, Letter to G. Florovsky, October 9, 1950, in On Christian Leadership, 246. 15

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but in some other way. . . . Yesterday, by coincidence, I read on the Radio Freedom program my script on revelation, trying to explain what exactly happened, for instance to Abraham. What kind of call did he hear (arise, go) and how? [. . .] There was a “call” from Florovsky. The atmosphere in the Theological Institute was suffocating. Nevertheless, these things would be unlikely “reasons,” unless there was also some inner “wave,” a choice that was made almost subconsciously, in the depth. An “arise, go” of sorts.17 The call to ministry rarely happens in a social or spiritual vacuum; rather, a person or a group of people often mediate divine guidance. For Schmemann, the divine call came through Florovsky. The letters also reveal that Schmemann had to overcome many internal doubts and external obstacles in order to obey the call. One’s determination to obey God’s call is often tested by such difficulties.

COURAGE TO CONFRONT PROBLEMS Anybody familiar with the challenges of present-day seminary education will find much comfort in the correspondence between Schmemann and Florovsky. By comparison, their challenges were as great, perhaps even greater than those faced by today’s leaders. What were the main challenges? The shortage of faculty, financial difficulties, and complex relations with church hierarchy. (Some things never change!) As far as the faculty situation was concerned, in November 1949, Florovsky described it to Schmemann as follows: “[Nicolas] Lossky is 79; Spektorsky is 75 and does not speak English, he is neither a theologian nor a churchgoer; Fedotov has a high blood pressure and does not feel well; Dobriansky has been paralyzed; Dr Moskoff is over 80 and just teaches Russian.”18 The situation reached a crisis point in 1951, when Nicolas Lossky left for California, and both Spektorsky and Fedotov died. Florovsky joked that, as a result, he would have a mental breakdown and need to be hospitalized. After several setbacks, Schmemann arrived in summer 1951 so that he could share Florovsky’s teaching and administrative burdens. Financial challenges were enormous because the émigré community did not conceive itself as capable of supporting private educational institutions. As a result, the St. Sergius Institute was chronically underfunded, with an estimated 80 percent of its annual budget being provided by non-Orthodox sources, including major Anglican and Episcopalian donors and the YMCA. Prior to 1917, the predecessors of St. Vladimir’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Tenafly, New

A. Schmemann, Journal Entry of Tuesday, June 8, 1976, in Dnevniki, 282 [The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1973–1983, 123]. 18 G. Florovsky, Letter to A. Schmemann, November 16, 1949, in On Christian Leadership, 185. 17

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Jersey, were funded by the Russian tsar. When the Bolsheviks came to power, this funding was cut off; in the 1920s, this already precarious financial situation was exacerbated by jurisdictional tensions and divisions. Thus, when Florovsky arrived in the United States in 1948, the jurisdictions of the Russian tradition had three seminaries: St. Vladimir’s then in New York City; St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania; and Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary and Monastery in Jordanville, New York. The Slavic Orthodox communities could barely support one seminary, to say nothing of three! St. Vladimir’s Seminary was temporarily housed in one of the buildings of the Union Theological Seminary on Broadway, with over half of its annual budget supplied by non-Orthodox friends and supporters. While the primates of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America, Metropolitan Theophilus (Pashkovsky) and especially his successor, Metropolitan Leonty (Turkevich), were generally supportive of St. Vladimir’s Seminary and served as its presidents, other hierarchs regarded the Seminary’s location in the heart of New York City and its Protestant association with suspicion. For example, Bishop Nikon (Greve), who headed St. Tikhon’s Seminary, disseminated rumors that undermined the reputation of St. Vladimir’s Seminary. As Florovsky confided to Schmemann in his letter of December 1950: [W]e have enemies, who use everything in order to create chaos around us. It is they who disseminate the rumors about you that you are unlikely to come, and so on. The center of the intrigues is [Bishop] Nikon of Philadelphia, although he currently restrains himself now that I have unmasked all malicious gossip about the [St. Vladimir’s] Academy during the annual Synod. His name was not mentioned, but everybody understood that I had him in mind. I said plainly that I did not believe that there were people among those present who were capable of disseminating and believing slander, which I had already refuted with documents. In particular, the matter concerned our and especially my “Protestantism.” I noted that among the bishops there were some students of mine, in particular, Nikon, who would not refuse to acknowledge that in Paris I stood for Orthodoxy and even accepted abuse and tribulations. At this moment, [Bishop] John Shakhovskoy cried aloud from his episcopal podium: “This is sacred truth, indeed, listen to him, listen to him!” Nikon sat behind me and I could not see him, but witnesses testify that he was pale, put on and took off his klobuk, wiped his sweat, and so on. As a result, I received from him an enthusiastic festal greeting together with good wishes for the flourishing of Orthodoxy’s stronghold.19

G. Florovsky, Letter to A. Schmemann, December 25, 1950 (January 7, 1951), in On Christian Leadership, 266. 19

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Florovsky could show remarkable courage in the face of conflict and was determined to defend the seminary’s reputation when circumstances required. Because both Schmemann and Florovsky had lived through much tougher times in war-torn Europe, they had the requisite psychological stamina and spiritual strength, as well as the experience, to confront new difficulties in the United States.

CLARITY ABOUT MISSION In the face of such challenges, many leaders would be tempted to make compromises. However, Florovsky was an uncompromising man and was committed, despite the difficulties, to raising the academic and international profile of St. Vladimir’s. He maintained a razor-sharp focus on this aspect of the Seminary’s mission: We have to understand what we really need, what the church needs. We don’t need simply a professional school in which some few people are trained for the ministry—people who would be able to conduct services in the church and to carry on the routine work. We don’t need simply craftsmen—we need masters. We don’t need simply routine ministers—we need prophets. I have quoted already on another occasion the stirring words of a man whom nobody would suspect of being a kind of a theological snob. I mean Bishop Theophanes (Zatvornik) [St. Theophan the Recluse (1815–94)], who was the undisputed teacher and master of the Orthodox Spirituality and devotion in Russia in the last century. On one occasion he said, “What we need now is a band of people who would go everywhere and set the world on fire.” To be able to do so they must be burning themselves with this spiritual fire. Now, what we need to do in America is not only to have a modest school, a professional training college. We need a school of prophets who would have a spiritual and intellectual strength. We have to produce a band of people able and desirous of going abroad into the world, to carry with them the true knowledge, the true understanding, a burning conviction and a power of persuasion.20 Because Florovsky was unbending when it came to maintaining high academic standards, under his leadership St. Vladimir’s Seminary grew from a humble pastoral school to a graduate school of theology with international recognition.

G. Florovsky, “The Responsibility of the Orthodox in America,” The Russian Orthodox Journal, 2:6 (October 1949): 15–18, at 17. 20

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Unfortunately, Florovsky was less committed to the dimension of seminary education that had to do with the preparation of pastors. His eventual break with Schmemann in 1955 was caused by their increasing personal tensions and disagreements over mission. For Florovsky, the academic aspect was a priority; for Schmemann, pastoral training was at the center. As Schmemann, who by then had spent over six months in the United States, wrote to Florovsky in a letter of February 1952: As I understand it, the Seminary is first and foremost a formative institution and its purpose is the formation of future priests. I think that there is no greater responsibility on earth. In this undertaking, every small thing has infinite significance. Moreover, I see this training in the atmosphere of love, trust, and adaptation to the particular traits of each individual. Any training that is based exclusively on a system of demands, threats, and sanctions I count ineffective. One may compel a person to do many things, but this does not form him. One can and may demand things that are possible for a person to fulfill.21 Schmemann criticized Florovsky for his authoritarian style of seminary governance and for undermining his authority as the Dean of Students. The majority of St. Vladimir’s faculty sided with Fr. Alexander against Fr. Georges. Once Florovsky lost the support of students and faculty, he had to leave St. Vladimir’s. Unfortunately, neither Florovsky nor Schmemann was always fair to their opponents. In the letters, they often draw rather harsh caricatures of their contemporaries. However, before we attempt to cast any stones in their direction, we need to appreciate just how remarkably rare fairness to opponents is in all leaders, seminary deans included. This quality is a very challenging aspect of the love of enemies. In justice to Florovsky, I should add that Schmemann also had a very hard time tolerating equals. It was Florovsky, however, who put St. Vladimir’s on the map. Schmemann and the leaders that followed him built and strengthened the foundation that was established by Florovsky. Therefore, we should be careful not to limit Florovsky’s legacy to his theological achievement, important though it is. His legacy also includes a record of distinguished seminary leadership. His resilience in the face of difficulties, his clarity in pursuit of excellence, his ability to lead and to inspire—all of these strengths far outweigh his flaws. His labors in raising the academic level of Orthodox seminary education in the United States should never be forgotten, for they have borne a hundredfold harvest.

A. Schmemann, Letter to G. Florovsky, February 22, 1952, in On Christian Leadership, 321.

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Schmemann, who would remain at the helm of St. Vladimir’s until his death in 1983, shaped the character of the institution and its graduates, who went on to assume leadership positions in local communities or in the church at large, in major ways. I had the privilege of knowing closely several of Schmemann’s students, including Archbishop Dmitri (Royster).22 I recall that Schmemann’s liturgical theology, especially his keen sense that the Eucharist was the sacrament of the Kingdom, had a lasting impact on the archbishop’s ministry. Schmemann was also a major force behind changes that we tend to take for granted in most Orthodox Churches in North America, such as frequent communion. Both Schmemann and Florovsky were fortunate enough to have great mentors in their lives; developed a deep and abiding sense of calling; saw the task of Orthodox education with great clarity; and were not discouraged by the difficulties, but confronted them with tenacity and courage. To be sure, they were also flawed and imperfect human beings, as the story of their tumultuous collaboration and eventual rift reveals. Despite their human weaknesses, both of them made an abiding contribution to the life of the Orthodox Church in the past century.

I became acquainted with the archbishop when he was the dean of St. Seraphim’s Cathedral (Orthodox Church in America) in Dallas, Texas, in 1993–2001, as I was pursuing my graduate studies at Southern Methodist University. 22

Chapter 8

A “Theology of Facts” Christ in the Theological Thought of Fr. Georges Florovsky and Fr. John Meyendorff JOOST VAN ROSSUM

The patristic renewal in Orthodox theology is in particular related to two names: Fr. Georges Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky (though, of course, we should not underestimate the contribution of other great patristic theologians, like Archbishop Basil Krivocheine, Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, or Fr. Justin Popović). Fr. Florovsky’s theological successor, Fr. John Meyendorff (1926–92), who was born and raised in Paris, belonged to a younger generation of Russian emigrants who came to Western Europe after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. The term “Paris School” includes not only the names of these great theologians who called for a return to the Fathers, but also others, like Fr. Sergius Bulgakov and Fr. Nicholas Afanasiev. Vladimir Lossky shared the same theological vision as Fr. Georges: Orthodox theology has to be based on the theology of the Church Fathers. Both were no “professional” theologians, for they had not taken courses at a Theological Academy. They were first of all historians with a particular interest in philosophy. Florovsky had written his master’s thesis on the “historical philosophy” of Alexander Herzen, which he had submitted to the University in Prague, while Lossky had studied Western medieval philosophy at the Sorbonne under the direction of Étienne Gilson.

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Fr. Georges had started teaching Patristics at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute one year after its foundation in 1925. Already during his stay in Prague, where the most eminent members of the Russian intelligentsia had settled after their expulsion from Russia in 1922, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov had suggested him to study the Church Fathers, because “no one else is doing it.”1 The approach to the theology of the Fathers by Fr. Georges was distinctively historical, that is to say, the study of Patristic theology in its historical context. Fr. Georges always put emphasis on the “fact,” on that which is “concrete.” Indeed, he had started his intellectual career not only in studying philosophy but also natural sciences.2 In his masterful work The Ways of Russian Theology (1937) Fr. Florovsky uses the significant expression “theology of facts”: “Patristic theology is entirely a ‘theology of facts’; one that turns our attention to the actual events of sacred history.”3 That is why his theological thought is Christocentric. For example, in his reflections on the Church he underlines that she (the Church) is first of all the “Body of Christ,” without denying the pneumatological aspect of the Church.4 The central theme of Fr. Florovsky’s theological reflections is that of the mystery of Christ, and the event or fact of the incarnation of the Son of God and of His work of salvation. It is interesting to notice that he did not develop a profound study of the eternal relations of the divine Hypostases in the Holy Trinity and the problem of the procession of the Holy Spirit. These are subjects that concern God’s eternal being and belong rather to the level of contemplative and symbolical thought. We notice here a difference with Vladimir Lossky, whose major theological themes were centered precisely around these themes: trinitarian theology and pneumatology. This led him even to the strong statement that the Filioque was the only real cause of the schism between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople.5 According to Fr. Florovsky it is the economy of salvation that counts, the event and the fact of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God. Fr. Georges did not restrict himself to simply quoting patristic texts, but his style remains always personal.

Blane, Georges Florovsky, 49. Ibid., 29. 3 Georges Florovsky, Puti Russkogo Bogosloviya (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1983), 509. We quote from the English translation: “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 159–83, at 169 (Ways of Russian Theology, Part II, CW, VI, 297). 4 Georges Florovsky, “Christ and His Church: Suggestions and Comments,” in L’Église et les églises, 1054–1954: neuf siècles de doloureuse separation entre l’orient et l’occident; études et travaux sur l’unité Chrétienne offerts à Dom Lambert Beauduin, 2 vols. (Chevetogne: Éditions de Chevetogne, 1954–1955), 2: 159–70. 5 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (SVS Press, 1976), 13: “From the religious point of view it [the Filioque] is the sole issue of importance in the chain of events which terminated in the separation.” 1 2

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That is what he meant using the term “neopatristic synthesis.”6 Another term used by him is “Christian hellenism.” Orthodox theology has to be based on the theology of the Fathers of the Church, that is to say, the Church Fathers who wrote in Greek (though on the other hand he did not want to completely exclude a great mind like Augustine, for example!): 7 All of the temptations associated with the “extreme Hellenization” of Christianity, (repeated instances of which are recorded in history), are not able to reduce the significance of the fundamental fact that the Good News of Christianity and Christian theology were from the beginning expressed in Hellenistic categories. Patristics, sobornost’, historicism, Hellenism—these are all aspects of a single indivisible task.8 However, Orthodox theology should not be a narrow-minded patristic fundamentalism. It is its task to regain the “patristic style” and “mind” or phronema:9 A recovery of the patristic style is the first and basic postulate for any Russian theological renaissance. The point is not some kind of “restoration,” nor does it imply a simple repetition or a return to the past. The road “to the Fathers” in any case leads only forward, never back. The point is to be true to the patristic spirit, rather than to the letter alone, to light one’s inspiration at the patristic flame rather than engaging in a collection and classification of ancient texts. Unde ardet, inde lucet [light is emitted from that which burns!] Genuine faithfulness to the Fathers can occur only in creation, never by imitation alone.10 That means that “one has to reassess both the problems and the answers of the Fathers.”11 Orthodox theology is called to read the Fathers with an open mind. It is not just a “going back” to the Fathers (a retour aux sources as the French theologians of the nouvelle théologie called it), but also a “going forward” with the Fathers.

Georges Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church,” PWGF, 289–302, at 296–7 (CW, IV, 22). Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 168 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 297). 8 Ibid., 169 (CW, VI, 297). 9 Ibid., 166 (CW, VI, 294). Cf. Georges Florovsky, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” PWGF, 221–32, at 225 (CW, I, 109): “To ‘follow the Fathers’ means to acquire their ‘mind,’ their phronema.” 10 Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 166 (CW, VI, 294). 11 Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church,” PWGF, 297 (CW IV, 22). 6 7

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An example of this creative approach to theology is Fr. Georges’s article on “Redemption,” in which he reflects on the human nature of Christ: was it already “immortal” at the very moment of His incarnation, when it was assumed by the divine Hypostasis of the Logos? And did Christ have to die, or was it an act of His free will? He writes: It must be stressed that in the Incarnation the Word assumes the original human nature, innocent and free from original sin, without any stain. This does not violate the fullness of nature, nor does it affect the Savior’s likeness to us sinful people. For sin does not belong to human nature, but is a parasitic and abnormal growth. This point was vigorously stressed by St. Gregory of Nyssa and particularly by St. Maximus the Confessor in connection with their teaching of the will as the seat of sin. In the Incarnation the Word assumes the first-formed human nature, created “in the image of God,” and thereby the image of God is again re-established in man. This was not yet the assumption of human suffering, or of suffering humanity. It was an assumption of human life, but not yet of human death. Christ’s freedom from original sin constitutes also His freedom from death, which is the “wages of sin.” Christ is unstained from corruption and mortality right from His birth. And like the First Adam before the Fall, He is able not to die at all, potens non mori, though obviously He can still die, potens autem mori. He was exempt from the necessity of death, because His humanity was pure and innocent. Therefore Christ’s death was and could not but be voluntary, not by the necessity of fallen nature, but by free choice and acceptance.12

APHTHARTODOCETISM This crucial passage in Fr. Florovsky’s chapter on “Redemption” needs a more careful reflection, for we read here the same argumentation as that of Julian of Halicarnassus, the spokesman for those who were adherents of the doctrine of aphthartodocetism in the sixth century. The monophysite bishop of Halicarnassus argued that Christ’s flesh was “incorruptible,” because it was without sin. Likewise we read in the above mentioned quotation that, according to Fr. Georges, Christ’s human nature was free from “original sin,” and that He, therefore, was “unstained from corruption and mortality right from His birth.” This teaching of Christ’s incorruptibility and immortality already at the very moment of His incarnation, and thus before His resurrection, seems to question

Georges Florovsky, “Redemption,” CW, III, 97–8. Our italics.

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the reality of His sufferings and death. For that reason aphthartodocetism was condemned first of all by the greater part of the Monophysites, in particular by Severus of Antioch, who stressed the reality of Christ’s humanity, including His suffering and death on the Cross.13 Moreover, it was condemned by the Chalcedonians, when some of their theologians started to feel attracted to this teaching: even the Emperor Justinian had shown a sympathy for aphthartodocetism shortly before his death.14 A study of the history of the Ecumenical Councils reveals that the Church always has insisted not only on the divinity of Christ, but also on the fullness of His human nature. This was the particular contribution of the “School of Antioch” during the Christological controversies. It is true that this accent on Christ’s humanity could lead to the heresy of nestorianism. But it is important to underline, as Fr. Meyendorff has done, that the text on the “Three Chapters” (which included the condemnation of Nestorius’s teacher, Theodore of Mopsuestia) at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, did not imply a condemnation of the theology of the “School of Antioch” as a whole.15 As a historian, Fr. Florovsky was, of course, well informed of the doctrine of aphthartodocetism, and he devoted a paragraph on it in the publication of his course on Patristics.16 Therefore, in the same chapter on “Redemption” he denied any suggestion that his remarks on the “sinlessness” and “incorruptibility” of Christ’s human nature would imply any kind of “Docetism”: The Lord died on the Cross. This was a true death. Yet not wholly like ours, simply because this was the death of the Lord, the death of the Incarnate Word, death within the indivisible Hypostasis of the Word made man. And again, it was a voluntary death, since in the undefiled human nature, free from original sin, which was assumed by the Word in the Incarnation, there was no inherent necessity of death. And the free “taking up” by the Lord of the sin of the world did not constitute for Him any ultimate necessity to die. Death was accepted only by the desire of the redeeming Love. His death was not the “wages of sin.” And the main point is that this was a death within the Hypostasis of the Word, the death of the “enhypostasized” humanity.17

13 René Draguet, Julien d’Halicarnasse et sa controverse avec Sévère d’Antioche sur l’incorruptibilité du corps du Christ: étude d’histoire littéraire et doctrinale (Louvain: P. Smeesters, 1924). 14 John Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions (SVS Press, 1989), 246. 15 Ibid., 247: “It [the Fifth Ecumenical Council] allowed for the full weight of Cyrillian soteriology [ . . . ]. But it also allowed for the best achievements of Antiochian exegesis, in the person of the blessed Theodoret of Cyrus [ . . . ] to be preserved as part of Tradition [ . . . ].” 16 Georges Florovsky, The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth to Eight Century, CW, IX, 120–1. 17 Florovsky, “Redemption,” CW, III, 135–6. Our italics.

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It is interesting to see that all these theological arguments of Fr. Florovsky are also found in the theology of Julian of Halicarnassus:18

1. Julian stated, in answer to the accusations of Severus of Antioch, that the humanity of Christ was real: he did not want to deny Christ’s humanity and teach another form of docetism. He justified his statement on the reality of Christ’s humanity by saying that the incorruptible nature of Christ’s humanity is a real humanity: it is the humanity which was given by God to Adam in Paradise. Incorruptibility belongs to the essence of Christ’s humanity. That was the way Adam had been created. Therefore Christ, having assumed a real humanity, was also able to undergo a real human suffering and death. Likewise, Fr. Florovsky says that Christ’s human nature is “the original human nature, innocent and free from original sin.”19 Fr. Georges does not say that Christ’s human nature had become “free from original sin” after, and because of, its hypostatic union with the Divine Logos. Like Julian he says that Christ had assumed the paradisal human nature as it was before the Fall of Adam.



2. Julian emphasizes that the sufferings and death of the Divine Son of God were an act of His free will, and that there was no “necessity” for Him to suffer and die on the Cross.20 Fr. Georges writes that Christ is potens non mori, potens autem mori.



3. Julian taught that Christ remained “without suffering in His passions, and immortal in His death.”21 Fr. Georges wrote that the death of Christ, though real, was not “wholly like ours.”



4. Both theologians taught that Christ’s humanity is incorruptible. Fr. Georges wrote that “the Lord’s flesh does not suffer corruption, it remains incorruptible even in death itself, i.e., alive as though it had never died [. . .]. It remained even in death ‘incorrupt.’ That is to say, it never became a corpse.”22

HUMAN NATURE AND SIN The main problem involved in the theology of Julian of Halicarnassus and Fr. Georges Florovsky is that of the relation between Christ’s humanity (Christ’s

See Draguet, Julien d’Halicarnasse. Florovsky, “Redemption,” 97. 20 Draguet, Julien d’Halicarnasse, 223: “[Julien] parlait de ‘souffrances naturelles et volontaires,’ ou, plus ordinairement, de ‘souffrances volontaires,’; c’était là son expression favorite.” 21 Ibid. 22 Florovsky, “Redemption,” 139–40. 18 19

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“human nature,” to use Chalcedonian terminology) and sin. Both Julian and Fr. Georges speak about the “sinlessness” of Christ’s humanity or human nature. But the question is: Does human nature sin? Especially St. Maximus the Confessor has explained that the act of sinning is rooted in the hypostasis or person of created human beings. This point has also been made by Florovsky in the text we have quoted.23 Christ, who is a divine Person, and does not have a human hypostasis, did not sin. But what about His human nature? Fr. John Meyendorff writes that in Greek patristic tradition “Adam’s sin was conceived as the beginning of a corruption of human nature manifested first of all in hereditary mortality.”24 That means that fallen human nature, though not being the “subject” of the act of committing the sin, bears the consequences of sin, in particular mortality. It remains curious that Florovsky insisted on the Julian notion of the “sinlessness” of Christ’s human nature. Both Draguet and Florovsky have pointed out that the real issue of Julian’s theology was his anthropology, because he had the same concept of the transmission of “original sin” by our fallen human nature, through the act of concupiscence, as it had been developed by Augustine.25 It is the only point on which Fr. Florovsky did not agree with Julian of Halicarnassus, and therefore he could claim not to be an “Aphthartodocetist.” But it seems that he has not realized the likeness between his teaching on the human nature of Christ and that of Christ’s humanity in the theology of Julian.

FR. JOHN MEYENDORFF Fr. John Meyendorff ’s approach to Christology was exactly the opposite, as we just noted. In the beginning of this essay we have characterized him as the “theological successor” of Fr. Florovsky (this includes, of course, also their leading role in the World Council of Churches). Like the latter, Fr. John, too, was first of all a historian. He had started his academic career with his doctoral dissertation on St. Gregory Palamas, submitted to the Sorbonne, in which he stated that the theology of the “divine energies” has nothing to do with the Sophia of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov.26 Fr. John agreed with Fr. Georges’s criticism of Russian “Sophiology.” It is significant that Fr. John in the beginning of the second part of his dissertation starts with Christology, the “Life in Christ” and “Christ and deified humanity.” As starting point he emphasized Palamas’s Christocentrism. He describes his theology as a “mystical doctrine

Ibid., 98. See above, n. 12 (Florovsky, CW, III, 97–8). John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (SVS Press, 1987), 142. 25 Florovsky, Byzantine Fathers, CW, IX, 120; Draguet, Julien d’Halicarnasse, 226. 26 Jean Meyendorff, Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas (Paris: Seuil, 1959), 309; English translation: John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas (SVS Press, 1974), 226. 23 24

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of the Incarnation.”27 Fr. John has presented the theology of the hesychast theologian within the context of the mystery of Christ. Likewise, Fr. Florovsky had characterized Palamas’ theology as a “theology of facts.”28 Thus we notice that Fr. Meyendorff ’s approach to patristic theology is more in line with Fr. Florovsky than with Vladimir Lossky. I remember that in his course on Patristics at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York Fr. John once said: “My only criticism of Vladimir Lossky’s book The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church is his approach to the subject. Instead of beginning with the theme of Christ and the incarnation, he starts with Pseudo-Dionysius and apophatic theology.” That the mystery of Christ is in the center of Fr. Meyendorff ’s theological thought is also clearly shown in the fact that, after his study of Gregory Palamas, his next theological work deals with Christology. His book Christ in Eastern Christian Thought is to be seen as a continuation of his study on Palamas. In this book on Christology Fr. John resumes the major insights of Fr. Florovsky, in particular the notion of “unity of subject” in Christ,29 and the term “asymmetric” Christology (i.e., the human nature of Christ does not have its own hypostasis).30 Fr. Georges explained, writing about the theological thought of the Fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople II, convoked by the Emperor Justinian in 553) that the doctrine of enhypostasis precisely meant that the center, the subject of both the Divine nature and the human nature was the Eternal Logos of the Father—it is the Eternal Logos of the Father who as a person experiences the life of the human nature, even to the point of being the subject who experiences the death of human nature.31 The unique subject of all the acts of Christ is the Divine Logos, “One of the Holy Trinity,” as it was formulated at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, including His suffering and death on the Cross. This Council had confirmed the theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria who had defended the term Theotokos, which had already been used in his Church. Christ, born from the Virgin Mary, was a

Meyendorff, A Study, 149 (= Introduction, 213, “Une mystique de l’Incarnation”). Florovsky, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” PWGF, 232 (CW, I, 120). Fr. Meyendorff, too, writes that hesychast theology, as it has found expression in the theology of Gregory Palamas, is based on “the superiority of the Christian fact over all psychological aspiration or mysticism outside the grace of the Incarnation” (A Study, 149). 29 Meyendorff, Christ, 18 (on Cyril of Alexandria); 149 (on Maximus the Confessor); 170 (on John of Damascus). Florovsky, Byzantine Fathers, 54 (on Cyril of Alexandria); 231 (on Maximus the Confessor); 271–2 (On John of Damascus). 30 Meyendorff, Christ, 156. Florovsky, Byzantine Fathers, 54: “Admitting human ‘hypostasislessness’ is admitting an asymmetry in the unity of the God-Man.” 31 Florovsky, Byzantine Fathers, 146. 27 28

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Divine Person, One of the Holy Trinity. Fr. Meyendorff formulated it as follows: “The pre-existent Word is the subject of the death of Christ, for in Christ there is no other personal subject apart from the Word: only someone can die, not something, or a nature, or a flesh.”32 So far Fr. Meyendorff follows the basic insights of Fr. Florovsky, using the same terminology. He told me once: “Reading Florovsky is discouraging: when you think to have discovered something new, it appears already having been written by Fr. Georges.” Only on one point Fr. John did not follow Fr. Georges’s Christology: that of the incorruptibility and immortality of Christ’s human nature straight from the moment of His conception, which Fr. Georges shared with the Aphthartodocetists, as we have pointed out. In his book on Christology Fr. John emphasized that, according to the Fathers, Christ had assumed our fallen human nature. That is to say, Christ’s human nature was not “sinful,” but it was distorted after humankind had fallen away from God. It has been assumed by Christ in its fallen state, having become corrupt and mortal. Commenting on the theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Fr. John writes: 33 In the thought of Cyril, sin is conceived as an illness, contracted by Adam and transmitted by heredity to posterity. It is a deadly illness that affects the whole human nature and leads to sin. Sin itself, however, remains a culpable act accomplished by the individual; it can be transmitted in its consequences, but not in its guilt. When I was at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, the students had the courage to arrange a meeting with Fr. John Meyendorff and Fr. Thomas Hopko on the topic of Christology, for they heard in the teachings of their professors two opposite views, that of Fr. Thomas (whose teaching on Christology was more in line with Fr. Florovsky) and that of Fr. John. When the students asked if Christ had assumed the fallen human nature, Fr. John answered in his characteristically unsophisticated manner: “Well, He better have, in order to restore it.” After this event, Fr. John wrote a long essay, entitled “Christ’s Humanity: The Paschal Mystery.”34 In this important article Fr. John comments on a “reductionism of the human fallen reality in Christ,” which he observed first of all in Byzantine theology: “Even outside monophysitism, some authors refused to acknowledge real ignorance in Jesus.” But a theologian like St. John of Damascus “resorted

Meyendorff, Christ, 72. Ibid., 117. 34 John Meyendorff, “Christ’s Humanity: The Paschal Mystery,” SVTQ 31:1 (1987), 5–40. 32 33

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to compromise” affirming that the Logos had assumed our “ignorant” human nature, while stating at the same time that “the Lord’s soul was enriched with the knowledge of things to come and with other divine signs [. . .] thanks to its hypostatic union with the Word.”35 John of Damascus wrote these words within the context of the problem of the limitations of Christ’s human nature as it is revealed in certain passages of the Gospel (Christ was “growing in wisdom,” Lk. 2:52). Fr. Meyendorff remarks that, on the contrary, “during the iconoclastic crisis, Orthodox authors had reaffirmed explicitly the reality of ignorance in Him [Christ].”36 As to John of Damascus, Fr. Florovsky writes: “With total resoluteness St. John of Damascus asserts the fullness and perfection of Christs’s human knowledge—and from His very conception—so that in reality there was no learning or growth [in Christ].”37 In his book on Christology Fr. Meyendorff remarks that Byzantine theologians, like John of Damascus, “interpret passages like Mk. 13:32 (ignorance of the day of Parousia) in a pedagogical sense: Christ did not want to manifest His omniscience.”38 It appears that patristic and Byzantine theology do not offer a logically satisfying solution to this problem. Fr. Meyendorff recognizes “a certain obscurity in patristic thought on this point.”39 This may be disappointing, but it is also understandable and even profitable from a spiritual point of view. Human reasoning arrives at a point where it has to humbly make a halt before the ineffable mystery of the “hypostatic union” and the coexistence of the full humanity and the full divinity in the incarnate Logos. Fr. Meyendorff observes that “Byzantine Christology is little concerned with the preoccupation, so widespread in modern theology, of finding in Christ a ‘human psychology’.” The emphasis in patristic theology is not on analyzing the human nature of Christ, but on soteriology, that is, on its salvation, or “its transfiguration and exaltation at the level of uncreated divine life.”40 In what follows in his article on “Christ’s Humanity,” Fr. John writes that both Lossky and Florovsky “overlook the time factor”: 41 They both occasionally speak, for example, of the humanity of Christ being “naturally incorruptible,” suffering corruption “economically.” Such expressions are correct, but only if one takes into account that time was implied in the very term “nature.” Christ, as man, not only grew from

Ibid., 25. See John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith III, 21, Sources chrétiennes 540 (Paris: Du Cerf, 2011), 136–7.  36 Meyendorff, “Christ’s Humanity.” 37 Florovsky, Byzantine Fathers, 274. 38 Meyendorff, Christ, 168. 39 Ibid., 169. 40 Ibid., 169–70. 41 Meyendorff, “Christ’s Humanity,” 25–6. 35

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conception to adulthood, but also restored a fallen and, indeed, corrupt nature, which He assumed in the “economy” of salvation into a state of glory and immortality—through His death and resurrection. It is after the resurrection that the humanity of Jesus, the New Adam appeared to the disciples in its transfigured incorrupt state, according to the original divine plan for creation.

CHRIST’S FREEDOM As we have seen, a theme that Fr. Florovsky had in common with Julian of Halicarnassus was that of the freedom of Christ. They both taught that Christ, being a Divine Person, was able to suffer and die in a human way because He was free to do so. He was not bound to our human necessity to die, because His human nature was incorrupt and immortal already from the very beginning of His conception in the Virgin. On this point, Fr. Meyendorff disagrees completely not only with Julian of Halicarnassus, but also with Florovsky. However, in this context he does not mention Fr. Florovsky by name and he corrects implicitly the latter’s statement on Christ potens non mori, potens autem mori. Fr. John, in explaining the theology of John of Damascus, writes that the freedom of Christ consisted in His freely accepting the Incarnation, but that it also meant that He freely accepted the “necessity” of the characteristics of the fallen human nature: 42 John [of Damascus] therefore agrees with the Aphthartodocetae in saying that Christ suffered “freely,” but he condemns them when, on the pretext of that divine freedom, they diminish the human reality of His suffering. The heresy of the Aphthartodocetae consisted of their conception of the humanity of Jesus as an ideal humanity, free from the consequences of sin, the passions being individual acts of condescension and of “economy” that could or could not have been. For John, and for the whole Orthodox tradition, the incarnate Word accepted, from His conception, the assumption of human nature in its fallen state. As God, hypostatically, He undoubtedly remained free from the passions and from nature itself, but the economy of salvation implied that once and for all He should become Servant, that He should accept the necessities of human nature, but not of sin, in order to free Himself from them “from within,” and by doing just that, to open the way to freedom for the whole of mankind. Thus as to the problem of the “freedom” of Christ in the economy of salvation, one could answer with both a “yes” and a “no.” Certainly, Christ’s work of

Meyendorff, Christ, 166–7. Our italics.

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salvation, being an act of the divine Love, is based on freedom. But the free act of assuming a complete and full human nature implies also Christ’s assumption of all the consequences of sin, including suffering and dying. It is interesting to notice also both a “yes” and a “no” in Fr. Florovsky’s reflection on the “freedom” of Christ, but seen from a different angle. Though he emphasized that in Christ “there was no inherent necessity of death,”43 he writes in the same article on “Redemption”: “He [Christ] had to die. This was not the necessity of this world. This was the necessity of Divine Love [. . .] This ʻDivine necessityʼ of the death on the Cross passes all understanding indeed. And the Church has never attempted any rational definition of this supreme mystery.”44 This “divine necessity” is rooted in God’s very being: There is, as it were, an absolute necessity in the Trinitarian Being of God. The word may seem strange and startling [. . .] But, in fact, “necessity” in this case is but another name for “being” or “essence.” Indeed, God does not “choose” His own Being. He simply is. No further question can be intelligently asked.45

CONCLUSION Having discussed the reflections on the mystery of Christ by these two great Orthodox theologians, whom we might consider as “Church Fathers” of our modern times, we have to make up the balance and make some concluding remarks. Can we apply the term “Aphthartodocetist” to Fr. Georges Florovsky? It is no doubt that we can retrace some elements of this doctrine in the Christology of Fr. Florovsky. Fr. Georges did not emphasize enough the fallen state of Christ’s humanity, and he overlooked the factor of time in the economy of salvation, as Fr. Meyendorff rightly observed. Fr. John wrote: 46 The Divine will, which is the reason for the Incarnation, concerned the entire Incarnation process, not single moments of the life of Jesus taken separately by themselves. By the will of the Father and with the cooperation of the Spirit, the Logos “became flesh,” i.e., entered the fallen time where “death reigns” (Rom. 5:14). There were not several distinct divine decisions: one for the Incarnation, another for each of Christ’s actions, and one final one allowing Him to die.

Florovsky, “Redemption,” 136. Ibid., 100. 45 Georges Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 53. 46 Meyendorff, “Christ’s Humanity,” 26. 43 44

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On the other hand, the term “Aphthartodocetist” is misleading. Both Julian of Halicarnassus and Fr. Florovsky did not intend to be “docetists,” for they emphasized that Christ’s humanity was real. Perhaps Fr. Florovsky’s Christology could be characterized as a partial form of Julianism: “partial,” because Fr. Georges did not share Julian’s Augustinian concept of “original sin.” And his reflection on the paradox of the “freedom” of Christ’s passion and death, which at the same time involves the “necessity of Divine Love,” is more developed and profound than Julian’s concept of Christ’s freedom (though it is true that only some fragments of Julian’s theological works have been preserved). It is remarkable that Fr. Meyendorff has not clearly pointed out the resemblances between the teaching of Julian of Halicarnassus and Fr. Florovsky, when he criticized Fr. Georges for “overlooking the factor of time” in the economy of salvation. The reason must be that at the moment of writing his book and his article on Christology Fr. Georges was still alive. It was impossible for him to ascribe some form of “heresy” to Florovsky whom he deeply respected. He chose instead to apply an “implicit corrective” to his great predecessor, like his hero, St. Gregory Palamas, had done with regard to Pseudo-Dionysius. A similar implicit corrective had been applied by Fr. Georges himself to Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, in criticizing Russian Sophiology without referring to the name of Fr. Sergius whom he had known already before coming to Paris and teaching at St. Sergius, and who was, besides being the Dean of St. Sergius’s Orthodox Theological Institute, one of the most eminent representatives of the “Russian Religious Renaissance.” Finally, there is one point in Fr. John Meyendorff ’s Christology that has not been developed, and that is the question of the humanity of Christ after His death on the Cross. Rejecting the heresy of aphthartodocetism, Fr. John stressed that Christ’s body had become incorrupt after His Resurrection. Both Julian of Halicarnassus and Fr. Florovsky taught that the human flesh of Christ, being already incorruptible, did not corrupt after His death on the Cross. His dead body did not become a “corpse.” Fr. Meyendorff, on the contrary, kept silence about the three days, the sacrum triduum, between the Cross and the Resurrection. Fr. Florovsky, however, refers to the liturgical texts, as, for example, in Matins of Holy Saturday, 6th Ode: “Thou hast tasted of death, but hast not known corruption.” And also to St. John of Damascus who wrote that there was no complete decomposition of the body of Christ after His death.47 It should be noticed that traditional Orthodox iconography does not show a “corpse” being in a state of decomposition that is hanging on the

Florovsky, “Redemption,” 303 (n. 115) refers to John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith III, 28 (SC 540), 154–5. 47

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Cross, but the “King of Glory.” Fr. Georges is right when he refers to the liturgical texts that speak about the incorrupt state of the body of Christ after the crucifixion. One could argue that these texts have to be seen as merely poetical exaggerations. However, it seems to me that these texts from the liturgy should be compared with the Gospel of St. John, which reveals the difference between the resurrection of Lazarus on “the fourth day” and that of Christ on the “third day.” The Resurrection “on the third day” is not the same as the resurrection of Lazarus’ corrupting and “smelling” body “on the fourth day.” The remark of the author of the Fourth Gospel that the tomb of Lazarus was spreading the bad odor of a dead body (Jn 11:39), while on the contrary Christ was buried in a “new tomb” in a “garden” (Jn 19:41), is not accidental. The garden of the Resurrection with its sweet-smelling flowers obviously reminds of the garden in Gen. 2:8. And in these two gardens there is also a gardener: Adam (Gen. 2:15) and the Risen Lord, the Second Adam (Jn 20:15). The garden with the empty tomb (indeed, the precise “moment” of the Resurrection remains a mystery!) is the Johannine revelation of the “Paradise regained.”48 The contrast between the tomb of Lazarus and that of Christ does not mean that Christ’s death on the Cross was not a real, human death. If He had assumed human nature in its fallen state, it means that it was subject to corruption and mortality. Indeed, “Christ was already dead” (Jn 19:33). Thus if it is true that His dead body was incorrupt, as the liturgical texts say, it follows that the incorrupt state of His body after His death was not the result of the fact that it was “by nature” incorruptible, as Julian of Halicarnassus, and Fr. Florovsky, have stated. The Church knows that Cross and Resurrection are not to be seen as separate events. In the Gospel of St. John the Resurrection of Christ is described as a “lifting up” or “elevation” (Jn 3:14). That is the “glory” of which the Prologue speaks (Jn 1:14). Likewise, the liturgical celebration of these mysterious days reveals the organic unity of the Sacrum Triduum. The flowers that are laid on the epitaphion remind of the Garden of the Resurrection, the reopened Paradise. The Resurrection of Christ begins already on Holy Friday, as it is written in the troparion of Holy Saturday, and which is sung at the end of Vespers of Holy Friday: Noble Joseph, taking down Thy most pure body from the Tree, wrapped it in clean linen with sweet spices, and he laid it in a new Tomb. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, both now and ever and into Ages of

Pjotr Hendrix, “‘Garten’ und ‘Morgen’ als Ort und Zeit für das Mysterium Paschale in der Orthodoxen Kirche,” in Adolf Portmann (ed.), Vom Sinn der Utopie (Zürich: Rhein-Verlag, 1964) = Eranos Jahrbuch 32 (1963), 147–71. This article is a beautiful example of “neopatristic synthesis”: a creative Biblical exegesis in the spirit or phronema of the Fathers. 48

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Ages, Amen. The Angel stood by the Tomb, and to the women bearing spices he cried aloud: “Myrrh is fitting for the dead, but Christ has shown Himself a stranger to corruption!” From this we may conclude that a merely dogmatic and “intellectual” reflection is not sufficient to get a complete understanding of the “Paschal Mystery,” which the human mind alone is not able to grasp in all its fullness (Phil. 3:12). A glimpse of its true meaning is revealed only in the celebration of the liturgical “mysteries.” As the saying goes, often repeated by Fr. Meyendorff ’s close friend and colleague, Fr. Alexander Schmemann: Lex orandi, lex credendi!

PART II

Neopatristic Synthesis Theology and Methodology

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Chapter 9

“Waiting for the Barbarians” Identity and Polemicism in the Neopatristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky1 BRANDON GALLAHER

And now what will become of us without barbarians? Those people were some sort of a solution. Constantine P. Cavafy2

This chapter was first published in an earlier form in Modern Theology 27:4 (October 2011), 658–91. It appears here, in a revised form, with permission by Wiley-Blackwell. (Greek and Russian translations have subsequently appeared: “‘V ozhidanii varvarov’: identichnost’ i polemichnost’ u Georgiia Florovskogo,” Filosofskie Nauki 10 (2013), 77–92 and (in expanded form) “Mia epanexetasē tēs Neo-paterikēs sunthesēs; Orthodoxē tautotēta kai polemikē ston p. Geōrgio Phlōrophsku kai to mellon tēs Orthodoxēs Theologias,” Theologia 84:1 (January–March 2013, 25–92). Extracts of documents are published by permission from the Georges Florovsky Papers, Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. The Florovsky Papers were partially recatalogued in recent years with the result that the references to this collection appearing in the present article do not coincide with the present references in the collection (https://findingaids​.princeton​.edu​/catalog​/C0586). 2 C. P. Cavafy, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” in Gk text, Anthony Hirst (ed.), The Collected Poems, trans. Evangelos Sachperoglou (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 15–17, at 17. 1

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If the greatness of a theologian is determined by his influence, Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893–1979) is undoubtedly the greatest Eastern Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century.3 While largely forgotten by Western theologians, with his work heretofore only collected in a poorly edited, badly translated, and now scarce edition, his theological program and method of a spiritual return to, and renewal in, the Byzantine heritage—in the well-worn slogan “neopatristic synthesis”—has become the dominant paradigm for Orthodox theology and ecumenical activity. One only has to mention his best-known students (Frs. Boris Bobrinskoy [1925–2020], John Meyendorff [1926–92], John Romanides [1928–2001], and Met. John Zizioulas [b. 1931]) as well as those he mentored (Myrrha Lot-Borodine [1882–1957], Archim. (now St.) Sophrony Sakharov [1896–1993], Vladimir Lossky [1903–58], Fr. Alexander Schmemann [1921– 83], Jaroslav Pelikan (1923–2006), and Met. Kallistos Ware [b. 1934]) and one has a short history of Orthodox theology in the last century. Lossky went so far as to call the older theologian le plus grand [théologien orthodoxe] peut-être de cet époque.4 Yet Florovsky’s legacy is perhaps more profound and ultimately more ambiguous than a banal appeal to Patristic tradition in theology. He has bequeathed to Orthodox theology a paradigm for being Eastern Orthodox in a modern world dominated by the cultural patrimony of the West, of whose existence Western theologians remain largely unaware. In this paradigm, a PanOrthodox Eastern identity, in the form of “Christian Hellenism,” is asserted over against the heterodoxy of an Other.5 This Other in practice often, but not always,6 ends up being some version of the West or “Western influence” on Eastern Orthodox thought and life. Polemicism here is being put to positive effect in marking out what is not Orthodoxy and so by negation affirming what is Orthodox. However, as we shall see at the end of the study, this paradigm is ultimately unsatisfactory. It blinds the theologian to the fact that his identity is not hermetically sealed from

See Andrew Blane, ed., Georges Florovsky—Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman (SVS Press, 1993) (bibliography: 341–436) and Matthew Baker and Nikolaos Asproulis, “Secondary Bibliography of Scholarly Literature and Conferences on Florovsky,” Theologia 81:4 (October– December 2010), 357–96 (this whole issue is on Florovsky with Greek and English articles). 4 Transcripts of Lectures of Lossky, December 13, 1956, 10 as cited in Rowan Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky, D. Phil. Thesis, University Of Oxford, 1975, 281 (on their relationship, see 267–83). 5 See Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Hellenicity and Anti-Westernism in the Greek “theology of the ‘60’s,” PhD dissertation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2008 [in Greek]. 6 Orthodox theologians exist whose work, though inspired by neopatristic synthesis, runs counter to the prevailing paradigm we shall trace in Florovsky (e.g., Olivier Clément and Kallistos Ware). They point to the fact that resources exist in the movement and Florovsky’s own theology for “renewal,” as I will suggest in my conclusion. 3

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the Other, from the heterodox “West” or errant Orthodox captive to it, but is, in fact, dependent upon it. We shall first explore the origins and character of Florovsky’s anti-Western polemicism toward the “West” in relationship to his assertion of an “Eastern” Orthodox identity (his “paradigm”). After examining the core of his neopatristic synthesis, we shall argue that key ideas from it are actually taken not from the (Eastern) Patristic sources he lauds but from some of the very Western sources he reviles. Lastly, we shall briefly sketch a new way forward in Orthodox theology that while it goes beyond Florovsky’s paradigm it still is in continuity with his neopatristic synthesis.

FLOROVSKY’S “PARADIGM”—ITS ANTIBULGAKOVIAN CONTEXT The nexus of this Orthodox “two-step”—assertion of Orthodox identity through polemic against an Other—can be found in Florovsky’s own Russian context where he attempted to articulate a theology of the “traditional” identity of Eastern Orthodoxy against the Sophiology of the great Russian theologian Fr. Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944). Florovsky regarded Sophiology as a species of German Romanticism and Neoplatonism (i.e., Spätidealismus). It was, he argued, the seductive Western path of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900) taken by both Bulgakov and his friend, the philosopher Fr. Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), and to these Florovsky usually adds Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1978).7 In reviewing two studies of Berdyaev, Florovsky notes that Berdyaev was a typical representative of a definite phase of Russian intellectual development that was “dominated by strong Western influences of various kinds,” notably the problematics of a Russian “tradition” rooted in Romanticism and especially German Idealism.8 There is little, he argues in another review, particularly “Eastern” in the thought of writers like Solovyov, Dostoyevsky, and Berdyaev,9 and to this list we can safely add Bulgakov and Florensky as followers of Solovyov,10 as they stand in the Western tradition of late Idealism and “It is for that reason that these Russian thinkers were so

Puti Russkogo Bogosloviia, second ed. (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1981 [1937]), 462, 469, 492 [Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 243, 251, 276] and Review of Matthew Spinka’s Christian Thought from Erasmus to Berdyaev (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1962), Church History 31:4 (December 1964), 470–1. 8 Review of O. Fielding Clarke’s Introduction to Berdyaev (London: G. Bles, 1950) and Matthew Spinka’s Nicholas Berdyaev: Captive of Freedom (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1950), Church History 19:4 (1950), 305–6. 9 Review of Spinka’s Christian Thought, Church History 31:4 (1962), 470. 10 See Puti, 492 [Ways, II, CW, VI, 275] and “The Renewal of Orthodox Theology—Florensky, Bulgakov and the Others: On the Way to a Christian Philosophy,” 2, 8–9, Georges Florovsky 7

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readily accepted in the West. They were speaking the idiom of the West.”11 From Solovyov the historical-theological path led back either to a miscellany of deceptive, if not outright, heterodox sources purporting to be orthodox or, alternatively, in breaking with the Russian philosopher, to the “fathers and the experience of the Great Church—the Church of history, tradition and patristics.”12 Bulgakov, Florovsky believed, took the first erroneous way and did not stand in tradition.13 Florovsky’s theology was forged in his involvement in two controversies with Bulgakov. He first found his voice when he publicly attacked Bulgakov’s Proposals for Limited Episcopally Blessed Intercommunion between the Anglican and Orthodox Churches in the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (1933–5).14 The intercommunion debate was followed closely by the controversy concerning Bulgakov’s Sophiology (1935–7) where the two jurisdictions opposed to that of Bulgakov’s Patriarchal Exarchate of Russian Parishes under Constantinople (“Exarchate”), the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, officially accused him (respectively) of teaching “alien” to Orthodoxy and “heresy.”15 When the matter was put under investigation by Bulgakov’s and Florovsky’s hierarch, Metropolitan Evlogii (Georgievskii) (1868–1946), the commission split and it produced majority and minority reports16 with Florovsky (reluctantly, as he wished to avoid public controversy)17 signing the much more critical second of these. Bulgakov was

Papers, Box 5, f.6. Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library [=GFPrin.] (unpublished lecture March 1968). 11 Review of Spinka’s Christian Thought, 470. 12 Puti, 493 [Ways, II, CW, VI, 276]. 13 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 63, 66. 14 See Bryn Geffert, Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), Ch. 11, Sergei V. Nikolaev, “Spiritual Unity: The Role of Religious Authority in the Disputes Between Sergii Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky Concerning Intercommunion,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 101–23, Brandon Gallaher, “‘Great and full of Grace’: Partial Intercommunion and Sophiology in Sergii Bulgakov,” in Church and World: Essays in Honor of Michael Plekon, ed. William C. Mills (Rollinsford, New Hampshire: Orthodox Research Institute, 2013), 69-121, “Bulgakov and Intercommunion,” Sobornost incorporating Eastern Churches Review 24:2 (2002), 9–28 (sequel to “Bulgakov’s Ecumenical Thought,” Sobornost 24:1 (2002), 24–55) and Catholic Action: Ecclesiology, the Eucharist and the Question of Intercommunion in the Ecumenism of Sergii Bulgakov, MDiv Thesis, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2003. 15 See N. T. Eneeva, Spor o sofiologii v russkom zarubezh’e 1920-1930 godov (Moscow: Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN, 2001) (including condemnations); Geffert, “The Charges of Heresy Against Sergii Bulgakov: The Majority and Minority Reports of Evlogii’s Commission and the Final Report of the Bishops’ Conference,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 47–66 and Alexei Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 67–100. (See a revised version of this article in this book.) 16 See Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 87ff. and Geffert, “Charges,” 48ff. 17 See Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 86, but there were “lapses” as in his caustic words after a speech of Bulgakov at Faith and Order (Edinburgh 1937): Leonard Hodgson, ed., The Second World

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finally cleared of the more serious charge of heresy by an episcopal conference of his own church in November of 1937 but, in its report, he was heavily criticized for serious doctrinal flaws in his Sophiology.18 Even taking into consideration the very real theological problems of Sophiology,19 it remains the case that Bulgakov’s teaching was condemned by the two rival Russian jurisdictions in whose interest it was to blacken the name of the Exarchate’s l’Institut Saint-Serge,20 with the result that political factors then and now have tended to cloud the sober evaluation of his theology. Building on our portrait of Florovsky as having a troubled relationship with Bulgakov, Fr. John Meyendorff writes that Florovsky frequently argued in his lectures at St. Serge that the Fathers theologized against heretics: “The Fathers of the Church, [Florovsky] said, most often theologized for the refutation of heretics. Setting out from an ‘unfaithful’ expression of the Christian Gospel, they discovered ‘faithful’ words, in this fashion not ‘establishing’ the Truth— which is true only by virtue of its divine nature—but expressing and explaining it.”21 This Patristic approach to theology was the “fundamental psychological method of Florovsky in his critique of Russian culture” and, more particularly, the “psychological impulse which inspired Florovsky during the writing of his books was the refutation of the so-called ‘Sophiology’ in all its forms” which, he believed, consisted of “a variety of German Idealism, a peculiar Gnosticism and generally an illegitimate utilization of philosophy for the expression of Christian dogmas.”22 Florovsky opposed what he saw as the ecclesially universalist and pantheist tendencies of Bulgakov’s Sophiology which he thought led to a pervasive determinism and monism and were the result of what he believed to be an insufficiently Christocentric theological focus.23 This he countered by a firm Christocentrism, a maximalist insistence on maintaining what he regarded

Conference on Faith and Order (New York: Macmillan Company, 1938), 74–5 and Métropolitan Euloge, Le Chemin de Ma Vie: Mémoires du Métropolitan Euloge, trans. Pierre Tchesnakoff (Paris: Presses Saint-Serge—Institut de Théologie Orthodoxie, 2005 [1947]), 489–90 (see Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 95). (For English see My Life’s Journey: The Memoirs of Metropolitan Evlogy as Put Together according to His Accounts by T. Manukhin, trans. Alexander Lisenko, 2 vols. (SVSP, 2014)). 18 See Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 93–4 and Geffert, “Charges,” 52–4. 19 See Brandon Gallaher, “Graced Creatureliness: Ontological Tension in the Uncreated/Created Distinction in the Sophiologies of Solov’ev, Bulgakov and Milbank,” Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 47:1–2 (2006), 163–90, “The Christological Focus of Vladimir Solov’ev’s Sophiology,” Modern Theology 25:4 (October 2009), 617–46; Review of Bulgakov’s The Lamb of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), Logos 50:3–4 (2009), 543–8 and Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), Chs. 4–6. 20 See Euloge, Le Chemin de Ma Vie, 528. 21 John Meyendorff, “Predislovie,” in Puti, v–x, at vi. 22 Ibid., vi–vii. 23 See Florovsky, “Renewal,” 5ff. and Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 72ff. and 96ff.

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as traditional doctrinal and ecclesial boundaries (i.e., the Orthodox Church was the true and only Church though individual Christians existed outside its bounds), a radical distinction between the uncreated and the created, a strong emphasis on divine and human freedom to the point of indeterminacy, and the providentially Hellenistic character of Church tradition embodied in the liturgy and the Eastern Patristic corpus. Not only were the hallmarks of Florovsky’s theology developed in reaction to Sophiology, but its characteristic “Patristic” focus, Meyendorff contends, emerged from Florovsky’s desire to refute the Sophiologists’ claim that both their thought and their use of philosophy had patristic (i.e., traditional) precedent (especially in the work of Palamas).24 Florovsky argued that only in the vision of the Fathers, interpreted as a Christian Hellenism or a new baptized Christian philosophy, could be found an accurate key to the relationship between secular philosophy and theology. At almost every point of his theology, Meyendorff argues, Florovsky is silently responding to the Sophiology of Bulgakov, as the best-known Sophiologist.25 However, Florovsky’s relationship with Bulgakov was far from being an unnuanced opposition. Bulgakov was not only Florovsky’s academic superior at St. Serge, but actively promoted Florovsky in his career by securing him the post in patrology at the new institute (though not without problems).26 By Florovsky’s own admission, Bulgakov was the person who initially spurred him on to turn to the Fathers.27 When Bulgakov was diagnosed with throat cancer in early 1939, it was Florovsky, on his recommendation, who took his place on the continuation committee for Faith and Order.28 Furthermore, for at least a brief period in Prague in the early 1920s, Bulgakov was Florovsky’s confessor.29

See Meyendorff, “Predislovie,” vii; see Joost van Rossum, “Palamisme et Sophiologie,” Contacts, Revue française d’orthodoxie 222 (2008), 133–45 and especially Roman Zaviyskyy, Shaping Modern Russian Orthodox Trinitarian Theology: A Critical Study of Sergii Bulgakov with Reference to Vladimir Lossky and Georgii Florovsky, D Phil Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011, Chs. 2–4. 25 Meyendorff, “Predislovie,” vii (see Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 76ff., Miguel de Salis Amaral, Dos visiones ortodoxas de la Iglesia: Bulgakov y Florovsky, Colección teológica 111 (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 2003), Ross J. Sauvé, Georges V. Florovsky and Vladimir N. Lossky: An Exploration, Comparison and Demonstration of their Unique Approaches to the Neopatristic Synthesis, PhD Thesis, Durham University, 2010 and Paul Ladouceur, “‘Aimons-nous les uns les autres’: Serge Bulgakov et Georges Florovsky,” Contacts 64:237 (2012), 56–87. (A revised English version of this article is contained in this book.) 26 Vasili Zenkovsky, “Moi vstrechi s vydaiushchimisia liud’mi,” [3–52] “Otets Georgii Florovskii” [50–2], Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars in the U.S.A., no. 27 (1995), 51 and Bulgakov, “Pis’ma k G. V. Florovskomu (1923–38),” Letter of August 18/31, 1924, ed. Ekaterina Evtukhova, Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli, Ezhegodnik 2001–2002, ed. M. A. Kolerov (Moscow: Tri Kvadrata, 2002), 175–226, at 197. 27 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 49 and 182. 28 Ibid., 68. 29 Bulgakov writes in his diary on September 29, 1923: “I had a large (written) confession of G. V. Fl, I accepted him into my heart as a spiritual father. Glory to God!” (Aleksei 24

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However, even during this early period when Bulgakov was actively mentoring him, Florovsky began to set himself up against the older theologian. In 1924, Florovsky established in Prague a Religious and Philosophical Circle devoted to the Fathers, which he began to see as the wellspring of Orthodoxy. This study group was set up in contrast to the Brotherhood of St. Sophia30 headed by Bulgakov, itself dedicated to the study and promotion of Orthodoxy, which Florovsky had quickly joined and then wanted to leave in all but a few months in protest against its sympathy with Sophiology,31 causing Bulgakov to ask in exasperation: “Why do you have such an involuntary need to cast opposition from difference, animosity from non-affinity?”32 All things considered, Florovsky was emotionally deeply marked by his clash with Bulgakov.33 Although he kept up good personal relations with Bulgakov until the latter’s death in 1944,34 many at St. Serge unjustifiably blamed him for the ill-fame surrounding Bulgakov in his last years. This led to his being gradually “frozen out” of the institute from 1935 until the war. He only began teaching there again in 1946 and two short years later he left for America to head St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York City.35 In a lecture from 1968, one sees something of the contradictory impulses at work in this key relationship for him when he says that though he “respected” and “esteemed” Florensky and Bulgakov, “I would even say that I love them,” he still had to acknowledge that “I disagree and I think they are wrong. [The Russian Religious Renaissance] is a blind alley or probably even an evil bed.”36 All things considered, Florovsky’s theology, neopatristic synthesis is, therefore, best understood as a positive assertion of Orthodox identity by means of a negative polemic against heterodoxy.

THE “PARADIGM” IN FLOROVSKY’S WORK—ANTIWESTERN POLEMICISM AND CHRISTIAN HELLENISM Yet it would be a mistake to think that Florovsky’s polemic was only directed toward Bulgakov and Russian religious philosophy insofar as it was parasitic

Kozyrev and Natal’ia Golubkova, “Prot. S. Bulgakov. Iz pamiati serdtsa. Praga (1923–1924),” in Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli. Ezhegodnik za 1998 (Moscow: O. G. I., 1998), 156). 30 See Bratstvo Sviatoi Sofii: Materialy i Dokumenty 1923–1939, ed. N. A. Struve (Paris: YMCAPress, 2000) (see Jonathan Seiling, “Exiled Russian Orthodox Leaders in Paris and the Struggle to Establish a Home Away From Home (1925–1944),” in Historical Papers 2005: Canadian Society of Church History, Annual Conference: University of Western Ontario, May 29–31, 2005, ed. Brian Gobbett et al., 69–82, at 71ff.). 31 Zenkovsky, “Otets Georgii Florovskii,” 51 and Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 71. 32 Bulgakov, “Pis’ma k G. V. Florovskomu (1923–38),” Letter of August 18/31, 1924, IPIRM, 197. 33 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 60, 112. 34 Ibid., 61, 68 and Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky,” 98–9. 35 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 67–8, 77, 81–2, 85. 36 Florovsky, “Renewal,” 4.

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on German Romanticism as the form of negative Western influence leading to heterodoxy. In fact, Florovsky’s polemic against Russian religious philosophy was a species of his more general polemic against pre- and post-great schism Western theology. In the face of such theology, he asserted Eastern Orthodoxy as the common tradition of the undivided Church, a Christian Hellenism that embraced not only Basil and Gregory of Nyssa but also Augustine as a sort of honorary Greek Father.37 However, it should be noted here that when we speak of anti-Western “polemicism” in Florovsky’s thought, this needs to be distinguished from the polemics of thinkers like the Greek theologian and Patristic scholar Fr. John Romanides38 and the great Greek philosopher Christos Yannaras (b. 1935)39 whose shrill critiques of the West and wild accusations (tracing every contemporary evil to Aquinas and Augustine) lack Florovsky’s catholicity and general historical good sense. A version of our paradigm can be traced in them but, lacking Florovsky’s liberal spirit, it is enacted wholly without nuance. Florovsky’s more nuanced polemicism ranges from an outright rejection of the ethnic “Latinity” to a dismissal of all forms of Scholasticism to the more subtle subsuming of Western Patristic thought under a Christian Hellenism that is Eastern and Greek in character. Florovsky’s later appeal to the “Byzantine-Slavic” inheritance as the wellspring of the “Russian soul” and, especially, his anti-Western polemicism can be traced to his pre-theological, specifically, philosophical period, especially his alliance with the Eurasian movement in the 1920s.40 Before his final break with the Eurasians in 1928,41 Florovsky contributed to a collection of the Eurasians entitled Russia and Latinity (1923),42 which, as Paul L. Gavrilyuk has written, “advanced a claim

See E. L. Mascall, “Obituary of Florovsky,” Sobornost 2:1 (1980), 69–70 (on the influence of Augustine, see Christoph Künkel, Totus Christus: Die Theologie Georges V. Florovskys (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1991)). 38 For example, John Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1981). Also see: http://www​.romanity​.org​/index​.htm (last accessed March 19, 2021). 39 For example, Christos Yannaras, “Orthodoxy and the West,” Eastern Churches Review 3:3 (1971), 286–300 and Orthodoxy and the West, trans. Peter Chamberas and Norman Russell (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2007) (see my critical review of the latter in Logos 50:3–4 (December 2009), 537–42; but more positively see Andrew Louth, “Some Recent Works by Christos Yannaras in English Translation,” Modern Theology 25:2 (2009), 329–40). See Yannaras’s 2011 commencement address at Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, https://www​.johnsanidopoulos​.com​/2011​/05​/commencement​-address​-of​-dr​-christos​.html (last accessed March 19, 2021). 40 See Florovsky, “The Cunning of Reason” and “About Non-historical Peoples,” in Ilya Vinkovetsky and Charles Schlacks, Jr. (eds.), Exodus to the East(Idyllwild, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr. Pub., 1996 [1921]), 30–40, at 38 and 52–68, at 64–6 (On Eurasianism: Russia Between East and West: Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism, ed. Dmitry Shlapentokh (Leiden: Brill, 2007)). 41 “Evraziiskii soblazn [The Eurasian Seduction],” Sovreminnyia zapiski, no. 34 (1928), 312–46. 42 “Dva Zaveta [Two Covenants],” in Rossiia i Latinstvo (Berlin: Logos, 1923), 152–76. 37

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that for the Orthodox believer in France to be converted to Roman Catholicism was worse than to be killed by the Bolsheviks in the Communist Russia, on the grounds that the former led to the eternal perdition of the soul, whereas the latter caused only a temporal destruction of the body.” When the well-known diplomat and lay churchman Prince Grigory N. Trubetskoy (1874–1930) criticized this extreme idea in the journal Put’, the Eurasians responded with an open letter, which Florovsky signed, that defended the moral comparison of the repressive nature of Bolshevism and Roman Catholicism.43 Our paradigm is evident early on in Florovsky’s theological writings as well. Most notably, at the 1936 First Pan-Orthodox Congress of Theologians in Athens (November 29–December 6), which Bulgakov also attended, Florovsky gave two widely influential papers.44 They were summaries of the two key aspects of the argument of his soon-to-be published history of Russian theology, Puti Russkogo Bogosloviia [The Ways of Russian Theology] (Paris, 1937).45 He stresses, in this massive work, the fundamentally Greek/Hellenistic identity of Eastern Orthodoxy and its traditional cultures and the distortion of this identity by an alien foreign tradition from the post-schism West. The first paper, given in German, was his “Western Influences in Russian Theology.” Florovsky’s communication was one of three papers in a panel dedicated to the determination of foreign influences (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Philosophical) on Orthodox theology after the fall of Constantinople. The paper opens with Florovsky quoting and commenting favorably on words from the then recently deceased head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Met. Antonii (Khrapovitskii) (1863–1936). This is clearly a direct affront to Bulgakov, who was attending the same conference, if it is remembered that Met. Antonii’s jurisdiction had condemned the Sophiology of Bulgakov as heretical just the previous year. Moreover, Florovsky had signed the more critical “minority” report on Bulgakov’s theology only months earlier. Met. Antonii held, Florovsky wrote, that the whole development of Russian school theology since the seventeenth century was “but a dangerous borrowing from heterodox Western sources” or, as Met. Antonii put it, “‘copy[ing] out systems of heretical teachings.’” “Many people”—we are told, and Florovsky says, “Such opinions contain a bit of truth”—got the impression that “all of Russian theology is

See Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis and the Future Ways of Orthodox Theology,” in George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox Constructions of the West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 102–24, at 106). 44 See “Western Influences in Russian Theology” (1939) and “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1939), PWGF, 129–57; On this conference: Blane, Georges Florovsky, 71–2, n. 86, 186. 45 See F. J. Thomson, “Peter Mogila’s Ecclesiastical Reforms and the Ukrainian Contribution to Russian Culture: A Critique of Georges Florovsky’s Theory of the Pseudomorphosis of Orthodoxy,” Slavica Gandensia, no. 20 (1993), 67–119. 43

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marred by Western influence” so that a “thorough and decisive turnaround” of theology was required in the form of “a turning back, a return to the forgotten and abandoned sources of strict, Patristic Orthodoxy.” The paper then proceeds to show in brief how there was a “violent pseudomorphosis of Orthodox thought” where the Orthodox (first under a Latin then German or English captivity) were “compelled to think in categories foreign to their essence and to articulate themselves using non-customary terms and concepts” so that a Western theology and culture were constructed, indeed, a “Scholastic theology” that had no “foundation: coming into being and growing on foreign soil, it became, so to speak, scaffolding over an empty construction site” resulting in a “disastrous rupture, a division within Orthodox consciousness.”46 In his Puti, this sort of polemic against the West can be seen in his description of the period when Ukraine was under the Latinizing influence of Metropolitan Peter Mogila of Kiev (1596–1646), where, finding the Church in ruins, under his aegis everything is suffused with a foreign, Latin spirit . . . . This was an acute Romanization of Orthodoxy, a Latin pseudomorphosis of Orthodoxy. A Latin and Latinizing school system is built on a deserted spot; not only ritual and language, but also theology, worldview and religious psychology become Latinized. The very soul of the people comes to be Latinized.47 Orthodoxy itself, however, remained unchanged, as the foreign accretion did not destroy the “unity of faith.” What is required is a “return to the ancient historical sources of Orthodoxy” away from “the path of Scholasticism,” of “hurried systematization according to foreign and recent regulations.” However, such a return to the origins of Orthodoxy must be both a critical and “spiritual return to Patristic sources and foundations.”48 Florovsky’s second paper at the Athens Congress was given in English (“Patristics and Modern Theology”) and it calls modern Orthodox theologians to return to their own Eastern tradition of the Fathers and the liturgy. This is a return not to the dead letter of their texts but a return that is a rekindling of the “creative fire of the Fathers, to restore in ourselves the patristic spirit” resulting in a “real continuity of lives and minds.”49 Furthermore, making a

Florovsky, “Western Influences in Russian Theology” (1939), PWGF, 129–57, at 129, 141, 143, 139 and 148 (CW, IV, 157–82, 297–9, at 157–8, 170, 172, 168 and 178). 47 Puti, 49 [and see the periphrastic Ways, I, CW, V, 72] as cited in Gavrilyuk, “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis [etc.]” (slightly adapted). 48 “Western,” PWGF, 149, 144–5, 150 (CW, IV, 179, 174 and 181). 49 “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1939), PWGF, 155–6. Compare to Puti, 506ff. [“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 159–83 at 166ff./Ways, II, CW, VI, 294ff.]. 46

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special appeal to his mostly Greek auditors,50 the Fathers, he claimed, forged a “canonized” “new, Christian Hellenism” such that their schemes and formulae were “through and through Hellenistic or Greek.” “Hellenism,” Florovsky concludes in some of the most famous words in modern Orthodox theology, “is a standing category of the Christian existence.” A theologian must pass through a “spiritual Hellenization (or re-Hellenization) [. . .] let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox.”51 This Hellenization of revelation in the Fathers, or, in a later phrase, “Hellenism under the sign of the cross,”52 is part of the providential action of God in the mission to the Gentiles.53 The Old Testament is complete and Israel did not receive the Messiah since it did not recognize him but refused and rejected him, resulting in the promise being passed to the Gentiles. The Church is above all Ecclesia ex gentibus; but, as the language in which revelation was given to the Church was Greek, we can say both that Greek as a language was “elected” and that the Greeks themselves as a people with their cultural patrimony were elected: “in the election of the Greeks we must discern the mysterious ways of God’s will. The ‘calling of the gentiles’ was a blessing by God over Hellenism. Paul was sent to the Greeks and so the way of orthodox Judeo-Christianity proved to be an historical dead-end.”54 Florovsky is consciously turning on its head Harnack’s allegation55 that Patristic teaching was an “‘acute Hellenization’ of primitive Christianity” by asserting that “Hellenism is the common background and basis of the whole Christian civilization and culture,” being “simply incorporated into our Christian existence.” If Hellenism is constitutive of Christianity then, pace Harnack, we are “not Hellenised enough.” Hellenism, however, underwent a “conversion” or as it were, was baptized and thereby “transvaluated,” “dissected with the sword of Christian Revelation and was sharply polarized” so that one has now the true Christian Hellenism of Hagia Sophia and the Fathers and the pagan Hellenism of the Acropolis and Nietzsche and Goethe. Re-Hellenization, not de-Hellenization, then, is needed as “the only remedy for the modern Chaos

Blane, Georges Florovsky, 71, n. 86, 186. “Patristics,” PWGF, 157. 52 “The Christian Hellenism” (1957), PWGF, 233–6, at 234. 53 “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology” (1931), PWGF, 115–27, at 122 (CW, III, 21–40, at 32) (given at Barth’s seminar in Bonn: see Matthew Baker, “‘Offenbarung, Philosophie und Theologie’: Karl Barth and Georges Florovsky in Dialogue,” Scottish Journal of Theology 68:3 (2015), 299– 326). 54 “Bogoslovskie Otryvki [Theological Fragments],” Put’ 31 (1931): 3–29, at 14, and compare the more muted “Revelation,” PWGF, 122 (CW, III, 32). 55 See Adolf von Harnack, What Is Christianity?, 2nd ed., trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders (London: Williams and Norgate, 1901), 205 (see Gavrilyuk, “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis,” 110–13). 50 51

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in theology” but “the move back to Greek tradition”56 is then revealed as a decisive move back to Byzantium—a re-Byzantinization of theology. Christian revelation, therefore, is historical and presumes certain facts that cannot be abstracted from, interpreted away and one of them is the language of Scripture in which that revelation is given. The Greek language, for Florovsky, was a sacred one insofar as the New Testament was expressed in it. Indeed, he claimed that only the New Testament in its original Greek could be said to be “inspired,” not the translations, which can be changed and interpreted. But all languages assume their own thought worlds and Greek is no exception here as it presupposes a web of Hellenistic concepts. If we apply this reasoning to the Greek writings that comprise the New Testament then we must conclude that the message of God has been articulated in Greek thought categories. Thus if one wants to learn the message of God “you must learn Greek categories, not only Greek words, because forever you have to start with a definite drafting of this message, and the draft was made in Greek.” But if one must be immersed in both the Greek language and thought-world to understand the Gospel then this is also providentially the case with the authorized interpreters of the Gospel— the Fathers.57 Through the gracious choice of specific “eternal words, unable to be replaced by others” in their dogmatic definitions, the Fathers, inspired by Christian life as a “new experience and new faith,” forged a sacred perennial (albeit eclectic) “Christian philosophy” or “philosophy of the Holy Spirit,” which was “included” within Christian dogmatics. This “true philosophy” is a “system of religious philosophy and [. . .] a philosophy of revelation” where revelation must develop within human thought creating a “comprehensive system of a confession of faith.”58 Florovsky argues that the Fathers adopted no particular philosophical tradition but they “attempted a new philosophical synthesis on the basis of the Revelation” linking the “Divine message” they had to deliver with the “aspiration of the Hellenic mind.” Philosophy here is then understood as “simply the vocation of the human mind to apprehend the ultimate Truth, now revealed and consummated in the incarnate Word.”59 Above all one sees this philosophical vision in the services of the Church, especially from Lent to Pentecost, where we see the “common mind of the

Florovsky, Revised version of preface to “In Ligno Crucis: The Patristic Doctrine of the Atonement” (1948), GFPrin., Bx. 3. F. 4, 2–3 (compare to the unrevised preface: “Preface to In Ligno Crucis,” PWGF, 65–70, at 67). 57 Revised Version of “Quest for Christian Unity: The Challenge of Disunity” (1955), GFPrin., Bx. 3. F. 11, 26–7. 58 “Revelation,” PWGF, 122–4, 118 (CW, III, 33–5, 26–7). 59 Rev. pref. “In Ligno Crucis,” 3 and “Preface to In Ligno Crucis,” PWGF, 68. 56

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worshipping Church. One can best be initiated into the spirit of the Fathers by attending the offices of the Eastern Church.”60 Bulgakov, in contrast, believed that dogmas were truths of religious revelation that had metaphysical content. They were expressed differently depending on the language of the philosophy of the day, whether it was the Greek philosophy used by the Fathers or our own contemporary philosophy.61 In reaction to this sort of approach, Florovsky asserted that it was wholly illegitimate to express Christian teaching in any other philosophy but that forged by the Fathers. Christianity “is history by its very essence” and there exists no abstract general Christian message that can be detached from its historical context and there likewise is no eternal truth “which could be formulated in some suprahistorical propositions.”62 The philosophy that the Fathers used in expressing Christian dogma was in fact unique and differed greatly from that of Aristotle and Plato in that the Greek thought forms of such thinkers were baptized and then redirected to Christian purposes. It was wholly “ridiculous” to attempt to reinterpret “traditional doctrine in terms or categories of a new philosophy, whatever this philosophy may be”63 since that doctrine was quite simply inseparable from the renewed Greek philosophy in which it was formulated. The Christian philosophy of the Fathers is, therefore, wholly coextensive with Christian dogmatic teaching and tradition and, more precisely, Eastern Orthodoxy, which, he argued, stands for the “common heritage of the Church universal” in both East and West, as “Patristic tradition.”64 Among the many dangers of such a position, as Bulgakov realized early on, was its temptation to illegitimately and unhistorically treat the Fathers as “dogmatically infallible” “unerring texts” smoothing over and harmonizing the different Patristic writers like the Talmud does with different rabbis (“a rabbinic approach to the writings of the Fathers as ‘tradition’”). However, Bulgakov continues, and here Florovsky would have certainly agreed with him, “Orthodox theology is not the Talmud, and a real veneration of the Fathers must reverence not the letter but the spirit. The writings of the Holy Fathers must have a guiding authority, yet be applied with discernment.”65

“Preface to In Ligno Crucis,” PWGF, 69. See Bulgakov, “Dogma and Dogmatic Theology” (1937), trans. Peter Bouteneff, Tradition Alive, ed. Michael Plekon (Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward, 2003), 67–80. [“Dogmat i dogmatica,” in Zhivoe Predanie: Pravoslavie v sovremennosti (Paris: YMCA, 1937), 9–24. (Pravoslavnaia mysl’ v. 3)]. 62 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” Theology Today 7:1 (1950), 68–79, at 75. 63 “Patristics,” PWGF, 156. 64 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church,” 72. 65 Bulgakov, “Dogma,” 70–1; The “rabbinic” remark of Bulgakov may be a tacit swipe at Florovsky since a similar statement was made by V.N. Il’in some few years previously about an essay of 60 61

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During the early centuries when Christendom was not split, it was united, Florovsky argued, in a common theology “under the uncontested lead of the Greek Fathers and masters.” Western theology up to Augustine, he argues, was “basically Greek, though in Latin dress.”66 In other words—and here this is a puzzling claim—what is ostensibly particularly Eastern, insofar as it embodies the Greek Hellenistic culture of the Eastern Empire, is actually the universal tradition of the Latin West such that we can truthfully say that Eastern Orthodoxy is the orthodoxy of East and West. This means that there is no independent Latin Western tradition. The common Greek tradition was “reduced or impoverished”67 in the West during the Middle Ages: “then comes the doom over the West. There was a general eclipse and decay of civilization in the West just after Augustine. The Greek language was almost completely forgotten, even by the scholars.”68 The Christian Hellenism of the Fathers became in the West mere “historical reminiscence”69 since Western Christianity had lost the vision of the Fathers and even the East underwent an “abnormal ‘pseudomorphosis’” of Orthodox theology that began with the Greek diaspora in the West being “exposed to all the devices of the Western world.”70 Although Western theology now has a different “vision” than that of Orthodoxy71 and despite the fact that there has been an extensive (but ultimately superficial) Westernization of traditional Orthodox teaching, the teaching of the Fathers is alive in the East till the present day, since it speaks the idiom of the Fathers, is still speaking Patristic Greek, as a “living tradition [. . .] [which] gives to the East its Christian identity.”72

Florovsky on the Patristic teaching on the atonement (Florovsky, “O smerti krestnoi,” Pravoslavnaia mysl’, no. 2 (1930), 148–87): “The brilliant essay of Prof. G.V. Florovsky is dedicated to the Patristic teaching on the death on the cross. A greatly erudite and talented author, who one might say, put on a straightjacket of the Patristic literature, as if drowning in it and not having saved anything of his own. However, the thought of G.F. [sic] Florovsky feels at ease in this heavy armour. One might say, that in the likeness of the ancient talmudists, the author erected around this Gospel theme a gigantic defensive wall from patristic literature. It is curious that so interesting an essay is obtained thanks to (not in spite of but precisely thanks to) its exclusively negative task—the maximum possible proscription of gnosis. But—le roi est mort, vive le roi—both the ponderous erudition and the rigorous orthodoxy [ortodoksal’nost’] of the author wakes up one’s mind in the direction of developing an Orthodox gnosis; his every line is a wake-up call, so rich is its content. This is one amongst the principal merits of the essay” (Review of Pravoslavnaia Mysl’—Trudy Pravoslavnago Bogoslovskago Instituta v Parizhe), II (Paris: St. Sergius Institute, 1930), Put’, no. 30 (October 1931), 86–9, at 89; Here see Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky, 282–3). 66 Florovsky, “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology” (1949), PWGF, 185–91, at 186–7. 67 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church,” 72. 68 “Legacy,” PWGF, 187. 69 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church,” 72. 70 “Legacy,” PWGF, 188. 71 “The Christological Dogma and Its Terminology,” in Paulos Gregorios et al. (eds.), Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite? (Geneva: WCC, [1968] 1981), 121–6, at 123–4. 72 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church,” 72–3.

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There is ambiguity here. Florovsky is not always consistent in his identification of Christian Hellenism. In a few cases,73 he will say (as for example in 1948) that “Christian Hellenism was never a particularly Eastern phenomenon. The Fathers were teachers of the Church Universal, not just of the Eastern Church.” In this same passage he counts as Hellenistic everything from Augustine and Jerome to Gregory of Nyssa and Chrysostom to Thomism, the Caroline Divines and the Tractarians.74 But he also more frequently can seem to collapse all Christian tradition, Christian Hellenism, into the Eastern Fathers understood as specifically Greek. As late as 1955, he held to the very strange opinion that there was no such thing as Latin Patristics since its distinctive writers were all actually tacitly Greek: Here I first of all offer one of my “heresies.” I believe that the early period of Christian theology, sometimes described as Patristic, was purely and thoroughly Hellenic, Hellenistic, Greek; and that Latin Patristics never existed. Well, it really may seem to be too much. But actually, and this is so important, actually which names are usually given as Latin Fathers? Hilary of Poitiers—well, modern patrologists classify him under East and not under West, because, except for the Latin language, there was nothing Western in his thought at all; Augustine—well, African, neoplatonic, philosopher. That is not true—African temperament, neoplatonic philosophy. Jerome—the beautiful Latin style, but his heart was in the East always. Ambrose—yes, very Latin; unfortunately, almost all his books are translated from Philo, Basil the Great and some other Eastern writers. How much Latin Patristics is left?75 But ambiguity exists also elsewhere. Florovsky’s hegemonic approach to the Patristic tradition does not lead to the rejection of ecumenism. Indeed, he was a founding member of the WCC. Ecumenism for the Orthodox, he writes in 1949, is a kind of non-proselytizing “missionary activity” in which the Orthodox Church witnesses to the truth of Christ as she is the guardian of the apostolic faith and Tradition in their integrity and their fullness so being in this sense the “only true Church.”76 However, a few years later, he writes that since the Orthodox Church is the Church one must say that all other Christian

For example, Review of Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London, 1957), The Journal of Religion 38:3 (1958), 207–8 and Review of The Eastern Churches and Catholic Unity (New York, 1963), Journal of Ecumenical Studies 1:1 (1964), 117–18. 74 Rev. pref. “In Ligno Crucis,” 2. 75 “Quest for Christian Unity,” 29; Compare Review of L. A. Zander, Vision and Action (London, 1952), SVTQ 1:2 (1953), 28–34, at 32–3. 76 “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” Irénikon 22:1 (1949), 5–25, at 9–10. 73

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Churches are “deficient” so that “for me, Christian reunion is just universal conversion to Orthodoxy. I have no confessional loyalty; my loyalty belongs solely to the Una Sancta.”77 The Fathers and the Church proper for Florovsky any way you look at it are “Greek” and indeed “Eastern” in “spirit.” Here is not the blunt polemicism against the “Latin spirit” of Puti but a more insidious polemicism of a universalist variety. Florovsky has collapsed the Gospel into a specific cultural expression of the truth of Christ—call it, Byzantinism—which then devours all other incarnations of that reality, since it will not abide anything as properly proclaiming the Good News but a specifically Greek voice.78

THE ROLE OF CATHOLIC CONSCIOUSNESS/ PATRISTIC VISION IN NEOPATRISTIC SYNTHESIS It is at this point that we need to turn our attention to a closer analysis of Florovsky’s characterization of this Patristic tradition. What is it at its core? We have already seen that he speaks, contra Bulgakov and post-schism Western theology with its use of non-Patristic sources from Aristotle to Hegel, of a Christian philosophy of the Fathers, which is a baptized canonized Hellenism. This Christian Hellenism, furthermore, is marked out for Florovsky by its emphasis on what he called “catholic” or “sobornyi consciousness,” where the Fathers speak as witnesses from a direct personal experience of the mystery of Christ, which Florovsky deems “vision.” The Church is characterized by a divine-human unity that above all reflects the unity of the Trinity in whom many become one, which Florovsky referred to as sobornost’ or catholicity.79 Catholicity is mediated to us through “living tradition,”80 as a creative movement of the Spirit at work in the experience of the Church from the Upper Room to the present day. The idea of the Church as sobornost’—completeness, integrality, conciliarity, and unity in diversity—and the notion (even the phrase) of “living tradition” is largely adapted from the Slavophiles, most especially,

“Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement” (1952), PWGF, 279–88, at 285. In contrast: Matthew Baker, “Neo-Patristic Synthesis”: An Examination of a Key Hermeneutical Paradigm in the Thought of Georges V. Florovsky, ThM. Thesis, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, MA, 2010, Ch. 4; and see Chap. 10 in this book as a direct response to this essay. 79 “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), PWGF, 257–71, at 259 (CW, I, 37–55, 121– 2, at 39). 80 Ibid., PWGF, 257–71, at 264 (CW, I, 46); See “The Ever-Virgin Mother of God” (1949), PWGF, (CW, III, 171–88, at 186), “The Eastern Orthodox Church,” 72, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960), PWGF, 221–32, at 222 (CW, I, 105–20, 127, at 106) (citing Irenaeus), “Obedience and Witness,” in Robert C. Mackie and Charles C. West (eds.), The Sufficiency of God (London: SCM Press, 1963), 58–70, at 67, and “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church” (1964), CW, I, 73–92, 123–5, at 79 and 82. 77 78

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Aleksei Khomiakov (1804–60).81 The Slavophiles were heavily dependent on Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838) of the Catholic Tübingen School. In Die Einheit in der Kirche (1825), an immensely important monograph for modern Orthodox theology, Möhler drew on his teacher Johann Sebastian Drey (1777– 1853) as well as Neander, Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Schelling.82 This much is uncontroversial. Indeed, it is noted by Florovsky himself who, in discussing Möhler’s importance for Khomiakov and resonance with the Slavophile Ivan Kireevsky (1806–56), describes the book, which he had earlier reviewed,83 as “remarkable.”84 It is “more than merely a book, a theological tractate or philosophical synthesis,” he wrote, but “It is his Confessions, an inspired account of what was disclosed to the author in and through the patristic works.”85 We shall return to the importance of Möhler for neopatristic synthesis shortly. This catholicity is a completeness in the life of grace (“sobornost”) in which Christians are bonded together in a union of common life and love with their fellows that reflects the Trinity. Such a grace-filled union is a call to all Christians. Christians are called, in the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21), to participate (in the émigré coinage) in the “churching” (otserkovlenie) of their very being. Florovsky refers to this churching of the human person using various phrases such as, “the catholic transfiguration of personality,” “catholic consciousness,” and “the catholic regeneration of the mind.” Each Christian is commanded to freely love his neighbor as himself by rejecting, denying, and even dying to himself. He sees himself so wholly in the Other in that in the Other, he is freely responding to Christ Himself. The Christian life consists of the free cultivation in history of an ecclesial consciousness whereby in faith in Christ “we enclose the many within our own ego” imaging the Holy Trinity in whom many become one.86 In taking on Christ through treating our

For example, Aleksei Khomiakov, “The Church Is One,” in Boris Jakim and Robert Bird (eds. and trans.), On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Reader (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Books, 1998), 31–53, at 36 and see 33ff. 82 See Johann Adam Möhler, Unity in the Church or The Principle of Catholicism Presented in the Spirit of the Church Fathers of the First Three Centuries, trans. Peter C. Erb (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 166–205, 117ff. [Die Einheit in der Kirche; oder das Prinzip des Katholicismus, dargestellt im geiste der kirchenväter der drei ersten jahrhunderte, ed. Rupert Geiselmann (Köln and Olten: Hegner, [1825] 1957)] (see Yves Congar, “La pensée de Möhler et l’Ecclésiologie orthodoxe,” Irénikon 12:4 (1935), 320–9 and Serge Bolshakoff, The Doctrine of the Unity of the Church in the Works of Khomyakov and Moehler (London: SPCK, 1946), 217–62 and especially 232). 83 Florovsky, Review of Möhler, Die Einheit in der Kirche (Mainz, 1925), “Kniga Melera o tserkvi,” Put’ 7 (1927): 128–30. 84 Puti, 278–9 (Ways, II, CW, VI, 46–7). 85 “Kniga Melera,” 128. 86 “Sobornost,” PWGF, 262–3 (CW, I, 43–4) and see “Revelation,” PWGF, 125–7 (CW, III, 38– 40), “Le corps du Christ vivant: une interprétation orthodoxe de l’Église,” in La Sainte Église Universelle: Confrontation oecuménique (Neuchâtel and Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1948), 9–57, 81

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brother as our life, we become incorporated into Christ and “become inheritors of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). As the identity of the Church as catholicity (sc. unity in Christ) is described as a form of consciousness, it is not surprising that Florovsky uses a variety of psychological imagery to discuss its internal life. Throughout his work he speaks of a primary set of terms as subjects (e.g., Church, Fathers, tradition) undergoing, being characterized by or possessing a second set of terms (e.g., “experience,” “faith,” “image,” “vision,” “witness,” “memory,” “freedom,” and especially “mind”). This takes the form of stock phrases that reappear throughout his work, such as “the experience of the Church,” “the mind of the Fathers,” and “the vision of the Fathers.” He will likewise combine the second set of terms within itself treating one as a subject of another, such as the “experience of faith.”87 Florovsky’s psychology of catholic consciousness, which he claimed had Patristic provenance (pointing to like notions of phronema and theoria or noetic vision), begins in the Church. It begins in the Church since revelation, which is experienced by the saints, is only received in and through belonging to the Body of Christ. This Body has its own experience and “inner, mystical memory,” which is “tradition.” Tradition in this context is understood as the noetic aspect of the unity of the Spirit. In the Body, understood as a common bond of love, we have genuine knowledge of God in Christ by the “unity and continuity of the spiritual experience and the life under grace.”88 True knowledge of God, therefore, is founded on tradition. But tradition is not a collection of ancient opinions and teachings. It is a living movement of the Spirit in the Body, through which one participates in an inherited ecclesial experience and memory. Such traditional ecclesial knowledge of God is revealed to the individual Christian in the “silence of faith, in silent vision.” This vision, the experience of silent faith, is eventually unfolded as a verbal proclamation or expression.89 Faith, then, is understood as the silent “evident character of experience” and “vision and contemplation [A nschauung/sozertsanie:intuition],” which comprehends revelation as the Word of truth addressed to man in the Church.90 This comprehension of the truth of Christ cannot remain silent but must be expressed noetically as a dogma

at 32–4 (English translation of this text in this book) and “The Predicament of the Christian Historian” (1959), PWGF, 193–219, at 210 (CW, II, 31–65, 233–6, at 52–3); Here building on (amongst others) Met. Antonii (Khrapovitskii), The Moral Idea of the Main Dogmas of the Faith, trans. Varlaam Novakshonoff and Lazar Puhalo (Chilliwack, BC: Synaxis Press, 1984 [1898, 1911]), 9ff. and 69ff. 87 See “Revelation,” PWGF, 120 (CW, III, 28). 88 Ibid., 124–5 (ibid., 36–7). 89 Ibid., 121 (ibid., 30). 90 Ibid., 119 (ibid., 27).

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or an “articulated truth.”91 Dogma, therefore, “witnesses” to what has been experienced or seen by faith in a vision.92 However, this “vision” of faith in which truth is received appears to be a sort of indemonstrable intuition,93 what the Romantics called “intellectual intuition” (intellectuelle Anschauung) or “feeling,” for we are told that dogma is not a discursive axiom which “would be open to logical development” but an “intuitive truth.”94 In another place, we hear further echoes of Romanticism when he describes the self-consciousness of “catholicity” as a “concrete oneness in thought and feeling.”95 It appears that Florovsky was transmuting the Romantic notion of creativity as a supra-rational and quasi-revelatory intuition to catholicity. In an early piece, he claims that the cultural/spiritual creativity expressed in Russian Christianity operates not by a rationally discursive and causal comprehensiveness but by supra-rational bursts of creativity, which he describes as “feeling,” “mystical intuition,” and the “religiously enlightened gaze.”96 What is absolutely crucial for Florovsky, as it was for Möhler before him,97 is the continuity of the Christian today in his catholic consciousness with that of the Church of the ages. But how can one conceptualize this continuity when there has been manifest schism and disruption? One can only rightly conceptualize this unspeakable unity if one a) identifies the said consciousness with certain individual Christians who exemplify or preferably teach a certain core ethos/ spirit or Christian philosophy (Christian Hellenism); and b) distinguishes those bearing the identity from those in whom it is distorted. The latter uphold a false un-Christian (Western) philosophy, for example scholasticism and Romanticism, and lack catholic consciousness. The saints, and, in particular, the Fathers, are the preeminent instances of this catholic consciousness. The Fathers have attained to such a fullness of catholicity that their faith (which as we have just seen is providentially Hellenistic) once expressed, is no mere personal profession but “the testimony of the whole Church. This is because they speak out of the Church’s catholic fullness and depth, theologizing within the medium of sobornost’.”98 By prayer and ascesis, the Fathers, who witness to the testimony of the Church and its life as tradition, are accordingly described everywhere in Florovsky not just as teachers but “guides and witnesses” to

Ibid., 121 (ibid., 30). Ibid., 120–1 (ibid., 29–30) and “Revelation and Interpretation” (1951), CW, I, 17–36, at 25. 93 See Clément Lialine, Review of Puti, Irenikon 15:4 (1938), 397–8, at 397. 94 “Revelation,” PWGF, 121 (CW, III, 30); See Matthew Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History: Neo-Patristic Synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality,” Theologia 81, no. 4 (2010): 81–118. 95 “Sobornost,” PWGF, 263 (CW, I, 44). 96 “About Non-historical Peoples,” 67. 97 See Möhler, Unity in the Church, 118. 98 Puti, 507 (“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 167; also: Ways, II, CW, VI, 295). 91 92

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the identity of the Church whose “vision is ‘of authority,’ not necessarily their words.” The Fathers neither present to us “ready-made” answers, nor can one look to them for a simple consensus patrum as a binding empirical agreement of individuals.99 The Fathers help us face the problems that are of true importance in the new age and to construct a contemporary synthesis.100 We must follow the Fathers creatively and not through what Florovsky often referred to as a “theology of repetition.”101 A “theology of repetition” is one which is addicted to archaic forms and phrases but which misses their inner living spirit. Rather, being inspired by the Patristic vision, we should be unafraid to respond to theological contexts that were unforeseen by the Fathers even if that means going beyond the initial sense of their words. We are called, then, to creatively and spiritually102 return to the sources, to follow the Fathers by acquiring their mind (phronema), which is a consensus reflecting the very “catholic mind” or fundamental identity of the Church:103 “The time has arrived to enchurch our mind and to resurrect for ourselves the holy and blessed sources of ecclesial thought.”104

THE ROMANTIC ORIGINS OF NEOPATRISTIC SYNTHESIS—SOLOVYOV, KIREEVSKY, MÖHLER, AND SCHELLING Yet just how Patristic is Florovsky’s account of neopatristic synthesis? Let us take perhaps its key idea: Patristic “vision.” The Fathers do of course speak of their experience of God in Christ or “vision.” However, if one wishes to find them appealing to this experience as a justification of their authority or the veracity of their particular theologies then one will be sadly disappointed, as Fr. John Behr has argued.105 When the Fathers do speak of vision, one is struck

“On the Authority of the Fathers,” PWGF, 237–40, at 238, and “The Authority of the Ancient Councils and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1967), CW, I, 93–103, 126–27, at 103. 100 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 154 and “On the Authority of the Fathers,” PWGF, 239. 101 “St. Gregory Palamas,” 225, 228 (CW, I, 110 and 114) and Blane, Georges Florovsky, 153. 102 Puti, xv-xvi, 506–513 (Ways, CW, V, I, “Preface,” xvii–xviii and “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 166–73; CW, VI, II, 294–301) and “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), PWGF, 289–302, at 292–7 (also: CW, IV, 11–30, 281–2). 103 “Palamas,” PWGF, 225 (CW, I, 109), “The Church: Her Nature and Task” (1948), CW, I, 57–72, 122–3, at 58 and “The Authority of the Ancient Councils and the Tradition of the Fathers,” 103; see “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church,” CW, I, 80, 83, and 89. 104 Preface of Vostochnye Ottsy IV-go Veka (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1931) (“On the Authority of the Fathers,” PWGF, 239, n. 10). 105 I am indebted in the next two paragraphs to John Behr, “Passing Beyond the Neo-Patristic Synthesis,” “Neo-Patristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology be Contextual?” Volos Academy for Theological Studies (Volos, Greece), June 3–6, 2010. Neopatristic Synthesis or Postpatristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual? (Volos, GR: Ekdotike 99

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both by the variety of its uses and by the fact that they use it to underline the fact that the knowledge of God requires repentance and purification, mental and spiritual toil, and should in no way be taken lightly. One needs to begin at the beginning and always to remember the necessity of absolute dependence on Christ. Vision is appealed to as something that is to be attained, but from which one falls short, therefore impressing on the listener the need for God’s mercy and the gift of repentance. This is the opposite of Florovsky’s use of it, which is as a supra-discursive sight of the whole truth of God attained by a saint or doctor and this vision makes them an authoritative witness to divine truth. The locus classicus for theoria and the noetic vision in neopatristic synthesis is found in the first two of St. Gregory Nazianzus’ Theological Orations. Gregory, in a passage which is repeatedly cited by Romanides as an example of an appeal to experience/theoria in theology,106 writes that theology is not for everyone “but only those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study [theoria]” but even more importantly they should have undergone or “at the very least are undergoing, purification of body and soul” since for the impure to touch and hold pure things is, he says, “dangerous,” just as it is not good for “weak eyes” to look at the “sun’s brightness.”107 Theoria here is in no way a mental sweep of God’s glory but concerted intellectual effort that in no way can be treated casually by the Christian. In the next oration, Gregory does speak of something like a “vision of God” in its common sense when in the language of an initiate he talks about ascending the holy mountain like Moses, calling his listeners to follow him like Aaron in order to penetrate the cloud and see and converse with God. But what does he see? Gregory says that once he directed his gaze he “scarcely saw the averted figure of God” and this only by being sheltered in the rock. This rock is Christ, the Word incarnate by whom alone one knows the Father. So not only is Gregory—speaking dramatically as an initiate—saying he can only see God in Christ, but he only sees the “averted figure” of God, mere “indications of himself ” that God has left behind and not “the nature prime, inviolate, self-apprehended.” How can the vision increase? Gregory’s answer is short and simple: “we must begin again,” he says, knowing that to tell of God

Demetriados, 2018) [in Greek]. See: https://orthodoxie​.typepad​.com​/ficher​/synthse​_volos​.pdf (last accessed March 20, 2021). 106 See Romanides, “Critical Examination of the Applications of Theology,” in S. Agourides (ed.), Procès–Verbaux du Deuxième Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes 19–29 Août 1976 (Athens: Theological School of the University of Athens, 1978), 413–41, at 424 and Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine, 49. 107 Or. 27.3, On God and Christ: St. Gregory of Nazianzus—The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius, trans. Lionel Wickham and Frederick Williams (SVS Press, 2002), 27. (Grégoire de Nazianze—Discours 27-31, SC 250 (Paris: Cerf, 1978).

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is not possible and to know Him even less possible.108 Quite simply, no claim to theological authority by Gregory is made based on the vision of God and it is doubtful that a similar case could be made from other Fathers.109 We must turn, therefore, elsewhere than the Fathers110 for the source of “vision” in Florovsky’s thought. We know already that the notions of sobornost’ and “living tradition” are Slavophile borrowings from Möhler, but what of Florovsky’s talk of Patristic “mind”/“catholic consciousness” with its concomitant “vision” of the Fathers and, to add another key notion, “Christian philosophy”? In fact, on closer analysis it appears to be just as much a result of Western (particularly, Romantic) influence as Bulgakov’s Sophiology. Certainly, the notion that the Christian faith was “the only sure and useful,”111 “true philosophy” compared with the myriad different schools of the Greeks is found in the Fathers. “Christian philosophy” is “true” philosophy because it comes from a revelation of Truth Himself, the Word made flesh,112 and presupposes that as a philosopher that one is “truly a lover of wisdom”113 as one is a follower of the very power and Wisdom by whom and in whom all things were made.114 However, as we saw earlier, Florovsky’s idea of Christian philosophy says much more than this and echoes the Romantics in its talk of a “philosophical synthesis” or total “system” of the Christian faith. The truth of revelation, for him, quite different than the Fathers, is unfolded in Christian dogma into “a comprehensive system of a confession of faith, into a system of religious perspectives—one might say, into a system of religious philosophy and into a philosophy of revelation.”115 In particular, as has been shown by Fr. Matthew Baker,116 he was critically building on the work of Solovyov who, Florovsky argues, attempted in his last work (albeit unsuccessfully) to vindicate the Christian faith in a philosophical “Great Synthesis” or all-embracing synthesis of theology, rational philosophy, and positive science. This was to be “a general instauration of the Christian philosophy” that would give a complete philosophical account of the “universal

Or. 28.3–4, 38–9; See Behr, The Nicene Faith (SVS Press, 2004), 336–8. See Behr (“Passing Beyond the Neo-Patristic Synthesis”) on authority and noetic vision in St. Symeon the New-Theologian. 110 For example, Florovsky, Review of Lossky, 207–8. 111 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 8, Writings of St. Justin Martyr, trans. Thomas B. Falls (New York: Christian Heritage, 1948), 147–368, at 160. 112 See Clement of Alexandria: Stromateis: Books One to Three, trans. John Ferguson (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 1.5.32.4, 45–6, 1.18.90.1, 91, 1.20.97–8, 96–7 and 2.11.48.1, 191 and see 1.21.101.3–2.1.1.1, 156–7. 113 See Or. 25.1, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations, trans. Martha Vinson (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 157–74, at 157. 114 Stromateis, 2.2.5.1–3, 160. 115 “Revelation,” PWGF, 118 (CW, III, 27). 116 See Baker, “Neo-Patristic Synthesis”: An Examination of a Key Hermeneutical Paradigm in the Thought of Georges V. Florovsky, Chap. 1 and “‘Theology Reasons,’” 102ff. 108 109

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proclamation of the Gospel, that is, of the Divine Truth,” with particular emphasis on the historical nature of revelation beginning with Christ Himself.117 The influence of Solovyov on Florovsky, more interestingly, can also be seen in Solovyov’s notion of “faith” that for him was a “mystical perception” by which the “the proper existence of an object, its inner undisclosed reality, can be affirmed” and therefore corresponds for him to the “religious principle.”118 This perception was an “immediate certitude” that the object exists in itself which gave one an unconditional “mystical knowledge” of the actuality of a thing.119 Florovsky, in commenting on Solovyov, says that his notion of faith was “precisely an insight into existence” akin to Henri Bergson’s “intuition” but ultimately deriving from F. W. J. Schelling.120 All of the same language is, of course, used later by Florovsky to describe the “vision” of the Fathers. Yet we find the same constellation of ideas in Kireevsky in a way that more clearly echoes Florovsky himself. In Kireevsky, Hellenism and Anti-Western polemic (particularly, an Anti-Idealist polemic) were conjoined, just as is later the case with Florovsky. Kireevsky calls for the restoration of the “philosophy of the Holy Fathers,” which, he claimed, was a transformation of classical pagan philosophy, but, more importantly, was a product of their “superior vision” or “immediate, inner experience [. . .] communicated to us [. . .] as the testimony of eyewitnesses concerning a country they have been to.”121 Drawing on the terminology of Kant and Schelling, he distinguished122 between a discursive rationality or understanding (Verstand=rassudok) and the “inner root” of this rationality as reason (Vernunft=razum). When left to its own devices discursive rationality one-sidedly resolves all realities according to logic resulting in the fragmentation of the human person. Reason, in contrast, expresses an

Florovsky, “Reason and Faith in the Philosophy of Solov’ëv,” in E. J. Simmons (ed.), Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), 283–97, at 293–5 (see Vladimir Solov’ev, Kritika otvlechennykh nachal, in S. M. Solov’ev and E. L. Radlov (eds.), Sobranie sochinenii Vladimira Sergeevicha Solov’eva, 12 vols. (Bruxelles: Zhizn’ s Bogom, 1966-1970), Vol. 2: v and x and compare Chteniia o Bogochelovechestve, Vol. 3: Lect. 3: 35–36 and 7: 112 [Lectures on Divine Humanity, trans. Peter Zouboff and Boris Jakim (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne, 1995), 33–4, 105]). On Solovyov see Oliver Smith, Vladimir Soloviev and the Spiritualization of Matter (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2010) and Randall A. Poole, “Vladimir Solov’ëv’s Philosophical Anthropology: Autonomy, Dignity, Perfectability,” in G. M. Hamburg and Randall A. Poole (eds.), A History of Russian Philosophy 1830-1930: Faith, Reason, and the Defense of Human Dignity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 131–49. 118 Kritika, 13 [Critique of Abstract Principles, trans. Boris Jakim and ed. Randall A. Poole (thanks to the translator for use of their translation)]. 119 Ibid., 325, 328 and 331. 120 “Reason and Faith,” 286. 121 Ivan Kireevsky, “Fragments,” On Spiritual Unity, 276–91, at 281, 283 and “On the Necessity and Possibility of New Principles in Philosophy,” 234–73, at 249–50, 261–4. [Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii I. V. Kireevskago, ed. M. Gershenzon, 2 vols. (Moscow: Put’, 1911), 1: 223–64]. 122 “Principles,” 257. 117

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“integrality” (tsel’nost’) of being where “all the separate forces merge into one living and integral vision of the mind [tselnoe zrenie uma].”123 This “vision” or “sight of the mind” (zrenie uma) is the common Russian interpretation in the period of “intuition” as an a priori form of cognition, not necessarily mystical, which Schelling called Anschauung or intellectuelle Anschauung.124 For Kireevsky, this vision involves a direct, unmediated contemplation of the object so that one participates intimately in its reality. He seems to identify intuition with the faith of the first Christian philosophy rationally constructed by the Fathers. A philosophy that “combined the development of learning and reason into one all-embracing intuition of faith [sozertsanie very].”125 This “living faith” is the “supreme reason and the essential element of cognition.”126 But where does Kireevsky get such ideas that are so crucial for Florovsky’s neopatristic synthesis? Precisely the same notions can be traced to the Western sources in which he was drenched, in particular Möhler and Schelling, which he knew long before he studied the Fathers after his so-called “conversion.”127 We mentioned earlier the importance for Florovsky of Möhler’s Die Einheit in der Kirche. This work is ostensibly an ecclesiology drawn entirely from the witness of the early Fathers. Indeed, Florovsky claims that Möhler really only provided commentary to the patristic corpus of the first three centuries, especially Irenaeus.128 However, on closer inspection, it reveals itself to be, as Thomas F. O’Meara has noted, “an ecclesiology somewhat formed by insights drawn from romantic idealism which are then filled out by theologies drawn from the Church Fathers.”129 Florovsky notes Möhler’s similarity to not only Khomiakov but also Kireevsky. Möhler, he argues, like Kireevsky, drew on the “experience of the Holy Fathers” and proceeds not from abstract principles but “concrete existence, from the reality of grace in the Church. He does not construct an intellectual scheme, but describes a living experience.”130 For Möhler, Florovsky contends, patrology was not archaeology since the writings of the Fathers did not speak to him “of the bygone things from the past” but a

Ibid., 260 [Polnoe, I, 249]. See Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia: Studies in History, Literature and Philosophy, ed. George Gibian, 3 vols. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1919, 1967), 1: n. 1, 247. 125 Kireevsky, “Principles,” 250 (revd.) [Polnoe, I, 239] and “Faith is the gaze of the heart toward God” (“Fragments,” 291). 126 “Principles,” 271. 127 See Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia, 1: 239ff., Eberhard Müller, Russischer Intellekt in europäischer Krise: Ivan V. Kireevskij, 1806–1856 (Köln: Böhlau, 1966), especially 320–4 but passim and François Rouleau, Ivan Kiréievski et la naissance du slavophilisme (Namur: Culture et vérité, 1990), 15ff., 36–7, 161ff., 214–15, 223. 128 Florovsky, “Kniga Melera,” 129. 129 Thomas F. O’Meara, “Revelation and History: Schelling, Möhler and Congar,” Irish Theological Review 53:1 (1987), 17–35, at 27. 130 Florovsky, Puti, 278–9 [Ways, CW, VI, II, 46–7]. 123 124

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vision of the ancient Church as a living, fresh and complete Christianity since “with all his soul and will, he was immersed in this wonderous world, in his imagination he lived in the ancient church.” However, this ecclesial vision was not of a concept of the Church “revealed to him in some prophetic vision” but the very Church herself, which was revealed to him “through sympathetic communion with patristic experience.”131 Yet Möhler “does not construct an intellectual scheme but begins with ecclesial experience,” as Florovsky puts it, because like all concrete idealism he believed that the idea moves toward its fulfilment in concretion, whether that is the ideal philosophical community of Hegel, or the Christianity and the churches of Schelling.132 Therefore, like them, Möhler’s system scorns the naked idea, beginning with life—the Romantic idealist cult of vitality—so that he can write that “Christian life she [the Church] called the true and divine philosophy.”133 This philosophy, like any philosophy, needs a first principle, a ruling idea, and Möhler begins his system with the “principle of catholicism.” The “principle of catholicism,” which is the origin of the Slavophile sobornost’, is Spirit/Unity. Unity is the life principle animating the Church through which divinity is mediated to it. Möhler traces the organic and historical development of this principle in the growth of the Christian Body as a living organism. As Florovsky observes, Möhler holds that the “Church is sobornyi, catholic in nature” and insofar as she has such a being, she is “an organic whole, one great body, fastened together by bonds of love and united by the power of the Holy Spirit, living and dwelling in it.”134 Here he follows Schelling’s Absolute, in whom ideal and real coincide, and which in radical freedom is set forth in the realm of the real, history, as a developing ideal, Spirit, through Spirit’s self-revelation of the Absolute. This self-revelation of the Absolute which attains its consummation in Jesus Christ, chronicled in Schelling’s late Lectures on Mythology and Revelation (1841–3), is apprehended not only through the great world religions, but especially the historical experience of the churches, composed of free, fallible human beings, witnessed to in Scripture and the Church Fathers.135 Florovsky was not unaware of the fact that Möhler “describes the gracefilled unity of the Church in the terms of Romantic idealism.” However, he

“Kniga Melera,” 129. See O’Meara, “Revelation,” especially 26–8 and Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism: Schelling and the Theologians (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), especially 148–53. 133 Möhler, Unity in the Church, 92. 134 Florovsky, “Kniga Melera,” 129; Compare “The Orthodox Churches and the Ecumenical Movement” [1954], CW, II, 161–231, 242–5, at 201–2, “Le corps du Christ vivant,” 10–11, 20ff. (See this text in this volume), and Puti, 281–5 [Ways, CW, VI, II, 49–53]. 135 See John Laughland, Schelling Versus Hegel: From German Idealism to Christian Metaphysics (Aldershott: Ashgate, 2007). 131 132

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claims that Möhler did not draw his inspiration from the Romantics and that “more than enough separates him from the Romantics.” His reasoning here is that the German theologian’s theology is “not defined by abstract ideas of organic historicism, but by living experience.” There is in Möhler, he claims, no “natural,” and therefore “involuntary,” “all-unity,” rather “natural being involves, on the contrary, disunity, disjunction and so egoism.” Möhler, in other words, is sensitive to the tragedy of history, the freedom of the individual that allows for sin, in contrast to the determinism of Romanticism, since “what is ‘natural’ is to assert one’s individuality, and this natural egoism becomes the beginning of heresies in the Christian world.” In him, we see, rather, that “integrality is realized only on Pentecost in the Holy Spirit.” The Church is the work of the Spirit. She has her foundation in Him, because He has created her as His dwelling place. Only in the Church is there possible “true love which unites” because man is not capable of it but “it is a gift and charism of the Spirit.” In this way, he argues there is “a sharp and clear distinction between Möhler and any Romantic ‘modernism’.”136 It may be true that some Romanticism in its optimism and emphasis on the relentless march to wholeness did not emphasize how the brokenness of human nature allowed for the tragedy of sin, disunity, and heresy. Nevertheless, as we have seen, the very appeal in Möhler to “experience,” “life,” “Spirit,” and especially “freedom” is arguably characteristic of one stream of Romanticism that can be traced to the author of the Freiheitsschrift and the Philosophy of Revelation. In other words, the very things that Florovsky claims that distinguish Möhler from Romanticism are actually taken from it. This dependence of Möhler on Romanticism (and by extension on Florovsky) is still more extensive than we have revealed. Möhler is elaborating a self-manifesting subjectivity where “unity” is the evolving organic identity of God in His Spirit in the Church. In order to give this reality particularity, he concretizes this subjectivity in and through a specific type of “inner spiritual life” or “inner unity of life” which he describes as “Christian consciousness,” “faithful consciousness,” “enduring consciousness of the Church,” and, not unsurprisingly, if we know the work of Florovsky, “the sanctified mind from the time of the apostles” and the Patristic “Catholic consciousness.”137 All the faithful have not only one faith, but one consciousness, which nevertheless does not negate their distinct personality, as one divine power of the Spirit forms them and a person in the Church as an individual by “direct contemplation [. . .] is [called] to make the experience of the Church

Florovsky, “Kniga Melera,” 129. Möhler, Unity in the Church, 96, 111, 107–11 and 177.

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one’s own [. . .] to develop Christian knowledge in the sanctified mind.”138 This inner quality of Christian life, the Spirit living silently in believers, seeks to express or unfold itself, just as the Absolute of Schelling reveals itself by its Spirit in the real, in history. Since the Spirit animates the consciousness of persons in the Church, doctrine, as is the case in Florovsky, is first borne silently in individual Christian consciousnesses then proclaimed. “Tradition” or, as it is better known from Florovsky and countless other modern Russian theologians who take the phrase from Möhler, “living tradition” is the unfolded word of the Spirit. It is life and power infusing the Body that was “first spoken and is continually expounded in a living way in the Church” in its confessions and all those who participate in it from the apostles.139 Tradition, for Möhler, as Florovsky observes, is “not a mechanical preservation of images of the past” or even “an external transmission via succession” but a “living continuity of spiritual being.” However, such a continuity would not be possible unless there were an ethos or vision of unity, a form of catholic consciousness seen in particular saints and doctors. This consciousness makes for a “living identity and mutual communion” between those who possess that consciousness in all ages resulting in the “overcoming [of] time by the one life-giving spirit” since “there is no past at all in the Church, for it does not exist for the All-Holy Spirit.”140 Yet the only way that this tradition, as the manifestation of the principle of the unity of the Church, can become clearer to us, Möhler argues, is if we contrast it to what is not of tradition, which is heresy. Heresy is a sort of rationalist counter-tradition with its own teachers and schools who, in their egoism, lack catholic consciousness.141 In short, the assertion of catholicity requires the negation of what is not catholic or what, at the very least, is a falling away from the wholeness of “catholic consciousness.” Arguably, therefore, a form of the paradigm that we have contended is characteristic of the work of Florovsky is found in Möhler, that is, the assertion of a particular ecclesial identity through a polemic against all that is different and alien to that identity. Given the remarkable similarity of Florovsky’s thought to Möhler’s Romantic idealist reading of the Fathers, it is not surprising that Florovsky’s notion of faith is similar to that of Möhler. Möhler speaks, claiming to be simply faithfully interpreting the Fathers, of a sort of intellectual intuition (“spiritual grasp,” “insight through grace,” “direct knowledge,” “unmediated certainty”), which characterizes the “unmediated consciousness” of the Church

Ibid., 87, 110. Ibid., 96–7, 107, and 117. 140 Florovsky, “Kniga Melera,” 128. 141 Möhler, Unity in the Church, 122. 138 139

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in its knowledge of itself as the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.142 Indeed, the notion of faith found in Möhler, Kireevsky, Solovyov, and then Florovsky has a firm idealist pedigree. Schelling, rethinking Kant under the influence of Spinoza, spoke early on of an absolutely free knowing, which he called intellectual intuition. It was not derived at by proofs or inferences or any aid from concepts but produced its own object in intuiting itself, so that “the self itself is thus a knowing that simultaneously produces itself (as object).” Schelling described intellectual intuition as the “organ” of all transcendental thinking.143 He identified it with “creative imagination” or “intuitive vision” in which the universal and the particular are always one in the Idea and claimed that without it there could be no philosophy.144 Early on, it was associated, under the inspiration of Jacobi,145 with faith.146 By the time of his first lectures on positive philosophy (which Kireevsky attended in Munich in 1830) he advocated a positive “philosophy of revelation.” This philosophy was a sort of mystical empiricism that he alleged exceeded a negative philosophy of reason that had to be put aside if one was to perceive that which is beyond the senses. The suprasensible for him was God and the actuality, not just the possibility, of things. However, there was a way to see the unseen, to have an assurance of that which we hope for, a certitude about the imperceptible which is through the organ of “faith [Glaube],” which Schelling identified with intuition. Faith “maintains that the suprasensible can become an actual object of experience” as given in the “external datum” of revelation—the Gospels and the writings of Church thinkers—which is a factual historical reality.147 Schelling’s faith is a state of rest of all thought. It is the most grounded thing upon which rests all knowledge. Uncertainty ceases with faith and the work of all knowledge is

Ibid., 175–80. F. W. J. Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), trans. Peter Heath (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 27. 144 On University Studies, trans. E. S. Morgan, ed. Norbert Guterman (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966), 36, 49. 145 See F. H. Jacobi, The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 230–1 and 563–4 (The context is the “Spinozist Controversy”: The Spinoza Conversations between Lessing and Jacobi, ed. G. Vallée (Lanham, MD and London: University Press of America, 1988)). 146 For example, Schelling, “Of the I as Principle of Philosophy,” in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays (1794-1796), trans. Fritz Marti (Lewisberg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1980), 63–128, at 110. 147 Philosophie der Offenbarung (1841–3), Sämmtliche Werke, ed. K. F. A. von Schelling (Stuttgart and Augsburg: J. G. Cotta’scher Verlag, 1856–1861), Vol. 13, Vor. 7, 8, 115, 141, 143, 171–2: “Will mann nun jede Unterwerfung unter eine Autorität Glauben nennen, so ist ein richtiges Wort,” 174: “Diesen Begriff zur Anschauung zu bringen, ist die Aufgabe der über ihren Anfang gewissen positiven Philosophie” [The Grounding of Positive Philosophy: The Berlin Lectures, trans. and ed. Bruce Matthews (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2007), 171, 188, 190, 210, and 212 (this last obscures the reference to intuition)]. 142 143

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done; thus faith is the end of knowledge. Yet as faith is the ground of knowledge, it is not only the end of knowledge but also the beginning of all knowledge and, as such, it is total certitude by which one comes to know directly that which is (sc. the truly actual/God) beyond all thought. Schelling refers to it as “trust, assurance, heart, the courage to seize hold of that which one doubts only because it is that which is too transcendent for our customary concepts.”148 Lastly, a critic might respond that we have neglected Florovsky’s well-known Christocentrism in showing the roots of neopatristic synthesis in Romanticism, for Florovsky held that “The theology of the Church is but a chapter, and a principle chapter of Christology.”149 The headship of Christ of His Church, as His enhypostasized human Body or “theanthropic organism,”150 since He is its “ego” or “I,”151 makes the Church into a “kind of continuation of Christ”152 into which we as Christians are incorporated which is our “unity in the Spirit.”153 Florovsky had in fact criticized Khomiakov and Möhler’s treatise on the Church.154 He felt that it overemphasized the pneumatological conception of the Church by not underlining that the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ.155 It created instead a sort of “Charismatic Sociology” of ecclesiology156 when, in fact, “the Church, as a whole, has her personal centre only in Christ, she is not an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, nor is she merely a Spirit-being community, but precisely the Body of Christ, the Incarnate Lord.”157 Yet while Florovsky does criticize Möhler’s “great book,” Die Einheit in der Kirche, in the next phrase he says that the right balance was obtained in Möhler’s later writings, already

Philosophie der Offenbarung, 14:24, 13–16. Florovsky, “Le corps du Christ vivant,” 12 (see the translation in this volume and also “The Body of the Living Christ,” PWGF, 277). Compare “The Image of the Church,” in John XXIII Lectures, Vol. 2, 1966 Byzantine Christian Heritage (New York: John XXIII Center for Eastern Christian Studies, Fordham University, 1969), 96–106, at 105, and see “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), PWGF, 298ff. 150 “Sobornost,” PWGF, 258 (CW, I, 38). “Catholicity,” (38) and see “Le corps du Christ vivant,” 20ff. (see the translation in this volume). 151 Ibid., 22 (quoting Karl Adam). (see the translation in this volume). 152 “The New Vision of the Church’s Reality,” in John XXIII Lectures, 107–12, at 110, and compare “Eschatology in the Patristic Age” (1956), PWGF, 311–23, at 312–14 (CW, IV, 63–78, 286–8, at 65–7). 153 “Christ and His Church: Suggestions and Comments,” in L’Église et les églises, 1054–1954: neuf siècles de doloureuse separation entre l’orient et l’occident; études et travaux sur l’unité Chrétienne offerts à Dom Lambert Beauduin, 2 Vols. (Chevetogne: Éditions de Chevetogne, 1954–55), 2: 159–70, at 165. (Also CW, XIV, 9–17). 154 “Christ and His Church,” 164 and “The Church: Her Nature and Task,” CW, I, 67 and see n. 21, 123. 155 “On the Authority of the Fathers,” PWGF, 237–8. 156 “Christ and His Church,” 164. See Matthew Baker, “The Eternal ‘Spirit of the Son’: Barth, Florovsky and Torrance on the Filioque,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12:4 (2010), 382–403, at 389ff. 157 “The Church: Her Nature and Task,” 67 and see “Kniga Melera,” 130. 148 149

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in his Symbolik (1832).158 And what do we find there? Christ, for Möhler, has become the ego or immanent self-consciousness of His own Body, as an organically developing reality in history, a sort of enfleshed Absolute Spirit. We find in this fashion, just as is the case in Florovsky, the Church described as an ongoing incarnation: “Thus the visible Church [. . .] is the Son of God himself everlastingly manifesting himself among men in a human form, perpetually renewed and eternally young—the enduring incarnation of the same [die andauernde Fleischwerdung desselben], as in Holy Scriptures, even the faithful are called the ‘Body of Christ’.”159 But this idea of the Church as the enduring or extended incarnation is not especially Patristic. It has its origins in Schelling whose Christian philosophy argued that God/the Absolute has eternally been becoming man from all eternity and that the culmination of this process is Christ’s assuming visible human form, and for this reason it is also its beginning; starting with Christ, it has been going on ever since—all His successors are members of one and the same body of which He is the head. History bears witness that in Christ God first became truly objective, for who before Christ revealed the infinite in this way?160

CONCLUSION. BEYOND THE “PARADIGM”—A REENVISIONING OF NEOPATRISTIC SYNTHESIS? The title of this essay has been taken from a poem of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933), “Waiting for the Barbarians” (1904).161 In this poem, a narrator describes the capital of a Hellenistic civilization where the populace is assembled in the agora waiting for the conquering barbarians, awaiting their doom, moving sharply between inaction and preening aimed at dazzling the coming wave of marauders with the greatness of its treasure. Yet night comes and Godot has not arrived and indeed messengers come from the frontiers to say that “there are no barbarians anymore.” Instead of elation, this news causes commotion and confusion since “what will become of us without barbarians?/ Those people were some sort of a solution.”162 Orthodox theology after

“Christ and His Church,” 164. Möhler, Symbolism: or, Exposition of the Doctrinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by their Symbolical Writings, 2 vols., 2nd ed., trans. James Burton Robinson (London: Charles Dolan, 1847), Vol. 2 (Ch. 5, §36):6 [lightly revised: Symbolik, oder Darstellung der dogmatischen gegensätze der Katholiken und protestanten nach ihren öffentlichen bekenntnisschriften, sixth edition (Mainz and Wien: Florian Kupferberg and Karl Gerold, 1843), 332–3]. Compare Symbolism, 1:35. 160 Schelling, On University Studies, 94. 161 Cavafy, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” 15–17 (see n. 2). 162 Ibid., 17. 158 159

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Florovsky, likewise, is in a bind, for, in its assertion of its Eastern Orthodox identity, it needs someone who can fulfil the role of barbarian. It needs someone, that is, who it can define itself against embodying everything that is negative. However, by affirming its difference through condemning its Western barbarians—making it a sort of Anti-God—modern Orthodox theology has not found a solution to its confusion, but has actually become ever more dependent upon the West. Its polemicism blinds it to the fact that it actually draws its identity from the Other. Likewise, Florovsky rejects post-great schism Western theology as having lost its catholic consciousness as Christian Hellenism, yet his very articulation of that consciousness, its structure and even content, has been taken primarily from the sources he reviles (especially Idealism). He then, ironically, claims these sources as uniquely “Patristic” or “Eastern Orthodox.” Here ressourcement is literally a “re-sourcing” of an idea, taking it unconsciously (or perhaps tacitly) from its true “tainted” (Western) source and then finding a new origin for it in an acceptable “canonical” (Eastern/patristic) source. But this polemicism and re-sourcing has become a necessary stage for the construction of an ecclesial identity. It is a needed veil to hide from the subject his own dependence on the Other, thereby allowing him the necessary illusion that his identity is self-contained, that he is, as it were, in terms of personality, wholly a-se (i.e., aseity), from himself alone. Florovsky was, despite his best efforts to the contrary, to borrow François Rouleau’s description of Kireevsky, “l’anti-idéaliste éduqué par l’idéalisme.”163 Critics of modern Orthodox theology need to go beyond the all too common stereotype that while Bulgakov was beholden to idealism and sundry tainted Western sources, Florovsky’s theology was a creature merely of the Fathers. As we have briefly indicated, Florovsky’s theology is also very much a development of German Idealism, as is, one should add, much of the contemporary Orthodox theology built on its foundations. This should not be surprising, especially if one is aware of Florovsky’s early intellectual formation that emphasized Romanticism and post-Kantian philosophy, if it were not for his wrapping of himself in Patristic garb and for his attack on the Romantic and Idealist heritage of the theology of his contemporaries. Nor should this be necessarily negative, as much catholic ressourcement theology, and through it Vatican II, drank from the same wells. What is crucial for contemporary Orthodox theology—and here it should be no different from any other theological tradition—is the acknowledgment that when reading the Fathers it always reads them within the hermeneutical horizon of its time. The present world picture is dominated by Western culture—so that sundry “foreign” sources—beginning with Idealism then going down to existentialism and finally arriving today with the vogue

Rouleau, Ivan Kiréievski et la naissance du slavophilisme, 214 and see 215.

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of hermeneutics, post-liberalism, and post-structuralism—inevitably act as the spectacles through which the theologian interprets the Fathers and creatively rearticulates the mystery of their premodern faith for our postmodern era. Here there need be no shame, if, while remaining rooted in ecclesial Tradition, one does not continually hide one’s relative dependence upon Western thought and culture for the articulation of this apostolic deposit. What is crucial is not to hide or deny this influence, for such denial simply increases its potency by making it unconscious. The future of Orthodox theology is presently widely discussed by Orthodox theologians in the wake of Florovsky. It would seem then that the resolution of the current discussion depends much on a frank acknowledgment that a common Christian identity for both East and West and an effective response to the various versions of modernity164 cannot be constructed from a theological synthesis that retains a romantic Byzantinism and an anti-Western polemicism, for this, as we have argued, inevitably hides a secret dependence on the West. A re-envisioning of neopatristic synthesis is then certainly needed. As it stands, it is a blind alley from which there is no escape from a theology of repetition or, worse, the degeneration of Orthodox theology into patristic archaeology. Neopatristic theology has become a theology of repetition since it has not returned with humility to the pre- and post-Reformation Western sources, which have helped to form its thought landscape. Quite simply, Western European thought has become Eastern Orthodoxy’s heritage.165 As so much of modern Orthodox theology is concerned with its ecclesial “identity” and this study, looking at one of Orthodoxy’s central modern thinkers, has suggested that its approach to this matter is fundamentally flawed as it is founded on polemicism, it is beholden on us to sketch a possible new approach. We are in search, therefore, for a way beyond the paradigm we have traced resulting in a re-envisioning of neopatristic synthesis. Such a modest proposal of a new way forward for Orthodox theology must be accomplished within an ecumenical context, for Orthodox theology if it is to survive and even flourish in the contemporary West must become truly ecumenical. It must embrace not only the rest of Christendom but the whole of the inhabited world (oecumene), more specifically, it must set out on what Bulgakov called “the broad way of an ecumenical Orthodoxy, freed from provincialism.”166

See Kristina Stoeckl, Community after Totalitarianism: The Russian Orthodox Intellectual Tradition and the Philosophical Discourse of Political Modernity (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2008). 165 See George Demacopoulos, “History, Postcolonial Theory, and Some New Possibilities for Retrieving the Theological Past,” in Neopatristic Synthesis or Postpatristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual? (Volos, GR: Ekdotike Demetriados, 2018) [in Greek]. 166 Bulgakov, Avtobiograficheskie zametki (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1946), 50. 164

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If we are to begin anywhere, we must begin, as Florovsky and all modern Orthodox theology has insisted,167 with the revealed mystery of divine-human communion in Christ crucified and risen according to the Scriptures. It is here that we might discern a hermeneutic principle for a new form of neopatristic synthesis. In Christ we see the perfect synthesis of opposites, in that the poles of humanity and divinity perfectly co-inhere in one another in a union where the natures are unconfused and unchanged yet still indivisible and inseparable.168 In the union, the poles of humanity and divinity interpenetrate in a perfectly realized tension where they imply one another, are dependent upon and exist through one another. This unity-in-tension is between a self-possessing integrity of the One that ceaselessly gives itself away in a dependent freedom and a ceaseless acceptance of this Other in a free dependence who then gives itself away in turn in dependent freedom and so on ad infinitum.169 The end of this union is that “God is humanized to man through love for mankind, so much is man able to be deified to God through love” or through the Spirit God is inhumanized and man is divinized.170 The inhumanization of God and the divinization of man are lived out in the Body of the Church as the perpetual extension of the Incarnation. But if this life in Christ, as the perfect unified tension of opposites, is the foundation of the mystery of the Church, cannot we take it as the very basis of all our relationships to others? In this fashion, I am myself in Christ only by finding myself in and through the life of my brother in union with him. And if we can see its application to human relationships, could we not see it more broadly as a hermeneutical principle that might mediate such historical and civilizational “poles” or “opposites” as “Christian East” and “West”? Let us now pursue briefly the latter suggestion in the remaining portion of our study. What we are suggesting is that perhaps the future of Orthodoxy theology is not found in what has become a tired self-reflexive movement of grasping desperately at a purely Eastern phronema, somehow available hermetically sealed from the post-great schism West in the Fathers and the liturgical tradition (e.g., “Cappadocian ontology,” “Eucharistic ecclesiology,” and “Patristic exegesis”), at the same time as it distinguishes itself from all that is not itself, alien, Western. Rather, ecclesial identity, from Orthodoxy to the Vineyard Movement, might

See Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism: the Difference that Divine-Human Communion Makes,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 42:4 (2007), 527–6. 168 For the Chalcedonian definition see Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schönmetzer, eds., Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, 36th ed. (Barcelona/Freibur/Rome: Herder, 1976), §302, 108. 169 For elaboration see Gallaher, Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). 170 Ambiguum 10 [PG 91, 1113B], Maximus the Confessor, trans. Andrew Louth (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 101. 167

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be discovered through finding out who one is in and through that which seem at first most different from or even hostile to one. In the case of Eastern Orthodoxy, it might discover its identity in and through a positive encounter with all that is Western including not only Western Christianity but also, by extension, modern philosophy, other non-Christian religious traditions and, most especially, science. Therefore, and here Orthodox theology would do well to reverse the Florovskian paradigm, one can know oneself as most Eastern, most Orthodox, precisely in the encounter with what is not oneself as a part of and in oneself, in one’s acknowledgment that to be oneself one is relatively dependent on it, and through this joint meeting-acknowledgment, I discover my heart’s true home. To alter Kipling, “Oh, East is West and West is East, and ever the two shall meet”;171 implicating one another in a ceaseless creative tension, a coincidence of opposites. To take an example from the Eastern pole, we come to know Florovsky as most Eastern a religious thinker best at the very points where he uniquely transmutes the Westerner Möhler in his reading of the Fathers. So, despite himself, Florovsky mediates Schelling to his neopatristic synthesis and is, in this way, a sort of closet Romantic while remaining wholly Patristic. Or to use another example that highlights the central role of Palamism in Orthodox theology since the 1920s. We come to know Gregory Palamas best at the very points where he uses172 Augustine’s De Trinitate. Furthermore, we encounter the vehemently anti-Western Christos Yannaras with the full force of truth when we see how he has uniquely transmuted Heidegger and Roman Catholic personalism in light of Palamas. In this fashion, while remaining fully Palamite, Yannaras proves to be Augustinian despite himself. Florovsky gives hints of his agreement with this sort of dialectical approach at the end of his Ways of Russian Theology.173 He writes that for Orthodox theology to return to the Fathers does not mean an abandoning of our present age, an escape from history or a quitting from the field of battle. Eastern Orthodox theology must not only preserve patristic experience, but also, he argues, discover it and bring it into life standing on its own feet. In this selfdiscovery, this move to independence from the non-Orthodox West, it need

Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West,” in Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1899), 3–11, at 11. 172 See Reinhard Flogaus, “Palamas and Barlaam revisited,” SVTQ 42:1 (1998), 1–32 and “Inspiration - Exploitation - Distortion. The Use of St. Augustine in the Hesychast Controversy,” in George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox Readings of Augustine (SVS Press, 2008), 63–80. 173 See Pantelis Kalaitzides, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need for a Modern Orthodox Theology,” SVTQ 54:1 (2010), 5–36, at 10–11, and Marcus Plested, “The Emergence of the Neopatristic Synthesis: Content, Challenges, Limits,” in Neopatristic Synthesis or Postpatristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual? (Volos, GR: Ekdotike Demetriados, 2018) [in Greek] (this paper is published in English in this volume). 171

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not become alienated from it. A break from the West gives Orthodoxy no real freedom so it must suffer its trials and temptations and not be mute in them but instead creatively examine and transform them, witnessing to something new, creating a new vision of the future of Eastern Orthodoxy, a task to be accomplished, creatively fulfilling the future. Only in this way, by the Christian East compassionately co-suffering with the West, discovering its opposite in itself, will there be a reliable path toward “reunification of the divided Christian world” to “bring back to the fold the long-separated brothers.” Western errors cannot be merely refuted or rejected but they must be overcome and surpassed through a “new creative endeavor,” inhabiting the Western tragedy and transforming it from within.174 Yet such an act can only come about if the Orthodox can see themselves as intimately implicated by the West and not simply as Western persons alienated from their Eastern ecclesial roots in a society radically and unhappily westernized. They must acknowledge that at their very roots they are Western without in any way negating their Eastern particularity, their free groundedness in the mind and worship of the Eastern Fathers. Significant here are the recent rereadings of Orthodox theological history as a far more complex and contradictory narrative than simply the triumph of neopatristic theology, Palamism and apophaticism out of the darkness of western captivity.175 In this line, one thinks of some of the new Orthodox critical appreciations of the vast legacy of Bulgakov and Sophiology, some of which argue for Bulgakov as exhibiting a sort of “neopatristic synthesis” of his own, as well as the growth of interest in historical-genetic accounts of neopatristic synthesis. Perhaps, then, the day is approaching when we can envision a constructive combination of the “schools” of the “neopatristic synthesis” and what has been variously called “Russian religious philosophy,” “the Russian School” and the “Russian Religious Renaissance.” What is needed in contemporary Orthodox theology, then, is not the “political hesychasm” of Yannaras and Romanides,176 which, following a form of the paradigm we have traced in Florovsky, demonizes the West in new and more exotic forms. Rather, the needed “turn” in Orthodox thought might be called, remembering our Chalcedonian hermeneutic principle, “political perichoresis.” Such a political perichoresis will argue that ecclesial identity can only be properly forged through conscious proactive theological engagement with the Other from the basis of one’s tradition. It would be a re-envisioning

Puti, 513–14, 519–20 [“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 172–4, 179 (Ways, II, CW, VI, 301–3, 308)]. See my own contribution to this endeavour: Gallaher, “The ‘Sophiological’ Origins of Vladimir Lossky’s Apophaticism,” Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 66, No. 3 (July 2013): 278–98. 176 See Daniel P. Payne, The Revival of Political Hesychasm in Contemporary Orthodox Thought: The Political Hesychasm of John Romanides and Christos Yannaras (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011). 174 175

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of neopatristic methodology, grounded in an engagement with the Eastern Patristic corpus and the liturgy, for an Orthodox theology that goes “beyond the Fathers” is a contradiction in terms. Thus what we are calling for is not a "reformation" of contemporary Orthodox academic theology but a renewal and re-envisioning of that theology through a 21st century return to the Fathers. In Orthodoxy, the basic theological attitude must be that we are always only beginning to understand the Fathers, always beginning, that is, at the beginning in contemplating them, renewing our mind within their world (the life, mind, vision and experience of the Church) as they meditate upon the Word of life revealed in the Scriptures. But now with this new neopatristic paradigm, a re-envisioning of both neopatristic synthesis and the legacy of Florovsky, it is called to step out beyond the sterile polarity of East and West found in so much theology following in the wake of Florovsky. The West here is no longer viewed as an alien Other, a barbarian who I am always already awaiting as a convenient solution for my lack of a daring of spiritual assurance. To be sure, such a theology is post-Florovskian precisely because it rejects this negative paradigm found at points in Florovsky and the writers after him but carries forward the central vision of his theology for the new Western age of the worldpicture in which the Church stands. Like Florovsky before it, this renewed Orthodox theology sees the Fathers as the wellspring of all its thinking, the source from which and to which all its vision and action is drawn without in any way locking it into a slavish parroting of words, a routine form of praxis that cannot be deviated from without falling into heresy and a forbidding of engagement and even appropriation of heterodox thought. This is freedom in dependence, a new Patristic thought for an Orthodoxy that is no longer bound to the Byzantine monuments of its own magnificence like a dying animal. Such a renewed Orthodox theology above all would meet the West as not only its brother and friend, but also its very life. It would be grasped anew as the basis of Orthodoxy’s own self-exploration and self-discovery precisely as Eastern, through whom it arrives where it started and know itself for the first time.

Chapter 10

Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism Toward the “Reintegration” of Christian Tradition1 MATTHEW BAKER (†2015)

“The antithesis of ‘West’ and ‘East’ belongs more to the polemical and publicistic phraseology than to sober historical thinking. For at least a millennium, there was one world, despite all schisms and tensions, and at that time tension between

This paper by the late Rev. Dr. Matthew Baker (1977–2015) is reprinted with the permission of Palgrave Macmillan from the following volume: Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer, eds., Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 235–60. We are indebted to Fr. Baker’s family, especially Presbytera Kathrine Baker and Prof. Gregory Baker, and the editors of the latter volume, Professors Krawchuk and Bremer, for permission to reprint this study, which Baker regarded as constituting a definitive response and necessary corrective to Brandon Gallaher’s 2011 essay, “‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: Identity and Polemicism in the Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky” (cited in footnote 4 below), and also reprinted in revised form in this volume. The two essays, which should be read together, reflect the ongoing lively academic debate on the theology and legacy of Florovsky. We have updated Baker’s references and made a few minor editorial changes. Extracts of documents are published by permission from Thomas F. Torrance Manuscript Collection, Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries; Georges Florovsky-Andrew Blane Papers, Damascene Foundation; and the Georges Florovsky Papers, Manuscript Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries. The Florovsky Papers were partially recatalogued in recent years with the result that the references to this collection appearing in the present article do not coincide with the present references in the collection (https://findingaids​.princeton​.edu​/catalog​ /C0586). (Eds.). 1

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‘East’ and ‘West’ was by no means stronger than certain internal tensions in the East itself.”2 An Orthodox seminary professor once quipped sarcastically: “Orthodox theology was invented in a 1930’s Paris salon.” With some adjustment, this cynical remark may be regarded as expressing a certain truth. The paradigm of Orthodox theology in the modern age—its “style,” the envisioning of its contemporary task—was indeed refashioned in the West, sometime around the third decade of the twentieth century. This refashioning is generally associated with the idea of “neopatristic synthesis.” It is frequently remarked that the chief architect of the neopatristic program, Fr. Georges Florovsky, never left a clear blueprint.3 This, however, has not stopped some, like Brandon Gallaher, from concluding that Florovsky’s paradigm is anti-Western in orientation.4 Closer study, however, reveals that his program for Orthodox theological renewal was, from the start, also an ecumenical program, aimed at the “reintegration” of Eastern and Western traditions. This essay uncovers the ecumenical background and shape of Florovsky’s idea of neopatristic synthesis, and then draws lessons from its reception by later theologians (Lossky, Zizioulas), as regards Orthodox engagement with Western theology and culture.

GEORGES FLOROVSKY (1893–1979) Florovsky’s ecumenical interests had their roots in his earliest thought. Having begun reading church history while yet a schoolboy, by 1909 or 1910 he had discovered the works of Vladimir Soloviev. In his first, adolescent publications, Florovsky defended Soloviev as a genuine voice of Orthodox catholicity, defining the task of thought in Solovievian terms as “a genuine synthesis” of “faith and understanding.”5 While Florovsky would severely revise this judgment by the early 1920s, distinguishing his own conception of “synthesis” sharply from

Georges Florovsky, Review of Lev A. Zander, Vision and Action, in SVTQ 1:2 (1953), 28–34, at 32. 3 See, for instance, Alexander Schmemann, “In Memoriam Fr. Georges Florovsky,” SVTQ 23:3–4 (1979), 133–8, at 133; and Andrew Louth, “The Patristic Revival and Its Protagonists,” in Mary B. Cunningham and Elizabeth Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 188–203, at 193. 4 For the sharpest and most recent critique, see Brandon Gallaher, “‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: Identity and Polemicism in the Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” Modern Theology 27:4 (October 2011), 659–91 [reprinted in revised form in this book]. 5 G. V. Florovsky, “Iz proshlogo russkoi mysli” [1912], in his Iz proshlogo russkoi mysli (Moscow: Agraph, 1998), 8, 12. From the same period was also his long review essay, “Novye knigi o Vladimire Solov’eve,” Izvestiya Odesskago bibliograficheskago Obshchestva pri Imperatorskom Novorossiiskom universitete 1:7 (1912), 237–55. 2

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Soloviev’s “synthesis of all-unity,” something of Soloviev’s ecumenical passion remained with him.6 In particular, Soloviev’s stress on universal Christian values as a source of culture, over against every religious nationalism,7 may be heard echoing in Florovsky’s engagement with the Eurasian movement. The Eurasians were an eclectic group of Russian emigré intellectuals, formed in the early 1920s in Sofia under the leadership of Nikolai Trubetskoi, Peter Suvchinsky, and Peter Savitsky. Eurasianism was a theory of cultural autonomy and anti-Europeanization. For the Eurasians, Orthodox Russia and the non-Christian peoples of Central Asia stood together as a unique cultural type, over against the civilization of Germano-Latin West Europe. Borrowing a scheme from Nikolai Danilevsky’s work Rossiia i Evropa (1869), Trubetskoi maintained a theory of cultural morphology according to which the multiethnic civilizations of Russian Eurasia and Western Europe were radically incommensurable. Under the impact of Oswald Spengler’s Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1918–23), some Eurasian thinkers, most notably Lev Karsavin, further developed the notion that each cultural type possesses the closed unity of a distinct organism, unfolding in history according to its own immanent developmental laws. Any cross-civilizational hybridization here could only be a kind of organic aberration: to use a Spenglerian term that Florovsky would also employ—yet in a very different sense, a pseudomorphosis. For the Eurasians, it was precisely such a pseudomorphosis of Russian culture under the impact of Western rationalism that had brought about the revolution.8

“The true legacy of Soloviev is not his ‘Romanism,’ and of course not his utopian, theocratic dream, but his acute sense of Christian unity, of the common history and destiny of Christendom, his firm conviction that Christianity is the Church. It was a true ecumenical vision, as fantastic and dreamy, offensive and repelling, as his union plans had been. Soloviev’s was the challenge. An earnest endeavor at an inclusive Catholic reintegration would be the answer. It would take us beyond all schemes of agreement.” “Russian Orthodox Ecumenism in the 19th Century,” CW, XIV, 151 (translation of “L’Oecuménisme au XIXe siècle,” part 2, Irénikon 27:4 (1954), 407–47, at 446–7). “Solovyov’s true prophecy in the ecumenical search was that ‘Catholic Unity’ could be achieved not by way of ‘conversion,’ but only by the way of natural acknowledgement in the truth.” Florovsky, “Solovyov Today,” Cross Currents 12:1 (1962), 119. 7 See especially Vladimir Solovyov, Russia and the Universal Church (London: The Centenary Press, 1948). 8 Literature on Eurasianism is growing. For introduction, see Marlène Laruelle, L’idéologie eurasiste russe ou comment penser l’empire (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999). For Russian scholarship on Florovsky’s relation to Eurasianism as well as his published Eurasian-era correspondence, see Matthew Baker, “Bibliography of Literature on the Life and Work of Father Georges V. Florovsky,” in Teologikon: Godishnik na tsentŭra po sistematichesko bogoslovie pri pravoslavniia bogoslovski fakultet na velikotŭrnovskiia universitet, Tom. 2 (Veliko Tŭrnovo: Izdat. Faber, 2013), 253–331. Online at https://www​.academia​.edu​/7587231​/Theologikon​_2​_1_ (accessed March 21, 2021). [Baker prepared earlier versions of this bibliography with the assistance of Nikolaos Asproulis and Alexis Klimoff. (Eds.)] 6

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Florovsky’s Eurasian association has occasionally been used to bolster the charge of “anti-Westernism.”9 In fact, from his earliest contributions, Florovsky can be seen critiquing the cultural morphology, geographical determinism, and identity politics that would soon become known as fundamental pillars of Eurasian ideology. This has led one Russian scholar to dub him “the most unEurasian Eurasian.”10 In his essays in the three Eurasian anthologies, Iskhod k vostoku (1921), Na putyakh (1922), and Rossiia i latinstvo (1923), Florovsky did excoriate the rationalism of modern Western philosophes as a cause of European cultural crisis,11 and also reserved strong words against the Roman papacy.12 In the same context, however, he rejected Danilevsky’s concept of organic cultural types as a form of empiricist reductionism, a theory of culture based not on the revelation of the highest spiritual values, but on nationalism. Also censured was Trubetskoi’s cultural relativism:13 true, Florovsky argues, even Scripture speaks the language of its time and place; yet what makes its message transcendent is the expression of universal values. Cultural rebirth must begin, not with national tradition, but with the promise of Christ, who has conquered the world.14 Already in this early phase, one finds the first distinct formulation of what would become his later concept of neopatristic synthesis:

See Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis and the Future Ways of Orthodox Theology,” in George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox Constructions of the West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 102–24; also (following Gavrilyuk), Gallaher, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” 663–4. 10 G. V. Ivannikov, “G.V. Florovskii—Samyi neevraziiskii evraziets,” Aktual’nye problemy gumanitarnykh i estestvennykh nauk 5 (2011), 274–6. 11 See Florovsky, “Breaks and Connections” and “The Cunning of Reason,” in Ilya Vinkovetsky and Charles Schlacks (eds.), Exodus to the East: Forebodings and Events—An Affirmation of the Eurasians (Idyllwood, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1996), 12–16, 30–40 (translation of the complete Eurasian volume Iskhod k vostoku [Sofia, 1921]). 12 See Florovsky, “Dva Zaveta,” Rossiia i latinstvo (Berlin: Logos, 1923), 152–76. In the same article, Florovsky stresses that what separates Christian confessions is a discrepancy in the understanding of salvation, affecting religious life itself; while, on the other hand, Catholicism and Protestantism cannot be reduced to single doctrines, such as papal authority, or free inquiry. He also names charity (rather than persecution or religious compulsion) toward the heterodox as a mark of the apostolic Church. 13 As Florovsky noted later, speaking of Trubetskoi’s Evropa i chelovechestvo (1920), Trubetskoi “published a wild theory denying the possibility of universal culture. I was never in agreement with this view because it was not acceptable from the Christian point of view. Of course it depends on the definition of culture . . . . The other argument of Trubetskoi was that the origin was RomanoGerman, and therefore of course it does not influence the Slavs. But I could never accept this if only because the origin of an idea never determines its validity. Kant was a German, but it does not mean Kant’s ideas are German or only for Germans.” Andrew Blane, “Interview with Fr. Georges Florovsky on April 5, 1969” (unpublished typescript in my possession, 40–1) [on this and multiple other interview transcripts of Florovsky with Andrew Blane and Thomas E. Bird from the Georges Florovsky-Andrew Blane Papers see the Introduction to this volume (Eds.)]. 14 Florovsky, “Vechnoe i prekhodiashchee v uchenii russkikh slavianofilov” [1921], in his Iz proshlogo russkoi mysli, 31–51, at 45–50. 9

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the principles of cultural rebirth, Florovsky insists to his fellow emigres, must be provided through a new philosophical synthesis of Orthodox patristics and Western learning.15 Florovsky broke with the Eurasians in August 1923—in his own words, “sickened” by their “spirit of intolerance” and “political intrigue.”16 In a 1928 essay, he attacked, as a form of fatalistic determinism, the Eurasian concept of the nation as an independent “cultural personality” (kulturolichnost) endowed from eternity with particular inclinations and systems, revealed organically in successive incarnations, each equally natural and necessary. To Florovsky, this was a departure from the Christian philosophy of history, for which culture should be understood as revealing a people’s free inner spiritual life—a “morphology” for which people are creatively responsible. The Eurasians were consumed by problems of morphological “type.” In contrast, a philosophy of history marked by genuine “Christocentricism,” he argued, encourages a “sensitive responsiveness to authentic historical dynamics . . . not only of the organic gyre, but also creativity and sinful decay.”17 These criticisms led Florovsky right away to ecumenical conclusions.18 The Eurasians did recognize valuable aspects of Christianity in the West. Yet in keeping with their conception of national culture as a closed organism, they regarded such aspects as “‘alien to the Orthodox people and capable of being disclosed only to Roman-Germanic peoples,’ and vital only for them.” Florovsky charged: In their unbrotherly alienation, the Eurasians do not see, do not feel or hear the living, searching and suffering of Western people, who may be blind and even spiteful, but have nevertheless already touched the robe of Christ, and have already been anointed by His grace . . . There is in Eurasianism no sense of active and concrete religious and historical joint

Florovsky, “O patriotizme pravednom i grekhovnom,” in his Iz proshlogo russkoi mysli, 132–65, at 159–65; original publication in Na putyakh: utverzhdenie evraziitsev, Book 2 (Moscow-Berlin: Gelikon, 1922), 230–93. This article, written in Sofia in 1921, is important for containing the earliest discussion of patristics in Florovsky’s published oeuvre, as well as the earliest elaboration on the concept of “synthesis.” Especially notable is the stress on the need for creative and constructive (tvorcheskaia i sozidatel’naia) response to modern problems, not a mere return to the past forms. 16 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 39. 17 Florovsky, “Evraziskii soblazn,” in Iz proshlogo russkoi mysli, 332–3. 18 It cannot be stressed enough how Florovsky’s basic ecumenical outlook is tied to his personalist philosophy of freedom and the “creative deed” (tvorcheskii podvig) in history: being composed by free acting persons, the history of doctrine and spirituality in Christian schisms cannot be assumed to follow the pattern of quasi-organic laws of development or logical deductions; and being separated by a series of free acts, they may also be reconciled by a series of free acts. On this aspect of his philosophy of history, see Florovsky, “Evolution und Epigenesis. (Zur Problematik der Geschichte),” Der Russische Gedanke 1:3 (1930), 240–52. 15

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responsibility, no feeling of accountability for the truth of Orthodoxy that has been entrusted to Russia. Heresy and schism evoke in them disgust, anger and hatred, instead of compassion, pain, and the love which endures all things. They are content with a dry and self-satisfied demand for “repentance” . . . Russia is not Europe, says Danilevsky, and the Eurasians repeat it. Let us assume that this is so. Yes, Russia is not Europe, but by what criterion is it “not Europe”? In the Eurasian definition, geographic, ethnic, social, religious motifs are mixed, without a clear consciousness of their heterogeneity. Geographically and biologically, it is not so difficult to draw the western border of Russia, and perhaps even to build a wall on it. It is hardly so easy to separate Russia and Europe in terms of spiritual and historical dynamics; and it is hardly necessary. It is necessary to keep this firmly in mind: the name of Christ connects Russia and Europe, no matter how distorted and even profaned it may be in the West. There is a deep and enduring religious fissure between Russia and the West, but this does not negate their inner mystical and metaphysical bond and their mutual Christian responsibility. Russia, as the living successor to Byzantium, will remain the Orthodox East to the non-Orthodox but Christian West, within a shared cultural and historical cycle.19 The author who wrote these words had already had much experience of Western Christians. In 1926, Florovsky moved to Paris, taking up the chair of patrology at the Institut St.-Serge. Almost immediately, he joined Berdyaev’s ecumenical colloquium, gathering weekly with such figures as Maritain, Gilson, and Gabriel Marcel; it was in this context that his earliest dogmatic papers (on creation and atonement) were first heard. Florovsky’s work during this period shows an increasing engagement with Roman Catholic patristic scholarship: J .A. Möhler, Odo Casel, Maurice de la Taille, and, by the 1930s, Émile Mersch, all of whom were to exercise a decisive influence on his thought.20 Even more prominent was his involvement with Anglicans. From 1929 until the Second World War, Florovsky was highly active in the Anglo-Orthodox Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius. Almost all his ecclesiological papers from this period were written for that context. An arrangement with St.-Serge allowed him to spend roughly five months a year in Britain throughout the 1930s, lecturing at theological colleges; during this time, he interacted closely

Florovsky, “Evraziskii soblazn,” 332–3. By the late 1940s, other names such as Karl Adam, Yves Congar, and Henri DeLubac would be added to this list: see Florovsky, “Le corps du Christ vivant: Une interprétation orthodoxe de l’Église,” in F. J. Leenhardt et al., La Sainte Église Universelle: Confrontation œcuménique (Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1948), 9–57 [a translation of this text appears in this book]. 19 20

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with such important young Anglican theologians as Derwas Chitty, Eric Mascall, and Michael Ramsey.21 It is important to recognize the ecumenical appeal that patristics enjoyed in this time and context, most especially with Anglicans. As Florovsky explained later, patristics provided him with access to non-Russian circles, because you can always intrigue the Westerners by presenting them with something peculiar, that is, Russian, but you can never join with Westerners unless you display an understanding of the Western tradition and are able to coordinate . . . . I was interested when I was talking to Anglican students—I was interested to know what they are, and what is their background, and what they are searching. And this was emphasized—I got their heart because I offered them my own heart . . . not only as if coming from the True Church to preach to heretics—I never took this position, even if I had some doubts about the Church of England, canonical and others, but still—they were Christian and they were open—they wanted to talk to me, etc. . . . Patristics was one of the links.22 These ecumenical connections extended also to Reformed Christians (in the “Scoto-Russian Fellowship of St. Andrew”) and, beginning in 1937, to the Faith and Order movement, at which time Florovsky was elected to the “Committee of Fourteen” charged with preparing the constitution of the World Council of Churches (WCC).23 It was in the midst of this ecumenical activity that Florovsky began to articulate his neopatristic paradigm. At the same time, however, he developed two other closely connected concepts: “Christian Hellenism” and the “pseudomorphosis” of post–Byzantine Orthodox theology. These ideas require some consideration here before passing on to neopatristic synthesis proper, if only because misunderstandings of them have contributed to misconceptions regarding the neopatristic synthesis.

For recollections, see Eric Mascall, “Georges Florovsky (1893–1979),” Sobornost 2:1 (1980), 69–70; and Saraband: The Memoirs of E.L. Mascall (Herefordshire: Gracewing Publishing, 1992). Florovsky’s influence on Ramsey’s first book, The Gospel and the Catholic Church (1937), is palpable, particularly in its combination of a strong evangelical Christocentrism with a high sacramental doctrine of church order. 22 Andrew Blane and Thomas Bird, “Interview with G.V. Florovsky, Nov. 8, 1969,” 76–7 (unpublished, in my possession) [see n. 13]. 23 Florovsky’s participation in the ecumenical movement has yet to receive a close study. For a list of preliminary studies, see again my “Bibliography of Literature on the Life and Work of Father Georges V. Florovsky” (cited earlier [see n. 8]). 21

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CHRISTIAN HELLENISM Florovsky’s concept of Christian Hellenism was first developed within the distinct philosophical context of the “crisis” of German Idealism, a crisis he recognized as having worldwide import.24 In Florovsky’s view, to “philosophize about God” was no spiritual aberration or mere supererogatory work, but an essential moment in the Christian calling. No wonder, then, he argued, that the project of Idealist metaphysics arose in a Protestant milieu: in the vacuum created by the Reformation’s rejection of medieval scholasticism—a rejection that had led to the repudiation of the project of Christian philosophy itself. In his view, however, German Idealism represented an atavism of pagan Hellenistic metaphysics, which failed to grasp the essential Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo. His “Christian Hellenism” was coined in response to this diagnosis of Idealism, but also as a corrective to the fideism of anti-Idealist reaction he perceived in the philosophy of Lev Shestov and the “dialectical” theology of the early Barth and Emil Brunner. The “crisis” of Idealism had returned thought to the “crisis” of the Reformation. Though in conversation with Maritain and even sympathetic with Gilson, Florovsky tended to regard Thomism as an insufficient “baptism” of Aristotle. His appeal to the Christian Hellenism of the Fathers, then, was an affirmation of Christian philosophy, but one in which reason is converted and refounded upon the mysteries of revelation: an exercise in fides quaerens intellectum.25 This defense of Christian Hellenism was at the same time a defense of dogmatics,26 understood not only in the sense of conciliar dogmas, but also that of the philosophical “systems” or doctrinal “synthesis” given in the fathers’

For this paragraph, see Florovsky, Review of Lev Shestov, Potestas clavium oder die Schlüsselgewalt, in Der Russische Gedanke 2:2 (1931), 213–14; “The Crisis of German Idealism” [1931–1932], in CW, XII, 23–41 [with dedication to Shestov]; “Revelation, Philosophy, and Theology” [1931], in PWGF, 115–27; “Bogoslovskie otryvki,” Put’ 31 (1931), 3–21 (French translation: “Révélation, Expérience, Tradition [Fragments théologiques],” in Constantin Andronikof [ed.], La Tradition: La Pensée Orthodoxe (Paris: Institut St.-Serge, 1992), 54–72); and “Hellenismus: Hellenisierung (des Christentums),” in Weltkirchenlexikon: Handbuch der Ökumene (Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag, 1960), 540–1. 25 For references from Florovsky’s work on this theme, see Matthew Baker, “‘Theology reasons’— in History: Neo-Patristic Synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality,” Θεολογία 81: 4 (2010), 81–118. 26 “Hellenism means philosophy . . . The Fathers . . . attempted a new philosophical synthesis on the basis of the revelation . . . . They vindicated the right of the human mind to ask questions. But it was the revealed truth they were interpreting and commending . . . . The new and Christian mind emerges from this philosophical quest . . . the kernel, the very system of this new Philosophy . . . is Christian Dogmatics” (Florovsky, “Preface to In Ligno Crucis,” PWGF, 65–70, at 68 (“Ad lectorem,” unpublished preface to In Ligno Crucis: The Patristic Doctrine of the Atonement, typescript, 1939/1948, 5–6; Princeton University Rare Books and Archives, CO586, Box 2, f1/ Box 3, f4). 24

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explanation of these dogmas. Here Florovsky can be seen countering Harnack’s critique of dogma as an “acute Hellenization” of the original Gospel,27 as well as the attempt of Russian religious renaissance figures such as Bulgakov, Florensky, and Berdyaev to reinterpret the dogmas within the categories of modern Idealist philosophy. Although Florovsky stressed repeatedly the necessity of “creative” return to the Fathers—neopatristic synthesis—his work in the mid1930s resounds with a note of sharp criticism for those who would search for a “new synthesis,” while disregarding the already built-up philosophical synthesis inherent in the centuries of church tradition: in his view, patristic dogma could not be so easily disentangled from patristic philosophy or doctrine.28 In his unique brand of Christian historicism, those fruits of intellectual creativity in theology accepted by the church throughout the centuries accumulate, solidify, and form a growing “body”—a synthesis—that any further creative synthesis must recapitulate and build upon, in an existential and hermeneutical way. Florovsky’s concept of Christian Hellenism has been criticized for equating patristic tradition with “Byzantinism,” leaving no place for Latin or Oriental patristic thought.29 The lack of attention to Latin fathers in his two patrological volumes is cited in evidence of this alleged cultural chauvinism. In fact, Florovsky’s letters attest to his intention to complete this patrological work with a volume on the Latin fathers,30 and his essays are peppered with references to Sts. Cyprian, Vincent of Lérins, Hilary of Poitiers, and Augustine. Indeed, Augustine is the main patristic source for his ecclesiology,31 a reliance especially attested by—though by no means limited to—his appeal to appropriate Augustine’s views regarding the reality of sacraments in schismatic

See Florovsky, “Hellenismus,” 541; and “Religion and Theological Tensions,” The Bostonian, April 1950, 3–6, at 6. 28 Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” in PWGF, 153–7 (Hamilcar Alivisatos (ed.), Procèsverbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes: 29 novembre-6 décembre 1936 (Athens, 1939), 238–42; reprinted in Diakonia 4.3 (1969), 227–32). 29 See Hilarion Alfeyev, “The Patristic Heritage and Modernity,” The Ecumenical Review 54 (2002), 91–111; and Konstantin Gavrilkin, Church and Culture in the Thought of Father Georges Florovsky: The Role of Culture in the Making of Theology, MTh. thesis, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1998. 30 See Vladimir Janzen (ed.), “Materiali G.V. Florovskogo v Bazel’skom arkhiv F. Liba (1928–1954),” in M. Kolerov and N. S. Plotnikov (eds.), Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli: Ezhegodnik 2004 / 2005 [7] (Moscow, 2007), 475–596, at 593. As George Williams has written, “Fr. Florovsky, to be sure, acknowledged proudly . . . his mastery of the Latin Fathers . . . . There is no doubt but that St. Cyprian . . . and St. Augustine . . . were as important to Florovsky’s vision of the world of the Church Fathers as were the Cappadocian Fathers.” George H. Williams, “Fr. Florovsky’s Vision of Ecumenism,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 41:2–3 (1996), 136–58, at 154–5. 31 Very fittingly, Christoph Künkel, the author of the longest and most systematic study of Florovsky yet published, has encapsulated the subject of his work with an Augustinian phrase most beloved by Florovsky: Christoph Künkel, Totus Christus: Die Theologie Georges V. Florovskys (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991). 27

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bodies outside the canonical boundaries of the church.32 In Florovsky’s words, “Augustine is a Father of the Church Universal, and we must take his testimony into account, if we are to attempt a true ecumenical synthesis.”33 Florovsky’s profound veneration for St. Augustine is unusual for a modern Orthodox theologian. In “The Vocation of the Orthodox in the Modern World,” an unpublished lecture from the 1950s, he quoted St. Photius for the view that Augustine was “the greatest saint God ever gave his Church.” In another unpublished lecture given at Fordham University in 1967, he called Augustine “the greatest Father of the Western church, and indeed of the Church Universal.”34 Far from being some kind of Eastern cultural chauvinism, then, Christian Hellenism in Florovsky’s view “was never a peculiarly Eastern phenomenon.” According to him, “The Fathers, both Greek and Latin, were interpreting the Apostolic message, the original Good News, in Greek categories.”35 In other places, he will include also Thomas Aquinas and Cardinal Newman as examples of this tradition of Christian Hellenism. Ironically, while the Orthodox reception of Florovsky has typically failed to recognize this ecumenical character of Florovsky’s idea of Hellenism,36 Roman

See Florovsky, “The Limits of the Church,” PWGF, 247–56 (Church Quarterly Review 117:233 (October 1933), 117–33); “The Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Problem,” The Ecumenical Review 2:2 (1950), 152–61; and “A Holy Calling,” The Student World 43:2 (1950), 169–71. Joseph Famerée emphasizes Florovsky’s originality here: “In an Orthodoxy generally hostile to Augustine, culpable, in its eyes, of having created the doctrine of the filioque and a theory of original sin judged incompatible with the Eastern doctrine . . . not only does he defend personally the Augustinian ecclesiology, but with a bit of quiet provocation he also invites all Orthodox theologians to embrace it in order to explicate the traditional ecclesial attitude concerning the sacraments of schismatics and heretics”: Joseph Famerée, S.J., “Les limites de l’Eglise. L’apport de G. Florovsky au dialogue catholique-orthodoxe,” Revue théologique de Louvain 3 (2003), 137–54, at 147–8. 33 Florovsky, “The Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Problem,” 156. Florovsky points to Augustine as a model of Christian Hellenism precisely because he did not attempt a “synthesis” of Christianity and Hellenism, but rather the latter’s “conversion”: see his comments in Edmund Fuller (ed.), The Christian Idea of Education (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 166–7. What is to be “synthesized,” then, is not the Gospel and Greek philosophy, but the fruits of the latter’s conversion by the Gospel throughout history, in a creative, discriminating act of hermeneutic retrieval of Christian tradition. 34 Florovsky, “The Vocation of the Orthodox in the Modern World,” Harvard University Library, audio archive; “Images of the Church in the Greek Fathers,” Seminar IV, typescript, 1/17, Princeton University Rare Books and Archives, CO586. 35 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” Theology Today 7:1 (1950), 68–79, at 74. 36 This applies not only to Florovsky’s critics, but equally to his admirers. Regarding his student, the Greek American theologian John Romanides, Florovsky himself noted early on “a bias towards ‘isolationism’”: “He draws away from the West in everything and locks himself within the Byzantine tradition.” Letter to S. Tyshkevich, S.J., December 17, 1960, in A. M. Pentkovskii (ed.), “Pis’ma G. Florovskogo S. Bulgakovu i S. Tyshkevichu,” Simvol 29 (1993), 212. 32

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Catholic commentators have seen it clearly. As Dom Emmanuel Lanne observed in 1962, Christian Hellenism in Florovsky’s understanding consists in the rediscovery of the “phronema” of the Fathers, and all the Fathers together in the widest possible sense. It explicitly includes Latin patristics and in particular St. Augustine whom the author frequently cites, and extends even up to the scholastics . . . . This Christian Hellenism positively excludes an ethnic Hellenism and all manner of phyletism . . . . If on this last point it has been too slowly and poorly understood, this is because of the ever-current tendencies of certain Orthodox theologians . . . . We tend to think, however, that Florovsky has been misunderstood . . . . To oppose Christian Hellenism to the religious culture of the West, as certain Orthodox appear to do today, seems to me artificial; it is to raise a false problem which disappears if one has grasped well what Father Florovsky understands by Christian Hellenism.37 Similarly, Jean Daniélou cites the “great orthodox theologian Florovsky” in support of his own view regarding the “persistent Hellenism of the Church.” This Hellenism “belongs to the whole catholica”: “The cultural divergence between the Eastern and Western Churches, which eventually led to doctrinal schism, need never have happened if the matter had been rightly understood.” Like Florovsky, Daniélou asserts that the expression of true catholicity brings the requirement “to re-awaken the spirit of Hellenism in the heart of the Roman church.”38 If this essentially catholic character of Florovsky’s concept of Christian Hellenism can be seen to include Latin patristics, the same is true, granting the limitations of the scholarship of his time, for Syriac or other Oriental patristics—as witnessed in his inclusion of Ephrem the Syrian and Aphrahat in his patrologies. It must be recognized, too, that the existence of any purely Semitic patristic tradition, independent of Greek sources, is so doubtful as to be something of a scholarly pipe dream.39 For Florovsky, the watershed in the formation of Christian Hellenism was the translation of the “Semitic” Gospel

Dom Emmanuel Lanne, OSB, “Le mystère de l’Église dans la perspective de la théologie Orthodoxe,” Irénikon 35 (1962), 2, 171–212, at 203–4. 38 Jean Daniélou, S.J., The Lord of History (London: Longmans, 1958), 41–3. Marko Marković, in his La Philosophie de l’inégalité et les idées politiques de Nicolas Berdiaev (Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1978), 18, claims that Daniélou’s book took its inspiration from Florovsky. For a similar view of Christian Hellenism in the Roman Church, see Hugo Rahner, S.J., Greek Mythos and Christian Mystery (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), xv. 39 On this, see Ute Possekel, Evidence of Greek Philosophical Concepts in the Writings of Ephrem the Syrian (Louvain: Peeters, 1999). 37

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in the New Testament itself,40 followed by its interpretation in the language of ecumenical councils common to classical Christendom—Greek, Latin, and Oriental. There is no reason why Florovsky’s theological program cannot be expanded to encompass the fruits of the more recent explosion of Oriental patristic studies, provided these be appropriated in a catholic manner.

PSEUDOMORPHOSIS The interpretive problem surrounding Christian Hellenism is replicated with Florovsky’s notion of the Westernizing “pseudomorphosis” of post– Byzantine Orthodox theology. F. J. Thomson glosses this idea as meaning that Florovsky allots “simply no role for the Western Latin part of the Church.”41 Similarly, Lutheran theologian Dorothea Wendebourg treats the theory of pseudomorphosis as essentially antiecumenical: in her view, it means that what was “wrong” with the post–Byzantine Orthodox theology was that “the East began to consider questions which were not its own—new, alien questions posed by the West, which did not develop naturally in the context of eastern Orthodox life.” Correspondingly, Wendebourg suggests, Florovsky’s neopatristic solution to this pseudomorphosis means that the East “must ask its own questions again and give its own answers. Or rather, it need not ask and answer questions at all.” It is Wendebourg’s conclusion that Florovsky’s scheme makes “genuine dialogue . . . impossible”: “it is hardly possible to take another’s questions seriously when it has been previously established that these questions should never have been asked in the first place.”42 “Pseudomorphosis” is a mineralogical term, describing a process by which a compound appears in an untypical form, in which its original dimensions remain constant while its form is replaced with the properties of another mineral. Oswald Spengler had used this term to refer to a process in which a nascent or half-developed culture is overtaken by the influence of an established foreign one, such that the undeveloped culture is not allowed to flourish creatively, but

See Florovsky, “Hellenismus,” 541, and “The Christian Hellenism,” PWGF, 233–6, at 233 (The Orthodox Observer 442 (1957): 9–10, at 9); also, Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 159–83, at 170 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 298): “The truth of ‘Hebraism’ is already included in the Hellenistic synthesis, since the implantation of the biblical root was precisely what brought Hellenism into the Church.” 41 F. J. Thomson, “Peter Mogila’s Ecclesiastical Reforms and the Ukrainian Contribution to Russian Culture: A Critique of Georges Florovsky’s Theory of the Pseudomorphosis of Orthodoxy,” in Belgian Contributions to the 11th International Congress of Slavists, Bratislava, 30 Aug.–8 Sept. 1993. In: Slavica Gandensia [Ghent, Belgium] 20 (1993), 67–119, at 103. 42 Dorothea Wendebourg, “‘Pseudo-morphosis’: A Theological Judgement as an Axiom in the History of Church and Theology,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 42:3/4 (1997), 321– 42, at 323 and 340, n. 71. 40

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instead takes on the forms of the foreign culture and is crippled by them. Both Spengler and the Eurasians pointed to the Westernizing reforms of Czar Peter I (1672–1725) as the key moment in Russia’s cultural pseudomorphosis.43 Finally, in his Ways of Russian Theology (1937) and in several other essays, Florovsky famously applied this metaphor to the development of post–Byzantine Russian theology, the emblematic figure being the Latinizing Metropolitan of Kiev, Peter Moghila (1596–1646). In keeping with his conviction that “‘historical morphology’ is a cheap substitute for theological analysis”;44 however, the Spenglerian-Eurasian concept of pseudomorphosis is significantly changed in Florovsky’s handling. As even Thomson admits, the “organism” that is the object of pseudomorphosis here is not Russian or Eastern culture, but precisely the church.45 Unlike the Eurasians, Florovsky never doubted Russia’s need to turn westward to overcome its own cultural isolation.46 Moreover, in his view, the theological pseudomorphosis resulting from this westward turn was finally, in spite of all difficulties, “but this was an illness that led to life and growth, and not to death or degeneration”:47 encounter with Western philosophy and historical methods ultimately helped Russian theologians in the nineteenth century to begin to recover from their isolation and imitation and to raise the question of Orthodoxy’s unique inheritance and vocation in the ecumenical Christian world. “Pseudomorphosis” in Florovsky, then, signifies chiefly two things: (1) the alienation of “school” theology from the worshipping life of the church, with consequent loss of “existential” character; and (2) uncreative and “servile imitation” of foreign sources, making the constructive development of theology necessary for dialogue with the West on equal footing and on a truly Orthodox basis impossible.48 Ecumenically speaking, what was problematic about this pseudomorphosis of Russian theology was that it did not allow a genuine encounter between

For Florovsky’s succinct summary of Spengler’s idea, see “The Orthodox Churches and the Ecumenical Movement Prior to 1910,” in Florovsky, CW, II, 181. [See PWGF, n.12, 4. (Eds.)] 44 Florovsky, Review of Lev A. Zander, Vision and Action, 33. 45 Thomson, “Peter Mogila’s Ecclesiastical Reforms,” 103. 46 On this, see Marc Raeff, “Florovsky and Eurasianism,” in G. O. Mazur (ed.), Twenty-Five Year Commemoration to the Life of Georges Florovsky (1893–1979) (New York: Semenenko Foundation, 2005), 87–100 (especially 91); and, in the same volume, Joseph Frank, “The Tragedy of Freedom,” 202–12. 47 Florovsky, “Western Influences in Russian Theology,” PWGF, 129–51, at 143, see 145–7 (CW, IV, 157–82, at 172, see 174–6; original publication: “Westliche Einflüsse in der russischen Theologie,” Kyrios 2:1 (1937), 212–31, at 225, see also 226–8). 48 On the first, see especially Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Eastern Orthodox Church,” PWGF, 287–302, at 295–7 (CW, IV, 11–31, at 20–2); “Western Influences in Russian Theology,” PWGF, 139–40 (CW, IV, 168); and Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 165. On the second, see note 49. 43

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Orthodoxy and the West.49 In Florovsky’s view, the older anti-Western polemical theology was itself a pseudomorphic fruit.50 Florovsky’s response to this pseudomorphosis is not a walling-off, but rather, as he puts it, “a prayerful entry into the Church—a fidelity to the apocalyptic vision—a return to the Fathers—a free encounter with the West.”51 As he poses the dilemma: “Is ‘pseudomorphosis’ and imitation the only possible form of meeting or the most natural one? The true meeting will only take place when the common ground is discovered.”52 Too many readers have overlooked the way in which the sharp critical judgments regarding Western influence in Ways of Russian Theology issue out finally in the last chapter onto a rousing ecumenical imperative. Pace Wendebourg, it is precisely “Western questions” that Florovsky insists Orthodox theology today must grapple with, in faithful, sympathetic, and creative manner: Repeating available Western answers is not enough; one needed to discern Western questions, to co-experience them by immersing oneself in the complex and dramatic array of problems and concerns of Western religious thought, by spiritually tracing the entire difficult and tangled Western path from the time of the East-West Schism. Entering into constantly emerging life is possible only through the experience of and genuine empathy with its array of problems in all their controversial, questionable and troubling aspects . . . . Only such compassionate co-experience could reliably lead to a reunification of the divided Christian world and bring back to the fold the long-separated brothers. The point is not only to refute or reject Western solutions and errors, but rather to overcome and surpass them in a new creative endeavour . . . . Orthodox theology has a duty to respond to heterodox problems, drawing on the deep resources of its uninterrupted catholic experience, confronting Western heterodoxy with the witness to the truth of Orthodoxy rather than with condemnation.53

Florovsky, “The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter,” in E. J. B. Fry and A. H. Armstrong, Rediscovering Eastern Christendom. Essays in Memory of Dom Bede Winslow (London: Dartman, Longman and Todd, 1963), 63–76, at 68: “Not seldom Western manuals were directly used in Orthodox schools, in a rather promiscuous and eclectic manner, Roman and Protestant together. One may even speak of a certain ‘pseudomorphosis’ of Orthodox theology. And yet there was no real ‘encounter’ with the West. Influence and imitation are not yet ‘encounter.’ The study of the West in the East was limited to the needs of polemics and refutation. Western weapons were used to fight the West.” 50 “The old theology of denunciation has long lost all meaningful relation to reality—it was an academic discipline based on Western manuals.” Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 159–83, at 174 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 302). 51 Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 179 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 308). 52 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” 78. 53 Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 172–3 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 301). 49

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Florovsky’s critique of Russian theological “pseudomorphosis,” then, is motivated in part by a concern for faithful and constructive ecumenical encounter with Western Christianity. And it must be noted also: while there is in Ways much criticism of Latin influence, it is aimed almost entirely, not at Latin patristics or even medieval scholasticism, but rather at Baroque-era, neoscholastic manual theology and its Russian imitations. Tellingly, the closest thing to the phrase “neopatristic synthesis” occurring in Ways of Russian Theology comes in the last chapter, precisely in the context of stressing the need for the “new and desired Orthodox synthesis” to engage the thought of classical Latin scholasticism.54 As Christoph Künkel interprets, Florovsky’s program of “synthesis” suggests that “to encounter and appeal to the West, the Orthodox must either develop a theology corresponding to the complexity of western scholasticism, or else limit themselves in an archeological fashion to return to the patristic statements.”55 His answer to “pseudomorphosis” is therefore not monologic isolation, but a synthesis involving free dialogical engagement,56 on the basis of the common patristic tradition of East and West, which Orthodoxy especially claims as her own.

NEOPATRISTIC SYNTHESIS The exact phrase, “neopatristic synthesis,” does not occur in Florovsky’s published writings until 1947. It first appeared in published form in an obscure

“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 174 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 303): “In the new and desired Orthodox synthesis, the centuries-old experience of the Catholic West must be taken into account with more care and sympathy than our theology has shown to date. This does not mean borrowing or accepting Roman doctrines, nor does it suggest some kind of imitative ‘Romanism’. Yet the great systems of ‘high scholasticism,’ the experience of Catholic mystics and the latest Catholic theological scholarship will, in any case, reward the Orthodox theologian with a richer source of creative excitement than the philosophy of German Idealism or the Protestant critical scholarship of the last two centuries, or even the ‘dialectical theology’ of our days.” Florovsky’s published essays and letters from the mid-1920s up through the late 1950s attest to his special affinity for the thought of Duns Scotus, whom he cites on the themes of creation ex nihilo, contingent causality, and the “absolute decree” of the incarnation. 55 Künkel, Totus Christus: Die Theologie Georges V. Florovskys, 264–5. Florovsky was less sanguine about Protestant theology, regarding the Reformation as a wholesale departure from historic church order. Yet a positive program is implied in his suggestion that Melanchthon’s “attempt to interpret the message of the Reformation in the wider context of an ecumenical tradition embracing the East and the West . . . be repeated,” with “all controversial points, dividing the East from the non-Roman West . . . analyzed again in the larger perspective of Patristic tradition” (Florovsky, “Patriarch Jeremiah II and the Lutheran Divines,” CW, II, 143–55, at 155). 56 As Florovsky wrote, “As a general rule, the acquisition of knowledge must have a dialogical dimension beyond the dialectical one” (Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 178 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 306–7)). 54

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Swedish-language essay,57 the resumé of a planned book on the patristic doctrine of the atonement, drawn from his 1936 lectures on this theme at the University of London. The unpublished preface to this book, however, dated 1939, indicates that he was using the phrase already in the late 1930s, and in specifically ecumenical context.58 Yet the terminology of neopatristic synthesis really belongs to Florovsky’s later career, after he had moved to America and had become intensely involved in the WCC. The first really significant published use of the phrase appears in “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology,” his commencement address offered at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in 1948, just a month after he had spoken at the First Assembly of the WCC in Amsterdam (August–September 1948). In “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology,” the idea of neopatristic synthesis is introduced in a thoroughly ecumenical sense and context. The full passage must be quoted: The contemporary Orthodox theologian . . . cannot retire solely into a narrow shell of some local tradition—simply because his Orthodox, i.e. the Patristic, tradition is not a local one, but basically an ecumenical one. And he has to use all his skill to phrase this ecumenical message of the Fathers in such a way as to secure an ecumenical, universal appeal. This obviously cannot be achieved by any servile appeal to the Patristic letter, as it cannot be achieved by a Biblical fundamentalism either. But servility is alien to the Bible and to the Fathers. They were themselves bold and courageous and adventurous seekers of the Divine truth. To walk truly in their steps means to break new ways, only in the same field as was theirs. No renewal is possible without a return to the sources. But it must be a return to the sources, to the Well of living water, and not simply a retirement into a library or museum of venerable and respectable, but outlived relics . . . . The true theology can spring only out of a deep liturgical experience . . . . Orthodox theology has, in recent decades, been speedily recovering from the unhappy “pseudomorphosis,” by which it was paralysed for rather too long. But to regain once more its own Eastern style and temper must mean for the Orthodox theology no detachment from the rest of the Christian world. What was to be rejected

Florovsky, “In Ligno Crucis: The Church Fathers’ Doctrine of Redemption Interpreted from the Perspective of Greek Orthodox Theology,” PWGF, 71–9, at 71–2 (“In Ligno Crucis: Kyrkofädernas Lära om Försoningen, Tolkad från den Grekisk-ortodoxa Teologiens Synpunkt,” Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift 23 (1947), 297–308, at 297). 58 Florovsky, “Preface to In Ligno Crucis,” PWGF, 65–70, at 66 (“Ad lectorem,” In Ligno Crucis: The Patristic Doctrine of Atonement, unpublished manuscript, Princeton University Rare Books and Archives, CO586 Box 2, folder 1). See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 154, where Florovsky indicates that he was led to the idea “quite early,” even while the term came later. 57

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and repudiated in the Westernizing school of Orthodox theology is its blind subservience to the foreign traditions of the school, and not its response to the challenge of other traditions, and not the fraternal appreciation of what has been achieved by the others. All reaches of the Orthodox tradition can be disclosed and consummated only in a standing intercourse with the whole of the Christian world. The East must meet and face the challenge of the West, and the West perhaps has to pay more attention to the legacy of the East, which after all was always meant to be an ecumenical and catholic message. We are perhaps on the eve of a new synthesis in theology—of a neopatristic synthesis, I would suggest. Theological tradition must be reintegrated, not simply summed up or accumulated. This seems to be one of the immediate objectives of the Church in our age. It seems to be the secure start for the healing of Christian disruption. An ecumenical cooperation in theology is already a fact; Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars are already working together in many directions. The Orthodox have to join in.59 Many themes come together here: return to the ecumenical theology of the fathers; creative freedom; the need to ground theology in liturgical experience; recovery from the “blind subservience” of pseudomophosis. What is most clear, however, is that neopatristic synthesis is, for Florovsky, not only an agenda for internal theological renewal within the Orthodox Church (though it is also, and equally, that) but also an ecumenical program: one that both grows out of concern for Christian unity and is ordered toward it. It is to be a work of cooperation, encounter, and mutual discernment between Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant scholars, aimed at the “reintegration” of Christian tradition, a work in which—Florovsky is convinced—Orthodox theology has a unique and critical role to play. Florovsky uses the precise phrase “neopatristic synthesis” only very rarely in his published writings. It is thus highly significant that in two of his most prominent explicit discussions of this theme, both in “Legacy and Task” (1949) and in “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), the idea appears together with a critique of the historiography of Arnold Toynbee. Florovsky regarded Toynbee as “an extremely dangerous man” and “a bad influence on historians” for his conception of Eastern and Western Christendom as two separate “intelligible fields of research.”60 Significantly, he connected Toynbee’s

59 Florovsky, “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology,” PWGF, 185–91, at 190–1 (Anglican Theological Review XXXI:2 (1949), 65–71, at 69–70). It is notable that in this essay, Florovsky refers to himself also as a Westerner “by adoption” (Florovsky, “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology,” PWGF, 185). 60 Florovsky, “The Patterns of Historical Interpretation,” Anglican Theological Review 50 (1968), 144–55, at 150.

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idea of closed and “self-explanatory” worlds with Nikolai Danilevsky’s Rossiia i Evropa—a key source for Eurasianism—and with the thought of Lev Karsavin, the chief Eurasian theorist after 1923.61 The same critique of cultural morphology evident in Florovsky’s work of the 1920s is heard again in his critique of Toynbee: The theory of independent “Christian societies” is a historical fiction, a sinful and dangerous fiction. Christendom is indeed divided. Yet the divided parts still belong together, since they are just “parts” and “fragments.” Accordingly, they are intelligible only when taken together, in the context and against the background of the original Christian unity which had been broken. The recovery of the comprehensive Christian vision, of common Christian perspective, is by no means an easy task after so many centuries of estrangement and tension. But it is an impending task. The inveterate illusion of self-sufficiency must be broken down. It is the absolute prerequisite of any ecumenical encounter.62 Empirically speaking, then, “both the West and the East,” Florovsky holds, “are incomplete.” Their shared root and still-existing ties lead to the “ecumenical idea”: “The task of Reunion is imposed on both by the inner logic of Christian history.”63 For Florovsky, this “logic” reflects the will of the Lord and Founder of the Church, and provides the basic imperative to work for the full concrete unity of Christians. The basic ecumenical problem, in Florovsky’s view, is that of schism. However, the reality of formal schism was prepared and then worsened by a long process of “progressive disintegration of the Christian mind.”64 This disintegration began with the loss of familiarity with the Greek Fathers in the West, and the eventual equation of “Patristic” with “Augustinian.” But conversely, “the rise of Latin-thinking Christianity in the West has been overlooked, or perhaps contemptuously ignored, in the East,” which “took little notice of the rising ‘Latin Christianity’ and did not care for translations.” There was “an inability, on both sides of the cultural schism, to ascertain even the existing agreements and the tendency to exaggerate all the distinctive marks.”65 Speaking of Lev

See Florovsky, “The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter,” 63–76. Note, too, how Florovsky appeals to Soloviev’s criticisms of this thesis of Danilevsky (67). 62 Ibid., 67. 63 Florovsky, “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology,” PWGF, 186 (Anglican Theological Review XXXI:2 (1949), 65–6). 64 Florovsky, “The Quest for Unity and the Orthodox Church,” Theology and Life 4:3 (August 1961), 167–208, at 206. 65 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” 70–1. 61

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Zander’s idea that Eastern and Western Christianities represent different cultural-psychological “types” with differing blocs of insights into Christian faith—a kind of “liberal” variation on Eurasian morphology—Florovsky writes: We should not, however, overlook the fact that these different “blocs” of insights and convictions did actually grow out of a common ground and were, in fact, products of a disintegration of the Christian mind. Accordingly, the very problem of Christian reconciliation is not that of a correlation of parallel traditions, but precisely that of the reintegration of a distorted tradition. The two traditions may seem quite irreconcilable, when they are compared and confronted as they are at the present. Yet their differences are, to a great extent, simply the results of disintegration: they are, as it were, distinctions stiffened into contradictions. The East and the West can meet and find each other only if they remember their original kinship in the common past.66 “Reintegration of mind” is then what is required: not “just a toleration of the existing varieties or particular views.” Rather, “the real reintegration of Christian tradition should be sought in a neopatristic synthesis.” But such “synthesis” can never be “achieved simply by arithmetical operation, either by subtraction of all distinction or by addition of all differences.”67 In some cases, it could be the “rediscovery of the consensus that was obscured by the use of discordant phraseologies,”68 as in the reconciliation of “Old Nicenes” and “Homoiousians” at the Council of Alexandria in 362 under St. Athanasius. In other cases, however, as, for example, between “Nicenes” and “Arians,” this would not be possible: some traditions are “purely negative and polemical,” and “cannot be summed up as they are,” but “must be reshaped and remolded to become fit for reintegration.” “The true synthesis,” then, “presumes a discrimination.”69 Not every viewpoint can be reconciled. And Florovsky was adamant that the starting point of synthesis would have to be classical Orthodox Christology.70 Theological reconciliation cannot be a kind of Hegelian Aufhebung in which, as for Soloviev’s synthesis, “disruption and alienation, and all antagonisms

Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Eastern Orthodox Church,” PWGF, 301 (CW, IV, 29). Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” 78–9. 68 Florovsky, “Terms of Communion in the Undivided Church,” in Donald Baillie and John Marsh (eds.), Intercommunion (The Report of the Theological Commission Appointed by the Continuation Committee of the World Conference on Faith and Order Together with a Selection of the Material Presented to the Commission) (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952), 47–57, at 48. 69 Florovsky, “Determinations and Distinctions: Ecumenical Aims and Doubts,” Sobornost 4:3 (Winter 1948), 126–32, at 130. 70 See Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Eastern Orthodox Church,” PWGF, 297 (CW, IV, 23). 66 67

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and divergences, belong organically to the dialectics of integration.”71 Rather, we must “reintegrate our bits of the distorted Christian tradition into a new synthesis, which will at the same time be a recovery of the common mind of the Church of old,” in which “there was no uniformity, but there was a common mind.”72 Florovsky was clear that dogmatic divergences undoubtedly separate East and West. An opposition to easy doctrinal minimalism and ecumenical pragmatism characterizes all his work. He was firm in expressing that the Orthodox Church “is in very truth the Church, i.e. the true Church and the only true Church.” However, he also stipulated, “the true Church is not yet the perfect Church.”73 And there are also “many bonds still not broken, whereby the schisms are held together in a certain unity”—namely, “right belief, sincere devotion, the Word of God, and above all the Grace of God, ‘which ever heals the weak and supplies what is lacking.’”74 Separation from Orthodox faith and order constitutes a spiritual malady; yet there exists an imperfect, but still real and “objective”— not merely “subjective”—unity among Christians, in that the confession of faith in Christ as God and Savior establishes “a certain ontological circle which separates those inside it from the dark outside world, from all that is estranged from the Cross and that does not receive Christ the Lord and Savior at all.”75 Further, Orthodoxy includes more than the present empirical “East”: it is also the Church of Sts. Augustine, Hilary, Ambrose, and so on. The body of Christ is one, and undivided. Yet, culturally, as regards the Christian world, the East too, as divided from the Christian West, is “incomplete” and a “fragment.” Orthodox theologians also “had themselves to re-learn the dialects of the Fathers in recent times.” And not only Westerners, but also Easterners, “overemphasize and exaggerate” their peculiarity, acting as representatives of one local tradition alone.76 Thus, the need “to create a true ecumenical and common language

Florovsky, “Reason and Faith in the Philosophy of Soloviëv,” in E. J. Simmons, Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), 283–97, at 284. 72 Florovsky, “Religion and Theological Tensions,” 6. 73 He continues: “But in no way am I going to ‘un-church’ anybody. The judgment has been given to the Son. Nobody is entitled to anticipate His judgment. Yet the Church has her own authority in history. It is, first of all, an authority to teach and to keep faithfully the word of truth. There is a certain rule of faith and order that is to be regarded as normal. What is beyond that is just abnormal. But the abnormal should be cured, and not simply condemned” (Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement,” PWGF, 279–88, at 285–6 (Baillie and Marsh (eds.), Intercommunion, 196–205, at 204). 74 Florovsky, “The Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Problem,” 161. 75 Florovsky, “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” Irénikon 22:1 (1949), 4–25, at 13. 76 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” 78. 71

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in theology and possibly to un-learn our party idioms.”77 It was Florovsky’s belief that the basis for the creation of such a language was to be found in a joint constructive return to the Fathers of both East and West—“not merely as historical documents . . . but as living masters from whom we may receive the message of life and truth.”78 This program entails a unique method of dialogue, which Florovsky calls “ecumenism in time.” Assessing his own contributions to theology in a 1973 letter to the Scots Reformed theologian T. F. Torrance, he wrote: “Personally I would underline two basic ideas: Ecumenism in time and the Neopatristic Synthesis, which are obviously correlated.”79 “Ecumenism in time” was formulated in critical counterpoint to “ecumenism in space.” Whereas ecumenism in space aims at agreement between denominations as they exist at present, ecumenism in time searches the past for a common background in apostolic tradition, seeking “agreement with all ages” as “one of the normative prerequisites of unity.” What is envisaged here is “no static restoration of old forms” or “rigid uniformity,” “but rather a dynamic recovery of the perennial ethos,” a catholicity in time, which allows for different manners of legitimate expression.80 In Florovsky’s view, this ecumenical method is especially fitted to the modern context, a major predicament of which is provincialism in time: an imprisonment in one’s own epoch, a practical isolation from the wisdom and insight of ages past. One final related point must be stressed here. It has now become fashionable among some Orthodox academics to charge Florovsky with encouraging “patristic fundamentalism”—a sterile and uncreative repetition of patristic texts. If this is so, it is only because his theology has not been read in tandem with his work in epistemology and historiography. Florovsky’s sophisticated treatment of interpretation, sensitive to the contributions of such figures as Dilthey, Croce, Collingwood, and Marc Bloch, places him in many ways in relation to the modern continental tradition of philosophical hermeneutics. His affirmation

Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement,” PWGF, 285 (Donald Baillie and John Marsh (eds.), Intercommunion, 203). Speaking of Toynbee in “The Patterns of Historical Interpretation,” 152: “Of course, you may say that you choose to study, let us say, the Latin Fathers. But don’t pretend that Latin patristics is an intelligible field in itself, and therefore you may dispense with any knowledge of the Greek Fathers. Or vice versa.” 78 Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” 78. 79 Letter of October 21, 1973, Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, Thomas F. Torrance Manuscript Collection, Box 104. 80 Florovsky, “Primitive Tradition and the Traditions,” in William S. Morris (ed.), The Unity We Seek (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1962), 28–38, at 29–30; see also, Florovsky, “Znamenie Prerekaemo,” Vestnik Russkago Studencheskago Khristianskago Dvizheniya, no. 72–3, I–II (1964), 1–7 [“‘A Sign of Contradiction’: A Reflection on the Meeting of the Pope and the Patriarch,” trans. and ed. Matthew Baker in John Chryssavgis (ed.), Dialogue of Love: Breaking the Centuries of Silence (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 55–70 (Eds.)]. 77

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of the dictum of F. A. Trendelenburg that “all understanding is interpretation” means for him that any living appropriation of tradition must be, by definition, creative and new.81 In his usage, “reintegration” or “integration of mind” is not only an ecumenical method but also a historical-hermeneutical task, in which the contributions of past thought must be continually “melted” together into a single interpreted whole of understanding, which is always present, and which will remain open-ended and provisional so long as history continues.82 As he wrote in his later years: “The neopatristic synthesis” . . . should be more than just a collection of Patristic sayings or statements. It must be a synthesis, a creative reassessment of those insights which were granted to the Holy Men of old. It must be Patristic, faithful to the spirit and vision of the Fathers, ad mentem Patrum. Yet, it must also neo-patristic, since it is to be addressed to the new age, with its own problems and queries.83 Apart from a handful of dogmatic essays, Florovsky cannot be said to have produced such a synthesis himself—nor did he claim to have done so. He was a seminal thinker, writing programmatic essays, redirecting the course of Orthodox theology. Even the aporiae of his sentences are suggestive. A thorough study of his corpus discovers that many of his positive insights still have not been thoroughly mined and pursued by subsequent Orthodox theologians. It is certainly true that some have taken the formulas of “neopatristic synthesis,” together with its related notions of “pseudomorphosis” and “Christian Hellenism,” apart from their original sense, as slogans to be developed in distinctly antiecumenical directions. What is demonstrably false, however, is the

See especially Florovsky, “Types of Historical Interpretation” [1925] in Louis J. Shein (ed.), Readings in Russian Philosophical Thought: Philosophy of History (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1977), 89–108; and “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” PWGF, 193–219 (CW, II, 31–66). For the most insightful discussion of this deeply neglected but crucial dimension of Florovsky’s thought, see Rowan Williams, “Eastern Orthodox Theology,” in David F. Ford (ed.), The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Blackwell, 2005), 499–510, at 508–9. [The late Fr. Matthew Baker’s unfinished doctoral dissertation at Fordham University explored philosophical hermeneutics in Florovsky and Zizioulas. An extant (fourth) chapter, entitled “Being, Interpretation, and the Last Things: Heidegger and Zizioulas in Dialogue,” develops the thoughts in this section of the present essay at greater length. (Eds.)]. 82 Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” PWGF, 208–10 (CW, II, 50–1). Florovsky’s thought here resembles H.-G. Gadamer’s concept of Horizontverschmelzung, but with the critical correctives made to this concept by Emilio Betti, in that the identity of the original message remains stable and unchanged, even while the rational understanding and appropriation of it grows. 83 Florovsky, “‘Theological Will,’” PWGF, 241–4, at 242 (Blane, Georges Florovsky, 154). 81

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claim by Brandon Gallaher that Florovsky’s paradigm of neopatristic synthesis was a form of “anti-western polemicism towards the ‘West’ in an assertion of ‘Eastern’ Orthodox identity”—“an assertion of a particular ecclesial identity through a polemic against all that is different and alien to that identity.”84 The precise opposite would be even closer to the truth.

NEOPATRISTIC NACHLEBEN: DEVELOPMENTS AND CHALLENGES Among the many theologians impacted by Florovsky, two figures stand out as most influential as regards the development of neopatristic synthesis and its ecumenical dimensions. Although he never employed the phrase in his own work, Vladimir Lossky (1903–1958) was the first to produce, in Florovsky’s own admiring estimation, “what can be described as a ‘neopatristic synthesis.’”85 Lossky’s Essai sur la théologie mystique de l’Église d’Orient (1944) had the advantage of having been written in French, providing a kind of one volume dogmatica minora at a time when very few books by modern Orthodox theologians were available in Western languages. It is partly for this reason that, as Rowan Williams observes, “Lossky remains probably the best known and most influential of all modern Orthodox writers.”86 It is Lossky’s theology, more than any other, that has come to define received perceptions and developments of the theology of neopatristic synthesis. Lossky’s dogmatic synthesis depends heavily on work done by Florovsky in his essays on creation in the late 1920s.87 At the same time, Lossky shows

Gallaher, “Waiting for the Barbarians,” 660, 677 [text reprinted in revised form in this volume]. The enormity of this claim is revealed especially when compared with Western theologians’ reactions to Florovsky: see, for instance, S. Tyszkiewicz, S.J. Compte-rendu: “R.P. Georges Florovsky, Puti Russkago Bogosloviya,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 4 (1938), 288–91, at 290: “Concerning judgments regarding Catholicism, Fr. Florovsky is much more fair than the greater part of the other modern Orthodox theologians.” See also, Dom Clement Lialine, Compte-rendu: “G. Florovskij.— Le problématisme de la réunion chrétienne,” Irénikon 11 (1934), 601–2. 85 Florovsky, Review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, in The Journal of Religion 38:3 (July 1958), 207–8, at 207. 86 Williams, “Eastern Orthodox Theology,” 507. Williams’s unpublished doctoral dissertation still remains the most thorough study of Lossky’s theology: Rowan Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky, DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1975. 87 As pointed out by Arkhimandrit Sofronii (Sakharov), Perepiska s Protoiereem Georgiem Florovskim, ed. N. Sakharov (Essex and Moscow: Sviato-Ioanno-Predtechenskii Monastyr’ and Sviato-Troitskaia Sergieva Lavra, 2008), 65–9. [See the discussion of this correspondence by Fr. Nikolai Sakharov in Chap. 6 of this book. English translation: The Cross of Loneliness: The Correspondence of Saint Sophrony of Essex and Archpriest Georges Florovsky, Nikolai Sakharov, (ed.), Nicholas Kotar (trans.), and Introduction by Alexis Torrance (Waymart, PA: St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 2021). (Eds.)]. In an unpublished lecture of 1956, Lossky went on record in 84

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far greater Trinitarian speculation—ironically, given the youthful Lossky’s fierce and public criticisms of Bulgakov’s Sophiology, some of it showing a significant influence from the thought of Pavel Florensky. The center of gravity in Lossky’s reading of the tradition is also different: the focus is shifted away from classical Christology, and toward medieval debates regarding grace and the knowledge of God. Less historically minded and more rigidly apophatic than Florovsky, it was Lossky who made the essence/energies distinction the architectonic principle structuring his entire theology, thereby solidifying the later identification of neopatristic synthesis with so-called neo-Palamism. Florovsky’s perceptive comments on Lossky’s theology in several essays as well as in his letters to Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov form an extremely suggestive, and ecumenically significant, basis for a critique of “the ways of neopatristic synthesis.” While generally positive, Florovsky reserved strong criticisms for several aspects of Lossky’s work: Lossky’s insufficient Christocentrism and his division of ecclesiology into two “economies” of the Son and the Spirit; his one-sided apophaticism, low appraisal of the place of intellect and reason in theology and easy dismissal of Thomistic notions of analogy; and, finally, his treatment of Augustine’s triadology and his separation of Christian East and West into two independent and irreconcilable blocs, even centuries before the schism.88 These problems are all connected at a deep level, and have to do in part with Lossky’s particular Russian sources. Florovsky detected the influence of Florensky in Lossky’s treatment of the Trinity as an “antinomy” for reason,89 and saw Lossky’s weak Christocentrism as a sign of his having succumbed in part to the “sea” of Russian religious renaissance thought.90 The place once occupied by “Sophia” is now taken by the Holy Spirit or the divine energies; yet both remain still insufficiently integrated into a Christocentric framework. Florensky’s oddly Joachimite-like pneumatology is palpable in Lossky’s treatment of the Church and eschatology.91 Yet these same motifs are equally tied to Lossky’s fierce critique of the Latin filioque, and his concern to resist, in a strict and consistent way, any taint of “filioquism” throughout his theology.

expressing his view of Florovsky as the greatest Orthodox theologian of his age: cited in Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky, 281. 88 Florovsky, Review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 207–8. 89 Sofronii, Perepiska s Protoiereem Georgiem Florovskim, 78–9. 90 Ibid., 68. 91 Pavel Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of Truth, trans. and ed. Boris Jakim (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 82–3. In Lossky, this is also manifested in his view that “in the age to come” the Spirit, while “not having His image in another Hypostasis, will manifest Himself in deified persons: for the multitude of the saints will be His image”: Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (SVS Press, 1998), 173.

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For Lossky, the filioque represents the height of Western rationalism: “the God of the philosophers and savants is introduced into the heart of the living God, taking the place of the Deus absconditus.” As such, it is “the sole dogmatic grounds for the separation of East and West,” upon which all other issues depend.92 Lossky’s treatment of the filioque brings us back to the problems of Eurasianism. In the early 1920s, Lossky studied in St. Petersburg under the guidance of the Russo-Polish medievalist and sometime Eurasian publicist Lev Karsavin. Karsavin’s work Lessons of the Repudiated Faith (Uroki otrechennoi very, 1925) attempted to derive papal infallibility and “the entire system of Roman Catholicism, directly and one-sidedly, from one particular doctrine, the doctrine of the filioque.” Florovsky criticizes the “excessive constructivism” of Karsavin’s method: in the “implicit assumption of ‘massive opposition’ between East and West,” there is “no desire for ‘comprehension”—only “distinctions, antitheses.” He writes: “We get a brilliant construction of systems, and yet do we really grasp the ‘existential’ dimension of faith and life?”93 However, Florovsky noted, Karsavin’s method is also continued in Lossky: “There is the same basic assumption that East and West are in permanent opposition to each other, the same skill in presenting the inner cohesion of ideas within each particular system, the same conviction that Filioque is at the root of the whole trouble.”94 Regarding his own views on this matter, Florovsky commented to Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov: With respect to the Western (Roman) theology, I, too, for myself, anyway, prefer cautious judgments . . . . I doubt very much the centrality of the filioque for the dogmatic development of the West, and I do not think that “papism” could derive from the filoque—that is, maybe you can “derive” it, but me as a historian, I’m not interested in logical deduction but in the actual filiation of ideas. “Papism” already existed when the filioque was not yet even in prospect. Leo the Great hardly knew Augustine’s De Trinitate . . . this requires more careful and clear-cut analysis than we have so far known. The “fashion” regarding the filioque in modern Russian (diaspora) theology was started by Karsavin, and V.N. Lossky learned it from Karsavin, and then it was clumsily developed by Verkhovskoy, who does not know

“The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Doctrine,” in Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, trans. and ed. John H. Erickson and Thomas E. Bird (SVS Press, 1974), 71–97, at 88 and 71. 93 Florovsky, “The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter,” 73. 94 Ibid., 74. For a discussion of Florovsky’s views on the filioque, see Matthew Baker, “The Eternal ‘Spirit of the Son’: Barth, Florovsky and Torrance on the Filioque,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 12:4 (2010), 382–403. 92

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the history and adopted logical deductions from the course of existential developments. Finally, the belief of the Western church is not confined to Western “theology.” I think that the faith of Catholicism is more Orthodox than in its school (or metaphysical) theology.95 There is a certain irony in the accusation of “rationalism” against the West in the ecumenical method of Karsavin and Lossky: if one “persistently assumes that there is absolute coherence and consistency in all systems, one always moves within the dimensions of systems.” In the assumption of a single and unique “ethos” of Western Christianity, in tension with the East, cultural morphology is substituted for theological analysis, and the reality of the internal tensions that led to the Reformation is obscured.96 As Florovsky stresses, “There were ‘tensions’ inside the ‘Eastern tradition’ itself, e.g., between Alexandria and Antioch”; and there is likewise no reason to assume that the tension between Cappadocian and Augustinian triadologies could not be overcome in some kind of “overarching synthesis.” Florovsky’s comments on Lossky contain finally an important lesson regarding neopatristic synthesis, which few Orthodox theologians since have yet to learn: “One should be ‘ecumenical’ rather than simply ‘oriental’ in the field of Patristic studies. One has to take into account the whole wealth of the Patristic tradition and wrestle impartially with its intrinsic variety and tensions.”97 There is of course another side to Lossky: the Lossky who spent two decades writing his dissertation on Meister Eckhart under the tutelage of Gilson,98 and who cultivated a deep intellectual friendship with Eric Mascall, being increasingly responsive to the new interpretations of Aquinas;99 the Lossky revealed in the pages of his wartime journal, Sept jours sur les routes de France, in love with France and nourished by a deep devotion to St. Genevieve of Paris and to La Salette.100 Lossky must be credited for having underscored, in a most profound way, the unity of theology and spiritual life. At the same

Florovsky, letter of May 15, 1958, in Sofronii, Perepiska s Protoiereem Georgiem Florovskim, 79–81. After expressing his admiration for Lossky’s person, Florovsky stated later his belief that Lossky “was under the perverse influence of Karsavin.” Andrew Blane and Thomas Bird, “Interview with GVF, Nov. 7, 1969” (unpublished typescript, in my possession) [see n. 13]. 96 Florovsky, “The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter,” 73. 97 Florovsky, Review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 207. 98 See Vladimir Lossky, Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: Vrin, 1973). 99 See, for instance, Vladimir Lossky, Review of E. L. Mascall, Existence and Analogy, Sobornost 7 (1950), 295–7. 100 Vladimir Lossky, Sept jours sur les routes de France: Juin 1940 (Paris: Cerf, 1998) [Seven Days on the Roads of France—June 1940, ed. Nicholas Lossky and trans. Michael Donley (SVS Press, 2012) (Eds.)]. 95

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time, his influence has left Orthodox thought with a host of problems—not least of which is the identification of historic Orthodox theology solely with “la théologie mystique de l’Église d’Orient.” Some of this can be attributed more to a “vulgarised Losskianism” than to Lossky himself.101 Yet these factors continue to impact in unnecessarily negative ways how Orthodox view Western Christianity—and how Western Christians view Orthodoxy. If Lossky’s thought is still generally treated as synonymous in content with neopatristic theology, it is John Zizioulas (b. 1931) who appears as the very first Orthodox theologian after Florovsky to categorize his own work explicitly as an attempt at “neopatristic synthesis.” Zizioulas was Florovsky’s student at Harvard and like his teacher has spent almost his whole theological career in ecumenical contexts. As Zizioulas describes his own project in the introduction to his hugely influential Being as Communion, after stressing his concern to communicate the Catholic faith of the Greek Fathers and its existential relevance: As for the second concern of these texts, it is a result and a consequence of the first: it provokes and invites contemporary theology with a view to a synthesis between the two theologies, Eastern and Western. It is of course true that, in some respects, these two theologies seem incompatible. That is due, among other things, to the independent historical roads followed by East and West since the great schism or perhaps even earlier. However, this was not the case during the early patristic period. As the late Fr. Georges Florovsky liked to repeat, the authentic catholicity of the Church must include both East and West. It may be said in conclusion that these studies are intended to offer their contribution to a “neopatristic synthesis” capable of leading the West and the East nearer to their common roots, in the context of the existential quest of modern man.102 Almost uniquely among Orthodox theologians, Zizioulas understands the work of neopatristic synthesis in a manner explicitly akin to the original sense in which it was first conceived: as an ecumenical synthesis. In executing this task, Zizioulas is influenced by numerous aspects of Florovsky’s own thinking: his sense of creative and existential return to the Fathers; his Eucharistic ecclesiology; his interpretation of the Christian doctrine of creation clarified by Athanasius as initiating an “ontological revolution” in Greek thinking; and finally, the understanding of the person as the gift of Christianity to Hellenism,

The phrase belongs to Aidan Nichols, Light from the East (London: Sheed and Ward, 1999), 32. John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (SVS Press, 1985). 101 102

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which itself could previously conceive of personhood only as a “mask.”103 Meanwhile, Zizioulas elaborates and develops these themes with far greater systematic presentation and synthetic force. From an ecumenical standpoint, Zizioulas’s greatest contributions are surely in the area of ecclesiology.104 His work on apostolic succession especially constitutes a deeply constructive attempt to integrate Eastern and Western patristic understandings.105 He has also made highly valuable offerings to the understanding of primacy and conciliarity, which are now proving to be crucial for the international Orthodox-Roman Catholic dialogue.106 In contrast, his Trinitarian theology shows almost no attempt to engage positively the thought of Augustine or other Latin fathers, and even accentuates the

See Florovsky, “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” Eastern Churches Quarterly 8:3 (1949), 53–77; and Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 83–6. The phrase “ontological revolution” originates from Florovsky (unpublished notes in my possession). On personhood and mask, compare Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology,” PWGF, 123, with Being as Communion, 31–5. Similar to Florovsky, Zizioulas also critiques Lossky for introducing an exaggerated understanding of apophatic theology “in a manner unknown to the clarity of the Greek patristic tradition”: see Zizioulas, “The Being of God and the Being of Man: An essay in theological dialogue,” trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff in Synaxis: An Anthology of the Most Significant Orthodox Theology in Greece Appearing in the Journal Synaxi from 1982 to 2002, 3 vols., Volume 1: AnthropologyEnvironment-Creation (Montreal: Alexander Press, 2006), 99–119, at 107 (Reprinted: The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today, ed. Gregory Edwards (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2010), 17–40, at 26; Original Greek: Synaxis, Vol. 37 (January– March 1991): 11–36, at 21–2). For a careful comparative study of Lossky and Zizioulas on this question, see Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). 104 For two Roman Catholic appreciations, see Gaëtan Baillargeon, Perspectives orthodoxes sur l’Eglise-communion: l’oeuvre de Jean Zizioulas (Montréal: Éditions Paulines, 1989); and Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). 105 See Zizioulas, Being as Communion, Ch. 5, 171–208; and “Apostolic Continuity of the Church and Apostolic Succession in the First Five Centuries,” Louvain Studies 21:2 (1996), 153–68. 106 See Zizioulas, “Primacy in the Church: An Orthodox Approach,” Eastern Churches Journal 5:2 (1998), 7–20; and “Recent Discussions on Primacy in Orthodox Theology,” in Walter Kasper (ed.), The Petrine Ministry (Paulist Press, 2006), 231–46. Zizioulas’s influence is apparent in the “Ravenna Document” of October 13, 2007, “Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority,” http:// www​.christianunity​.va​/content​/unitacristiani​/en​/dialoghi​/sezione​-orientale​/chiese​-ortodosse​-di​ -tradizione​-bizantina​/commissione​-mista​-internazionale​-per​-il​-dialogo​-teologico​-tra​-la​/documenti​ -di​-dialogo​/testo​-in​-inglese​.html (last accessed March 22, 2021). In his insistence that the issue of primacy requires doctrinal development on the part of the Orthodox, Zizioulas echoes the view of Florovsky: see “On the Upcoming Council of the Roman Catholic Church,” CW, XIV, 206 (original publication: “O predstoiashchem sobore Rimskoi Tserkvi,” in Vestnik Russkogo Studentchestogo Khristianskogo Dvizheniia, no. 52, I [1959], 5–10). Florovsky is reported to have said at Amsterdam in 1948, “qu’entre les deux Eglises, orthodoxe et catholique, il n’y avait au fond qu’une question, celle du Pape”: Charles Boyer, S.J., Le Movement Oecuménique: les Faits—le Dialogue (Rome: Gregorianum, 1976), 109. 103

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Eastern-“personalism”-vs.-Western-“essentialism” paradigm common to many Orthodox theologians after Lossky. It is in Zizioulas’s personalism that one encounters lessons to be learned, not simply about “person” and “nature,” but about theological “method” in the advancement of neopatristic synthesis. The organization of the masterful opening chapter in Being as Communion, “Personhood and Being,” reveals Zizioulas’s foundational theological method. This chapter begins with the contemporary ideal of “personal identity,” and considers how that ideal might be secured. Zizioulas is firm that secular philosophy cannot give adequate access to the truth of the person: only theology can.107 Only the person of Christ, as understood by the Greek Fathers and experienced in the church’s Eucharistic synaxis, can provide the answer to mortal man’s tragic predicament. In framing the question to which this answer is to be given, however, Zizioulas articulates an existential phenomenology drawn from ancient Greek tragedians, Dostoyevsky, Heidegger, and Sartre. The problem of human existence is voiced by Dostoevsky’s tragic Kirilov: man’s quest to affirm his existence in absolute freedom, not as a given reality, but by “free consent,” “comes into conflict with his createdness,” and with death. Only “at this point,” says Zizioulas, does theology intervene, and he begins to construct his neopatristic synthesis.108 The framing of the question, however, shapes the form of the answer. In the first half of the chapter, Zizioulas established a concept of human “nature,” identified as “necessity” and as Heidegger’s Sein-zum-Tode. Now in the second half, this concept of nature is projected unrevised into Zizioulas’s synthesis of Greek patristic theology—that is, unchallenged by the fathers’ own understanding of “nature,” or by the revelation of nature’s telos in the resurrected Christ. This retention of the phenomenological conception of nature as necessity and being-toward-death established in the first half of the chapter results in a dualism between “nature” and “person,” which is then replicated on every level of Zizioulas’s theology. To be a “person” is to be free of one’s nature. The “what” (ti) of human nature, including natural capacities of moral volition, biological functions and their use, contribute nothing to the “how” (opos) of human personhood in Christ. Action “according to nature” (kata physin)—for the Greek Fathers, necessary to the way of theosis “beyond nature” (hyper physin)—becomes, on the contrary, for Zizioulas, the way of individualism and death.109

Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 43. See also Being as Communion, 45–6, 41; and John Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 103. 108 Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 3. 109 Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, 62. 107

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Though lacking his Russian teacher’s systematic treatment of hermeneutics and epistemology, Zizioulas appeals directly to Florovsky for his understanding of neopatristic synthesis as an “existential,” always contemporaneous task of “dogmatic hermeneutics.”110 The hermeneutics shown in “Personhood and Being,” however, join a confessedly Florovsky-inspired attempt at neopatristic synthesis to the correlational method of Zizioulas’s other prominent teacher from his Harvard years, Paul Tillich.111 In his attempt at “existential” synthesis, Zizioulas neglects to consider that knowledge of created “nature,” as well as the apprehension of its tragic predicament under sin and death, are for patristic thought precisely theological understandings, grounded in the revelation of Christ—never purely phenomenologically derived. And where Florovsky’s particular version of Christian personalism emphasized moral responsibility, Zizioulas’s personalist ontology and its corresponding “ethical apophaticism,” marked by a rejection of the “law of nature” (nomos physeos) as a realm of moral teleology, seem to lend themselves all too easily, like Tillich, to the antinomianism of a therapeutic age. The question of acceptable cultural and philosophical “correlation” in theology should be an ecumenical concern. Probably no issue is more ecumenically divisive today—cutting not only between Christian confessions, but also across them—than that of Christian accommodation to secular thought and mores. As Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger—himself an exponent of a kind of neopatristic ecumenism—reminds us, secularism is no friend to genuine ecumenical dialogue.112 While Zizioulas himself continues to defend the basic

Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, ed. Douglas Knight (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2008), ix–x. 111 “Philosophy formulates the questions implied in human existence, and theology formulates the answers implied in divine self-manifestation under the guidance of the questions implied in human existence.” Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 61; and see further, 64. 112 On secularism and ecumenism, see Daniel P. Payne and Jennifer M. Kent, “An Alliance of the Sacred: Prospects for a Catholic-Orthodox Partnership against Secularism in Europe,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 46:1 (2011), 41–66. For Ratzinger’s neopatristic ecumenism, see Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 140–1, 143: “Thomas Aquinas and the other great scholastics of the thirteenth century are ‘Fathers’ of a specifically Roman Catholic theology from which the Christian churches of the Reformation consider themselves completely separated and which, for the churches of the East, also expresses an alien mentality. But the teachers of the ancient Church represent a common past that, precisely as such, may well be a promise for the future. This thought must not be esteemed too lightly, for it is, in fact, to be regarded as the catalyst that can help to solve the problem of the relationship between patristic and modern theology . . . . We are fairly certain today that, while the Fathers were not Roman Catholic as the thirteenth or nineteenth century would have understood the term, they were, nonetheless, ‘Catholic,’ and their Catholicism extended to the very canon of the New Testament itself . . . . Who would deny that Thomas Aquinas and Luther are each Father of only one part of Christianity? . . . And so the question remains: If 110

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project of neopatristic synthesis,113 a number of other contemporary Orthodox thinkers, inspired in part by his existential correlational method, have now moved on to argue for a “post-patristic” and “contextual” theology.114 Closely related to (but still distinct from) this tendency is also the recent scholarly attempt to revive—often against the achievements of neopatristic theology— the thought of Soloviev and Bulgakov as paradigms for Orthodox theology and a model of theological engagement with secular culture.115 These currents raise important questions, and may offer potential new insights. Yet they also carry potential hazards, not only for the integrity of Orthodox theology itself, but ecumenically—not least because they tend to represent more the liberal cultural values of the Western-trained academics to whose interest they are generally confined than the faith and piety of the Orthodox churches as a whole. Neither the political orientations of contemporary contextual theologies nor the idealist speculations of Sophiology could be said to underscore clearly the ancient, perennial fundaments of apostolic faith able to unite Christians across diverse cultures and epochs. Noting the presence of aberrant gnostic tendencies in Russian Sophiology, veteran ecumenist and Orthodox bishop Emilianos Timiadis has remarked on how “Orthodox teaching would have been misjudged by Western churches if such uncontrolled views had prevailed”; Florovsky, he says, offered a “corrective balance” and “an undefiled, authentic picture of Orthodoxy as it entered the arena of ecumenical debate.”116

these Fathers can be Fathers for only a part of Christianity, must we not turn our attention to those who were once the Fathers of all?” 113 Zizioulas has also celebrated Florovsky’s achievement in an article, John Zizioulas, “π. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ: ὁ οἰκουμενικός διδάσκαλος,” Θεολογία 81: 4 (2010), 31–48. 114 The representative event here was the international conference held in Volos, Greece, June 3–6, 2010, “Neo-Patristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology Be ‘Contextual’?” sponsored by the Volos Theological Academy and the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University. [Neopatristic Synthesis or Postpatristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual? (Volos, GR: Ekdotike Demetriados, 2018) (in Greek). See: https:// orthodoxie​.typepad​.com​/ficher​/synthse​_volos​.pdf (last accessed March 22, 2021) (Eds.)]. 115 The representative work here is Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Edinburgh: T&T Clark; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000). Though not Orthodox himself, Valliere has recently exercised a strong influence on Orthodox academics in the English-speaking world with his championing of what he calls “liberal Orthodoxy.” 116 Emilianos Timiadis, “Georges Florovsky 1893–1979,” in Ioan Bria and Dagmar Heller (eds.), Ecumenical Pilgrims: Profiles of Pioneers in Christian Reconciliation (Geneva: WCC, 1995), 94–5. Robert Bird registers a similar ecumenical caution regarding the attempt of such scholars as Valliere and Rowan Williams to promote the thought of Bulgakov: “The point would seem to be that Bulgakov’s theological method represents a victory of modern, liberal values . . . a politically and culturally acceptable replacement for establishment Orthodoxy. But if any encounter is to occur between East and West, such replacement is inadmissible.” Robert Bird, “The Tragedy of Russian Religious Philosophy: Sergei Bulgakov and the Future of Orthodox Theology,” in J. Sutton and W.

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Such authenticity remains especially necessary if ecumenism is to be more than just a conversation between academics, but a truly representative meeting of churches in the apostolic tradition. Few questions divide the Orthodox more than ecumenism. Uniquely, Florovsky’s neopatristic approach has commanded the respect both of career ecumenists and the most traditionalist elements of the Orthodox world, such as Mt. Athos.117 Now, with the increasing influence of the patristic ressourcement upon the magisterial teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the nascent interest in the fathers and the ancient councils among some Protestant evangelicals, new ecumenical opportunities arise for neopatristic theology. Without denying possible multilateral mediation, Orthodox theologians must consider which “West” they seek to draw near to most in dialogue. For Orthodox ecumenical witness to gain acceptance as truly representative within the broader Orthodox Church as well as to enter into constructive dialogue with the deepest traditions of the Christian West, it will, almost undoubtedly, have to continue to be a broadly neopatristic ecumenism, expanding further upon the basic program already established by Florovsky.

CONCLUSION Florovsky noted of Origen that “his failures themselves were to become signposts on the road to a more satisfactory ‘synthesis.’”118 Something similar can be said of the shortcomings marking the incontestably great contributions of the neopatristic theologians. Here, in light of our reading of Lossky and Zizioulas, we can isolate two basic challenges. First, there is the question of whether Orthodox theologians today can resist the temptation to “confine” themselves, as Florovsky noted of Lossky, “strictly to the Eastern tradition”—instead taking up the charge to “be ‘ecumenical’ rather than simply ‘oriental’ in the field of Patristic studies,” assuming “the

P. van den Bercken (eds.), Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Europe: Selected Papers of the International Conference Held at the University of Leeds, England, in June 2001 (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2003), 223–4. 117 Indeed, there are some among the Athonites who would count Florovsky himself as a father of the church: see Alexander Golitzin, “‘A Contemplative and a Liturgist’: Father Georges Florovsky on the Corpus Dionysiacum,” SVTQ 43:2 (1999), 131–61, at 158. For an appreciation by an Orthodox ecumenist of latitudinarian strain with long experience in the WCC, see Thomas Fitzgerald, “‘Florovsky at Amsterdam: His ‘ecumenical aims and doubts,’” Sobornost 21:1 (1999), 37–51. 118 “Eschatology in the Patristic Age,” PWGF, 311–23, at 318 (CW, IV, 63–78, at 72). In his later years, he made similar comments regarding the thinkers of the Russian religious renaissance— saying that his own work would not have been possible without them (unpublished papers in my possession) [the reference is to material from the Florovsky-Blane Papers, for which the late Fr. Baker was caretaker. See the Introduction to this volume. (Eds.)].

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whole wealth of the Patristic tradition” as a source for theological teaching.119 Undoubtedly, this means revising the caricatures of St. Augustine popularized in the twentieth century by figures such as Romanides and Yannaras, following Florovsky’s call to weigh seriously the witness of Augustine as matter for Orthodox theological synthesis and teaching. Further, the more careful dialogue with the questions of Latin scholasticism in relation to Orthodox patristic theology, as called for in the conclusion to Ways of Russian Theology, should be seriously taken up. Second, there is the question of hermeneutics, of “questioning in Christ,” and the role of contemporary culture and philosophy within this questioning. An implicit consensus among Orthodox theologians prescribes that theology must be “existential” in character: addressed to living persons, with their problems and questions. Signs indicate, however, that with the arrival of Orthodox theology as a focus of academic interest in Western university contexts, Orthodox theologians may soon be facing a debate about theological method and hermeneutics not unlike that which divided “Barthians” and “correlationists” or, more recently, ressourcement theologians and transcendental Thomists. A vague appeal to “experience” served its relatively untroubled purpose for twentiethcentury Orthodox theology. In a secularized academic context riveted by the political ideologies of “race, class, and gender,” however, it will not suffice. The questions of “experience” and reason in theology120—its sources, first principles, and procedure—and of acceptable cultural “correlation” require a more rigorous dogmatic-philosophical treatment. Orthodox theologians must deal not only with Western theology, but also with the sources of Western secularism, with greater depth and care than has yet been shown. Undoubtedly, this will mean that political philosophy must be touched upon as well. In this work of discrimination, however, Florovsky’s strictures that “‘modern philosophy’ must be examined from within the catholic self-consciousness of the Church,”121 but equally, that “following the Holy Fathers” must be a “creative” and “existential” endeavor, will continue to guide those sensitive to the need to think with the church “of all ages” and zealous to advance her historic mission into the present.

Florovsky, Review of Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 207. On the question of rationality, as well as the issue of “nature” problematized by Zizioulas, no Orthodox theologian in modern times has made greater contributions than Dumitru Stăniloae, who indeed may also have the greatest claim to having produced a neopatristic synthesis. The work of Nikolaos Loudovikos is also promising in this regard. 121 Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” PWGF, 157 (Alivisatos (ed.), Procès-verbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes, 232). As he elaborates in “Western Influences in Russian Theology,” PWGF, 147–8 (CW, IV, 168): “[The task of theology lies in] learning to find the immutable basic principles of the Christian love of wisdom in the old ancient Patristic tradition; not revising dogmatic theology in line with modern-day philosophy, but rather the reverse: building up philosophy on the basis of the experience of faith itself.” 119 120

Chapter 11

The Ecclesial Hellenism of Fr. Georges Florovsky1 CHRISTOS YANNARAS

In Fr. Georges Florovsky’s work, the terms “Hellene” and “Hellenic” (Greek) do not refer to a tribal origin, nationality, or state citizenship. The terms denote an attitude or mentality, a way of thought and expression, such as language and education. Today, after three centuries of the state’s total prevalence in exclusively providing every human individual existence with a sense of identity, it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to understand Hellenism or Greekness as a way of thinking and living. Nationality is identified with state citizenship—that is to say, it is derived from the necessary condition that constitutes coexistence as collective otherness. Already from the Pre-Socratic period, the grounds on which we build the certainty that the terms “Hellene” or “Hellenic” distinguished the collectivities organized as a polis [city-state], from the simple forms of cohabitation of the barbarians, are very strong. Barbarians lived with each other to fulfil their needs for survival and common defense more easily. Hellenes formed city-states because cohabitation was an enterprise for relations of life and communion— namely, an actualization of the mode of life in accordance with truth. Why, then, was truth identified with the relations of life understood as communion for the Greeks? Precisely because such an identification was

1

Translated from the Greek by Nikolaos Koronaios.

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attested to by sensory observation, which is the prevailing worldview of universal reality. The Greek stands on the ground and gazes at the universe in search of truth, immortality, incorruptibility, immutability, and immortality. The Greek attests, through this worldview, that the immortal, perpetual, and invariable element of reality is not a “what,” something, an “object” that exists: God, for instance. The immortal given to us is a “how,” a way of life: the logical “mode of the arrangement of the whole.”2 The relations among objects that exist in accordance with the logos—or principle, harmony, and propriety— are always the same: imperishable, inalterable, immortal. This is the truth and Greeks wanted to actualize this way of life. That is why they organized their coexistence in city-states. The polis is the arena of existence in accordance with truth. The art and science of politics is a title of honor for each participant in such an enterprise. What was scandalous for the Greeks was that the logical standards of the cosmic reality were inexplicably given. The harmony and principle of Being and Becoming did not refer to an effected freedom but to an irrational destiny. The truth of the cosmic harmony’s mode of existence constituted a necessity. Even if we assume that some God is the first cause as well as the agent of the world’s logicality, He should also have been predetermined by His divinity: the preexistent logos-mode of His existence. Even while excluding existence from freedom, the Hellenic view resulted in two admirable consequences: first, it distinguished freedom from the possibility of unhampered choices, identifying it with disengagement from logical necessity. Such disengagement is only momentary, even as a hubris that is a punishable offense, yet still it constitutes a nostalgic expectation in Hellenic tragedy. The second admirable consequence is that the universal logicality, principle, harmony, and beauty, becomes the goal and the measure of truth for the organized collectivity of human beings, generating the polis and political life— that is, the common enterprise that aspires to actualize the “small world of the polis.” The cohabitation is for the purpose of disclosing truth, and not for serving utilitarianism. It is extremely difficult today to become acquainted with the Greek perception of polis and political life. Today, in our way of thinking and understanding, the demands for utility and benefit come first. It is impossible for us to embrace the Hellenic, absolute priority of truthfulness. Aristotle wrote: “To seek utility everywhere is entirely unsuited to men that are magnanimous and free.”3

Heraclitus, in H. A. Diels and W. Kranz [Diels-Kranz], Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the Pre-Socratics), Sixth ed. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1951–2), vol. 1, 148. 21. 3 ‘Tὸ δὲ ζητεῖν πανταχοῦ τὸ χρήσιμον ἥκιστα ἁρμόττει τοῖς μεγαλοψύχοις καὶ τοῖς ἐλευθερίοις’ (Aristotle, Politics, IX.14, 1338b.2–4). 2

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Today, we understand the meaning of this phrase, but we ignore its deeper significance—namely, the mode, the “how” of the priority of truth over utility. Fr. Georges Florovsky was Russian. He was born and raised in the barbaric version and experience of Christianity as a religion that centered on the individual. He nevertheless had the charismatic maturity to discern the difference between ecclesial and religious experience, between Church and “Christian” ideology or morality. The difference is illuminated if one realizes the distance that separates the domain of existence from the domain of behavior. Religion—indeed, every religion—is incarcerated in the domain of behavior. If a human being adopts the appropriate behavior, he or she will enjoy the rich gifts of God in this earthly life as well as an unlimited extension of their existence in a way accessible only through imagination, not through experience. This correctness of behavior is determined by law: a deontology formed as a code, with the validity of divine authority. If human beings abide by the law of God, they will be rewarded. Should they break that law, they will be eternally punished. There is no religion that does not trap human beings in the domain of individual evaluation through law and similar arrangements for their behavior. There is no religion without individualistic legalism. Now, contrary to any form of religion, Christianity does not seek to change the manner of behavior but instead to transform the mode of existence. Every idiom that religions attribute to God as the causal principle of existence is a property, rationally inferred from the domain of behavior. In this respect, God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign, and so forth. Behavioral properties define God’s existence and constitute His existential idioms, which in turn imply His behavioral idioms, by logical necessity precede and determine what God is. In other words, God is obliged to be what He is, what His logical idioms predetermine and oblige Him to be. His existence is thus subject to an inexplicable logical necessity. “It is necessary for God (and so on)”—this is how the definition of God used to begin for the ancient Greeks; it is only as a consequence that His logical determinations would follow. Indeed, such an intellectually imposed priority defines how God is conceived in the whole cultural structure of the Christian West. God is a dead concept of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence: He is only understood as a code of behavior, not as a mode of existence. The empirical priorities of the ecclesial development result in only one possible definition of God: that God is love (1 Jn 4:16). Human beings usually conceive love in terms of behavior: as altruism, benevolence, solidarity, affection, tenderness, sympathy, or devotion. Moreover, we use such terms as adjectives because, having taken existence for granted, they determine behavior, but not existence. Ecclesia, by contrast, does not designate that God has love, but that God is love. His existence defines and actualizes love. God does not

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first exist and love only afterward; God exists because He loves; love is His way of existence. Over time, Florovsky was convinced that the Greek language can define and describe this version of love as a mode of existence but not as a code of behavior. How can we speak of existence as freedom from any predetermination and necessity? We can only do so if we identify the causal principle of existence not with the term “God,” but with the term “Father.” The word “God” signifies an entity whose being is predetermined by the role that we attribute to it; it is from the outset committed to be what it is. Whereas “Father” is a word referring to a being that exists because He freely wants to exist; and He wants to exist because He loves. He begets the Son and issues in the procession of the Spirit who then proceeds. Love is not some emotion or idiom pertaining to God’s behavior; love is God’s very mode of existence. As determinative for the existence of freedom, this mode of love is encapsulated in the term “Father” from an ecclesial experience. The causal principle of existing is love as the Father’s freedom—not as a rational necessity and not as a logical or necessary element of divinity. God is love means God exists by surrendering what He is; God exists by begetting the Son and processing the Spirit. In the ecclesial experience, God’s existence is not squandered in some triadic mode; instead, it is communed in as Trinity. This is precisely what is signified by the Greek notion of personhood [prosopon]—namely, the existence not as an entity but as a relationship. The mode (or freedom) of love constitutes the being of God. Let us remember the wonderful narration from John’s Gospel, where Philip says to Christ: “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us” (Jn 14:8). Jesus answers: “Do you not know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” (Jn 14:9). Indicatively, one might say that none of the dominant Christian traditions today—Catholicism, Protestantism, and even Orthodoxy—poses Christ’s question to Philip as the origin for the “good news” that they proclaim to the world. If love is for the Church a mode of existence and not a mode of behavior, a hope for freedom from the necessities of the createdness, then Christianity is not a religion at all. It is only ecclesia—participation in a body of relations in communion and not the correctness of individual convictions and behaviors. In that case, truth is illumination, not intellectual obedience to doctrines. This is where ecclesia is sharply distinguished from religious individualism and, thus, from moralistic legalism that accompanies every religion. Florovsky discerned and highlighted the Greek way of thought depicted in ecclesial worship, ecclesial iconography, and in the apophatic character of doctrine. He was born and raised in the tradition, in the collective mode of people that did not initially acknowledge ecclesia as the solution to some of the

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most fundamental existential problems. Instead, they were massively baptized on a mass scale under the order of their rulers since baptism was, in their time, the prerequisite for initiation into civilization. Russians identically repeated this form of Christianization that aimed at utilitarian goals and was inaugurated by barbarian tribes (German, Scandinavian, and others) during their successive invasions of Europe from the fourth through the sixth centuries AD. An unbiased reading of Florovsky’s work clearly ascertains that, in our age, the dominant mode of the Enlightenment and Modernity excludes the Hellenic mode that ecclesia embraced in its historical flesh. Hellenes defined truth as me-lethe [non-oblivion] and this is how they conceived of it as a revelation or manifestation. Revelation is an event that presupposes an experience of participation. To say “something is revealed to me” implies that I participate in its reality. The experience of participation is certified when it is communed in, “when all hold a common opinion about that to which all testify.” The post-Roman West identified truth from the very beginning with guaranteed correctness—with correctness of understanding, which meant correctness of formulation. But who guaranteed this correctness? Initially, God Himself through His representative, the bishop of Rome. Subsequently, the authority of this human representative was replaced by the authority of the Word of God, “by Scripture alone” [Sola Scriptura]. The tragedy of religious wars concerning the most accurate interpretation of Scripture led to the rejection of any sort of metaphysical protection for human beings and to the acceptance of “right reason”—namely, of rationality as the only criterion of truth. Today, in the globalized paradigm of so-called modernity, truth is merely conventional. Faith, therefore, is only an individually selected conviction, while the Church is one of the institutionally recognized religions, and a self-evidently individualistic one at that. The Hellenic version of truth as a shared experience or ecclesia is clearly forgotten and incomprehensible in every Christian denomination (Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxism). While, on the global scale, the mode of thought and life identifies freedom with an individual’s right to make choices, every possibility for this mode to be shared has obviously disappeared from the historical foreground. At the same time, certain fundamental truths of the ecclesial gospel disappeared “imperceptibly,” as Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) would say in his poem entitled “Walls.”4 By “imperceptibly,” I mean without anyone realizing. If, at an inter-Christian dialogue among Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox, we pose the question “What is the difference between fatherhood and formation in the Church?” I believe that all three answers would be the

C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems, trans. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 3. 4

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same: “There is no difference, fatherhood is just a more complete formation.” Today, in all Christian denominations, we perceive fatherhood as an aspect of behavior, not as an existential event. Fatherhood does not refer to birth or an introduction to existence and life; it refers to improvement, enhancement of character, moralization, affection, and care. Yet Paul is very precise: For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many Fathers. For I gave birth to you” (1 Cor. 4:15). Without the function of fatherhood there is no episcopal charisma; and without episcopal charisma in the domain of existence—not of behavior—synod and the responsibility of synodical decisions that “constitute the whole institution of the Church5 cannot be conceived. Fr. Georges Florovsky, Vladimir Lossky, Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Fr. John Meyendorff, and, along with them, a wider multitude of confessors in the ecclesial experience and testimony scattered in the West, led us as their descendants to appreciate the distinctive differences between the ecclesial event from natural religion. Today, this pioneering Russian Diaspora is almost forbidden in their homeland. Nevertheless, its seed is not overthrown; “day and night the seed sprouts and grows, the soil produces crops by itself ” (Mk 4:27). Today, the historical facts regarding the witness of ecclesial truth are disappointing and desperate, at least according to the rationale of phenomenology. Perhaps we need primarily to learn the lesson of self-renunciation—the mode that renders the Church not a religion but crucifixion and resurrection. Perhaps we need to receive “the sentence of death” as the first awareness for us “not to trust in ourselves, but in God which raised the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9). The Ecumenical Patriarchate ventured to gather a group of theologians in order to honor Georges Florovsky’s memory and contribution to theology with a conference in September 2019. On the level of history, the already established method of honoring a pioneering researcher and teacher is the measurable, globalized reputation and acknowledgment of his pioneering innovations. But Florovsky did not innovate. He demonstrated with fascinating lucidity how, in the Church, the “original” or “traditional” remains ceaselessly new. In other words, the new that is brought out by the Church does not refer to the domain of behavior, it refers to the domain of existence. The ecclesial event does not aim at the improvement of character but at the giving of life—free from the constraints of space, time, decay, and death—and salvation to human beings. Salvation in the language of the Church does not signify the rescue from sentence, restriction, or deprivation. To be saved means to become whole,

5

Ὃλον συγκροτεῖ τόν θεσμόν τῆς Ἐκκλησίας (Pentecostarion, Pentecost Sunday, Third Idiomelon).

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complete; it is to be granted the fullness of existence. Anything inferior to the theosis of the human being does not belong to the goals of the Church. Religion is, by definition, individualistic. The Church exists and functions only as an institution for relations of communion. Individualism issues in legalism, where the goal is armored by the maintenance of the law. The pioneers of the Church are those who transformed their personal illicitness into liberation from the ego: the tax-collector, the prostitute, the prodigal, and the thief. Our problem is how this transformation can become a synodal system, an episcopal fatherhood, a piece of architecture, an icon, and a chant. When the Greeks were baptized into Christianity, they already had the experience of the citystate and political life. They knew the apophatic language of the Parthenon and of tragedy. Today, even the economy functions with the rationale of a ferocious individualistic primacy; human life seems to be at an impasse, without even the slightest view of an exit from the suffocation of egocentrism. We remain in expectation of the teachings—as well as in anticipation of the prayers—of Fr. Georges Florovsky.

Chapter 12

The Emergence of the Neopatristic Synthesis Content, Challenges, Limits1 MARCUS PLESTED

The notion of a neopatristic synthesis has been of incalculable value in fostering the tremendous revival of Orthodox theology that has marked the twentieth century. But it is a notion that is as problematic as it has been productive. It is the contention of this chapter that a frank acknowledgment of its problems and limitations, coupled with a substantial nuancing of some of its basic premises, will allow for the emergence of a paradigm for twenty-first-century Orthodox theology that perpetuates the underlying vision of the concept while overcoming its inherent inadequacies and ambiguities. In doing so I shall concentrate for the most part on the legacy of Fr. Georges Florovsky, particularly his treatment and construct of “the West.” It is a measure of the greatness of the man that he emerges both as part of the problem and as part of the solution to the neopatristic aporia.

This chapter is based on a paper delivered in Greece in June 2010 at the conference held by the Volos Academy of Theological Studies (Volos, Greece) on the topic “Neopatristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology be Contextual?” (the proceedings are in Greek in Volos with the same title by Ekdotike Demetriados in 2018) (see: https://orthodoxie​.typepad​.com​/ ficher​/synthse​_volos​.pdf [last accessed November 27, 2020]) (Eds.). 1

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I say aporia advisedly since it is apparent that the neopatristic agenda remains not only largely unfulfilled but also patently deficient in its address to the great problems and issues of our time. Orthodox theology continues to suffer from a species of oriental isolation that inhibits full recognition, both in the academy and in the wider world, of its freshness, vitality, and ongoing relevance as a primary vehicle of the apostolic kerygma. This state of marginalization is at least partly self-induced. The notion of the neopatristic synthesis is very much a product of its time. It has obvious parallels with and indebtedness to analogous movements of theological ressourcement of the mid-twentieth century, most notably the nouvelle théologie. The “neo” label is itself a sign of both emulation and competition with such movements and deliberately resonates with Catholic neo-Thomism and Protestant neo-orthodoxy. “Newness” of course has never been a self-evident good in Orthodox tradition; witness the initially pejorative association of the label “New Theologian” attaching to St. Symeon. But it was natural for Florovsky and others to latch onto buzzwords of his era, and this is an inclination we today can scarcely claim to be free from. One sees a similar phenomenon in Dimitri Obolensky’s “Byzantine Commonwealth” or the idea of the “Hesychast International” popularized by John Meyendorff.2 For Florovsky, the “neo” label was simply an indicator of the pressing and urgent necessity of engaging with the great problems and concerns of our age. In so far as this sense of urgency remains consistent with the fundamentally eschatological character of Orthodox theology, the “neo” element is hardly contentious. Within Orthodoxy it as always “now” if also and simultaneously “not yet.” More problematic is the “patristic” element. While Florovsky continues to at least affirm the essentially scriptural character of the patristic theological enterprise, it is noticeable that some of his neopatristic epigones can often seem seriously adrift from the essential and indispensable moorings of scripture. This to such an extent that, until recently at any rate, it has been almost axiomatic that an Orthodox scholar will be in the first instance a patristics scholar. The impoverished state of Orthodox biblical scholarship is also in part attributable to this patristic preference. The obvious irony is that this preference is itself a misrepresentation of the inescapably scriptural character of patristic theology. The Fathers were, above all else, biblical theologians. Perhaps still more problematic is the straitened nature of the patristic corpus embraced by the notion of the neopatristic synthesis. While Florovsky, unlike

See Dimitri Obolensky’s magnum opus, The Byzantine Commonwealth (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971). Obolensky also floats the notion of the “Hesychast International,” a neat subversion of the Communist International (ibid., 302), attributing the idea to Alexandru Elian, “Byzance et les Roumains à la fin du Moyen Age,” in Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 199. 2

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Lossky, is deeply concerned to include St. Augustine within the chorus of the Fathers he treats him as something of an honorary Easterner by virtue of the bishop of Hippo’s unabashed Christian Hellenism. This failure to adequately acknowledge the distinctive shape and characteristics of the Latin Christian tradition is compounded by the insistence on Hellenism as the defining feature of properly patristic theology. This insistence absolutizes one possible philosophical framework and would seem to preclude full integration into the envisioned synthesis of non-Hellenic expressions of patristic Christianity, such as the earlier Syriac tradition. A further possible weakness is contained within the very idea of synthesis. The term “synthesis” might suggest some sort of conglomeration of the Fathers into a univocal block: “patristics” not “the Fathers.” But I must emphasize straight away that this is not the picture that emerges from the neopatristic movement as a whole. Certainly Florovsky is acutely alive to the differences between the Fathers even if he is perhaps too sanguine in evoking “the patristic mind.” It must also be acknowledged the notion of synthesis is not in itself foreign to the patristic theological enterprise, as witnessed by the labors of, among others, Sts. Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, and Gregory Palamas. The neopatristic synthesis has also had the unfortunate effect of encouraging dialectical theologizing vis-à-vis “the West.” It is a lamentably recurrent feature of modern Orthodox theology that it defines and articulates itself in opposition to the West. Hence Palamas, for example, is elevated to the status of an anti-Thomas Palamas becomes, as it were, “our answer to Aquinas.” This is particularly true of Lossky but has become an insidious paradigm. Augustine and Aquinas come to form a Western Bloc, founded on the fallacy of the filioque and representing a theological culture wholly alien to Orthodoxy. Such an approach can also be witnessed in figures such as John Romanides and, in a more nuanced form, Philip Sherrard.3 Having sketched some of the weaknesses of the notion of a “neopatristic synthesis,” some consideration must be given to the alternatives. I confess myself wholly unimpressed by the facile dichotomy all too often assumed to obtain between the neopatristic and Russian religious “schools”—as presented, for example, in Paul Valliere’s Modern Russian Theology (2000). This particular book works with an excessively schematic conception of clearly defined and competing “schools,” one hidebound by its patristic heritage, the other free of the dead weight of received authority. He underestimates the patristic engagement of the Russian religious school and goes on to lavish fulsome praise

Many of these thoughts receive further amplification in my book Orthodox Readings of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 3

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on those theologians of the Russian school who, “challenged and also energized by modernity [. . .] sought to reconstruct the Orthodox theological tradition, to move beyond patristic Orthodoxy to a philosophic Orthodoxy for new times.”4 All very exciting and contextual, but if this is what is meant by a “post-patristic” theology, I can see little merit or substance in it. It seems to me to be little more than a species of aggiornamento—and one that lags (as ever) some decades behind its Catholic equivalent. It is simply not an option for Orthodox theology to discount the patristic matrix in this manner. One might as well be post-scriptural as post-patristic. Orthodox theology is traditional or it is nothing. But it must also be living, dynamic, and creative—just as the Fathers were. This evocation of a living tradition is precisely that enunciated by Florovsky, Lossky, Meyendorff, and others—not to mention Catholic theologians such as Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac. But it has always been easier to evoke than to execute in practice. Indeed the neopatristic synthesis has always been more of a vision than a reality. It has never come close to being fulfilled either as a synthesis or as genuinely “neo,” that is to say genuinely contextual. Attempts to articulate patristic theology in modern philosophical categories have not been compellingly successful: witness the presentations of Palamite theology in broadly existentialist terms by Florovsky, Meyendorff, and Yannaras—with the West providing the “essentialist” foil. Here we see Orthodox theology once again playing catch-up in response to the existentialist presentation of Thomas Aquinas in the deeply influential work of Étienne Gilson and others. Perhaps more successful has been the use of personalism by Metropolitan John Zizioulas, although that too is not without its detractors. In the last part of this chapter I want to turn to the presentation of the West within the neopatristic synthesis. Florovsky’s treatment of Western influences in Russian theology is well known. In his brilliant but flawed The Ways of Russian Theology (1937), he excoriates with extraordinary vigor all Western contamination of the pure patristic-Byzantine inheritance of Russian Orthodox theology. Figures such as Peter Moghila, Metropolitan of Kiev, come out particularly badly, and are set in stark contrast to heroes such as St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow. In this intoxicating work, German Idealism and Russian Romanticism fuse in a synthesis that is as powerful as it is misleading. Western influences are characterized as a pseudomorphosis, a term borrowed from Oswald Spengler’s diagnosis of the decline and decadence of Western civilization. Nicolas Berdyaev waggishly claimed that the book might as well have been called The Waywardness of Russian Theology—and he was not far

Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 3. 4

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wrong. Such wholesale rejection of the West is deeply troubling and can itself be judged a kind of pseudomorphosis—albeit one that functions by way of reaction, constantly defining Orthodoxy not by what it is but by what it is not— that is, non-Western. Such an approach only serves to aggravate the oriental isolation of Orthodoxy. But the great enigma and paradox of Florovsky is his capacity for positive estimation of the possibilities of Western theology in its own terms, that is to say, when treated separately from the question of Western influence on Orthodox theology. Florovsky, at the end of The Ways of Russian Theology, argues that independence from the West should not entail or encourage estrangement from the West; rather, “The entirety of Western experience with its temptations and falls must be creatively examined and made real [. . .] Only such compassionate co-experience could reliably lead to a reunification of the divided Christian world and bring back to the fold the long-separated brothers.” Florovsky’s profound commitment to Christian ecumenism is of course very much in evidence here. The argument continues, “The point is not only to refute or reject Western solutions and errors, but rather to overcome and surpass them in a new creative endeavour.” This “new creative endeavour” is described as “a historiosophical elucidation of the Western religious tragedy,” one in which “the centuries-old experience of the Catholic West must be taken into account with more care and sympathy than our theology has shown to date.” 5 Of course, Florovsky never accomplished this historiosophical exegesis any more than he realized the underlying vision of the neopatristic synthesis. But while this “new creative endeavour” remains animated by a dialectical stance vis-à-vis the West (and one which comes, ironically but not unexpectedly, with shades of Jacques Maritain and Nicolas Berdyaev in its emphasis on creativity)—there is something of great value here. In fact Florovsky can be remarkably positive to certain strands of Western theology, especially in his less obviously polemical works. An intriguing example is his critique of excessive anti-Westernism in the masterpiece of that other great neopatristic luminary, Vladimir Lossky. In his review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Florovsky observes that Lossky “probably exaggerates the tension between East and West even in the patristic tradition.”6 Here he is commenting on the polarity set up by Lossky between the Trinitarian theology of Augustine and that of the Cappadocians.7 But while it is hardly surprising to find Florovsky defending Augustine, it is

Georges Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 159–83, at 173–4 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 301–3). 6 Florovsky, Review of Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London, 1957), The Journal of Religion 38: 3 (July 1958), 207–8, at 207. 7 This is a polarity that owes more than a little to Théodore de Régnon’s Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité (Paris: Retaux, 1892–1898). 5

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very striking indeed that he also puts forward a qualified defense of Aquinas: “Lossky dismisses the Thomistic versions of the “negative theology” probably too easily.” He praises Charles Journet’s The Dark Knowledge of God as a fine presentation of apophatic theology from a Thomistic standpoint and insists on the ongoing existence of genuinely experiential and mystical theology in the West even after St. Bernard.8 Lossky himself could also find much to admire in Western theology when not considering it in reactive terms: witness his remarkable thesis on Meister Eckhart.9 There is, in short, much to be learned from the West. As Florovsky puts it: The great systems of “high scholasticism,” the experience of Catholic mystics and the latest Catholic theological scholarship will, in any case, reward the Orthodox theologian with a richer source of creative excitement than the philosophy of German Idealism or the Protestant critical scholarship of the last two centuries, or even the “dialectical theology” of our days.10 We have a concrete instance of the creative potentialities of high scholasticism in Florovsky’s sympathetic discussion of Duns Scotus’s argument for the absolute necessity of the Incarnation—even if, per impossibile, the Fall had not happened. Florovsky finds support in St. Maximus the Confessor for Duns Scotus’s conjecture and against Aquinas’s conclusions to the contrary.11 In parenthesis we might now add the testimony of St. Isaac the Syrian in support of the thesis of Scotus—albeit in a text that would have been inaccessible to Florovsky.12 We also find in Florovsky some very positive estimation of some of the theological developments associated with Vatican II. I do not claim that all this amounts to a wholesale rehabilitation of Western theology in Florovsky, still less in Lossky. But it does at least show that both were capable of a sympathetic and constructive reading of post-schism Western theology in its own terms, when considered independently of its relation to Orthodox theology. It is in such glimmerings of a “new creative endeavour” that I see most potential for the perpetuation of the guiding vision of the neopatristic synthesis.

Florovsky, Review of Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 207. Vladimir Lossky, Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: Vrin, 1960) (with a preface by Étienne Gilson). 10 Florovsky, “Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 174 (Ways of Russian Theology, II, CW, VI, 303). 11 Florovsky, “Cur Deus Homo? The Motive of the Incarnation,” CW, III, 163–70. 12 Isaac’s speculation on this point is contained in the recently rediscovered “second part.” For Isaac, the sole purpose of the incarnation is to make known God’s love. See S. P. Brock (ed. and trans.), Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian): “The Second Part,” Chapters IV–XL (IV 78) (CSCO Scriptores Syri 554–5/224–5) (Louvain: Peeters, 1995). 8 9

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In short, it seems to me that the limited but genuine catholicity of the neopatristic vision must be extended to embrace the post-schism West. The instinctive anti-Western bias of so much Orthodox theology must be completely overcome. We need to re-acquire the capacity to recognize orthodoxy in foreign and unfamiliar garb, to realize that orthodoxy must be not only eastern or oriental but also occidental. It is this quest for an occidental orthodoxy that animates my own modest researches on Orthodox readings of Aquinas. Does this mean going beyond the neopatristic synthesis into some brave new post-patristic world? I think not. The terminology of a “neopatristic synthesis” may have had its day and outlived its usefulness. It certainly served a purpose at a time when it was essential for Orthodox theology to assert itself and make itself known in the twentieth-century West—even if it did so too often in manifestly simplistic and limited terms. But this does not mean it has no ongoing value. Like the men of Athens, we moderns (or post-moderns) are always looking out for “some new thing” (Acts 17:21). But it seems to me that the guiding vision of the neopatristic synthesis has lost none of its import and relevance—for all that it is no longer very novel. This vision might be characterized as a creative affirmation of the living tradition of the Church in which the patristic matrix remains utterly normative but never determinative. Such a vision requires and exhorts a searching engagement with our own context—precisely as the Fathers engaged with their own very different contexts using the philosophical and conceptual categories of their own day. But, conversely, context must never be permitted to be determinative of faith. The vision of the neopatristic synthesis remains valuable in so far as it enables our reception into the continuum of faith that is the Church. It precludes any sense that the tradition is there for the taking and underlines the sheer givenness of faith. The Fathers are not an archive, still less an arsenal. They are rather to be seen as doors or icons, subjects not objects, drawing us into the heart of the gospel: the proclamation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If that is the import of the neopatristic synthesis, then I am all for it.

Chapter 13

Christian Hellenism in the Neopatristic Synthesis of Fr. Georges Florovsky METROPOLITAN CHRYSOSTOMOS (SAVVATOS) OF MESSINIA

I It is today well known and acknowledged that Archpriest Georges Florovsky is the “doyen of Orthodox theologians” of the twentieth century, inasmuch as his entire work has profoundly and substantially influenced modern theological thought. He has bequeathed as a legacy the deep roots of his theological reflection on the basis of two main pillars: first, Christian Hellenism—the result of a process of reception of Greek philosophy as carried out by the Fathers of the Church; and second, the “neopatristic” synthesis—as a process of interpreting patristic thought not in a static way or as a “repetition” but as a process of pursuing the deeper meaning of their concern, as a creative redefinition of the spirit and the vision of their thought, which is not so much related to historical events of the past but rather to contemporary issues in the perspective of the future, as these refer to human existence. Christian Hellenism, as a product of patristic creative thought, and the “neopatristic” synthesis, as the comprehension of Christian Hellenism in reference to its existential predicament, enabled the Church, according to Florovsky to formulate the deepest content of its teaching in every new cultural environment and in every historical age. In this regard, the term new defines

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the images and terminology, while the term patristic defines the spirit and the vision of the Church Fathers, and the term synthesis defines the creative and interpretative redefinition of the patristic thought. This interconnected process of “neopatristic” synthesis and Christian Hellenism was expressed by Florovsky as a “return to the Fathers”—namely, as an “ecstasy” or exit from the context of the theological word and an entry into the spirit of the theological thinking of the Fathers. Therefore, it is clear that what is envisaged and attempted is a precise interpretation of the patristic tradition and theological thinking of the Church Fathers on matters of faith and life, without at the same time abandoning the Church’s spirit or altering the morality and authenticity of its tradition. In this perspective, “returning to the Fathers” does not only mean preserving and protecting the patristic experience but also rediscovering its experience and connection to life, while Christian theology is understood as “theology of history,” because history becomes the domain of this creative action. Furthermore, according to Florovsky, history is not perceived as a static condition of the present or as a mere overcoming of the past, but rather as a critical prediction of “what is yet to come.” In this way, eschatology becomes the foundation of Christian preaching and theological issues, which include matters of life and truth, and is directly connected to the very perspective of life, because theology is experience. This is what the Fathers of the Church taught in their time. And this is why their teaching has been referred to as a “complete philosophy of life,” where tradition forms the basis for a dynamic opening to the contemporary issues of humankind and society, and where theology is developed as a theology of events rather than through some abstract or theoretical approach. In addition to a critical prediction of what happens in the future, history is not altogether rejected, but critically and eschatologically transcended. This means that it assumes another perspective of post-historical magnitude in space and time. As Metropolitan John Zizioulas reminds us, summarizing Florovsky, “Returning to the Fathers does not mean copying the Fathers.”1 This is how Florovsky describes the process: Indeed, it must be a creative return [emphasis in the original]. An element of self-criticism must be therein implied2 . . . . Orthodoxy is not a tradition

John Zizioulas, “Hellenism and Christianity: The Three Hierarchs and Greek Identity,” Panegyric at the Feast of the Three Hierarchs given in the Ceremonial Hall of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, January 30, 1998. http://www​.oodegr​.com​/neopaganismos​/ellinikotita​/treis​_ierarxes​ _ellin​_taut​_1​.htm (July 8, 2020). 2 Georges Florovsky, “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1960), PWGF, 289–302, at 297. 1

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only; it is also a task.3 . . . True historical synthesis consists not merely in interpreting the past, but also in shaping the future by a creative act.4

II If contemporary theological thinking wishes to express this “neopatristic” synthesis as a return to the Fathers, then it must cross the line of narrow academic theory and practice—as a simple repetition of terms, expressions, and reasoning—and converse with contemporary problems of the human life in order to provide answers to modern and vital questions that concern human existence, just as the Fathers were in a constant and serious dialogue with their time and its problems. It is therefore necessary, first, to determine the criteria, conditions, and terms with which the Fathers conversed, so that the contemporary theological word might acquire the same creative testimony and contribution. The Fathers were aware of all the philosophical movements of their time and succeeded in transforming them into a culture. They moved comfortably within the level of ideas and cultural movements of their time, daring to converse with them and thereby contributing to the formulation of another human civilization for humanity. What classical Greek philosophy (along with its corresponding existential consequences for humankind, the world, the environment, and history) was for the Church Fathers, contemporary culture (and its current dilemmas) is for modern theological thinking. The emergence of the technical culture of our age, technology, and the progress of science: these are precisely the challenges with which contemporary theological thinking and the problematic of our times must deal with, based always on the thought and discourse of the Fathers. In other words, by adopting the terminology of the patristic age and the content of patristic thought, the contemporary theological word must transform and redeem humankind and its freedom, an ecological perception of creation, and human relations within society. The modern theological word must adopt the Church Fathers as its compass in order to become creative and to responsive to the challenges of our difficult and critical time, as well as in order to provide meaning to our lives and existence. When the theological word converses with modern culture and its

Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1937), CW, IV, 209 (see “Breaks and Links,” in PWGF, 160–83, at 179). 4 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1937), 209; these quotations are cited from Zizioulas, “Hellenism and Christianity: The Three Hierarchs and Greek Identity” (1998). 3

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problems, then it can be a dynamic presence instead of a static or ideological repetition and theological reflection. Through a critical process of selection of terms, expressions, and descriptions, the Church Fathers sought to articulate and reveal the underlying meaning of every concept and phrase. This attitude of the Fathers toward the Greek language and philosophy of their time clearly indicates their intention to transmit the content of Christian faith into the culture of their time. This is why patristic theology is in itself a cultural event. Through this “innovation” of names and terms, as well as through the decisive way of understanding the function of language, the Church Fathers were able to baptize and attribute different content to each linguistic expression. In this way, the importance of selection and innovation is also highlighted for the theological culture of our time. Nevertheless, this function of language, though directly related to the “neopatristic” synthesis, does not lead to a plurality of “theologies,” as unfortunately occurred in the West. For the Fathers of the Church, this dialectic with the cultural events of their time has always functioned through the centuries as a way of transforming and underlining the achievements of civilization within the spirit of Christianity, while at the same time relying on the same dialectic as the anthropological standard for seeking answers to contemporary questions.

III All the aforementioned are especially relevant today, if we consider that in the twenty-first century, the central focus of theological thought and reflection is anthropology and in particular questions about what it means to be human, what it means to be a person created in the image of the Triune God in the context of a globalized conception of society and modern technological development, which are characterized by the reality of falsehood, moral tragedy, and ecological disaster. The specific question “What is a human being?” is undoubtedly the most appropriate concern in relation to the meaning of life. It is on the grounds of our response to this question that the word of the Church and Theology will “be judged” in the near future. In our search for this answer, the existential coordinates of Christian Hellenism within the context of the “neopatristic” synthesis are called once again to discern the way of the Fathers. In other words, contemporary theology is obliged to emphasize and present the creation of the human person in the image of God, which for the Church Fathers involved an emphasis on the concept of freedom and autonomy as an authentic and existential criterion. Such freedom is not an autonomous state, but the foundation of transcendence and distinction. Furthermore, theology is today called to point out that the Church Fathers recognized the human person as created in the image of God,

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which also implies the concept of immortality—not as a natural necessity, since nothing is bound by the principle and laws of nature, but as a movement to life, as an event of relation and communication with God and other human beings. Inasmuch as humanity is associated with the incarnation of God, mortality affects the entire human as a psychosomatic entity. Finally, the emphasis of the patristic response to the question “What is a human person?” moves within the field of ontology rather than ethics; after all, no ethical reference can be developed where there is ontological divergence and distinction.

IV In his attempt to contribute to the formation of a Christian anthropology in the context of a “neopatristic” synthesis that supersedes the ancient Greek perception of man through the advancement of Christian Hellenism, Florovsky emphasized the psychosomatic unity of human beings. The truth about man, he believes, is not only the soul but the organic unity of soul and body, emphasizing that “the body without the soul is a corpse but also the soul without the body is a ghost and is by no means human. It is not the truth of man.” The unity of the psychosomatic human entity is saved by the Church. Although the passing of the human constituents (body and soul) entails biological death (cf. the Funeral Procession), we must never forget that the actual existence of man is not identical with his biological and mortal nature but derives from the freedom of a loving relationship and ecclesiasticalEucharistic community. This is why it has been rightly emphasized that “we enter the Church by baptism, but we do not come out by death.” Consequently, any religion that eliminates or diminishes the role of the body “for the salvation of the soul” in order to achieve immortality contradicts the truth about an ontological human vision, which is alienated from philosophical dialectics. At the same time, while any scientific research that abolishes or suspects the soul, as an element of human identity, for the sake of excluding the body, leads to a monistic view of human existence and reality. Just as the soul is essential for human identity, the body is also necessary for the physical existence and identity of man, connecting him inextricably with his natural environment and other fellow human beings. That is why Florovsky emphasized that “man is a body; man does not have a body.”5 This special relationship between man and other human beings as well as the natural environment is essential for the sake of coexistence. The same is

Cf. Georges Florovsky, “The ‘Immortality’ of the Soul” (1952), CW, II, 213–40 at 220–4 and “The Lamb of God” (1949), PWGF, 81–94, at 89–90. 5

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also confirmed by modern theories of physics and cosmology, such as the socalled anthropic principle, where not only is man adapted to the world but the world, too, is adapted to man (Barrow and Tipler).6 This relationship of interdependence also implies that the human person is not meant to be alone, but is always in a dialectical relationship of development and creativity with the natural environment, which offers another destiny, vision, and function for humankind. This is demonstrated from the very first moment of creation, when Adam is commanded to work and protect creation (Gen. 1.26-28 and 2.15). Without man, creation would be dead; and without the rest of creation, through isolation, man would also be dead. The truth about the human person, as Florovsky describes it in the context of his “neopatristic” synthesis and specifies on the basis of Christian Hellenism, is that the existence of human beings is a question of relationship. This view is also confirmed in modern scientific developments, notably after Einstein’s era through the quantum theory of W. Heisenberg.

V Based on the aforementioned anthropological references, Florovsky proclaims that contemporary theological discourse is invited to evolve with the rapid development of biotechnology in order to respond—not merely on an ethical but also on an ontological level—to these new questions and concerns. Today, we understand that man is not divided (an individual), which is also reflected in the way human nature is treated by the biological developments—that is to say, not as an aggregate of separate components or parts, but in a holistic manner. As a result of this holistic perspective of man, modern theological discourse cannot remain indifferent or impartial to the achievements and applications of modern technology where the body is often questioned, undermined, or subjected to the intellect or mind, which is often the case in the age of the computer and development of the internet. Nor again can modern theological discourse respond in a way that is either ignorant of or incompatible with patristic anthropology. A holistic view of man as a psychosomatic entity, which reflects the patristic notion of the human person as a unique and unprecedented reality, should confirm that man is created to exist in constant dialectical relationship with, though not slavish dependence on nature and the environment. Therefore, it appears that the principle of the totality in the patristic perception of man is not an end in itself, but is instead envisaged and embraces within the

Cf. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 6

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concept of the human person as created free to forge loving relationships with other human beings through body and soul. Modern technological achievements should also be addressed in the same way. It is true of course that things are more complex in this domain, since certain applications in the field of biotechnology literally intend to “destroy” or “kill” the person. Therefore, we cannot arbitrarily comment on modern scientific achievements without first understanding their nature, without, for instance, discussing the challenges created by the irresponsible use of social media (Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter), or without reducing our criticism to the level of dialectical assessment. We should always use as our basis the above mentioned principles of patristic anthropology. What we should always remember, however, is that technology cannot be regarded as “neutral” in itself but instead should be evaluated either positively or negatively by what Martin Heidegger would call its “essence”—namely, its purpose rather than its use. The theological word is not called to assess whether a person is “good” or “bad” or whether technology is “right” or “wrong” in terms of its use. What it should be asking is whether man is authentic, a psychosomatic entity, a unique personality in relation to society, which is even confirmed today by the mapping of our chromosomes, where scientists speak with conviction of the uniqueness of our “gene identity.” This is what demonstrates the ontological, existential, and vital relationship of man with his environment, a continuous and uninterrupted relationship of interdependence that affirms the peculiarity of every human being and every human relationship, while confirming the evolution and differentiation of every human life. The legacy of the theological thought and contribution of Florovsky with regard to the “neopatristic” synthesis and Christian Hellenism appears to be more timely and significant today, even more than forty years ago for the development of a modern theological discourse and creative contribution of Orthodox theology to a modern dialogue with contemporary science and society. This is the way forward if we want the identity of our theological discourse to express the universality of theology bequeathed to us by the Fathers of the Church. Florovsky encourages us to understand that our theological discourse cannot be in opposition to but in the very heart of modern civilization. Only then will its identity not be based on sterile confrontations but on creative conversations. This, however, will be achieved only if theology is able to dialectically transfer and translate to the world the elements received from the Fathers of the Church as a “neopatristic” synthesis based on the terminology and content of Christian Hellenism. Within this dialectic, theology, but also the Church, should participate by assuming a role of leadership if they wish to avoid marginalization and if they aspire to express dialectically the faith of the Gospel in our time and world.

Chapter 14

Apophaticism, Cataphaticism, Mystical Theology, and the Christian Hellenism of Fr. Georges Florovsky1 PANTELIS KALAITZIDIS

Modern Orthodox theology has been developed mainly within the so-called neopatristic synthesis movement and as such is mostly defined by the famous call for the “return to the Fathers” and the overall program for the liberation of Orthodoxy from the “Babylonian captivity” to Western theology in terms of

I would like to express my deep gratitude and appreciation to Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grosshans, Director of the Institute for Ecumenical Theology and Dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology, Münster University, Germany, for the hospitality offered to me at the Institute and its library, thanks to which I was able to finalize the present chapter. Sincere thanks are also due to my colleague Dr. Nikolaos Asproulis, Deputy Director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, for relevant remarks, fruitful discussions and exchange, as well as for his precious help in the editing of the present chapter. 1

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language, premises, and method.2 One of the main goals of this program of deWesternization of Orthodox theology was to transcend the so-called cataphatic or logocentric theology that is identified with medieval scholasticism and related to natural theology, rationalism, and positivism as well as the subsequent clear preference of modern Orthodox theology for apophaticism, mystical theology, personal experience, and knowledge of God.3 This approach presupposes a spiritual, rather than a mental, preparation, thus connecting theology not with science but with prayer and doxology, to recall the relevant formulation by the late Greek ecumenist Nikos Nissiotis.4

Georges Florovsky, “Western Influences in Orthodox Theology” (1937), PWGF, 129–51 (Original: “Westliche Einflüse in der russischen Theologie,” initially published in the journal Kyrios 2:1 (1937), 1–22, and later in: Hamilcar S. Alivisatos, ed., Procès-Verbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes, 29 novembre-6 décembre 1936 (Athènes: Pyrsos, 1939), 212–31; First English translation: CW, IV, 157–82; “Patristics and Modern Theology,” PWGF, 153–7 (original: ProcèsVerbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes, 241–2); and “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology,” (1949), PWGF, 185–91 (Original: Anglican Theological Review 31 (1949), 65–71). Further on Florovsky’s Neo-Patristic Synthesis in George H. Williams, “The Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florvsky,” in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 287–340; Metropolitan John [Zizioulas] of Pergamon, “π. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ: Ὁ οικουμενικὸς διδάσκαλος” [Fr. Georges Florovsky: The Ecumenical Teacher], Theologia 81:4 (2010), 41–5. For a critical engagement with Florovsky’s Neo-Patristic program see Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need for a Modern Orthodox Theology,” SVTQ 54 (2010), 5–36; Pantelis Kalaitzidis and Nikolaos Asproulis, eds., Νεο-πατερικὴ σύνθεση ἢ “μετα-πατερική” θεολογία; Τὸ αἴτημα τῆς θεολογίας τῆς συνάφειας στὴν Ὀρθοδοξία [Neo-Patristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology: Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual?] (Volos: Ekdotiki Demitriados, under publication); Brandon Gallaher, “‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: Identity and Polemicism in the Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” Modern Theology 27 (2011), 659–91 [This text is reprinted in revised form in this volume. (Eds.)]; Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 3 See, e.g., Andrew Louth, “The Apophatic in Modern Orthodox Theology—and Modern Philosophy,” in Andreas Andreopoulos and Demetrios Harper (eds.), Christos Yannaras: Philosophy, Theology, Culture (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2019), 11–18. Aristotle Papanikolaou notes: “Even a cursory reading of the works of contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians would reveal an attitude that one could charitably describe as suspicious toward any theological attempt to relate faith and reason . . . . The rhetoric of the contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians might give one the justifiable impression that there is no place for reason within the Eastern Orthodox tradition” (Papanikolaou, “Reasonable Faith and a Trinitarian Logic: Faith and Reason in Eastern Orthodox Theology,” in Laurence Paul Hemming and Susan Frank Parsons (eds.), Restoring Faith in Reason: With a New Translation of the Encyclical Letter Faith and Reason of Pope John Paul II, Together with a Commentary and Discussion (London: SCM Press, 2002, 238, 243)). 4 Nikos Nissiotis, “La théologie en tant que science et en tant que doxologie,” Irénikon 33 (1960), 291–310. For an English translation see “Theology as Science and Doxology,” in Nikolaos Asproulis and John Chryssavgis (eds.), Theology as Doxology and Dialogue: The Essential Writings of Nikos Nissiotis (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books and Fortress Academic, 2019), 27–41. See Nissiotis, Πρ ολεγόμενα εἰς τὴν θεολογικὴν γνωσιολογίαν. Τὸ ἀκατάληπτον τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ἡ δυνατότης γνώσεως αὐτοῦ [Prolegomena to Theological Gnoseology. The Incomprehensibility of God and the Possibility of his Knowledge] (Athens, 1965). 2

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APOPHATICISM, THEOLOGY, AND MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE The mystical knowledge of God, related to apophaticism, spiritual struggle, and ascesis, and ultimately personal experience and encounter with God, will be the common ground or even the rule of many twentieth-century Orthodox theologians and thinkers such as Nicolas Berdyaev, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Fr. Justin Popovich, Nikos Nissiotis, Christos Yannaras, or Fr. John Romanides, with three important exceptions, namely, Fr. Georges Florovsky, Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, and Metropolitan of Pergamon, John D. Zizioulas.5 This preeminent position of apophaticism and mystical theology is claimed to have its roots in many patristic writings, but mainly in the writings bearing the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite.6 Apophatic theology and the knowledge of God through negations, the theology of “ignorance” or the non-rational knowledge of God, the divine darkness, the silence and the renunciation of word (λόγος) before the divine mystery, will become, according to the prevailing hermeneutical narrative in Orthodox theology, one of the prominent characteristic features of patristic theology from the Cappadocian Fathers to Gregory Palamas. In fact Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, with his clearly expressed preference for apophatism and silence that leads to the culmination of the spiritual ascent and union with God,7 will emphasize the inextricable link between prayer and theology. There is no theology without prayer and outside of prayer. The very act of prayer is presented as a theological act,8 while theology emerges, to quote Nissiotis’ famous wording, as “a prayerful

I summarize in this section insights and conclusions I draw from my previous article, Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “La théologie comme science et doxologie: logocentrisme, apophatisme et théologie mystique chez quelques auteurs orthodoxes contemporains,” Contacts 241 (2013), 101–18. Fr. Andrew Louth (“The Apophatic in Modern Orthodox Theology—and Modern Philosophy,” 11–12) includes Florovsky among the followers of apophatism, whereas he adds the name of Fr. Sophrony of Essex among those Orthodox figures who were unhappy with apophatism. To this last name I would also add the names of Greek theologians Nikos Matsoukas, from the University of Thessaloniki, and Stylianos Papadopoulos, of the University of Athens (died as monk Gerassimos, in Mount Athos, in 2012). 6 I follow in this section by modifying the ideas I developed in my paper, Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Theologia, discours sur Dieu et science théologique chez Denys l’Aréopagite et Thomas d’Aquin,” in Ysabel De Andia (ed.), Denys l’Aréopagite et sa postérité en Orient et en Occident. Actes du colloque international, Paris 21–24 septembre 1994 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1997), 457–87. 7 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology, III, PG 3, 1033BC = Heil-Ritter, 147. 8 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, I, 1, 588A; III, 1, PG 3, 680B; 680C-D = Suchla, 108– 9, 138, 138–9; The Mystical Theology, I, 1, PG 3, 997AB = Heil-Ritter, 141–2; The Celestial Hierarchy, I, 2, PG 3, 121A = Heil-Ritter, 7–8; The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, VII, PG 3, 564C = Heil-Ritter, 129. 5

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thought.”9 In this process, the unknown mystic author who is hiding behind the name and authority of St. Dionysius, meets the tradition of the Eastern Fathers, such as St. Gregory the Nazianzen10 or St. Diadochus of Photiki,11 for whom theology, as the fruit of union and communion with God, is considered a gift, one of the greatest gifts of the Spirit, which nevertheless requires the spiritual— and not merely mental—preparation of a human being. Therefore, theology will be the culmination or rather the fruit of spiritual and ascetic experience (or as Ps.-Dionysius will say about his supposed master Hierotheus: “not only learning but also experiencing the divine things”),12 and thus will be inextricably linked to the gift of prayer. In this precise point of the relationship between theology and prayer, the so-called Areopagite echoes the famous Evagrian saying, “If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.”13 This understanding of theology as prayer, charism, and gift irrevocably distances it from theology as a discourse and reasoning about God, from speculative theology, and even more from theology that claims to be a science.14

APOPHATICISM AND MYSTICAL THEOLOGY IN VLADIMIR LOSSKY We cannot, however, deal with the Orthodox retrieval of apophaticism without referring, even briefly, to the key role played in this direction by the great Russian theologian of the Diaspora, Vladimir Lossky. Indeed, Lossky, as well as other important Orthodox theologians after him, will adopt the theological and philosophical orientations of the Corpus Areopagiticum, emphasizing the importance of apophaticism, while greatly contributing to the recovery and rediscovery by the Orthodox of the relevance of the Areopagite.15 Throughout

Nissiotis, “Theology as Science and Doxology,” 40. Gregory Nazianzus, Theological Discourse, I, 3, PG 36, 13C–16B. 11 Diadoque de Photicé, Cent chapitres sur la perfection spirituelle, SC 5 bis (Paris: Le Cerf, 1943), §§66–7, 124–6. 12 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, II, 9, PG 3, 648B = Suchla, 134. 13 Evagrius Ponticus, De oratione tractatus, 60, PG7 9, 1180B = “On Prayer: Hundred-FiftyChapters,” The Philokalia, trans. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, vol. 1 (London and Boston: Faber & Faber, 1979), 62 (text 61). 14 See more on this in Kalaitzidis, “Theologia, discours sur Dieu et science théologique chez Denys l’Aréopagite et Thomas d’Aquin,” mainly 467. 15 See on this Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “The Reception of Dionysius in Twentieth-Century Eastern Orthodoxy,” Modern Theology 24 (2008), 707–23; republished in: Sarah Coakley and Charles M. Stang, eds., Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009). See also Kalaitzidis, Ἑλληνικότητα καὶ Ἀντιδυτικισμὸς στὴ “Θεολογία του ᾽60” [Greekness and Antiwesternism in the Greek “Theology of ’60s”], doctoral dissertation (Thessaloniki: School of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2008), especially 530ff. For the reception of Ps.-Dionysius in twentieth9

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his theological work, Lossky highlights Ps.-Dionysius as the foremost representative of the Eastern theological tradition, while he embraces certain core quests of this mysterious author, without being particularly bothered by his disguise,16 or by the Christological, ecclesiological, and more general theological problems which permeate his texts—later raised by Areopagitic scholar René Roques as well as the Orthodox theologian and historian Fr. John Meyendorff.17 Lossky follows the theological path of the Corpus Areopagiticum from its early publications in the 1930s18 to his classic now The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1944)19 or his lectures at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne (1945–6) on the Vision of God20 or even in his dissertation on

century Greek Orthodox theology and scholarship see Dimitrios Pallis, “Σχεδίασμα πρόσληψης τῶν ἀρεοπαγιτικῶν συγγραφῶν στὴ νεότερη ἑλληνική θεολογία: Μὲ εἰδικὴ ἀναφορὰ στὴ γενιὰ τοῦ ᾽60” [A Sketch of the Reception of the Corpus Areopagiticum in Modern Greek Theology: With Special Reference to the Generation of the ᾽60], Θεολογία [Theologia] 85:1 (2014), 301–26. 16 For the invention establishing Dionysius as the “first” Father of the Church, See Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi, “Why Dionysius the Areopagite? The Invention of the First Father,” in Markus Vinzent (ed.), Studia Patristica, vol. 96, Papers Presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2015, Volume 22: The Second Half of the Fourth Century. From the Fifth Century Onwards (Greek Writers). Gregory Palamas’ Epistula III (Leuven-Paris-Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2017), 426–40. See Andrew Louth, “Constructing the Apostolic Past: The Case of Dionysius the Areopagite,” Studies in Church History 49 (2013), 42–51. 17 René Roques, L’univers dionysien. Structure hiérarchique du monde selon le Pseudo-Denys (Paris: Montaigne, 1954); Roques, Structures théologiques, de la Gnose à Richard de Saint-Victor (Paris: Presse Universitaires de France, 1962), mainly 164–97; John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Washington, DC and Cleveland, OH: Corpus Publications, 1969), 68–84. Meyendorff’s criticism was followed, and further developed by Kenneth Paul Wesche, “Christological Doctrine and Liturgical Interpretation in Ps.-Dionysius,” SVTQ 33 (1989), 53–73; Wesche, “A Reply to Hieromonk Alexander’s Reply,” SVTQ 34 (1990), 324–7, to whom (and to Meyendorff) replied Fr. Alexander Golitzin (now Archbishop Alexander of the South in the OCA) with a series of papers: “On the Other Hand,” SVTQ 34 (1990), 305–23; “Hierarchy versus Anarchy? Dionysius Areopagita, Symeon the New Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos, and their Common Roots in Ascetical Tradition,” SVTQ 38 (1994), 131–79; and with his magnum opus: Et Introibo ad Altare Dei. The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita, with special reference to its Predecessors in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Thessaloniki: Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, 1994). Especially regarding Florovsky’s view on the Areopagite see by the same author, “‘A Contemplative and a Liturgist’: Father Georges Florovsky on the Corpus Dionysiacum,” SVTQ 43 (1999), 131–61. 18 Vladimir Lossky, “La notion des ‘analogies’ chez le Ps.-Denys l’Aréopagite,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 5 (1930), 279–309; Lossky, “La théologie négative dans la doctrine de Denys l’Aréopagite,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 28 (1939), 204–21. Paul L. Gavrilyuk notices that “Florovsky knew these articles, but did not engage Lossky’s interpretation of Pseudo-Dionysius’ apophatic theology in the relevant chapter of his patrology” (Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 234), 19 Vladimir Lossky, Essai sur la théologie mystique de l’Eglise d’Orient (Paris: Aubier, 1944); English translation: The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: J. Clarke, 1957). 20 Vladimir Lossky, Vision de Dieu (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1962); English translation: The Vision of God, trans. Ashleigh Moorhouse (SVS Press, 1983).

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Meister Eckhart,21 and his lectures in dogmatic theology that were edited and published posthumously by Olivier Clément (with a perspective more focused on Christology and Revelation).22 He was thus able to assure us on the subject that “An analysis of the treatise on mystical theology, which is devoted to the negative way, will show what this method means to Dionysius. It will at the same time enable us to judge of the true nature of that apophaticism which constitutes the fundamental characteristic of the whole theological tradition of the Eastern Church.”23 According to the interpreters of the Losskian apophaticism, the goal of the latter “is not to conclude that nothing can be known of God; it is rather to propel the aspiring Christian to a deeper union, which lies beyond being and thus beyond thought . . . . Such a union is paradoxically an ‘unknowing’ or ignorance, both of which are understood metaphorically to affirm a form of knowledge which lies beyond thought.”24 To reflect further on the nature, the character, and the role of Lossky’s apophaticism,

Vladimir Lossky, Théologie mystique et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: Vrin, 1973). Lossky’s interest in apophaticism is not limited to the Greek Fathers or Scholasticism but also extends to the Latin Patristics. See for example his paper: “Les éléments de ‘théologie négative’ dans la pensée de saint Augustin,” in Augustinus Magister I (Paris: Editions des Etudes Augustiniennes, 1954), 575–81; English translation: “Elements of ‘Negative Theology’ in the Thought of St. Augustin,” SVTQ 21 (1977), 67–75. See also, Lossky, “Étude sur la terminology de S. Bernard,” Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 17 (1942), 79–96. Étienne Gilson in his book The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard, trans. A. H. C. Dowens (London: Sheed and Ward, 1940), discusses possible influences of Pseudo-Dionysius on St. Bernard. According to Sarah Coakley: “It is surely not a coincidence that Lossky subsequently published an article on Bernard’s theological semantics which takes issue at various points with Gilson’s analysis. . . . Behind these two publications must lie an ongoing exchange between Gilson and Lossky on the Western assimilation of Dionysius” (Coakley, “Eastern ‘Mystical Theology’ or Western ‘Nouvelle Théologie’?: On the Comparative Reception of Dionysius the Areopagite in Lossky and de Lubac,” in George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox Constructions of the West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 314–15, n. 52). 22 Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, trans. Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson (SVS Press, 1978), especially 31–5. See Michel Stavrou, “Le message d’un grand rénovateur de la théologie chrétienne néopatristique,” La vie spirituelle 730 (1999), 30–2. It is not without interest that in the same issue of that journal dedicated to the life and work of Vladimir Lossky, Fr. Boris Bobrinskoy, then Dean of St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris, titled his contribution on Lossky “Toute théologie est mystique” (83–5). This title echoes a strong statement by Lossky himself, according to which “apophaticism is, therefore, a criterion: the sure sign of an attitude of mind conformed to truth. In this sense all true theology is fundamentally apophatic.” (The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 39). 23 Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 26. See also 8–9, 238. 24 Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2006), 18. See Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God: Heidegger and the Areopagite, edited with an Introduction by Andrew Louth, trans. Haralambos Ventis (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005). 21

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Negative theology . . . is not a branch of theology, a chapter, or an inevitable introduction on the incomprehensibility of God. . . . Apophaticism teaches us to see above all a negative meaning in the dogmas of the Church: it forbids us to follow natural ways of thought and to form concepts which would usurp the place of spiritual realities. . . . [sc. apophaticism] is truly characteristic of the whole tradition of the Eastern Church.25 The aforementioned quotation fits perfectly with another statement by Lossky according to which “In a certain sense all theology is mystical, inasmuch as it shows forth the divine mystery: the data of revelation.”26 However, Lossky took care to protect his understanding of mysticism and mystical theology from certain common understandings of his time. Thus, he insists on an idea which under different form and wording pervades his classic work on The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church from the outset, and especially from its Introduction:27 that “the term ‘mystical theology’ denotes no more than a spirituality which expresses a doctrinal attitude,” and that mysticism is not necessarily opposed to theology.28 The following are the relevant remarks by his own son, Nicolas Lossky, Yet he clearly distances himself (sc. Vladimir Lossky) from a “mystical” conception of mysticism. For him, because mysticism or spirituality both signify striving towards union with God, this is not a path reserved to a few exceptional beings—the “mystics” who have an experience not shared by ordinary Christians. As holiness is the vocation of every human being, as a creature made in the image and likeness of God, every person who is baptized and chrismated is called to the mystical experience of this union with God.29 Due to limitations of space, I do not intend to explain in detail the reasons for Lossky’s close dependence on Ps.-Dionysius’s theological work and vision. It

Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 42. See Rowan Douglas Williams, The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky: An Exposition and Critic, thesis presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Oxford (Oxford: Wadham College, 1975), iii: “The ‘negative way’ is not, for Lossky, merely a dialectical step in theology, a ‘corrective’ to affirmative theology: it is the essential ground of all theology. Theology begins in personal encounter with a personal God, an encounter which cannot be expressed in concepts; negative theology, which declines to speak of God in concepts, most closely reflects this basic reality. It is the μετάνοια, the conversion and self-sacrifice, of the intellect.” See 64ff. 26 Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 7. 27 Ibid., 7–22. 28 Ibid., 7ff. 29 Nicholas Lossky, “Theology and Spirituality in the Work of Vladimir Lossky,” The Ecumenical Review 51 (1999), 290. 25

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suffices to note that Lossky’s encounter, during his studies in Paris, with the work of distinguished medieval thinkers such as Meister Eckhart, St. Bernard, or Thomas Aquinas, probably prompted him to carry out a series of studies comparing Christian East and Christian West, as well as an exaggeration on apophaticism stressed in his work. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand Lossky’s insistence on apophaticism and mystical theology without taking into account the philosophical, spiritual, and artistic contexts of his era. Philosophical and scientific positivism was still strong, neo-scholasticism and neo-Thomism, in combination with theological rationalism, continued to dominate Roman Catholicism, and as a reaction to the apotheosis of reason, whether secular or religious, an emergence of both a secular anti-rationalism (Dadaism, Surrealism, André Breton, Antoine Artaud, Arthur Rimbaud, etc.), and the platonic philosophia perennis, along spirituality and mysticism of the Asian East or of Islam (especially with Henri Corbin and René Guénon), are already evident.30 Lossky’s attempt to inject the content of Orthodox theology into the rubric of mysticism can be clearly founded on the Fathers (especially in Gregory of Nyssa and Ps.-Dionysius), but this does not negate his dependence on specific intellectual and probably artistic manifestations of his era. According, however, to recent scholarship, Lossky’s thought, like Bulgakov before him (despite the conflict among them over Sophia Affair), was formulated under the influence of the Slavophiles, the East-West opposition in the field of Trinitarian theology and epistemology, distinguishing, on the one hand, the positivist rationalist approach of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and, on the other hand, the apophatic mystical approach of the Cappadocians, Ps.-Dionysius, and Gregory Palamas. He will argue in his work that there is no common ground or point of contact between these two attitudes, and again together with Bulgakov, he will consider that only a creative return to the Fathers can facilitate Western theology to overcome rationalization and the domination of impersonal substance over personhood, as Western theology considered to be responsible for many of the mental illnesses of modern person, but also for modern secularism.31 If Bulgakov’s understanding of the return to the Fathers “is inextricably connected with the theology of the divine Wisdom,” and his approach of the “neopatristic” synthesis includes not only Palamas but also Sophiology, Lossky’s “version of Orthodox tradition operates on a distinctly

See for example the works of the latter: René Guénon, East and West, trans. William Massey (London: Luzac, 1941); and Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World, trans. Arthur Osborne (London: Luzac, 1942). 31 Marcus Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 194–7, 203. The deep theological affinity, beyond the differences, linking the work of Vladimir Lossky to that of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov is also highlighted by Fr. Boris Bobrinskoy, Dean of the St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris during the 1990s. 30

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Dionysian-Palamite axis with a marked emphasis on apophatic theology and mystical experience. Lossky was also concerned to disassociate Orthodox theology utterly from the (predominantly Germanic) mystical and philosophical currents that he perceived to be the true root of Russian Sophiology.”32 Thanks to his many relevant publications, and emphasis on apophaticism and mystical theology, Lossky’s name came to be identified with these tenets, while through him twentieth-century Orthodox theology, and Eastern Orthodoxy as a whole, have been in their turn identified with negative theology, apophaticism, and mystical theology, up to the point of considering apophaticism as an identification mark of Orthodoxy.33 Apophaticism, however, according to the most authoritative scholars in the field,34 does not seem to be the exclusive characteristic of the patristic thought, as some Orthodox theologians would have it. Apophaticism and negative theology are rational methods well known to ancient philosophers such as Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, Damascius, or even Aristotle, who following the most prominent interpreters of his thought, is considered to be an aporetic or even an apophatic philosopher.35 Apophaticism is not an exclusive feature of Christian theology, and it can be easily found in other religions, philosophical systems or schools of thought. Orthodox anti-Westernism will be surprised to find that through Heidegger’s apophaticism and radical anti-rationalism, or through his search for a “divine God” other than the “Causa sui” of the Scholastics, there are in fact some of Luther’s ideas which have infiltrated Orthodox thought, as well as also influences of Protestant origin, such as those coming from Karl Barth’s dialectical theology, which have landed on Orthodox soil! But the detailed demonstration of this thesis using textual and historical

Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 197. Louth, “The Apophatic in Modern Orthodox Theology—and Modern Philosophy,” 11: “One of the characteristics of Orthodox theology in the last century has been an insistence on the apophatic, on negative theology, or a theology of denial or negation. This is the perception of many Orthodox, and of many Western Christians interested in the Orthodox tradition; as an example of the latter, I take the remark by Joseph Famerée early on in his contribution to the symposium, Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning, which dealt with what Catholicism might learn from Orthodoxy on the notion of collegiality: ‘Eastern theology is, as such, negative or apophatic’.” 34 See mainly Pierre Hadot, “Apophatisme et théologie négative,” in Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, nouvelle édition revue et augmentée (Paris: Albin Michel, 2002), 247–8, with clear reference to Vladimir Lossky and his thesis on apophaticism as the defining characteristic of Christian theology. 35 Pierre Aubenque, Le problème de l’être chez Aristote. Essai sur la problématique aristotélicienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983); “Les origines de la doctrine de l’analogie de l’être. Sur l’histoire d’un contresens,” Les Etudes Philosophiques, No. 1 (Janvier-Mars 1978), 3–12; “Sur la naissance de la doctrine pseudo-aristotélicienne de l’analogie de l’être,” Les Etudes Philosophiques, No. 3/4 (Juillet-Décembre 1989), 291–304; and “La découverte grecque des limites de la rationalité,” in Jean-François Mattéi (ed.), La naissance de la raison en Grèce. Actes du Congrès de Nice, Mai 1987 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990), 407–17. 32 33

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evidences would go far beyond the limits and the purpose of the present study.36 The fact remains that we Orthodox must ask ourselves whether the somewhat exotic association of Orthodoxy with apophaticism and mystical theology can express our ecclesial consciousness and catholicity; and if, again, our theological identity can be recognized in the stereotype that makes Orthodoxy the mystical variant of Christianity or the Christian version of mysticism.

APOPHATICISM AND THEOLOGICAL RATIONALITY IN FR. GEORGES FLOROVSKY The time has come, after what has been briefly mentioned earlier, to focus on the crucial question about the Christian in general or Orthodox in particular claim of exclusivity over apophaticism, and further whether this alleged identification of theology and apophaticism accurately reflects the position of the patristic and Orthodox theology or if there are different readings and interpretations of it. Of great importance in this regard is the case of the prominent Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century and main protagonist of the famous “return to the Fathers” Fr. Georges Florovsky, who is the main topic of the present chapter. By no means is it my intention to question here the close link between theology and prayer, spiritual life and ascetic struggle/ascetic achievement (podvig), especially when we are aware of the importance that Florovsky attributed to this struggle and when we take into account that liturgical experience has been decisive in his theological education or formation.37 In addition, this link between prayer and theology, liturgical life and theology, lex orandi and lex credendi, protects theology from becoming a purely academic pursuit that reasons in abstract about God.38 It is important, however, to consider whether the centrality and importance attributed to apophaticism truly expresses patristic thought, as claimed by Lossky and his followers. Fr. Georges Florovsky—whom almost all contemporary authoritative scholars and

See Kalaitzidis, “Theologia, discours sur Dieu et science théologique chez Denys l’Aréopagite et Thomas d’Aquin,” 485–7; and “La théologie comme science et doxologie: logocentrisme, apophatisme et théologie mystique chez quelques auteurs orthodoxes contemporains,” 111–12. 37 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 153: “My theology [sc. Florovsky says] I have learned not in the school, but in the Church, as a worshipper. I have derived it from the liturgical books first, and much later, from the writings of the Holy Fathers.” The same text can be also found in PWGF, 241, under the title “Theological Will.” See Kallistos Ware, “Preface,” to PWGF, xiii. 38 See what Florovsky notes in his so-to-say theological testament in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 155 (PWGF, 244), about the spiritual and soteriological dimension of theology: “We must theologize not in order to satisfy our intellectual curiosity, as legitimate this task may be, but in order to live, to have life abundantly, in the Truth which is, indeed, not a system of ideas, but a person, even Jesus Christ.” 36

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theologians,39 put in a different theological perspective than Lossky despite their commonalities or common starting points—in many of his writings is particularly critical of this “mystical” and one-sidedly apophatic interpretation of Orthodox theology, providing a different reading of patristic thought. As pointed out by Fr. Andrew Louth, There is much overlap between the concerns of Lossky and of Florovsky: they share an insistence that theology springs from an encounter with God, manifest in the Incarnation, found in the Church; they have in common a personalist emphasis (which they may owe to the Russian roots they affected to despise). But there are some profound differences, notably in connection with the immense stress Lossky lays on the “apophatic” character of Orthodox theology (an emphasis that has since become all but universal among Orthodox theologians).40 The overemphasis given by Lossky to apophatic theology, and more widely speaking to experiential knowledge and religious epistemology, seems in fact to be a crucial point of difference that separates Lossky from Florovsky. In the same vein, but in a more detailed and comprehensive way, Paul L. Gavrilyuk unfolds from his side the basic points of disagreement between Florovsky and Lossky behind the apparent and superficial reading of their respective work, an approach moved by a spirit that favorites the points of convergence over historical accuracy: But apparent similarities [sc. between Florovsky and Lossky] begin to disappear when we consider them more closely. For Florovsky, the paradigmatic ecclesial experience is Eucharistic communion, whereas, for Lossky, the experiential paradigm is the ultimate folding of all cognitive functions in the mystical union with God, as epitomized by Pseudo-Dionysius’s Mystical Theology. Moreover, while both theologians subordinated discursive reasoning to knowledge-vision, they nevertheless understood the process of attaining this knowledge in different ways. For Lossky, the apophatic

Andrew Louth, “The Patristic Revival and Its Protagonists,” in Mary B. Cunningham and Elizabeth Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 195; Matthew Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History: Neopatristic Synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality,” Θεολογία [Theologia] 81:4 (2010), 81–118; Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 197–8; Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 233–42. John D. Zizioulas, “π. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ: Ὁ οικουμενικὸς διδάσκαλος”; Stavros Yangazoglou, “Φλωρόφσκυ καὶ Λόσκυ. Σχόλια στὴ θεολογικὴ διαμάχη γιὰ τὸ πρόβλημα τῶν δύο Οικονομιών” [Florovsky and Lossky: A Comment on the Theological Dispute over the Issue of the two Economies], Θεολογία [Theologia] 81:4 (2010), 187–204. 40 Louth, “The Patristic Revival and Its Protagonists,” 195. 39

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purification of religious language functioned as a spiritual discipline leading the mind to the shedding of conceptual idols and to the contemplation of God. Florovsky agreed that the fullness of ecclesial experience could not be exhausted in language. However, Florovsky was less concerned with apophasis than Lossky was and stressed to a greater extent the definitive character of the main categories of the Christian philosophia perennis. In some respects, in his account of the divinely given rationality of religious language Florovsky struck a balance between the radical apophaticism of Lossky and the speculative cataphaticism of Bulgakov.41 In the beginning, the Russian émigré theologian’s attitude toward reason and logic could be described as hesitant or even negative, an attitude that is mainly expressed in some of his early writings (in 1920s), and which partly accompanies him until the end of his European career.42 In these writings he radically opposes faith and reason, theology or divine word and philosophy or human reason, experience of faith and reasonable reception of faith, any relation between Athens and Jerusalem (cf. the famous saying of Tertullian “Quid Athenae Hierosolymis?”) or even rejection of any philosophia perennis.43 In his study “The House of the Father,” initially written in Russian between 1925 and 1927,44 Florovsky prioritizes the role of experience through which human approaches the divine mystery over against reason, to the extent that the mysteries of faith are clearly inaccessible to human mind.45 In a similar vein the Russian theologian (echoing in this regard his eminent ecumenical interlocutor Karl Barth) clearly condemns natural theology as a method through which human being can attain knowledge of God, since the “silence of faith”46 by which the human being receives God’s revelation in history, is considered the most appropriate step in theologizing. The latter (e.g., faith) as “intuition” (always in the horizon of Revelation, a fundamental axis of Florovsky’s overall work) is grounded in the “experience of faith.”47

Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 238–9. See Nikolaos Asproulis, Το Μυστήριο του Χριστού και το Μυστήριο της Εκκλησίας: Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ και Ιωάννης Ζηζιούλας σε διάλογο γύρω από τη θεολογική μεθοδολογία [The Mystery of Christ and the Mystery of the Church: Georges Florovsky and John Zizioulas in Dialogue on Theological Methodology] (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2019, Kindle edition), 81ff. 43 See Georges Florovsky, “Religious Experience and Philosophical Confession,” unpublished manuscript in G. Florovsky Papers, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, as cited in Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 82. 44 Florovsky, “The House of the Father” (1927), CW, XIII, 58–80. See also “Religious Experience and Philosophical Confession.” 45 Florovsky, “The House of the Father” (1927), CW, XIII, 58–80. 46 See Georges Florovsky, “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Revelation,” The Christian East 12: 2 (1932), 49–64. 47 Ibid. 41 42

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This initially hesitant or ambivalent attitude, however, will be balanced in his mature studies, as Florovsky approaches the issue more carefully, and will interpret differently the relevant patristic texts on the topic under discussion. Thus the opposition between philosophy and theology, reason and faith in the approach to truth, as has already been pointed out,48 is not Florovsky’s final position. Indeed, the answer that our theologian gradually gives from the 1930s onward to the issue at stake, will begin to become different, as he attempts to “show and explain the truth of apostolic prophecy, as a rational truth, as a truth also for ratio,” since “the Church never claimed that no relations existed between Jerusalem and Athens.”49 Florovsky’s justification of the “metaphysical impulse for searching,”50 of the legitimacy of reasoning in theological matters, finally the legitimacy of theological rationalism and the rationality itself of faith and theology had already become clear in a study he wrote in 1931 in German entitled “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology.” In this long text, Florovsky, while saving room for apophaticism, he nevertheless avoids rendering it the main feature and the final criterion of theology. As Florovsky himself puts it: Revelation is given and taken up in the silence of faith, in silent vision, which is the first and apophatic stage of the knowledge of God. In this apophatic vision, all the fullness of truth is already contained, but truth must be articulated . . . because the truth of faith is also truth for reason and for thinking . . . . In this “quest for words,” human thinking is changed and the very essence of thinking is transformed and sanctified. The Church bore witness to this indirectly when she rejected the heresy of Apollinaris . . . . Apollinarianism is the rejection of human reason, the fear of thought . . . . The rejection of Apollinarianism, then, simultaneously means the basic justification of reason and thinking: of course, not in the sense that “natural reason” is sinless and just, but in the sense that it can submit to transformation, that it can be healed, that it can be renewed. And this is a matter not only of potentiality, but also of necessity. Reason is called to the knowledge of God. “Philosophizing” about God is not merely the expression of the drive for research or of some sort of presumptuous curiosity. On the contrary, it is the fulfillment of mankind’s vocation and duty.51 In contrast to his initial rejection of any philosophia perennis in Christian theology, he now pleads for such an understanding in terms of Christian dogmatics:

Asproulis, Το Μυστήριο του Χριστού και το Μυστήριο της Εκκλησίας, 82. Georges Florovsky, “The Crisis of German Idealism II” (1932), CW, XII, 38. 50 Ibid. 51 Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy, and Theology,” PWGF, 121 (CW, III, 30–1). 48 49

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“Christian dogmatics itself is the only true philosophical ‘system’.”52 In other words Florovsky, by gradually nuancing his vision, understands dogmatics as a sort of Christian philosophy to the degree that reason is being used by human to articulate a more comprehensive understanding and systematic interpretation of the magnalia Dei. It is in this context where one can find, after all, according to the late Fr. Matthew Baker,53 the first, programmatic unfolding of “Christian Hellenism,” which, among other things, can be seen through the prism of a synthesis between reason and faith (“faith seeking understanding,” echoing in this regard Augustine and Anselm),54 theology and philosophy, in search of the truth and meaning of the divine plan in the context of Christian theology. This gradually more balanced understanding of the relationship between reason and faith can be also seen in Florovsky’s perception of the relationship between kerygmatic and dogmatic theology. Following St. Basil and his famous distinction (between kerygma and dogma),55 Florovsky would argue that although God’s revelation has been initially formulated in symbolic terms (e.g., icons, hymns), namely, in terms of charismatic theology, in the process of time the Church has undertaken the demanding work of defining the content of Christian truth through the means of reason, to the extent that “the truth of faith is also truth for reason and for thinking.”56 In his American period (after 1948), Florovsky would be more definite (and positive) as regards the relationship between philosophy and theology. By being based on the self-revelation of God in Christ and the magnalia Dei in history and without ignoring the importance of apophatic theology, he seeks in this period to ensure the rational (as well as the historical) character of Christian theology. In other words, by firmly adopting without fear or defensive confessional reflexes, positions of leading theologians of the Western Church, such as St. Augustine (credo ut intelligam), and Anselm of Canterbury (fides quaerens intellectum), he attempts in the context of Orthodox theology to propose a more or less definitive synthesis between reason and faith, based on both the revelational foundation, and the historical context in which it is possible for one to interpret a posteriori the facts of the history of salvation, and have access in Christ to

Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy, and Theology,” PWGF, 122 (CW, III, 33); Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 215ff. 53 Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History”; Matthew Baker, “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition,” in Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (eds.), Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 235–60 [this text is reprinted in this volume]. 54 Asproulis, Το Μυστήριο του Χριστού και το Μυστήριο της Εκκλησίας, 94. See Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 85. 55 De Spiritu Sancto 66, PG 32, 189 C; ibid., 187A; See also Georges Florovsky, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church” (1963) CW, I, 73–92, here at 85ff. 56 Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy, and Theology,” PWGF, 121 (CW, III, 30). 52

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the truth of the divine Economy.57 In Florovsky’s own words, “‘philosophizing’ about God” is in itself no sinful aberration, no “presumptuous curiosity,” but the “fulfilment of mankind’s vocation and duty,” a necessary moment in the Christian vocation.58 In other words “for the Christian thinker there is no separation whatsoever between faith and reason. Christian philosophy begins with the truths of faith, and finds therein the light of reason.”59 Florovsky is prompt to stress that human reason needs to be transformed in the light of the self-revelation of God, otherwise it will remain the pure reason of philosophy. According to Florovsky, the Fathers of the Church “defended the right of the human mind to ask questions,” to the extent that “even the view of faith is a ‘noetic view’.”60 This statement should be understood in the context of Florovsky’s inherent soteriological concern, namely, the “‘ecclesialization’ of Hellenism,”61 something that was attempted and largely achieved, at critical moments in the history of theology and the Church, such as, for instance, in the idea of creaturehood, in the Christian intuition of history or the extremely important condemnation of Apollinarism.62 At the end, Florovsky himself would maintain that, “the mystery of the Incarnation can never be fully comprehended by a finite mind. Still, credo, ut intelligo. Faith brings illumination to human intellect too. And this fides quaerens intellectum is the driving power of all theological inquiry and research.”63 As he further puts it, Christian philosophy is a speculative exegesis of the Christian fact. There is a certain asceticism of knowledge, a preliminary ascetic teaching, which is more than methodology. In practical piety, the experience of the philosopher is transformed and this transformation is qualitative. And since Jesus Christ is the principal object of dogmatic experience it is possible to say that the

Asproulis, Το Μυστήριο του Χριστού και το Μυστήριο της Εκκλησίας, 53. Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology” (1931), PWGF, 121 (CW, III, 30–1). See also Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 87. 59 Georges Florovsky, “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” Georges Florovsky Papers, Manuscripts Division Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, as cited in Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 89. This text belongs to the early period of Florovsky’s career, which, when compared with other texts already discussed of the same period, shows his ambivalent understanding on the issue under discussion. See aforementioned. 60 Florovsky, Review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, by Vladimir Lossky (London: James Clarke & Co., Ltd, 1957), The Journal of Religion 38 (1958), 208. 61 Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology,” PWGF, 122 (CW, III, 32). See Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 201–6. 62 Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology,” PWGF, 123 (CW, III, 34); and see Florovsky, Review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1958), 208. 63 Florovsky, “The Message of Chalcedon,” The Ecumenical Review 4 (1952), 396. 57 58

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entire Christian philosophy is a speculative interpretation of Christological dogma, the dogma of Chalcedon.64 In the light of the aforementioned, Florovsky could only be wary of the exaggeration of the apophatic method, which appeared primarily in his counterpart, Vladimir Lossky, and which could overthrow the central character of the Christological event for the sake of a metaphysical system. In this direction, and without neglecting the link between cataphatic and apophatic theology, our theologian worked intensively on the basis of a number of both Eastern and Western patristic and medieval sources (e.g., Augustine and Anselm, among others) to reconcile faith with reason: Nevertheless, the promulgation of dogmas is of singular importance. It is the way for the Christianization of the human intellect. The painful conflict of faith and reason is not a final solution. Through faith, the human intellect is not condemned to remain forever deaf and blind to the one real truth in the Christian experience. We are speaking neither of a hasty agreement nor of an unworthy compromise. On the contrary, we are postulating a Christian transfiguration of the intellect. Faith also illumines the intellect, while it also seeks after reason, fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeks understanding). And the fathers of the Church made the great effort to create a new intellectual system capable of providing a translation of the faith into words of reason. It was a very difficult and bold task that is still not finished. The great dogmatic decisions of the Church were organically linked to that speculative search. It was not a matter of searching for the truth, for the truth had already been fully revealed in the person of the Word Incarnate. What needed to be found was, above all, “an intellectual garment” for the truth . . . . The content of faith is and remains forever a mystery. This is why one is always compelled to monitor cataphatic theology with apophatic theology. One can never describe the mystery in positive terms; one must often appeal to negative terms that oppose limiting the divine mystery to all that is given us in the realm of creation. But these modes of intellectual expression must continually complement each other.65 It becomes clear, I think, from the above brief analysis that Florovsky’s broader theological perspective differs significantly from that of Lossky. Although they

Florovsky, “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” as cited in Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 89. 65 Georges Florovsky, The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church, translated with an introduction by Robert M. Arida (Boston, MA: The Wheel Library, 2018), 72–3, 74. [See a revised version of this text published in this volume. (Eds.)] 64

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both belong to the neopatristic movement, the one as founder, the other as the first follower, it appears to follow or rather formulate a considerably different understanding of the very premises of the program. Paul L. Gavrilyuk, in his Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, studied in detail the points of agreement and disagreement between these great theologians of the Russian Diaspora. As he observes, “the two theologians became close when Florovsky briefly returned to Paris after the war (1945–1948) . . . [they] shared many things in common,”66 but at the end the two theologians followed different perspectives. Despite this closeness between the two eminent theologians, Florovsky did not hide his different vision, as for instance in his important book review (1958) of the English translation of Lossky’s now-classic study, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church.67 In this text, Florovsky warmly praises the virtues and originality of this important work (he even characterizes it as “excellent” and a “great theological book”), which he considers necessary for the study of Christian antiquity and as an exemplary work of the neopatristic program. As he characteristically notes: It is a provocative and stimulating book. In a sense, it is an essay in what can be described as a “neopatristic synthesis.” The author expounds the thoughts of the Greek Fathers and wants to be faithful to their spirit, but he does it as a “modem man,” who has passed through the school of modem philosophy and is well acquainted with the challenge of the “modern mind.”68 At the same time he is prompt to criticize Lossky for his absolutization of apophaticism, as well as for his misunderstanding and rejection of apophatic and mystical theology in Thomas Aquinas. Thus Florovsky notices that with the two admirable opening chapters of his book on “Apophatic Theology,” Lossky raises the basic problem of theological knowledge, asking the question if an “intellectual,” “non-symbolic” knowledge of God, that is, a knowledge that is adequately expressed in strict and rigid logical concepts, is at all possible. According to Florovsky, Lossky’s answer is rigidly negative. One knows God only by “un-knowing.” The answer may be true and correct. And yet it seems to need a careful

Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 235–6. Florovsky, Review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1958), 207–8. See Georges Florovsky, Review of Wilhelm Niesel’s The Gospel and the Churches: A Comparison of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1962), Universitas: A Journal of Religion and the University 1 (1963), 72–4, quoted in Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 240, n. 34. 68 Florovsky, Review of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 207. 66 67

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qualification. Lossky dismisses the Thomistic versions of the “negative theology” probably too easily. [. . .] In any case, there was a “mystic theology” in the West also after St. Bernard. The ultimate knowledge of God is available “by faith” only, in an “experience” which transcends “logical reason.” And yet even the vision of faith is a “noetic vision,” according to the tradition of the Greek Fathers themselves. Obviously, “life in God” is a more adequate description of the ultimate goal and purpose of human existence than just “knowledge.” But “knowledge” is still an integral part of this beatific “life.” This was the firm conviction of the Cappadocian Fathers and of a long line of their successors. The whole problem of “Christian intellectualism” is still open.69 Florovsky will also criticize Lossky for his radicalization of the tensions and differences between East and West tensions, his one-sided and excessive reference to the Eastern Fathers, coupled by a notorious lack of reference to the Western Fathers of the undivided Church such as Augustine: [Lossky] confines himself strictly to the Eastern tradition and probably exaggerates the tension between the East and the West even in the Patristic period. A “tension” there obviously existed, as there were “tensions” inside the “Eastern tradition” itself, e.g., between Alexandria and Antioch. But the author seems to assume that the tension between the East and the West, e.g., between the Trinitarian theology of the Cappadocians and that of Augustine, was of such a sharp and radical character as to exclude any kind of “reconciliation” and overarching synthesis. It would be more accurate to say that such a synthesis has never been accomplished or even has not been thoroughly attempted. Even if we admit, as we certainly must, that the Trinitarian theology of Augustine was not well known in the East, up to the late Middle Ages, Augustine’s authority had never been seriously questioned in Byzantium even in the times of Patriarch Photius. It is therefore unsafe to exclude his contribution from the Patristic heritage of the “Undivided Church.” One should be “ecumenical” rather than simply “oriental” in the field of Patristic studies. One has to take into account the whole wealth of the Patristic tradition and wrestle impartially with its intrinsic variety and tensions.70

Ibid., 207–8. Since this short book review lies at the heart of my argument, and deals with a crucial point of the relevant discussion, I would prefer to allow Florovsky himself speak rather than summarizing his thought. I will therefore rather cite Florovsky at length, avoiding any suspicion or doubt about what exactly Florovsky says, and the type of critique that he directs toward Lossky. 70 Ibid., 207. 69

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But probably the most radical critique directed against Lossky by Florovsky had to do with the serious Christological deficit of his thought that is also reflected in the structure of his book on The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Florovsky, in fact, decries the fact that the Christological chapter in the latter work of Lossky arrives only in the middle of the book, instead of opening the work itself: A more substantial weakness of Lossky’s book is its basic structure. Of course, it is a matter of theological option. Yet, if one wants, as Lossky obviously does, to develop a system of “Christian philosophy,” which is identical with Dogmatics, should he not begin with Christ? Strangely enough, it is not seldom contended that a “Christological” approach to theology is alien to the Eastern Orthodox mind. Historically speaking, it is simply untrue. Indeed, what warrant may a Christian theologian or a “Christian” philosopher have to speak of God, except the fact that “the Only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” has declared the unfathomable mystery of the Divine life? Would it not be proper, therefore, to begin with an opening chapter on the Incarnation and the Person of the Incarnate, instead of following a rather “philosophical” order of thought: God, Creation, Created Being, and Imago Dei, etc., so as to arrive at Christology only in the middle of the road?71 In fact, in various of his writings, Florovsky not only criticizes mysticism and the exaggeration of apophaticism in Lossky, but he goes further into the critique of the work and the theological premises of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite by questioning even the Christian character of his work, to the extent of maintaining that “Some of them [sc. individual writers such as Origen or Ps.Dionysius] went astray”!72 This was a standing position of Florovsky which was included not only in the up to recently unpublished “Preface” of his unfinished study In Ligno Crucis (1939),73 but which is also encountered in the chapter on the Corpus Areopagiticum he wrote for his Patristic volumes (1931 or 1933),74 as well as for the newer entry on the writings of Ps.-Dionysius he published in the Greek Religious and Ethical Encyclopedia (1966).75 Again, his critical approach is at odds with the almost unreservedly positive reception of the

Ibid., 208. Georges Florovsky, “Preface” (1939) to his In Ligno Crucis, PWGF, 68. 73 On the Tree of the Cross: Georges Florovsky and the Patristic Doctrine of Atonement, ed. Matthew Baker, Seraphim Danckaert and Nicholas Marinides (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2016), 137–41, and PWGF, 66–70. 74 Florovsky, “Corpus Areopagiticum,” CW, X, 204–29. 75 Georges Florovsky, “Ψευδο-Διονυσίου, Ἔργα,” Θρησκευτικὴ καὶ Ἠθικὴ Εγκυκλοπαίδεια [Religious and Ethical Encyclopedia] 12 (Athens, 1966): 473–80. 71 72

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“Areopagite” by Lossky, and Lossky’s making of Dionysius as the theologian par excellence of the Eastern Church. Thus, if Gregory Palamas and especially Ps.Dionysius are Lossky’s “heroes,” Athanasius and Augustine or Maximus are the “heroes” of Florovsky.76 That’s why, according to Gavrilyuk’s relevant remarks, In constructing his neopatristic theology, Lossky placed the apophatic theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite at the center. He subsequently drew a connection between Dionysius’s theory of knowledge on the one hand, and Gregory Palamas’ theology on the other hand. On these grounds, Lossky referred to his work as a “Palamite” synthesis. While Florovsky acknowledged that Lossky’s synthesis authentically represented Orthodox tradition, his own theological accents lay elsewhere. For Florovsky, the organizing principle of neopatristic theology was Chalcedonian Christology, not apophaticism. According to Florovsky, Lossky’s neopatristic theology lacked a sufficient Christological emphasis. In his more constructive works, Florovsky tended to dwell more on the early Church Fathers, and less on the Byzantine theologians. More generally, it would be wrong to lump Florovsky’s neopatristic theology together with the retrieval of Palamite theology in the works of Basil Krivocheine, Vladimir Lossky, John Meyendorff, and other twentieth century Orthodox scholars. The Palamite distinction between the unknowable essence of God and the uncreated divine energies did not play a noticeable role in Florovsky’s neopatristic synthesis.77 It is widely recognized that the central axis of Florovsky’s thought is the history of salvation with the Incarnate Word of God at its core, where history is considered as the place where humans encounter God and at the same time work, prepare, and expect the coming of the eschaton (ascetic struggle/podvig), the Kingdom of God. At the same time, though, Florovsky appears to not be giving the proper attention to the constant value of the metaphysical question about the relationship between God and the world, or, for that matter, he lacks sufficient focus concerning the epistemological question and the core problem of the relationship between cataphatic and apophatic theology.

APOPHATICISM AND CHRISTIAN HELLENISM In the light of the above, it would not be an exaggeration to argue that even his famous but controversial theory of “Christian Hellenism” relates to his interest in ensuring the rational and historical character of the Christian faith

Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 198. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 239–40.

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and theology. As is well known, at the First Congress of Orthodox Theology in Athens (1936), Florovsky proclaims the return to the Fathers and the need to liberate Orthodox theology from the “Babylonian captivity” to Western theology.78 In this context he borrows the term “pseudomorphosis” from Oswald Spengler79 in order to describe the long course of Latinization and Westernization of Orthodox theology in general and the Russian tradition in particular.80 Following this discussion, and as evidenced in his text entitled “The Ways of Russian Theology,” published in French in 1949 in Paris, Florovsky will develop his position about “Christian Hellenism,” which, he claimed, “assumed a perpetual character in the Church,” and “has incorporated itself in the very fabric of the Church as the eternal category of Christian existence,” while, at the same time, he held that “Hellenism is something more than a passing stage in the Church.”81 One should be cautious about the context within which “Christian Hellenism” emerged. On the one hand, Florovsky radically opposes to Luther, the whole liberal Protestant tradition (especially, Adolf von Harnack), due to this liberal tradition’s radical rejection of the use of philosophy in articulating the Christian doctrine. Harnack even goes so far as to accuse the ancient Church of an “acute Hellenization” of the Gospel.82 On the other hand, Florovsky struggled against German Idealism, which he felt diminished the role of history in theological

See the texts he presented in 1936 in n.1. See Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, trans. George Allen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). See Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 64–70, 178–9. 80 See Florovsky, “Western Influences in Russian Theology,” PWGF, 137, n. 38, 141, 143, 149 (CW, IV, 165, 170, 172, 179). See Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology (1937), Part I, CW, V, especially chap. II, 33–85. For more references to Florovsky’s work see PWGF. On the origin and use of the term “pseudomorphosis” in the work of Fr. Florovsky, see Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur, “Introduction,” in PWGF, 4, n. 12; Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 159–62; Gavrilyuk, “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis and the Future Ways of Orthodox Theology,” in George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox Constructions of the West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 106–10. For a critical approach to Florovsky’s theory of “pseudomorphosis,” see Dorothea Wendebourg, “‘Pseudomorphosis’: A Theological Judgement as an Axiom for Research in the History of Church and Theology,” GOTR 42 (1997), 321–42. 81 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 183–209, especially 195 (“Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159–83, especially 168–9). It is in fact a French translation of the concluding chapter, entitled “Breaks and Links,” of Florovsky’s magisterial Ways of Russian Theology, published in Russian, in 1937 in Paris. See also on Christian Hellenism the short articles by Florovsky: “The Christian Hellenism,” Orthodox Observer 442 (January 1957): 9–10 (PWGF, 233–6); “Hellenismus: Hellenisierung (des Christentums),” in Weltkirchenlexikon: Handbuch der Oekumene (Stuttgart: Kreuz–Verlag, 1960), col. 540–541. See also Florovsky, “The Legacy of the New Testament” (1931), CW, VIII, 18–35, especially 31–3. 82 In this regard Florovsky has in mind also Karl Barth and his bold rejection of natural theology as well as Lev Shestov due to the priority the latter gives to irrationality in religious experience. 78 79

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reasoning and the importance of the cooperation of humanity with God.83 What is at stake again in Florovsky’s eyes is both history as the central axis of Christian theology, as the place where God meets humanity in the person of Christ, and the respect for the ratio or theological rationality as a legitimate means of theologizing in the attempt of the Church to address the challenges posed by the surrounding world. In this regard he argues that, Hellenism means philosophy . . . . The Fathers . . . attempted a new philosophical synthesis on the basis of the Revelation. Certainly, they linked the Divine message they had with the aspirations of the Hellenic mind.84 In an entry in a German Lexicon, Florovsky would try to clarify further the conditions upon which Christian Hellenism should be understood. At the heart of his interest in the relationship between Hellenism and Christianity one should put the “fundamental questions about the role of the authority of ‘reason’ within Christianity, the fundamental relationship of ‘faith’ and ‘doctrine,’ and the importance of history in matters of salvation.”85 At the same time, however, one should not ignore certain bold statements by Florovsky that could lead as they finally did, to an inappropriate understanding of Christian Hellenism. Thus, the Russian émigré theologian contends that there can be no catholicity and true historicity apart from patristic theology and Christian Hellenism (the last two terms appear to be identical in his thought), as the Gospel and Christian theology “once and for all, were expressed from the start in Hellenic categories.”86 This “once and for all,”87 and “from the start”

“The Crisis of German Idealism,” CW, XII, 23–41. Georges Florovsky, “Ad lecturem,” unpublished Preface to In Ligno Crucis: The Patristic Doctrine of the Atonement (version of 1939/1948), 5–6 (Georges Florovsky Papers, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library), as cited in Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 87 (cf. PWGF, 65–70). 85 Florovsky, “Hellenismus: Hellenisierung (des Christentums),” col. 541, as cited in Baker’s, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 87. Florovsky’s advocacy for Christian Hellenism as a means to secure the historicity, and the rationality of Christian faith and theology, found a positive reception, and meaningful echo in Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, as this became manifest in his Regensburg University lecture (September 12, 2006) entitled “Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections” (see: http://www​.vatican​.va​/content​/benedict​-xvi​/en​/speeches​/2006​/september​/ documents​/hf​_ben​-xvi​_spe​_20060912​_university​-regensburg​.html (last accessed November 14, 2020)). Unfortunately, this lecture was misunderstood by many as a severe critique, and even an attack against Islam. For an early positive Roman Catholic assessment of Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism see Dom Emmanuel Lanne, “Le mystère de l’Eglise dans la perspective de la théologie orthodoxe,” Irénikon 35 (1962), 203–4. See Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History,” 117–18. 86 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195–6 (“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 168–9). 87 See the use of the analogous wording: the “Christian message has been forever formulated in Greek categories,” as expressed in a text of Florovsky that has been interpreted as his theological 83 84

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seem to acquire in Florovsky’s thought almost “metaphysical” dimensions, a character of divine destiny and election, to such an extent that might largely invalidate and nullify his view expressed elsewhere about the dynamic character, openness, and contingency of History. This strong Hellenic focus also risks invalidating and nullifying Florovsky’s own view about creativity and innovation as an indelible element of the Christian understanding of History, given that “Christ is ever abiding in his Body, which is the Church, and in her the Heilsgeschichte is effectively continued.”88 Florovsky, however, in the texts under discussion is prompt to clarify which Hellenism he is talking about. Thus he excludes the “ethnical Hellenism of modern Hellas or of the Levant,” “Greek phyletism, which is obsolete and without justification”89―without being able to prevent, however, with this bold statement the later ethnocentric or cultural/helleno-centric reading and interpretation of the above passage by Greek theologians with such interests and orientations.90 Florovsky’s “Christian Hellenism” is that of “Christian antiquity,” “the Hellenism of dogma, of the liturgy, of the icon, the Hellenism of the Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils.”91 The more, however, the national or nationalistic version of Hellenism is excluded from his perspective, the more the scope of application of “sacred” or “Christian Hellenism” expands, which in Florovsky’s thought now claims a normative and exclusive role not only for the past of the Church and theology, but also for their present and future.92 “Patristic and catholicity, historicity and Hellenism are the joint aspects of a unique and indivisible datum,” as the Russian émigré theologian trenchantly expresses himself.93 What Florovsky wants to say is that the truth of the Church and the catholicity of theology can only be expressed in Greek terms and categories. Catholicity and Hellenicity of theology are, according to Florovsky, connected inseparably and indivisibly. “Let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox,” he will maintain in the second paper he delivered (in English)

testament (Blane, Georges Florovsky, 155 = PWGF, 244 (my emphasis)). 88 Georges Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” (1959) CW, II, 62 = PWGF, 217. And he continues: “The Heilsgeschichte is still going on.” 89 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195 (“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 168–9). Paul L. Gavrilyuk, in his Georges Florovsky, 208, argues that “in the context of the Russian Diaspora, Florovsky’s message of Christian Hellenism provided a trans-national identity marker.” 90 See Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “L’hellénisme chrétien du Père Georges Florovsky et les théologiens grecs de la génération de ’60,” Communication présentée dans le cadre du colloque international: “Le Père Georges Florovsky et le renouveau de la théologie orthodoxe au 20e siècle,” Institut de théologie orthodoxe Saint-Serge, Paris, 27–28 novembre 2009 (the publication of the proceedings of this conference is still expected); this text has been published in Greek in Θεολογία 81:4 (2010), 247–88. 91 Florovsky, “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195 (“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 168–9). 92 See, for example, Gavrilyuk, “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis and the Future Ways of Orthodox Theology,” 109. 93 “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 196 (“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 168–9).

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at the historic 1936 Athens conference.94 The aforementioned strong statement is coupled in the concluding paragraph by his idea on the perennial character of Hellenism for theology: In a sense the Church itself is Hellenistic, is a Hellenistic formation—or in other words, Hellenism is a standing category of Christian existence. And thus any theologian must pass [through] an experience of a spiritual Hellenization (or re-Hellenization). Many shortcomings in the modern developments of Orthodox Churches depend greatly upon the loss of this Hellenistic spirit.95 That is why he will state that any theologian who fails to think on the basis of the Greek categories should be concerned, of being inconsistent with the rhythm of the Church,96 as Hellenism for Florovsky is more than a temporary phase in the Church. In his view it is a constant presence, an accomplished and at the same time dynamically and constantly evolving reality that aspires to answer the challenges and questions that today’s world poses to theology, and for which it is not enough just to give the same answers as was given in the past. Again, this dynamic, timeless, and almost “eternal” function and mission of Christian Hellenism in theology makes insufficient, unnecessary, and dangerous any attempt to return to pre-Christian Hellenism and to Jewish and Semitic categories of thought and poetic expression.97 Yet the sole focus on Christian Hellenism in Florovsky’s thought also makes illegitimate any attempt to formulate the truth of the Church and the catholicity of theology in ways and categories that the Fathers could not have thought of, with the language of, for example, modern philosophy, as Bulgakov suggested. In Florovsky’s view, Hellenism is and remains the eternal category, the stable and permanent category of Christian existence, the criterion for the verification of the authenticity and fidelity to the tradition of the Church and theology.98 This particular understanding of Christian Hellenism by Florovsky should always be joined with his strong emphasis on the historicity of faith as well as the critical but positive role of philosophy (as the actualization of reason) in theologizing.

Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1939), PWGF, 157. See Florovsky, “The Christian Hellenism” (1957), PWGF, 236. 95 Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1939), PWGF, 157. 96 “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 195 (“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 168–9). 97 “The Ways of Russian Theology” (1949), CW, IV, 196–8 (“Breaks and Links,” PWGF, 169–71). 98 Here see what Florovsky wrote in his theological testament in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 155 (PWGF, 244), about Christian Hellenism: “Indeed, to be Christian means to be Greek, since our basic authority is forever a Greek book, the New Testament. Christian message has been forever formulated in Greek categories . . . . I am personally resolved to defend this thesis, and on two different fronts: against the belated revival of Hebraism and against all attempts to reformulate dogmas in categories of modern philosophies, whether German, Danish, or French (Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin) and alleged Slavic mentality.” 94

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I do not intend in this study to discuss the various questions and problems posed by Florovsky’s theory in relation to the ultimate role of Hellenism in theology and the definitive and timeless character of Hellenism for Christian existence, as questions that seem to have monopolized discourse down to this day in the Greek academic context. I have discussed these matters not only in my doctoral dissertation99 but also in my presentation at the international conference dedicated to Florovsky in St. Sergius Theological Institute in Paris, in November 2009, and in an article in the Greek journal Theologia entitled “Georges Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism and the Greek theologians of the generation of the ’60s.”100 Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions, among Greek theologians the interest in Florovsky’s “Christian Hellenism” is expressed either through an inward-looking cultural hermeneutics (emphasizing the universal dimension of Hellenic culture as evidenced in the synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity) or in an ethnocentric and nationalist hermeneutics that utilizes Florovsky’s ideas in order to highlight the superiority of the Greeks and their special place and role (as a kind of new chosen people of God) in the unfolding of the divine economy.101 These Hellenocentric interpretations of Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism ignore the fact that almost all modern experts on Florovsky’s thought (Paul L. Gavrilyuk,102 Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur,103 Matthew Baker,104 and Nikolaos Asproulis105) argue that our theologian with his theory in question not only intended to address Harnack and his theory of the radical Hellenization of Christianity in Christian dogma (or the philosophical trend of Idealism), but, these eminent scholars also contend that Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism was focused on the critique of Bulgakov’s Sophiology and Bulgakov’s proposal to reformulate or even reinterpret Christian doctrines through the prevailing philosophical language of the time, in particular a philosophical idiom heavily influenced by German idealism. It should be noted here that, unlike those who emphasized the opposing axis East-West, “Christian Hellenism” in the perspective of our theologian, is perceived as the background of Orthodoxy and catholicity in both East and West. As a result Florovsky includes in “Christian Hellenism” Eastern and

Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Ἑλληνικότητα καὶ Ἀντιδυτικισμὸς στὴ “θεολογία τοῦ ᾽60” [Greekness and Antiwesternism in the “Greek Theological Generation of the 60’s”], PhD Dissertation (Thessaloniki: University of Thessaloniki, School of Theology, 2008), 173–207. 100 Kalaitzidis, “Ὁ ‘χριστιανικὸς Ἑλληνισμός’ τοῦ π. Γεωργίου Φλωρόφσκυ.” 101 See Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Orthodoxy and Hellenism in Contemporary Greece,” SVTQ 54 (2010), 380ff., for more on the distinction between theological and cultural/ethocentric hermeneutics. 102 See Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, passim. 103 Among other writings, see Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur, “Introduction,” to PWGF, especially 20–2. 104 See Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History”; and “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition.” 105 Asproulis, Το Μυστήριο του Χριστού και το Μυστήριο της Εκκλησίας, 53. 99

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Western Fathers indiscriminately, even Scholastic theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. As he put it, “Christian Hellenism was never a particularly Eastern phenomenon,” as the Fathers are Fathers and teachers of the Catholic Church.106 This is why he does not hesitate to further state that, Christian Hellenism is much wider than one is prepared to realize. St. Augustine and even St. Jerome were no less Hellenistic than St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. [John] Chrysostom. And St. Augustine introduced neoplatonism into Western theology. Pseudo-Dionysius was influential in the West no less than in the East, from Hilduin up to Nicholas of Cusa. And St. John of Damascus was an authority both for the Byzantine Middle Ages and for Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. Thomism itself is Hellenistic. In England, the Caroline divines were obviously Hellenistic in tendency. And one of the greatest contributions of the Tractarian movement was just this move back to the Greek Fathers. Christian Hellenism was never a peculiarly Eastern phenomenon. The Fathers were teachers of the Church Universal, not just of the Eastern Church. Hellenism is the common background and the basis of the whole Christian civilization. It is simply incorporated into our Christian existence.107 In his long theological career thereby Florovsky does not seem to follow the usual practice of many Orthodox, including Lossky and Bulgakov, in either ignoring or severely and uncharitably criticizing Thomas Aquinas and Western rationalism in general. As he himself puts it, “the antithesis of ‘West and East’ belongs more to the polemical and publicistic phraseology than to sober historical thinking.”108 Following this same line he will maintain that the catholicity of Christendom requires, as inseparable realities, both the Christian West and the Christian East, while he will also speak of East and West as “Siamese sisters,” as integral parts of a fragmented world, of a wider whole that, despite the Great Schism, constitutes a unity, thus paving the way for the theory of the two lungs of the Church, Eastern and Western.109

See Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 210; Gallaher and Ladouceur, “Introduction,” PWGF, 21; Ware, “Preface,” PWGF, xiii. 107 Florovsky, “Preface to In Ligno Crucis” (1939), PWGF, 67. See Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 200. For a critical discussion about the inclusiveness and the scope of Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism as regards Latin Fathers and Western theologians, as well as the non-Byzantine Oriental traditions (mainly Syriac and Coptic), see Paul Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology: “Behold, I Make All Things New” (Rev. 21:5) (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2019), 420–1. In the same impressive study (110–11), Ladouceur offers a concise presentation of the early phase of Florovsky’s understanding of Christian Hellenism (represented by the Ways of Russian Theology, 1937), and a review of the various critiques of it, again focused on this early stage (419–22). 108 Georges Florovsky, Review of Leon Zander’s Vision and Action (London, 1952), republished in the Collected Works under the title “A Critique of Zander’s Ecumenical Thought,” CW, XIII, 185–92, here at 191. See Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 198. 109 Florovsky, “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology,” PWGF, 186 (Anglican Theological Review 31 (1948), 65–6). 106

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With regard to the aforementioned remarks, it is no coincidence, moreover, that Florovsky’s reception of the rationality of theology and the synthesis of faith and reason goes hand in hand with his acceptance, especially during the American period of his work, of some form of doctrinal development (which was rejected in his early writings), differing at this point eventually from Lossky, while approaching the relevant views of Solovyov and Bulgakov, views that would later be adopted by theologians such as Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae and Prof. Stylianos Papadopoulos.110 In these critical times when global Orthodoxy is confronted with the waves of gnoseomachy, fundamentalism, anti-Westernism and anti-modernism, ethnocentric entrenchment, a monophysite-like spirituality, and gerontism (elderism), the “greatest lesson” according to Florovsky’s model may be summed up in the central role of serious theological study, in the priority of the theological over any other criterion, in the necessary synthesis of reason and faith, “spirituality” and dogmatic, academic and charismatic theology, and in the overcoming in the Holy Spirit of gnoseomachy and theological aphasia.111 If we acknowledge with Florovsky that Orthodoxy is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, then we must also bear the consequences of this acknowledgment and affirmation, going beyond the idea of particularity that identifies Orthodoxy with a certain kind of spirituality, allowing itself to be relegated to the realm of the exotic, mystical, or oriental version of Christianity, thus resigning itself from a catholic, holistic, and inclusive vision of the Church and its mission in the world.112 That is where, despite any reservations or criticisms,113 we respectfully and gratefully welcome the theological heritage of Fr. Georges Florovsky, as well as his claim to a Church with catholic and cosmic dimensions.

See Daniel J. Lattier, John Henry Newman and Georges Florovsky: An Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue on the Development of Doctrine, Phd dissertation, Dusquesne University, Fall 2012. See also Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “The Issue of Dogmatic Development in Contemporary Orthodox Theology,” in Ioan Tulcan, Peter Bouteneff, and Michel Stavrou (eds.), Dogma and Terminology in the Orthodox Tradition Today: 4th International Symposium of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Sofia, 22–25 September, 2013 (Sibiu: Astra Museum, 2015), 157–69. 111 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, Part Two (1937), CW VI, 290. 112 Lossky’s classic work The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, with its widespread influence, contributed decisively to this “mystical” and “exotic” understanding of Orthodoxy. It is characteristic that what is lacking in this important work is a mission perspective, and the social character of the Church. Compare with Florovsky’s essay “The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church” (1950–1), CW, II, 131–42. For the critique of this a-historical “mystical” theology, see Kalaitzidis, “La théologie comme science et doxologie: logocentrisme, apophatisme et théologie mystique chez quelques auteurs orthodoxes contemporains,” 101–18. 113 See especially Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need of a Modern Orthodox Theology,” and “Ὁ ‘χριστιανικὸς Ἑλληνισμός’ τοῦ π. Γεωργίου Φλωρόφσκυ.” 110

Chapter 15

Florovsky’s “Predicament of the Christian Historian” and the Orthodox Church’s Predicament with History Today VASSA LARIN

INTRODUCTION Whether engaging or evading calls for reform in different areas of churchlife, the Orthodox Churches usually do so today by appealing to historical precedent, or to a lack thereof. Whether approaching administrative issues, such as Ukrainian autocephaly and the (re-)structuring of the so-called diaspora; or the sacramental and liturgical issues of the female diaconate; or, most recently, of Communion-spoons in the Covid-19 era, the various Orthodox opinions on these matters usually seek legitimization in church-practice of the past. The underlying rationale seems to be: if something has not been done before, it may not be done today and vice versa: if it has been done before, if it bears the stamp of primitiveness, it may be done today. What is problematic in this rationale is not the seeking and valuing of continuity with the past; this is inherent to Christian tradition in both East and

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West.1 What is problematic is rather the utilization of the past, as not merely “in-formative” but also “formative” for today, which results in a Church that persistently attempts to repeat history, or, more precisely, certain selected points in history, rather than creatively and responsibly to live Tradition. This fixation on the past leaves the Orthodox Church at an impasse in most of the aforementioned issues of the present, because of the divisions that result from differing interpretations of the same historical sources, or from differing accentuations of, and selections from, the vast array of traditioned “memories.” Of course, the “predicament” of any given generation’s approach to its own history lies not in its past but in its present.2 And in the case of the presentday Orthodox Church, the tendency to stick our head in the sand of the past reflects a mistrust of the Church’s authority in the present; as if we, as Church, were no longer capable of giving birth to anything new, in the Holy Spirit. According to Fr. Georges Florovsky (+1979), our “distorted and misconstrued attitude toward antiquity” not only locks us into “a theology of repetition” but also signalizes a deep-seated lack of faith in the Church: Our theological thinking has been dangerously affected by the pattern of decay . . . . The fullness of the Church was then interpreted in a static manner, and the attitude to antiquity has been accordingly distorted and misconstrued . . . . The Church is still fully authoritative as she has been in the ages past, since the Spirit of Truth quickens her now no less effectively as in the ancient times.3 Today, half a century after Florovsky thus identified the “distortion” of our sense of history, it continues to cripple the Orthodox Church’s process of conciliar decision-making, pace the characterization of the Church as “a continuous Pentecost” in the “Message” of the Holy and Great Council in Crete of June 2016.4 Alongside that Council’s own conspicuous avoidance of the most pressing, divisive issues, for example, autocephaly, Church calendar(s), divorce, and the female diaconate, the more recent uproar among some of the clergy and laity against modifying the practice of distributing Holy Communion to

Cyril Hovorun, Scaffolds of the Church: Towards Poststructural Ecclesiology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), 12–16. 2 Cf. Gary Macy, “Impasse Passé: Conjugating a Tense Past,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 64 (June 2009), accessed November 29, 2020 at: Valentin F. Kolomijcev, Мето дология истории (Methodology of History) (Moscow: Rosspen, 2001), 4–5. 3 Georges Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” PWGF, 221–32, here 226. 4 “Message of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church,” §1, at: https://www​.holycouncil​ .org/-​/message (accessed May 23, 2020). 1

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the faithful via one liturgical spoon in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic is equally symptomatic. The purpose of the following reflections is to reconsider this head-in-thesand approach to the Church’s changeable historical reality, in light of some of Florovsky’s insights into what history means, or should mean, for today. Because of the limited scope of this chapter, it will not engage Florovsky’s entire corpus of works, but only several thoughts from his 1959 essay, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian.”5 Florovsky’s theoretical insights will be applied to the present-day “scandal” of the Communion-spoon, as a case study that might demonstrate the practical applications of Florovsky’s thought, and indicate a way out of our predicament with history.

THE “SCANDAL” OF THE LITURGICAL SPOON IN THE COVID-19 ERA The present-day usage6 in the Orthodox Church of distributing Holy Communion to the faithful is by means of one, common liturgical spoon. Particles of the Holy Bread or Body of Christ, which have been immersed or “intincted” in the consecrated Wine, the Blood of Christ, are retrieved from the Chalice by the priest and put directly into the mouth of each communicant. This practice, of using one spoon for all the faithful, presents the Church with a “scandal” of sorts, in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic. The “scandal” is twofold: On the one hand, it violates the hygienic guidelines of “social distancing,” imposed or at least suggested by civil authorities worldwide, and hence scandalizes those faithful concerned with the safety and legality of this usage. On the other hand, others among the faithful are scandalized by the mere suggestion that receiving Holy Communion via the common, “traditional” spoon could transmit a potentially deadly virus, that is, be harmful to them. For these faithful, to change this specific way of receiving Communion would mean a twofold betrayal: (1) It would be a betrayal of Tradition, because, as one opponent to introducing multiple/ disposable Communion-spoons writes, it would mean “altering what has been the consistent practice of the Church throughout the world for hundreds of

Georges Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” PWGF, 193–220 (Walter Leibrecht, ed., Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich (New York: Harper, 1959), 140–66). 6 On the term “usage” in Eastern Orthodox Canon Law, see John Cotsonis, “Usage in Modern Canon Law, Its Nature, Its Influence, Its Relationship with Custom,” in Jean Limpens (ed.), Rapports Généraux au Ve Congrès international de droit comparé I, Bruxelles 4–9 Aout 1958 (Brussels: É. Bruylant, 1960), 67–82. 5

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years”;7 and (2) it would be a betrayal of faith in the Sacrament itself, and a caving in to “fear mongering,” as another author insists: “The issue is a matter of faith,” because we receive Holy Communion “knowing it is the medicine of eternal life from which we need no protection.”8

THE HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR CHANGE IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAY COMMUNION If one is to turn to historical precedent, of previous changes to the practice of distributing Communion to the faithful, one discovers that the gradual introduction of the liturgical spoon between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries for the Communion of the laity could likewise be seen as a twofold “betrayal.” To demonstrate that point, let us first briefly review the history of the Communion-spoon, summarizing Fr. Robert F. Taft’s exhaustive research on the topic.9 Originally, in both East and West, laypeople received the sacred species, the Body and Blood of Christ, separately. First, they received the consecrated Holy Bread in the right hand, having approached the minister of the Bread, a priest or bishop. The communicant would then kiss the Holy Bread and consume it. Then he or she would approach the minister of the Chalice (originally a deacon) and drink from it. It was only in exceptional cases, when communicating infants, the sick, and so on that Communion via “intinction” was sometimes practiced, which means dipping the Holy Bread into the Blood of Christ. The customary practice of lay communion in Byzantium throughout the first millennium was into the hand and under separate species, although by the ninth century there are signs of the ancient tradition beginning to be changed in some areas. I’ll return to that point shortly. Note the additional detail that in late seventhcentury Byzantium, the communicant, when receiving the Body of Christ, would place the right hand on the left, palms up and folded cross-wise (as we do when receiving the priest’s blessing), and thus would receive the Holy Bread in the right hand, as described in Canon 101 of Trullanum (AD 690–1).10

Eugenia Constantinou, “More Dangerous than Covid-19,” at: https://orthodoxia​.info​/news​/more​ -dangerous​-than​-covid​-19/ (accessed June 26, 2020). 8 Evagelos Sotiropoulos, “Exclusive: Holy Communion and the Coronavirus: Faith, Fear, and Fame in a Pandemic,” at: https://theorthodoxworld​.com​/exclusive​-holy​-communion​-and​-the​-coronavirus​ -faith​-fear​-and​-fame​-in​-a​-pandemic/ (accessed June 26, 2020). 9 Robert F. Taft, The Communion, Thanksgiving, and Concluding Rites: A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom VI, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 281 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2008), 204–315. 10 Canon 101 of Trullo states that one approaching the Body of Christ in church “should fold the hands in the form of the cross (τὰς χεῖρας σχηματίζων εἰς τύπον σταυροῦ / руки да слагает во образ креста), and thus shall receive the Communion of grace (τὴν κοινωνίαν τῆς χάριτος / общение 7

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We know from separate witnesses that already by the eleventh century it was common, though not universal, in Byzantium, for the faithful to be given Communion via the liturgical spoon. And as we can see from the mid-twelfthcentury commentary on the aforementioned 101st Canon of Trullo of Alexios Aristenos, oikonomos and nomophylax of the Great Church at Constantinople, lay Communion under separate species was no longer the custom in Constantinople at his time. Aristenos indicates that Holy Communion was given to the faithful directly into the mouth, and he reinterprets the crossing of the hands to mean the folding of the arms upon one’s chest, as we do today, when approaching Communion.11 Nonetheless, the comments on this canon of the other twelfth-century commentators, Theodor Balsamon (+post-1195) and Joannes Zonaras, reveal that still in the late twelfth century, Communion in some areas was still given to the faithful into the hand, and separately in two separate species.12 But why was the innovation of the Communion-spoon introduced, when clearly the Lord gave the Bread and Wine to His disciples separately? There is no official decision of a Church-Council announcing or explaining this change of the ancient tradition, which happened very gradually, throughout several centuries, roughly from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. Taft came to the conclusion that the reason for it was a pastoral concern about possible irreverence on the part of the laity.13 Some of the laity would take the Body of Christ but not consume it, and, in the words of Bishop Nikodim Milasch, this led to “many abuses.”14 The fourteenth-century Byzantine commentator St. Symeon of Thessaloniki says that “the fathers thought that communion should be given to the laity by a spoon because of some incidents (διά τινα ἐπιγεγονότα).”15 Hence on the basis of the reviewed history of the Byzantine Communionspoon, its introduction in the ninth to the thirteenth centuries could be viewed as a twofold “betrayal,” not unlike the proposed changes to its use are being viewed today: (1) it was an abandonment of the pristine Tradition—the one

благодати).” Правила святых Вселенских Соборов с толкованиями (The Canons of the Holy Ecumenical Councils with commentaries) (Moscow: Moskovskoe Obschestvo ljubitelej duhovnago prosveschenija, 1877), 605. 11 Ibid., 606. 12 Ibid., 605–6. 13 Taft, Communion, Thanksgiving, 312. 14 Nikodim Milasch, Правила Православной Церкви. С толкованиями Никодима, Епископа Далматинско-Истрийского (The Canons of the Orthodox Church. With Commentaries of Nikodim, Bishop of Dalmatia-Istria) I (St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy, 1911), 547. 15 On the Sacred Liturgy, 95. Steven Hawkes-Teeples (ed.), St. Symeon of Thessalonika. The Liturgical Commentaries, Studies and Texts 168 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2011), 224–5.

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demonstrated by the Lord Himself at the Mystical Supper, no less—of the faithful receiving the sacred species separately, first of the Holy Bread (into the hand), and then of the common Cup; and (2) the reason for this innovation, “to protect the Holy and Precious Body of the Lord from being dropped carelessly by the faithful” (as one of the above-cited opponents to modern-day changes to the practice of lay Communion puts it),16 would seem to be inspired by a lack of faith in the wisdom of the pristine Tradition. It could also be seen as a caving in to fear—specifically, to a fear of the carelessness of the laity. So the historical precedent for liturgical change, as demonstrated in the case of the Communion-spoon, raises questions about the pastoral phronema that inspired it, and whether or how it can be instructive for the Church today. Could this precedent be seen as “formative,” or merely “in-formative,” for the pastoral decisions facing the Church with regard to the Communion-spoon in the Covid-19 era?

FLOROVSKY’S CONTEXTUALIZATION OF HISTORY IN “PROGRESS” AND “SALVATION” To shed some light on these questions, let us turn to Fr. Georges Florovsky’s approach to history and historical sources, as described in his 1959 essay, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian.”17 While Florovsky does not explicitly pose questions of a pastoral nature in the article, he makes several points about the study of history that have pastoral implications for its applicability in the modern day: (1) His first point is that a Christian historian approaches historical sources just as a Christian encounters live people—with a faith-based “bias” and even a “spiritual and intellectual sympathy”; (2) further, he insists that history is to be understood as an ongoing “process” and as “progress”; and (3) he establishes that history “progresses” specifically toward and for the salvation of human beings. Florovsky’s first point, about approaching historical sources as a Christian does live people, can serve as a key to understanding the historical precedent that is the focus of this inquiry, the introduction of the Communion-spoon in the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. One is not called to jump either to justify or to condemn that pastoral decision made in the past, but first to listen compassionately, letting the sources speak, as a Christian does in any encounter with another. “The ultimate purpose of a historical inquiry is not in the establishment of certain objective facts . . .,” writes Florovsky, “but in the

Constantinou, “More Dangerous.” Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” PWGF, 193–220.

16 17

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encounter with living beings.”18 He suggests that the historian envision himself in the position of the historical figure(s), the thoughts of whom the historian is studying, and regard them, when their thoughts are not entirely comprehensible, with “congeniality,” or a “spiritual and intellectual sympathy.”19 This approach is at once humbling and liberating for the Church historian, or for anyone seeking to understand the actions and other testimonies of past generations. It humbles us, on the one hand, to keep in mind what history primarily is— and that is, human, both in its interpreters/exegetes (us), and in its subjects (past generations). “Only man has history, in the strict sense of this word,” as Florovsky notes.20 On the other hand, the recognition of this simple fact, of the humanity of any given historical testimony, liberates the student of history actually to listen, and hence to learn from, the historical precedents, on the basis of the lived experience of the sacramental life of the Church today. It is important to stress the latter point, that this “listening” and “learning” happens from within the context of the present-day life of the Church, which is an ongoing, ever-progressing, and as such ever-imperfect, historical reality. This brings us to Florovsky’s next two points, especially instructive for the questions posed in this chapter, about understanding the “progressive” nature of the Church’s history, and as directed toward the salvation of human beings. After critically reviewing various understandings of history in Christian theology, he outlines his own vision of history as both (a) “process” and as “progress.” “In the light of Christ’s coming,” he writes, “history now appears as ‘pro-gress’ . . . . It was revealed that there was no rotation in history, but, on the contrary, an unfolding of a singular and universal purpose.”21 This purpose, as Florovsky sees it, is salvation: “The history of men was understood in the perspective of their salvation, that is, of the accomplishment of their destiny and justification of their existence. Man’s action has been thereby justified and stimulated, since he was given a task, and a purpose.”22 He goes on to point out that biblical history reveals a personal God, interacting with concrete, human persons/personalities: “One can never suppress personal names in the Bible . . . . There was a dealing of the Personal God with human persons.”23 Further, Florovsky observes that the ongoing “process” and indeed “progress” of God’s salvific and personal communicating with human beings enables the historian of today to know and understand more about the past than did the people who lived in that past, primarily because today we can and should perceive that past

Ibid., 203. Ibid., 201. 20 Ibid., 199. 21 Ibid., 215. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 18 19

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in the light of its impact on later events: “In this sense,” Fr. Georges observes, “historians know more about the past than people of the past themselves were ever able to know. Historians are aware of the impact of the past, of certain past events, on the present.”24 He also stresses that we, as human beings engaged in this ongoing process, are not mere objects of divine wrath or mercy, but also called to historical actions, as actors on the stage of salvation history, in synergy with God.25 I’ll note parenthetically that this last point is reminiscent of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov’s thinking, specifically on the topic of historical changes made to sacraments: “The divine-human nature of the Church presupposes Divine inspiration and guidance, and, in response to it, human creativeness and selfdetermination. This is why the Church has to undergo a process of historical development.”26

CONCLUSION In application to our case study, of the “predicament” of the Communionspoon and its past, Fr. Georges Florovsky’s insights would suggest including the following considerations into the decision-making process regarding this issue: (1) The Church of today, while “listening in” and being “in-formed” by various historical precedents, is not called to repeat them, as this is impossible in the ever-changing context and progress of historical reality. (2) Whether she decides to abandon the Communion-spoon, as she once abandoned the original Tradition of the laity receiving Communion under separate species, or to maintain the Communion-spoon as she did for centuries, or to do something else, her decision is “formed” not primarily by historical precedent, but by her collective, God-given vocation, to work in synergy with the Holy Spirit for the salvation of concrete human beings in the context of present-day circumstances. (3) In any event, the Church continues to be called to historical action. And this always involves doing something new, insofar as doing anything under new circumstances means doing something new. One final point needs to be made, by way of conclusion. As the Church “listens in” and “learns” from the history of the introduction of the Communion-spoon throughout the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, it should not escape our notice that this change happened very gradually. It was not imposed overnight on the entire realm of the cathedrals, parishes, and monasteries that were celebrating the Byzantine Rite in that period. Throughout that span of c. 500 years, there

Ibid., 205. Ibid., 217. 26 Sergius Bulgakov, “The Hierarchy and the Sacraments,” in Roderic Dunkerley (ed.), The Ministry and the Sacraments (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1937), 95–123, here 98–9. 24 25

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continued to be differences, from local church to local church, in the practice of distributing Holy Communion to the laity. While the exact pace of the transition and the reasons for that pace throughout the Byzantine liturgical realm elude observation, one can presume that it was a process that required not a little hierarchical restraint and patience. It is remarkable, really, that in the very time-period that differences in liturgical practice played a major role in the Great Schism of East and West, an innovation of such importance, to the ritual of the Eucharist, occasioned no recorded divisions as it proceeded quietly throughout the Byzantine churches. May it be an inspiring example for our day, in our approach to historical changes to the practice of distributing Holy Communion, if they are introduced in some of our local churches.

Chapter 16

From Synthesis to Symphony JOHN BEHR

The name of Fr. Georges Florovsky will forever, and rightly, be associated with the twentieth-century “return to the Fathers” and the resulting “neopatristic synthesis.” This, of course, was one of the expressions in which Orthodox theology (and other areas, such as liturgy, spirituality) was reborn in the twentieth century, a renaissance ushering in a new, creative, and fertile period of life. The pangs of this rebirth involved political upheaval and exile, and problematic relations with various “others” as a new identity was forged. The account of this rebirth that became all but canonical for most of late twentiethcentury Orthodoxy is one of liberation, struggle, and retrieval, involving a number of émigré theologians, preeminent among whom was Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893–1979) and also his elder, mentor, and nemesis, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944). Exiled in the West Florovsky was liberated from the “Western captivity” of Eastern Orthodox theology and its “pseudomorphosis.” Along with rejecting their own “Westernized” past, he also felt compelled to counter the continuing “Western” influence in Russian religious philosophy, having its roots in the encounter of the nineteenth-century Slavophiles with German Romanticism but manifest contemporaneously, and most dramatically, in the Sophiology of Bulgakov. In and through these struggles, Florovsky and other émigrés in the West saw themselves (just as did their Western counterparts likewise) as returning to the Fathers, to the authentic source of

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true theology, with the aim that in so doing they themselves would be able to address the existential questions of their own contemporary world. Already in 1936, the year before his Ways of Russian Theology appeared and building upon themes present even earlier in his pre-theological phase, Florovsky urged those present at the First Pan-Orthodox Congress of Theologians held in Athens to return to their roots, emphasizing that this does not mean a return to dead texts but to the “creative fire of the Fathers, to restore in ourselves the patristic spirit,” to establish a “continuity of lives and minds” with the Fathers.1 The return to the Fathers in this way, Florovsky repeated insistently in a number of articles over the following years, should never degenerate into a “theology of repetition.”2 “It is a dangerous habit,” he wrote in a memorable (and much repeated!) passage, “to quote” the Fathers, that is, their isolated sayings and phrases, outside that of the concrete setting in which only they have their full and proper meaning and are truly alive. “To follow” the Fathers does not mean just “to quote” them. “To follow” the Fathers means to acquire their “mind,” their phronema.3 In another piece written toward the end of his life, Florovsky likewise emphasizes how the Fathers themselves, in their own appeal to tradition, were appealing to “the mind of the Church, her phronema,” something which could only “be attested and confirmed by an universal consensio of Churches,” however difficult this is to establish.4 Moreover, he says, it was precisely the consensus patrum which was authoritative and binding, not their private opinions or views . . . this consensus was much more than just an empirical agreement of individuals. The true and authentic consensus was that which reflected the mind of the Catholic and Universal Church.5 In this way, Fr. Georges Florovsky laid the foundation to the “neopatristic synthesis” that was thereafter almost simply assumed as an unquestioned and unquestionable given by the vast majority of Orthodox theologians in the latter

Georges Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” PWGF, 153–7, at 155–6 (Diakonia 4.3 (1969), 227–32, at 229–30). 2 Georges Florovsky, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” PWGF, 221–32, at 226 (CW, I, 105–20, and notes 127, at 111). 3 Ibid., 224–5 (CW, I, 109). 4 Georges Florovsky, “The Authority of the Ancient Councils and the Tradition of the Fathers,” CW I, 93–103, and notes 126–7, at 98–9. 5 Ibid., 103. 1

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half of the past century: that this is the proper framework within which to theologize in an orthodox manner. But not by all! Already in 1937 Bulgakov objected that treating the Fathers in this way would be a “rabbinic approach” to their writings, smoothing out and harmonizing differences between them as the Talmud does with different rabbis.6 Rather than appealing to the “mind” of the Fathers, Bulgakov himself focused much more explicitly on their “writings,” granting them a “guiding authority,” though not infallibility, and emphasizing that they need to be “understood within their historical context.” For Bulgakov, this means that the authority of their writings is necessarily bounded by certain limitations, which, he claims, “is much more greatly felt, of course, when it comes to their scriptural exegesis, which was utterly bereft of the modern hermeneutics of textual and historical scholarship.”7 This is a revealing sidecomment, a point to which we will return later. Over the last decade or so, especially with the revival of interest in Bulgakov, the polarization between the two, and the categories they deployed, has come under critical examination. It may well have been the Sophiologists’ own claim to precedent in the Fathers, and especially Palamas, that prompted Florovsky to turn to the Fathers. It is certainly evident that Florovsky deployed his appeal to the “mind of the Fathers” to construct a neopatristic synthesis, in opposition to the “Westernized” religious philosophy of Bulgakov and others. It is less evident, but no less the case however, that in doing so Florovsky drew from the same well-spring of Romanticism and Idealism. His habitual recourse to experiential categories (such as “mind,” “experience,” “vision”) attributed to various subjects (especially “the Fathers” and “the Church”) is not supported by way of a sustained explication of such notions in any particular Father or Fathers, but, as has been pointed out, derives from the Romanticism of Schelling, mediated through Möhler and Kireevsky.8 My purpose, however, is not to rehearse these arguments, but to look at another aspect inherent in the notion of “synthesis” and to suggest another word or image. There is an inherent methodological and hermeneutic weakness in the appeal to “the mind of the Fathers”—Bulgakov was right on this point. Making such notions the primary point of reference effectively negates any need for careful, disciplined, and patient reading of any actual text of the Fathers:

Sergius Bulgakov, “Dogma and Dogmatic Theology” (first published in Zhivoe predanie [Living Tradition] Paris: YMCA-Press, 1937), trans. Peter Bouteneff, in Michael Plekhon, ed., Tradition Alive: On the Church and the Christian Life in our Time/Readings from the Eastern Church (Lanham: Sheed & Ward, 2003), 67–80, at 70. 7 Ibid., 71. 8 Cf. Brandon Gallaher, “‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: Identity and Polemicism in the Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” Modern Theology 27:4 (2011), 659–91 [this essay is reprinted in this volume]. 6

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the point is not to quote the Fathers, but to acquire their mind. Their particular differences are not ignored, but neither are they in view: it is the consensus of the Fathers, their phronema, that is important. Any differences between them are also likewise elided: differences are recognized, but the particular voice of each Father is not important, for what alone is “authoritative and binding” is their consensus, expressing “the mind of the Catholic and Universal Church.” Florovsky also knew that the words of the Fathers have to be contextualized, and stated his position trenchantly: it is, we have seen him say, “a dangerous habit ‘to quote’ the Fathers, that is, their isolated sayings and phrases, outside of the concrete setting in which only they have the full and proper meaning and are truly alive.”9 It is indeed a dangerous habit only “to quote” the Fathers, to repeat the phrases and sayings we all know so well. One must indeed pay careful attention to the context of these words and sayings. But for Florovsky, this context is primarily the “mind,” “vision,” or “experience” of the Fathers, the “mind of the Catholic Church,” not the particular historical situation of each Father, the struggles in which they were engaged, and the unique witness, in all its particularity, that each bore.

HISTORY, THEOLOGY, AND HERMENEUTICS If there is one lesson which academic patristic scholarship of the past century, especially the last decades, has taught is, it is that disciplined, historical study— the fruit of the enlightenment—is indeed necessary. However, this scholarship has, of course, its own genealogy, with its own problematics, especially in the way in which its increasing specialization has corresponded to (or caused) an increasing fragmentation, to the point that it is no longer clear at all that different areas belong to a common discipline of theology, and what such a discipline might be. Borrowing from Edward Farley,10 one could say, in admittedly broad strokes, that for the first millennium and more, theology was pursued by the contemplative reading of Scripture in the context of the school of liturgy and in the tradition of the Fathers. But during the course of the second millennium, this paedeia fell apart (East and West): the practice of sacra pagina became the discipline of sacra doctrina, in which passages of Scripture were accumulated in support of dogmatic points, the loci communes, which then took on a life of their own, as the building blocks for dogmatic theology, resulting in handbooks of dogmatic theology that in turn provided the categories used in the study of Church History and the Fathers. While the study of Scripture proceeded along

Florovsky, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” PWGF, 224 (CW, I, 109). Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1994). 9

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other lines altogether, primarily, if not often exclusively, in a purely historically oriented manner. The separation of scriptural study/exposition and theology is perhaps the most perplexing of all. A rather glaring example of this problematic is Richard Hanson’s mammoth tome, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. For Hanson, the “trinitarian doctrine” elaborated in the fourth century was, in his words, “a solution, the solution, to the intellectual problem which had for so long vexed the church.”11 The problem perplexing the Church was, thus, an intellectual one: that of establishing the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet this is, for Hanson at least, a task separable from the exegetical practices of those whom he studied, for which he has no time, patience, or understanding at all. In his conclusion to the huge tome, he says: It was much more the presuppositions with which they approach the Biblical text that clouded their perceptions, the tendency to treat the Bible in an “atomic” way as if each verse or set of verses was capable of giving direct information about Christian doctrine apart from its context, the “oracular” concept of the nature of the Bible, the incapacity with a few exceptions to take serious account of the background and circumstances of the writers. The very reverence with which they honoured the Bible as a sacred book stood in the way of their understanding it. In this matter they were of course only reproducing the presuppositions of all Christians before them, of the writers of the New Testament itself, of the tradition of Jewish rabbinic piety and scholarship.12 Their exegetical practice is simply wrong, even if it a practice going back to the apostles themselves and their proclamation of the gospel, a manner of exegesis moreover shared with the rabbis, and which was, in fact, the common approach to sacred texts in antiquity. And, more perplexingly, this was also the exegetical practice within which the doctrine of the Trinity was elaborated and has its meaning. Hanson never, as far as I am aware, addressed the question of what happens when one takes these supposed core theological elements out of the context in which they were composed—the practice of reading Scripture and the celebration of liturgy within which they had meaning—and places them in another context, in this case that of systematic theology, and then combines

Richard P. C. Hanson, “The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the Fourth Century AD,” in R. Williams (ed.), The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 142–56, at 156. 12 Richard P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318–381 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 848–9, italics mine. 11

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this with a different mode reading of Scripture, one focused on the historical context of each verse, rather than seeing Scripture as the book of Christ. I have become ever more persuaded that it just doesn’t “fit.” It is indeed a fact that the Fathers read Scripture “synthetically,” as it were: Scripture is, to use St. Irenaeus’s example, a mosaic depicting an image of the King, Christ himself. When the book opened by the risen Christ, what we find is that Moses and all the prophets spoke about how he had to suffer to enter into his glory; or, as Paul put it, when the veil lying upon Moses (both the man descending the mountain, and the book we now read), what we see is nothing other than the glory of God in the face of Christ. And as these texts are now thousands of years old, we clearly need all the tools of historical disciplines just to understand the words on the page; but, I would argue, Bulgakov and Hanson are wrong to assume that these historical-philological tools then determine the meaning of what is read, once that the letters and words have been determined on a historical plane: the veil needs to be lifted (not to see something else, but that about which they always speak). One can, of course, read the texts of Scripture as historical documents (they were after all written, edited, compiled in all sorts of historical contexts), but to do so is not to read them as Scripture. To read them as Scripture is to read them allegorically or, better, apocalyptically—with the veil lifted. However, this way of reading Scripture has, I would suggest, carried over into the way of reading the Fathers in the construction of a “neopatristic synthesis” (just as the language of the “inspired” Scriptures is transferred to the “inspired” Fathers). And here, it seems to me, Bulgakov was right to protest. For the Fathers—and also, importantly, ourselves—are in history, historical beings, situated in particular contexts, in the flow of history, never at the end! As has been rightly emphasized, especially by Metropolitan John (Zizioulas), the vision of theology is always, intrinsically and essentially, eschatological, in view of the eschaton that is always already given to us in the crucified and risen Saviour Jesus Christ, as proclaimed by the apostles in accordance with the Scriptures (the exegetical, apocalyptic, dimension of theology) and encountered, or better, embodied in the breaking of bread (its liturgical context). But the Fathers were not, just as we ourselves are not, yet at the end; our vision is only partial, limited by our own historical situatedness: we see through a mirror darkly, not (yet) face to face with full understanding, knowing only in part not yet fully (1 Cor. 13:12). A true consensus patrum is in fact an eschatological reality, for it must include all the saints, from the beginning of the world to an end. But this, in turn, means that any synthesis that we effect now, in the present, is limited— it is our own synthesis, not the definitive eschatological consensus. Humility is definitely required of the theologian! For further reflection on the hermeneutic issues involved in the historicity of understanding, as a dialogue between ancient voices and our own, we should,

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of course, turn to Hans-Georg Gadamer and his work Truth and Method.13 According to Gadamer, understanding takes place through the mediation of different horizons. It begins when something addresses us, as happens when we encounter historical text, brought to us by tradition.14 When this occurs, our own presuppositions or prejudices are brought to light and can thereby be put in suspension. This is an absolutely necessary step; otherwise we fail to hear the other. But this does not mean that our presuppositions are “simply set aside and the text or other person accepted as valid in its place.” Rather, he continues, our own prejudice is, in fact, properly brought into play by being put at risk. “Only by being given full play is it able to experience the other’s claim to truth and make it possible for him to have full play himself.”15 Yet, it is also the case that our own horizon in the present is itself formed on the basis of the past. As such, Gadamer argues: “There is no more an isolated horizon of the present in itself than there are historical horizons which have to be acquired. Rather, understanding is always the fusion of these horizons supposedly existing by themselves.”16 As such, the task of understanding when reading a historical text involves several steps. “Projecting a historical horizon, then,” Gadamer writes, is only one phase in the process of understanding; it does not become solidified into the self-alienation of a past consciousness, but is overtaken by our own present horizon of understanding. In the process of understanding, a real fusing of horizons occurs—which means that as the historical horizon is projected, its sublation is simultaneously accomplished. To bring about this fusion in a regulated way is the task of what we call historically effected [wirkungsgeschichtlichen] consciousness.17 The task of “projecting a historical horizon” is necessary. Unless we read, as adequately as we possibly can, in a disciplined manner, the text before us, we haven’t even begun the task of understanding; we would remain caught within our own presuppositions. But the task does not, and cannot, stop at that, for understanding is always in the present, in the melding together of the different horizons in our own understanding, yet always open to further revision and deeper insight. Moreover, in this melding of horizons we will always find a surplus of meaning in a text.

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, 6th ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990); Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed, with revised Eng. trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London: Continuum, 2004). 14 Ibid., 298. 15 Ibid., 299. 16 Ibid., 305, italics original. 17 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 312; Truth and Method, 305–6, modified. 13

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Not just occasionally but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author. That is why understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well. Perhaps it is not correct to refer to this productive element in understanding as “better understanding” . . . . It is enough to say that we understand in a different way, if we understand at all.18

FROM SYNTHESIS TO SYMPHONY To capture this aspect as a necessary hermeneutical dimension of the task of theology, as it learns from the tradition in its reading of Scripture and celebration of the liturgy, I would suggest that a better image than “synthesis” is, to adapt an image of Irenaeus, symphony, the coming together of many distinct voices in the praise of God. A symphony is both synchronically and diachronically polyphonous: it comprises different voices at any one moment and throughout time, each lending themselves to the melody being played, with different timbres and tonalities, inflections and themes, and each in turn being shaped by the symphony. Sts. Basil and Gregory of Nyssa are not the same voices; neither are Sts. Irenaeus and Maximus! Yet, these figures were all part of the same symphony, with all the diachronic and synchronic diversity that this entails. A symphony does not reduce each voice to a monotony, a consensus (as the lowest common denominator): each voice in its full particularity contributes to the polyphonous nature of the symphony. Speaking theologically, moreover, this symphony is not, therefore, constructed by any individual voice or all the voices together but is governed by its own rhythm and rules, so that, to use Irenaeus’s words, it is God who “harmonizes the human race to the symphony of salvation” (Haer. 4.14.2). Reading the fathers “symphonically” in this way, then, attunes us to the melody that is theology. If one wants to take part in a symphony—one that is, in history (where we stand) and ongoing (and will continue until the end)—one must read the score of the earlier movements, especially the earliest where the symphony is first given shape. But, following Gadamer, rehearsing the symphony, as it has been played to this date, is not yet, however, to do theology; that would begin only when, having read attentively through the score of earlier movements, we take our own part in the only going symphony. We don’t read the earlier score simply to stockpile quotations to buttress what we already know—Florovsky’s point about it being a dangerous habit to quote the Fathers! Rather, we rehearse the Symphony so that we ourselves can be harmonized into the symphony, and so take our own part today, to sing in that symphony with new voices, with themes and movements that might well be different than what went before,

Ibid., 296, italics original.

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yet part of the same symphony for we must sing in the present, addressing the concerns of the present, using the language of the present, and so on. Thus the task is not simply one of “returning to the Fathers,” though this is emphatically a necessary step, with all the rigor of historical scholarship (rather than just claiming to have their mind or to quote them). Nor is it a matter of a “post-patristic” era, without having learned the score of those who went before; but it is a matter of taking part in the symphony that is shaped by the hermeneutics of historical understanding, the fusion of horizons, until we fully enter that ultimate eschatological horizon with one glorious resounding Amen. But there is one further question that needs to be addressed (perhaps this is to be the movement of the symphony of theology in the twenty-first century), and that is how we are able to hear the diverse voices of the fathers as a symphony, rather than a cacophony, and this brings us back to the issue I raised before: that of the coherence of the discipline of theology as theology. To keep with the theme of symphony, I would suggest that this is possible (perhaps only possible?) if we return to the idea of the “canon of faith” as it was expressed in the early centuries. As Clement of Alexandria put it: “The ecclesiastical canon is the harmony and symphony of the law and the prophets in/to/with the covenant delivered at the coming of the Lord” (Stromata 6.15.125.3). The canon (and later the creeds) do not provide bits of theological information—marking out what is dogma and untouchable, leaving a space for “theologoumena,” further personal reflection about various undefined matters (as Bulgakov would have it); the canon, rather, is the symphony of the Scriptures speaking about Christ, with all the implications this has of how to interpret Scripture, and for the nature of the discourse of theology. Theology, as a unified discipline or paideia, has clearly fractured into a number of discrete fields, as I mentioned earlier, resulting in a lack of “fit” between contemporary systematic theology and the way Scripture is typically read today. But, I would suggest, this is not cause for lament, for it also means, in reverse, that within each field a phenomenal amount of scholarship has been expended, erudite volumes produced, and a depth of knowledge attained, and in this way, the spell of a monotonous “harmonization” of history in a fixed “synthesis,” constructed from our own place in history, is broken, so that we can begin to “hear” again each historical witness faithfully. However, to do so with understanding requires the further step, as Gadamer insists, fusing their horizon with our own, and so speaking ourselves. And to do so as theology today further requires, I would suggest, a creative moment of reintegration. The “re” here in “reintegration” is not meant to suggest that we need to return to a lost gold age of (Eastern) theological purity—the past is gone, we stand at this moment of history and no other, and the past was never “pure” anyway. But one way in which this might be accomplished may well be through a return: returning, now with all of our more historically informed knowledge,

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to reconsider that which we are perennially tempted to forget—how it was that we first learned the language of Christian theology. For theology does have its own discourse, its own language. But, as Rowan Williams notes, “Theology . . . is perennially tempted to be seduced by the prospect of bypassing the question of how it learns its own language.”19 And here, naturally, the Fathers, especially those of the early centuries, the beginning of the discourse, are in fact of primary help, as those who first began to speak this language, to play this particular language game, as it were, in Wittgensteinian terms, before dogmatic language became detached from exegetical practice, and both from liturgy. If we are to understand, today, the unity of the (singular) discipline of theology as theology, which is, it seems to me, our greatest challenge, the task is before us to learn how to hold together the depth of historical knowledge that we now have as theology: not simply as a monolithic consensus (“the mind of the Fathers”), nor the disclosure of a transcendent subject (the “mind of the Church”), nor simply as stepping stones to our own systematic theology (whatever that might be!), nor as any discourse which happens to use the word “God.”20 Rather what we have before us (or rather behind us) is a history of concrete, historically situated Christians, bearing witness to, and embodying, their faith in Christ until he comes again, a witness now embodied in texts and only available to us as texts. As such the site of the theologian is both undoubtedly historical/hermeneutical and inescapably exegetical: standing between the definitive act of God in Christ and his return, patiently and dialogically learning to hear the Word of God, to encounter the risen Christ, in the opening of the Scripture and the breaking of the bread in a history of witnesses to this encounter and a tradition of such practices, and, in so doing, become harmonized to the symphony they have sung, to be able to sing our own part today.

Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 131. Cf. John Behr, “What Are We Doing Speaking about God: The Discipline of Theology,” in Aristotle Papanikolaou and Elizabeth Prodromou (eds.), Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars (SVS Press, 2008), 67–87. 19 20

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Chapter 17

Beginning with Christ The Key to Anthropology in the Dogmatic Work of Florovsky ALEXIS TORRANCE

When I was first asked to contribute a study on the anthropology of Fr. Georges Florovsky, it occurred to me that as with several other themes that surface in Florovsky’s wide-ranging oeuvre, no special lengthy study is devoted to this topic as such. What we can gain from Florovsky on this theme must be harvested from a number of places. I wish to show that while he does not have a developed anthropology per se, he lays out important parameters that are both insightful and still highly relevant for Orthodox theology. In terms of his specific emphases, I will mention several that have been taken up in earnest in more recent Orthodox anthropology: for instance, the sacraments, the meaning of death, human freedom, and the notion of personhood. But above all, it is his insistence on beginning with the Incarnate Christ that is characteristic of his approach to anthropology (as it is of his approach to theology as a whole), and I will argue that it is this facet of his thought that still needs our especial attention.1

For a recent contribution to Orthodox theological anthropology that takes its cue from Florovsky in this regard, see Alexis Torrance, Human Perfection in Byzantine Theology: Attaining the Fullness of Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 1

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Of course, not every text published by Florovsky could be consulted for the purposes of this chapter. I mention in my title “the dogmatic work of Florovsky.” Much of Florovsky’s work bears on dogma, but there are two articles that he singled out as being what he called “my best achievements, and probably my only ones.”2 These are the essays “Creation and Creaturehood” (recently retranslated as “Creation and Createdness”) and “Redemption.”3 For Florovsky, these were his only works that really put into action his method of “neopatristic synthesis.” Even his famous work Ways of Russian Theology he considered “rather a work of destruction than of construction.”4 I have thus decided to focus on these two essays that Florovsky considered his best, but I will also bring in other texts as warranted. The idea of “beginning with Christ” is a frequent refrain in Florovsky’s writing, and it occurs several times in his discussions of fellow Orthodox thinkers. Thus in his review of Lossky’s seminal work The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Florovsky writes as follows: If one wants, as Lossky obviously does, to develop a system of “Christian philosophy,” which is identical with Christian Dogmatics, should he not begin with Christ? Strangely enough, it is not seldom contended that a “Christological” approach to theology is alien to the Eastern Orthodox mind. Historically speaking, it is simply untrue. Indeed, what warrant may a Christian theologian have to speak of God, except the fact that “the Only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” has declared the unfathomable mystery of the Divine Life? Would it not be proper . . . to begin with an opening chapter on the Incarnation and the Person of the Incarnate, instead of following a rather “philosophical” order of thought: God, Creation, Created Being, and Imago Dei, etc., so as to arrive at Christology only in the middle of the road?5 The implication of Florovsky’s critique here is that if we wish to develop a Christian philosophy of God and the human being, we must, as with everything else, begin with Christ. This sentiment is echoed elsewhere too, such as in his correspondence with St. Sophrony (Sakharov) further discussed in this volume

From his theological testament recorded in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 154 (PWGF, 242). Georges Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood” (1928), CW, III, 43–78, or the recent retranslation “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 33–63; and G. Florovsky, “Redemption,” CW, III, 95–159. 4 Blane, Georges Florovsky, 154. 5 Georges Florovsky, “Review of: The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by V. Lossky,” Journal of Religion 38:3 (1958), 207–8, here at 208. 2 3

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by Fr Nikolai Sakharov.6 He had developed this Christocentric perspective at least in part in reaction to the perceived shortcomings of the thought of his fellow thinkers of the Russian Religious Renaissance, particularly Pavel Florensky. He had little patience with Florensky’s work Pillar and Ground of Truth precisely because of its lack of Christological focus.7 When we come to the dogmatic essays on “Redemption” and “Creation and Creaturehood,” we see this concern at work in a positive sense: Florovsky (especially in the Redemption article) attempts to build his dogmatics firmly on a Christological basis. This inevitably has important repercussions for his anthropology. Thus Florovsky writes at the opening of “Redemption” that “the full significance and the ultimate purpose of human existence is revealed and realized in and through the Incarnation.”8 Anthropology must receive its bearings, in other words, from the Incarnate Christ. This is because, as he writes, in the Incarnation of the Word human nature was not merely anointed with a superabundant overflowing of Grace, but was assumed into an intimate and hypostatical unity with the Divinity itself. In that lifting up of human nature into an everlasting communion with the Divine Life, the Fathers of the early Church unanimously saw the very essence of salvation.9 The answer to the question “what is man?” is definitively answered, for Florovsky, in the economy of Christ. But that economy, he is quick to point out, contains paradox: The Incarnation is the quickening of man, as it were, the resurrection of human nature. But the climax of the Gospel is the Cross, the death of the Incarnate. Life has been revealed in full through death. This is the paradoxical mystery of the Christian faith: life through death, life from the grave and out of the grave, the mystery of the life-bearing grave.10

Florovsky writes, “Personally, I believe that one should begin theology not from the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but from the mystery of the Incarnation of God . . . . We only know of the mystery of the Trinity because ‘One of the Holy Trinity’ became man. Otherwise, we fall into metaphysics, and we will never reach theology at all”: see Nikolai Sakharov (ed.), The Cross of Loneliness: The Correspondence of Archimandrite Sophrony of Essex and Archpriest Georges Florovsky, trans. Nicholas Kotar (Waymart, PA: St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 2020), 76. 7 See the discussion of this in Matthew Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History: Neo-Patristic Synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality,” Theologia 4 (2010), 81–118, here at 105–7. 8 Florovsky, “Redemption,” 95. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 96. 6

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The sentiments of these lines are interestingly rather consonant with John Behr’s theology centered on the cross.11 Florovsky’s emphasis on the cross is distinctive, especially for an Orthodox theologian of his generation, although it is still a qualified emphasis. While he insists that “the climax of [Christ’s] life was [his] death,” he also says that “Our Lord’s earthly life is one organic whole, and His redeeming action cannot be exclusively connected with any one particular moment in that life.”12 Nonetheless, the life-giving death of the Incarnate proves to be of paramount significance for our particular theme, because the problem of death is for Florovsky a controlling feature of his anthropology, such as we can discern it. In the same Redemption essay, he writes in a vein that would be taken up and developed with vigor in the thought of Florovsky’s disciple Metropolitan John Zizioulas: “Death is a catastrophe for man,” says Florovsky, “this is the basic principle of the whole [of] Christian anthropology.”13 The threat of death, of the disintegration of the human hypostasis constituted by soul and body together, is the one urgently motivating factor for anthropology. Florovsky makes a detailed case for why the Fathers by and large adopted the Aristotelian rather than the Platonic view of the human being, at least in its basic framework. For Aristotle had at least realized that the human being was constituted as a unity of soul and body, and that death appeared to irreparably rupture that unity. Of course, Florovsky rejected the naturalist implications of Aristotelian anthropology, whereby the human hypostasis actually and definitively ceases to exist at death, but he nonetheless holds up the framework as a more faithful description of anthropology than the dualist approaches of the Platonic school. He cites with approval the words of the Catholic philosopher and historian Étienne Gilson who notes that for the early Fathers, it was quite possible not to believe in the natural immortality of the soul, but “what would, on the contrary, be absolutely inconceivable, would be a Christianity without the resurrection of the human being.”14 This is another theme that has been taken up in earnest by Zizioulas in his work on anthropology: the threat of death and non-being belongs to man by nature, by his having come from nothing (ex nihilo). The solution to this dilemma is revealed once and for all in the hypostatic union, which, in the words of Florovsky, “was the redeeming assumption of all human fulness, not only of human nature, but also of all the fulness of human life. The Incarnation had to be manifested in all the fulness of life, in the fulness of human ages, that all

For a discussion of Behr’s particular approach to this question as it relates to his anthropology, see Torrance, Human Perfection, 202–14. 12 Florovsky, “Redemption,” 99. 13 Ibid., 111. 14 Ibid., 114, n. 41. 11

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that fulness might be sanctified.”15 While death serves as the basic and negative condition of anthropology taken in itself, now that “all human fulness” is taken up and permanently enthroned in the person of the Son of God, anthropology finally finds its true and positive condition, in short, its solution. Characteristically for Florovsky, how this positive Christocentric anthropology is expressed is bound up with the Church and her sacraments. The culmination of the dogmatic essay Redemption is a discussion of the Eucharist (as is more subtly the case also in “Creation and Creaturehood”). Once again, we clearly see the background of much contemporary Orthodox theology at play, represented not least by Zizioulas. It is the Eucharist, says Florovsky, that is “the heart of the Church” and is, “in an eminent sense the Sacrament of Redemption.” As the sacrament of Redemption, we could perhaps add that the Eucharist intimately reveals the meaning and purpose of man: it is, as Florovsky puts it, “the climax of our aspirations.” “Through the sacraments,” he continues, “the Redemption is appropriated and disclosed . . . . In the sacraments is consummated the Incarnation, the true reunion of man with God in Christ.”16 Anthropology, in other words, is properly comprehended only eucharistically, as in communion with the Body of Christ. The ecclesial and sacramental impulse of Florovsky’s anthropological thought is not limited to his Redemption essay but is likewise seen in his other major dogmatic contribution, “Creation and Creaturehood.” There Florovsky meditates extensively on the meaning of creation as essentially and ontologically other than the Creator, yet nevertheless held in a permanent bond with Him as a product of the pre-eternal divine will. “Creation,” as he puts it, “is not a phenomenon but a ‘substance’”: he was suspicious, as it happens, of phenomenology as a philosophical movement.17 Although not naturally immortal, and although not necessary to God’s being, creation will not return to non-being: as a product of the immutable divine will, it bears in its constitution a certain immutability, as Florovsky sees it. In explaining what he means, he writes: [Creation’s] qualities and properties are changeable and mutable, and do change; but its “elements” are immutable. And immutable above all is the microcosm man, and immutable are men’s hypostases, sealed as they are and brought out of nothing by the creative will of God. Indeed, the way of rebellion and apostasy is the way of destruction and perdition. But it leads not towards non-being, but to death; and death is not the end of existence,

Ibid., 97. Ibid., 158–9. 17 Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 48; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 38. 15 16

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but a separation: the separation of soul and body, the separation of creation from God.18 Florovsky rejects any form of annihilationism that would threaten the eternal existence of man. Each human hypostasis, despite having ultimately been created from nothing, will endure, but in what form? Permanence of existence can tragically become a state of death, the “second death” of Revelation, even if it does not result in a final collapse into non-being. The meaning of the human being as, first, created out of nothing and, second, as enduring permanently, is a philosophical conundrum. Indeed, as Florovsky puts it, “the idea of creation [itself] is alien to the ‘natural’ consciousness. Classical, Hellenistic thought did not know it. Modern philosophy has forgotten it.”19 Where then can we find and develop a true anthropology based on an authentic understanding of creation? Florovsky offers his answer: “Given in the Bible, it is disclosed and manifested in the living experience of the Church.”20 Through this prism we find, Florovsky explains, that “the limit and goal of creaturely striving and becoming is divinization (theosis) or deification (theopoiesis).”21 This is not, he is quick to qualify, a “transubstantiation” of the creature into the Creator: “the immutable, unchangeable gap between natures will remain.”22 However, this goal of being “conformed to God” has been set for all mankind, and indeed, it has been accomplished once and for all in the person of Christ: “With the Incarnation of the Word the first fruit of human nature is unalterably grafted into the Divine Life, and hence to all creatures the way to communion with this Life is open, the way of adoption by God.”23 Because of the historical event of Christ’s coming, anthropology forever has an inescapably theandric character: before Christ one could certainly still speak of man as inconceivable without God, but now man is not only inconceivable without his divine Creator, but is shown in Christ to be the inheritor of divine life itself. The Christological lens through which to view and understand anthropology is, it is safe to say, a fundamental tenet of Florovsky’s thought. We could even amplify the phrase “beginning with Christ” and say “beginning with the Chalcedonian Christ.” For it is the doctrine of Chalcedon that Florovsky repeatedly singles out when addressing this issue. In the essay Creation and Creaturehood, for instance, he puts it this way:

Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 49–50; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 39. Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 51; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 40. 20 Ibid. 21 Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 74; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 60. 22 Ibid. 23 Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 75; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 61. 18 19

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The vague “out of two natures” the Fathers of Chalcedon replaced by the strong and clear “in two natures,” and by the confession of the double and bilateral consubstantiality of the God-Man they established an unshakeable and indisputable criterion and rule of faith. The real existence of a created human nature, that is, of an other and second nature outside of God and side by side with Him, is an indispensable prerequisite for the accomplishment of the Incarnation without any change in or transmutation of the Divine nature.24 The dogma of Chalcedon beautifully maintains, for Florovsky, the integrity of human nature and thus of anthropology, all while joining it without division to the divinity. He continues this line of thought later in the same essay in a striking manner: Human nature must be freely discovered through a responsive movement, by overcoming the self-isolation of its own nature; and by denying the self, as one might say, receive this mysterious, and terrifying, and unspeakable double-naturedness for the sake of which the world was made. For it was made to be and to become the Church, the Body of Christ.25 Chalcedon, in other words, is not only about defining Christ in abstracto, but it discloses a hermeneutical principle that applies through Christ to the destiny of all mankind and, through deified humanity, the destiny of the entire cosmos, the whole of created reality. Florovsky does not disconnect this idea from Christ in such a way that Christ becomes merely a paradigm or exemplar of something achievable by us. Deification is unachievable for the created order: it can be attained only through a grafting on, whereby, through human nature abiding in Christ, the world, as he puts it, “becomes Church.” One is reminded here of one of Lossky’s pointed criticisms of Bulgakov’s sophianic system. He writes in his Mystical Theology that Bulgakov’s error was to collapse ecclesiology into cosmology: “the idea of the Church is confounded with that of the Cosmos.”26 Florovsky here subtly makes the same point, it seems: the cosmos indeed declares the glory and wisdom of God, but it does not possess that glory or wisdom in itself. There must be a new birth from above, the sacramental regeneration and adoption of the human being, and through the human being of the cosmos as a whole, into the living Body of Christ, outside of which there is no true life.

Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 47; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 37. Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 76–7; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 62. 26 V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (London: James Clarke, 1957), 112. 24 25

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Florovsky closes his essay on Creation and Creaturehood with these sentiments when he writes: The Church follows, or, rather, portrays the mystery and miracle of the two natures. As the Body of Christ, the Church is a kind of “plenitude” of Christ . . . . In the Church creation is forever confirmed and established, unto all ages, in union with Christ, in the Holy Spirit.27 We rightly associate the “ecological” and “cosmological” turn in Orthodox theology with the pioneering work of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, as well as Metropolitan John Zizioulas. But we see also here the rudiments—the sketch if you like—for such an approach in Florovsky’s vision. His anthropology always contains a cosmological dimension since the human being, after all, is both microcosm and macrocosm according to the Fathers, and all creation must be included in man’s exaltation in Christ. It is an anthropology and cosmology that is firmly geared toward the Church as the living manifestation on earth of the Christ forever “in two natures.” This Chalcedonian Christological character of Florovsky’s approach to anthropology is expressed not only in the two dogmatic works discussed so far, but across his broader oeuvre. In his article “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church,” Florovsky again takes up this theme. It is worth citing in extenso: In the midst of the vanity and poverty, of the weakness and suffering of human history, [Christ] laid the foundations of a “new being.” The Church is Christ’s work on earth; it is the image and abode of His blessed Presence in the world . . . . In the Church, as in the Body of Christ, in its theanthropic organism, the mystery of incarnation, the mystery of the “two natures,” indissolubly united, is continually accomplished. In the Incarnation of the Word is the fulness of revelation, a revelation not only of God, but also of man . . . . In Christ, as God-Man, the meaning of human existence is not only revealed, but accomplished. In Christ human nature is perfected, it is renewed, rebuilt, created anew. Human destiny reaches its goal, and henceforth human life is, according to the word of the Apostle, “hid with Christ in God.” In this sense Christ is the “Last Adam,” a true man. In Him is the measure and limit of human life. He rose “as the first fruits of them that are asleep,” He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. His Glory is the glory of all human existence. Christ has entered the pre-

Florovsky, “Creation and Creaturehood,” 77–8; cf. “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 63.

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eternal glory; He has entered it as Man and has called the whole of mankind to abide with Him and in Him.28 For Florovsky, anthropology begins with and turns upon Christ, on human nature abiding in him and thereby entering in his person into the pre-eternal glory of God. But it is a reality that applies also to his Body, the Church, the theanthropic organism that continually accomplishes in the midst of the earth this fearful mystery of incarnation, of human beings realizing their measure and limit in Christ. This hallowed mystery of human deification through Christ’s ecclesial and sacramental Body remains a constant in Florovsky’s thought. Its delicate Chalcedonian bearings that simultaneously maintain humanity’s unconfused integrity as human while affirming its undivided and indissoluble union with God are extremely important to Florovsky. In fact, elsewhere he sees the loss of these Chalcedonian bearings as the root cause for much spiritual and moral confusion in the modern age, not least in the realm of theology. In his article “The Lost Scriptural Mind” he meditates on this theme, worth once again citing at length: It may seem ridiculous to suggest that one should preach the doctrine of Chalcedon “in a time such as this.” Yet it is precisely this doctrine—that reality to which this doctrine bears witness—that can change the whole spiritual outlook of modern man. It brings him a true freedom. Man is not alone in this world, and God is taking personal interest in the events of human history. This is an immediate implication of the integral conception of the Incarnation. It is an illusion that the Christological disputes of the past are irrelevant to the contemporary situation. In fact, they are continued and repeated in the controversies of our own age. Modern man, deliberately or subconsciously, is tempted by the Nestorian extreme. That is to say, he does not take the Incarnation in earnest. He does not dare to believe that Christ is a divine person. He wants to have a human redeemer, only assisted by God. He is more interested in the human psychology of the Redeemer than in the mystery of the divine love. Because, in the last resort, he believes optimistically in the dignity of man.29 Together with lamenting this “new Nestorianism,” as he sees it, Florovsky goes on to warn against the opposite tendency too:

Georges Florovsky, “The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), CW, I, 37–55, here at 38; cf. Georges Florovsky, “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church,” PWGF, 257–71, here at 257–8 [The original 1934 title included “Sobornost.” This was removed in the 1972 reprint in the Collected Works (Eds.)]. 29 Georges Florovsky, “The Lost Scriptural Mind,” CW, I, 9–16, here at 14. 28

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On the other extreme we have in our days a revival of “monophysite” tendencies in theology and religion, when man is reduced to complete passivity and is allowed only to listen and to hope. The present tension between “liberalism” and “neo-orthodoxy” [one could perhaps substitute “fundamentalism” here] is in fact a re-enactment of the old Christological struggle, on a new existential level and in a new spiritual key. The conflict will never be settled or solved in the field of theology, unless a wider vision is acquired.30 The “wider vision” to which Florovsky refers and toward which he beckons his readers is the Chalcedonian perspective just outlined. This is the basis or entry-point for a truly Christian understanding of the human being. It is one that—it is unfortunate to say—still remains elusive in the wider discipline of theology, and the problems he traces are as much alive now as they were then, if not more so. But together with Florovsky’s wider vision, this broad roadmap, if you like, for the pursuit of theological anthropology, what are some of his more specific contributions to the theme of anthropology that grow out of this? The importance of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, has already been mentioned. I wish briefly to highlight three more. The first two find a ready and developed place in contemporary Orthodox anthropology, and the third has proved more controversial. They are the themes of freedom, of personhood, and finally, the concept of Christ taking on “first-formed” and “unstained” human nature. On the theme of freedom we have no need to dwell in detail. It is well known that Florovsky gave freedom a critical role in his understanding of the created order, and it is a theme again developed at length in the work of Metropolitan John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras. I earlier cited a passage from Creation and Creaturehood in which he writes that human nature must be “freely discovered through a responsive movement,” and others have touched on the importance for Florovsky of understanding this movement as podvig, an ascetic and creative act. Florovsky’s thought is everywhere animated by the presupposition of creaturely, specifically human, freedom. He articulates this concern succinctly in his essay “Redemption” when he writes: Probably a re-creation of fallen mankind by the mighty intervention of the Divine omnipotence would have seemed to us simpler and more merciful. Strangely enough, the fulness of the Divine Love, which is intent to preserve our human freedom, appears to us rather as a severe request of transcendent justice, simply because it implies an appeal to the cooperation of the human

Ibid., 14–15.

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will. Thus Salvation becomes a task for man himself also, and can be consummated only in freedom, with the response of man. The “image of God” is manifested in freedom. And freedom itself is all too often a burden for man. And in a certain sense it is indeed a superhuman gift and request, a supernatural path, the path of “deification,” theosis. Is not this very theosis a burden for a self-imprisoned, selfish, and self-sufficient being? And yet this burdensome gift of freedom is the ultimate mark of the Divine love and benevolence towards man.31 For Florovsky, anthropology and deification mean nothing without freedom. It is moreover an outworking for him of the Chalcedonian dogma: just as Christ preserves human will intact yet wholly deified in his person, so too our freedom, our will, is left intact, summoned but not coerced to share in the glorious liberty of the children of God. Linked closely to freedom is the notion of personhood. Florovsky proves a trailblazer for Orthodox theology yet again in this respect. In the conclusion to his article on St. Gregory Palamas, he writes that “if there is any room for Christian metaphysics at all, it must be a metaphysics of persons.”32 In the same article, he defines deification, the goal of human life, in distinctly personalist terms: “man simply cannot ‘become’ god. But the Fathers were thinking in ‘personal’ terms, and the mystery of personal communion was involved at this point. Theosis meant a personal encounter.”33 The interest in personalism is also on display in his Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century where he comments, using italics for emphasis, that “the classical world did not know the mystery of personal being,” something only the Christian revelation could disclose.34 Furthermore, Florovsky even brings in a personalist corrective to his own preferred image of the Church of Christ as “organism.” In “The Church: her nature and her task,” he writes: Of course, no analogy is to be pressed too far or over-emphasized. The idea of an organism, when used of the Church, has its own limitations. On the one hand, the Church is composed of human personalities, which never can be regarded merely as elements or cells of the whole, because each is in

Florovsky, “Redemption,” 102–3. Georges Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1960), CW, I, 105–20, here at 119; and PWGF, 221–32, here at 232. 33 Florovsky, “Palamas,” 115; PWGF, 229. Cf. Zizioulas’s similar remark that theosis “means participation not in the nature or substance of God, but in His personal existence”: John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (SVS Press, 1985), 50. 34 Georges Florovsky, Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century, CW 7, 32 (his italics). We can thank Zizioulas and Yannaras for developing this line of thinking in their own ways. 31 32

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direct and immediate union with Christ and His Father—the personal is not to be sacrificed or dissolved in the corporate, Christian “togetherness” must not degenerate into impersonalism. The idea of the organism must be supplemented by the idea of a symphony of personalities, in which the mystery of the Holy Trinity is reflected (cf. Jn 17:21, 23), and this is the core of the conception of “catholicity” (sobornost). This is the chief reason why we should prefer a christological orientation in the theology of the Church rather than a pneumatological. For, on the other hand, the Church, as a whole, has her personal centre only in Christ, she is not an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, nor is she merely a Spirit-bearing community, but precisely the Body of Christ, the Incarnate Lord. This saves us from impersonalism without committing us to any humanistic personification.35 Here Florovsky, using a personalist argument, offers a subtle critique of Lossky’s ecclesiology that sees the Holy Spirit as sanctifying the specific persons of the Church whereas Christ only sanctifies human nature.36 Elsewhere, in his most extensive article on ecclesiology (“Le Corps du Christ Vivant”—“The Body of the Living Christ”), Florovsky goes into some detail regarding the realization of one’s personhood only through the individual’s “catholic conversion” in the Church, a conversion that renounces the self in favor of the other, “enlarging our existence” so that we might hold our neighbor “in our mind and in our heart.”37 He even develops this personalist line of thinking with extensive quotations from Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky (1863–1936), a figure with whom Florovsky did not always see eye-to-eye on theological or ecclesiological matters, but whom he nevertheless respected, not least for Khrapovitsky’s use of Trinitarian dogma to elucidate an anthropology of authentic personhood fulfilled in communion, and in opposition to isolated individualism.38

Georges Florovsky, “The Church: Her Nature and Her Task,” CW, I, 57–72, here at 67. This idea of “two economies,” one of the Son and the other of the Spirit, has continued to be resisted in Orthodox theology, especially in the work of Zizioulas. For ample discussion of this question, see Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). 37 Georges Florovsky, “Le Corps du Christ Vivant” (The Body of the Living Christ) in G. Florovsky, F.-J. Leenhardt et al. (eds.), La Sainte Église Universelle: Confrontation œcuménique [The Holy Universal Church: Ecumenical Confrontation] (Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé S. A., 1948), 9–57, here at 32–3. [This text is available in English translation in this volume. (Eds.)] 38 See Florovsky, “Le Corps” (The Body), 33–4, where he liberally quotes from Khrapovitsky [See Met. Antonii (Khrapovitskii), The Moral Idea of the Main Dogmas of the Faith, trans. Varlaam Novakshonoff and Lazar Puhalo (Chilliwack, BC: Synaxis Press, 1984 [1898, 1911]). (Eds.)]. He further advises the reader who wishes for a stronger metaphysical understanding of the person than is offered by Khrapovitsky to consult Sergei Trubetskoy’s work (1862–1905), specifically his On the Nature of Human Consciousness. 35 36

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If Florovsky’s emphases on the sacraments, on freedom, and on personhood all figure prominently and vigorously in subsequent Orthodox theological anthropology, there is one element that is not so widely discussed or taken up, let alone celebrated. This is Florovsky’s repeated insistence that the Word of God took to himself and deified in his person not human nature corrupted by the fall, but “first-formed” and “unstained” human nature. I would like to highlight this for a moment, before drawing to a conclusion. In the Redemption essay, Florovsky explains his thinking: It must be stressed that in the Incarnation, the Word assumes the original human nature, innocent and free from original sin, without any stain. This does not violate the fulness of nature, nor does this affect the Saviour’s likeness to us sinful people. For sin does not belong to human nature, but is a parasitic and abnormal growth . . . . In the Incarnation the Word assumes the first-formed human nature, created “in the image of God,” and thereby the image of God is again re-established in man.39 For Florovsky, this idea of Christ’s pristine humanity is an implication of his being without sin. It in turn implies for him that Christ’s death is entirely voluntary, that “in the undefiled human nature, free from original sin, which was assumed by the Word in the Incarnation, there was no inherent necessity of death.”40 He even addresses some possible objections to this, dismissing them by saying, without elaboration, that “everything depends here upon our anthropological presuppositions.”41 For Florovsky, to posit a Christ whose death was a necessity of his human nature rather than the free “necessity of divine love” is to risk altering the meaning of the Incarnation, tilting the delicate balance of Chalcedon towards a Nestorianizing or two-person Christology. Christ’s humanity is indeed our humanity for Florovsky, but in his person it is not subject to corruption. In order to avoid the charge of aphthartodocetism on this point (the condemned sixth-century position which claimed that Christ assumed a human nature that was incorruptible),42 Florovsky distinguishes two meanings of corruption. In the first meaning it signifies “all passive states of man (ta pathē), such as hunger, thirst, weariness, the nailing, death itself.”43

Florovsky, “Redemption,” 97–8. Ibid., 136. 41 Ibid., 139, n. 101. 42 For further discussion of this issue in Florovsky (in comparison to John Meyendorff) see the essay by Joost van Rossum in the present volume. (Eds.). 43 Florovsky, “Redemption,” 140. One would presumably also need to include here the corruption inherent in the natural growth and development of the human body. For an interesting discussion of a patristic understanding of natural corruption (drawn primarily from John of Damascus) that contributes to the Theology and Science debate, see Eugenia Torrance, “Entropy and Theodicy: 39 40

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Florovsky of course admits that Christ’s humanity was liable to these passive states linked to natural corruption until the resurrection. But in its second meaning corruption can also signify, he explains, something stronger, “the complete decomposition of the body and its destruction.”44 Christ’s humanity was in no way subject to this form of corruption for Florovsky. His body did not become a corpse, even in death.45 This is an interesting theme that considerably exercised Florovsky’s mind, yet it is little touched on in scholarship. The whole question does, however, need to be more closely scrutinized. The tendency in modern theology to insist that Christ assumes “fallen” humanity can indeed lead us down some slippery paths, but to speak of him taking “pre-fallen” or “unfallen” human nature is also problematic. The first step out of this impasse is to remember the source of Christ’s humanity, Mary the Mother of God.46 To categorically state that Christ took pristine human nature free of original sin is tacitly to subscribe to something like the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, where Mary’s humanity is understood to be exempt even from the non-sinful consequences of ancestral sin. If, however, we adjust our language in a patristic and especially Maximian direction, I believe we can avoid such Gordian knots. The Fathers do not talk about abstract natures that are fallen or unfallen. Human nature itself is one and the same in its logos or underlying principle, whether we think in terms of “first-formed” humanity or “fallen” humanity: the nature itself remains intact in that sense.47 What changes is its tropos or mode of existence in particular human beings, a tropos that crushes us with the liability to sin, corruption, and death, placing humanity under a curse. Taken in itself, the humanity offered by the All-Holy Virgin strictly speaking still fell under this curse, even if her all-pure and all-immaculate life made her in some sense the beginning of its annulment. The Orthodox tradition rightly sees in the Virgin a kind of culmination, fulfillment, and even justification for the history of Israel, and indeed the general history of the world that preceded her. To posit an exclusive divine intervention in the case of her humanity risks making

A New Patristic Framework for Understanding Corruption,” Theology and Science 18:4 (2020): 589-603. 44 Florovsky, “Redemption,” 140. 45 Ibid. 46 I discuss elements of this question in more detail, through the lens of the theology of St. Theodore the Studite, in Torrance, Human Perfection, 86–101. Florovsky himself provides resources for this approach in his paper “The Ever-Virgin Mother of God” (1949), PWGF, 95–106, especially 102–3. 47 Contrary to some tendencies in modern Orthodox thought, to deny a certain fixed logos or principle of human nature in favor of conceptualizing the human being as a pure and variable mode or tropos is to betray not only Florovsky, but the whole patristic tradition. One cannot embrace the language of nature’s tropos without also including the fundamental language of its logos, its divinely ordained and thus unbreakable underlying principle.

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a mockery of the Old Covenant history that builds up to her. But in the end, she offers a purified humanity that still needs Christ, whose mode of existence is not yet transformed and deified. It was not the Theotokos who “innovated” the mode or tropos of human nature (to use St. Maximus’s terminology); it was the Son of God who did this in his assumption of human nature from her by the descent of the Holy Spirit and the virgin birth. He thereby inaugurates the full regeneration of human nature, the salvation of all who would believe, beginning with his Mother who served as humanity’s offering to him, its personal or hypostatic first-fruits on behalf of all and for all.48 Returning then to Florovsky’s insistence on the pristine and undefiled character of Christ’s humanity, his language might legitimately sound awkward to us. If we supplement his approach with the need to think of Christ’s humanity first in terms not of an abstract nature that is categorized as fallen or unfallen, but in terms of Mary as the concrete, specific, and personal source of Christ’s humanity, then we can take his insights further and on firmer ground. In doing so, I would argue that Florovsky’s impulse is fundamentally correct on the issue, despite his confusing phraseology. This is because Christ truly innovated the mode or tropos of human nature from the moment he received that nature from the Holy Virgin, from the moment of his earthly conception by the Holy Spirit, a moment which the Orthodox fittingly proclaim in their hymnography as “the crown of our salvation” (tēs sōtērias ēmōn to kefalaion). In his earthly life, Christ voluntarily submits to all the natural pangs of our existence (what St. John of Damascus terms the “blameless passions”), but ultimately subjects even these to incorruption through his culminating death and resurrection. His body in the grave indeed, as Florovsky insists following the Damascene and the hymnography of the Orthodox Church, “sees no corruption” (cf. Ps. 16:10 and Acts 13:35), no decomposition nor decay. For in his climactic death itself—the final free subjection of Christ to the terminus of natural corruption with all the scourging, buffeting, and agony that accompanies it—the total conquering of death and corruption begins and is inescapable even for Christ’s body. Though his lifeless body is taken down from the tree of the cross, “without form or comeliness” (cf. Isa. 53:2), and laid for burial in a

For more on the idea that God “innovates” the previously fallen mode/tropos of human nature in the act of Incarnation while maintaining the full integrity of human nature’s principle/logos, see St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 41 in Maximos the Confessor, On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, vol. 2, ed. and trans. Nicolas Constas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 102–21. The Virgin Mary as humanity’s first-fruits offered for the purposes of the Incarnation is a common trope in Orthodox hymnography: cf. the 4th stichera of Vespers for the Nativity of Christ: “What shall we offer thee, O Christ? . . . the Angels offer thee the hymn; the heavens, the star; . . . the earth, her cave; the wilderness, the manger; and we offer thee a Virgin Mother.” Regarding the significance of Mary for Orthodox anthropology, see Florovsky, “EverVirgin” and Torrance, Human Perfection, 92–7, 138–44. 48

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new tomb, his body is not thereby ever severed from his divinity, and so his body proves to be a stranger to corruption. The three days in the tomb in the Orthodox tradition are not so much a witness to hopeless despair at a rotting corpse as they are a witness to the blessed Sabbath of rest that precedes the day of resurrection. His body rests in the tomb, it does not rot, for his work against sin, corruption, and death is now complete (“it is finished”—Jn 19:30). What we have in the three day burial is a fever pitch of anticipation, an awe struck wonder at what is taking place as the soul of Christ descends with the message of victory “to preach to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:16). The power of death and corruption completely lose their grip on Christ’s humanity through his death, for Hades “received a body, and came face to face with God; it took earth, and encountered heaven” (Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom). Importantly, however, it should be reiterated to nuance Florovsky’s approach that the Son of God does not initially pluck an abstract pure human nature out of nowhere and place it in the Virgin. He receives the nature from her person, and in that very reception, he innovates its mode of existence, that is, he inaugurates its deification. Our deification begins from his conception, though its completion awaits his salvific acts of the death, resurrection, and ascension. His humanity is forever Mary’s humanity in the fullest and most intimate sense, and her humanity is indeed all-pure, even if she too is in need of her Son’s coming to free her from the bonds of corruption as well as the possibility of sin (a possibility or liability possessed, incidentally, even by “unfallen” humanity, but not by Christ).49 Christ’s pristine and deified humanity is the same humanity into which the members of his Body are engrafted through the sacramental dying and rebirth of holy baptism, the same flesh, no longer subject to corruption, of which the faithful are made partakers in the Holy Eucharist as a pledge of our future inheritance. Christ’s humanity is, in short, the object of our hope as human beings, first insofar as it is fully consubstantial with our humanity, he having

I cannot do justice to this idea here, but it lies at the heart of St. Maximus’s rejection of gnōmē or “gnomic/deliberative will” in Christ. Christ not only does not sin, but cannot sin, and the deified humanity he ultimately offers to us is, crucially, also a humanity that cannot sin. This separates Christ’s humanity not only from “fallen” but also “unfallen” human nature. Inheriting the resurrection of life in the age to come presupposes living in a state not only free of sin, but free from the possibility of sin as well, where the human will is completely and forever aligned with the divine will. This is a critical element of the Christian hope, one that reveals the depth of the petition “thy will be done,” and yet it is sadly overlooked or misunderstood in much contemporary theology. The fact that Christ both does not and cannot sin further complicates and renders somewhat redundant the discussion regarding Christ’s human nature as fallen or unfallen (since even unfallen humanity is liable to sin): his humanity is the Virgin’s humanity deified in its union to his person. Orthodox anthropology must keep its focus there, and its answers to every anthropological question should flow from this basis as from a wellspring. 49

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voluntarily shared wholly in our estate, even to the point of death, yet without sin. But it is also the object of our hope insofar as it is a humanity we do not in fact possess apart from his divine hypostasis, and will not fully possess until his Parousia, his coming again: it is a deified humanity that knows no sin—not even the possibility of sin—and now risen and enthroned on high, knows neither corruption of any kind, nor death. Florovsky’s anthropology, as was highlighted at the outset, is not clearly set out for us in his corpus. However, I have tried to show that his dogmatic writings, especially the essays Redemption and Creation and Creaturehood, portray an anthropological vision that begins and ends firmly with Christ, moreover the Chalcedonian Christ “in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” He offers us a blueprint that has certainly been greatly developed in the work of subsequent Orthodox theologians, especially in terms of the themes of the sacraments, freedom, and personhood. But by touching on his interest in Christ’s assumption of “firstformed” humanity, I hope to have indicated that there is still more there to be discussed and discovered, and that Florovsky still remains for contemporary Orthodox theologians a father to us all.

Chapter 18

Creatio ex nihilo and creatio ex amore Florovsky, Bulgakov, and Zizioulas in Dialogue on Theological Methodology NIKOLAOS ASPROULIS

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS The relationship between God and world has always been a central issue in philosophical, theological, and religious debates. By following a particular mystical or contemplative way of life, religion1 sought to express the deepest existential quest of humanity to bridge the gulf or find a way for the immanent to participate in the transcendent. From its earliest stages, Greek philosophical thought reflected on the truth and meaning of being and the world, trying to define the status of the cosmos as a divine-cosmic unity. Indeed, from the early Pre-Socratics, Plato (see his Phaedrus), and Plotinus, philosophy has always been

Since antiquity, various meanings of the concept of religion have been proposed: Cicero’s De natura deorum, II, xxviii, derives religion from relegere (to treat carefully), while Lactantius’ Divine Institutes, IV, xxviii, derives religion from religare (to bind). This second meaning seems to prevail. For a full account, see C. F. Aiken, “Religion,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911), from New Advent: http://www​.newadvent​.org​/cathen​/12738a​.htm (retrieved April 7, 2020). 1

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a speculative endeavor to interpret the origins of being in general and beings in particular by referring—or else not referring—to a transcendent principle. In dialogue with their era, prominent religious figures, like Philo the Jew (see his On the Creation), also boldly contributed to the discussion and further development of the doctrine of creation.2 The rich chain of reflection culminated with major figures of the patristic tradition (such as Athanasius of Alexandria), who on the basis of a creative interpretation of Scripture (Macc. 7:28, Gen. 1–2, Rom. 6:15, etc.) attempted to give clear shape to the doctrine while addressing the challenges posed by the intellectual setting of their time. The question of the relationship between God and world, along with the more fundamental one referring to the origin (ἀρχή) and cause (αἰτία) of creation, invariably occupied a central place in their reasoning.3 Consequently, three major views prevailed as possible responses to this question: (1) a confusion between God and the world; (2) the absolute transcendence of God; and (3) the absolute immanence of the world. This chapter critically analyzes aspects of the debate as conceptualized by the late Fr. Georges Florovsky, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, and Metropolitan John [Zizioulas] of Pergamon, highlighting the relevance of their views for theological method.

CREATION THEOLOGY IN FLOROVSKY, BULGAKOV, AND ZIZIOULAS Georges Florovsky (1893–1979)4 is commonly recognized as the founder of a theological program that has become the major paradigm of doing Orthodox theology in our era. The so-called neopatristic synthesis, launched in the early 1920s5 and further developed on various occasions (e.g., the First Theological

For a brief but clear survey of the history of the “creation ‘out of nothing’” see John Chryssavgis, Creation as Sacrament: Reflections on Ecology and Spirituality (London: T&T Clark and Bloomsbury, 2019), 39–43. 3 For a balanced introduction to the discussion, see George Karamanolis, The Philosophy of Early Christianity (Durham: Acumen Publications, 2013), esp. Ch. 2. 4 For a critical overview of his legacy, see Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). For a recent critical edition of selected essays of Florovsky, see Brandon Gallaher and Paul Ladouceur, eds., The Patristic Witness of Georges Florovsky: Essential Writings, Foreword by Kallistos Ware (London: T&T Clark and Bloomsbury, 2019) (hereafter PWGF). 5 Georges Florovsky, “O patriotizme pravednom i grekhovnom,” in Florovsky, Iz Proshlogo Russkoi Mysli (Moscow: Agraph, 1998), 132–65, at 159–65; originally published in Na Putyakh: Utverzhdenie Evraziitsev, Book 2 (Moscow and Berlin: Gelikon, 1922), 230–93 (as quoted in Matthew Baker, “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition,” in Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Brewer (eds.), Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 235–60 [This article is reprinted in this volume. (Eds.)]. 2

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Congress in Athens, 1936), sought to renew Orthodox theology on the basis of a creative and interpretative return to the tradition of the Church Fathers, while liberating theological method from certain Western scholastic influences. By contrast, Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944)6 has been basically marginalized, or nearly condemned as standing in opposition to the mainstream normative hermeneutical trajectory of the ecclesial tradition and for his alliance with the theosophical tradition. Though he is the basic exponent of Sophiology, he interpreted it in a more Christological manner than his contemporaries (Solovyov, Florensky), drawing boldly on the patristic tradition. Modern Western theology’s profound interest in Sophiology (i.e., Radical Orthodoxy)7 has necessitated a close and careful reconsideration of Bulgakov’s legacy. John D. Zizioulas (b. 1931),8 today Metropolitan of Pergamon (Ecumenical Patriarchate), was mainly inspired by the Greek patristic tradition, but also by the language of modern existentialism, sparking an animated debate in ecumenical systematic theology with enormous influence in inter-Christian dialogue. His thought, often recapitulated in personalistic ontology and Eucharistic theology, contributed to a large degree to a retrieval and interpretation of the common mind of the Church as a response to the present existential needs of humanity. Following his doctorvater (Florovsky), Zizioulas approaches the origins (ἀπαρχαί) of creation (κτίσις) from the standpoint of absolute dialectic between uncreated and created, along with a radical understanding of “nothing” (nihil/μηδέν), thereby emphasizing the freedom of God as the ultimate cause of creation and ensuring an ontological dualism. In the beginning, Florovsky was the one of the three who, based on St. John Damascene,9 highlighted the deep natural otherness between God and world, as well as the freedom of God as Creator to bring into existence a completely unpredictable created substance. This resulted in a theology of “contingency” (one of Florovsky’s favorite terms) as the distinctive feature of creation stemming from this radical hiatus (chasm) between God and world. In turn, based on a sophianic interpretation of the relationship between God and world, Bulgakov boldly stresses love (ἀγάπη) as the cause of creation, thereby attempting to overcome any radical dualism that

For a recent overview of his theology, see Robert Slesinski, The Theology of Sergius Bukgakov (SVS Press, 2017). 7 Cf. Adrian Pabst and Christopher Schneider, eds., Encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009). 8 For a comprehensive, albeit general, discussion of his theology, see Douglas Knight, ed., The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007) and Pantelis Kalaitzidis-Nikolaos Asproulis, eds., Personhood, Eucharist and the Kingdom of God in Orthodox and Ecumenical Perspective. Festschrift in Honour of Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon (Volos: Volos Academy Publications, 2016) [in Greek]. 9 John Damascene, De fide Orth. I, 13, PG 94, 853: “οὐ τόπῳ ἀλλά φύσει.” 6

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would diminish the created order, though not always avoiding the accusation of pantheism. However, before examining the implications of the debate on theological method, let us explore their respective theologies of creation.

FLOROVSKY’S THEOLOGY OF CREATION Florovsky dedicates to the discussion a lengthy essay, titled “Creation and Createdness,” which dates from 192810 but is considered one of his most successful achievements.11 Relying mainly on patristic theology, Florovsky seeks to articulate a creation theology, to the degree that it closely relates to an understanding of God’s being ad intra, persistently a point of great relevance for Christian theology. As Florovsky puts it: “The idea of Creation is one of the main distinctive marks of the Christian mind. It was much more than the answer to the problem of origins. In this answer the whole further development is already implied.”12 Furthermore, while Florovsky never publicly opposed Bulgakov, this seminal essay on creation seems to be an indirect criticism of his Sophiological views.13 Florovsky’s latent concern was to break the close holistic and self-referring worldview of classic antiquity (namely, that being = being), which used to comprise the whole reality within a closed circle, the “cosmos,” without any sense of freedom, contingency, or otherness.14 On the contrary, by further developing the Pauline understanding of the world as ktisis (creation), and in line with Athanasius of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo, Florovsky introduces his study with a clear statement: “The world was created.” A created world is a world which “might not have existed” at all.15 In his view, creation “comes into being, makes a transition ‘from non-existence into being,’ starts

First published in Russian as “Tvar’ I Tvarnost,” in Pravoslavnaia mysl (Paris: Saint Sergius Institute) 1 (1928), 176–212. It first appeared in English translation in 1976 in Florovsky’s CW III, 43–78, 269–79, and in 2019 in a new translation as, “Creation and Createdness” (1928), PWGF, 33–63. One should also consult his “L’Idée de la création dans la philosophie chrétienne,” Logos: Revue internationale de la Pensée orthodoxe 1 (1928), 3–30. Another slightly different publication overlaps with the Russian and French: “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” Eastern Churches Quarterly 8:3 Supplementary Issue: Nature and Grace (1949), 53–77; and “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation” (1962), CW, IV, 39–62. 11 See Georges Florovsky, “‘Theological Will,’” PWGF, 242. 12 See also Georges Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 39. 13 See John Meyendorff, “Predislovie,” in Puti Russkogo Bogosloviia (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1981), v–x, here at vi cited from Alexis Klimoff, “Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Controversy,” SVTQ 49:1–2 (2005), 96. [This article is reprinted in this volume.] 14 Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 39–40. 15 Ibid, 34, 36. 10

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to exist.”16 Furthermore the world had been brought into existence by “the free act of God” (divine will), and not from God’s essence. It is a “surplus,” a superadditum, a “divine excess,”17 one might say, on an ontological level. A fundamental patristic assumption is implied here: the distinction between the substance and the will of God, initially determined by Athanasius in his response to the Arian controversy. As Florovsky put it: “For them [the Fathers] the nature of creation is radically different from the nature of its Creator,”18 adding that “as creation is an act of God’s will, it is radically different from divine begetting, which is an act of God’s nature.”19 This was for Florovsky a subtle, but necessary, move on the part of Athanasius to avoid making the world a necessary component of God’s very being. As a result, creation, this “newly made second substance cannot be seen as something that limits God’s fullness.”20 This understanding about the status of creation, introduced by early patristic thought, opens a new path with regard to the God-world relationship. The world no longer constitutes an a priori and necessary locus for God’s self-revelation. A clear “chasm” between God and creation is presented, “not a physical distance, but one of natures.”21 In so saying, Florovsky is adamant in stressing that one needs to “reject any ‘confusion’ or ‘merging’ of created and divine natures,” an implicit reference to the Chalcedonian Definition,22 although the latter does not play any structural role in his creation theology. At the same time, Florovsky is fond of adding that the created nature of the world does not mean that the latter is merely a “phenomenon,” a “happenstance” or “appearance”;23 it is definitely a “substance,” something clearly expressed in its freedom “to take the path to or away from God,”24 albeit not an eternal one. In this regard, Florovsky refers to the second option as a “metaphysical suicide,”25 a bold statement, which, while valuable, leads to certain problems, or rather to a tension between being and existence, due to his understanding of nihil in relation to the beginning of creation. Florovsky understands nihil, as “space” or “void” (always on the ontological level)26 that is covered or repelled by the emergence of creation into

Ibid., 34. Ibid., 44. 18 Ibid., 37. 19 Ibid., 38. 20 Ibid., 36. 21 Ibid., 37. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., 40. 24 Ibid., 38. 25 Ibid., 39; cf. Florovsky, “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 39. 26 See the relevant discussion of the “precise content of nothing” in Chryssavgis, Creation as Sacrament, 42. 16 17

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existence. In his words: “Creation arises, comes into being, makes a transition ‘from non-existence into being’ . . . the very transition from non-being into being is a kind of movement.”27 One can point to an analogy here with Bulgakov’s non-radical perception of nihil28 and to Florovsky’s contemporary interlocutor Karl Barth, with whom he shared much in common.29 Nevertheless, Florovsky is clear that not only the created beings—with reference to the concept of “podvig,” a Russian term difficult to translate, signifying the ascetical achievement30—but also and primarily God himself, who in relation to world (ad extra) operates in “complete” freedom (to create or not).31 Adopting Duns Scotus’s “emphasis on radical freedom of the divine,”32 Florovsky stresses that “there was no internal necessity in God’s determination to reveal himself ad extra.”33 In bold contradistinction to Origen (and Bulgakov),34 Florovsky takes an important step to overcome any danger of “metaphysical continuum” between God and world. In this vein, he observes that “God’s idea of the world, his plan and intention are without any doubt eternal, but in some sense they are not co-eternal or co-exist with him . . . the eternity of God’s idea of the world is of a different type to the eternity of God’s being.”35 As recently argued, Florovsky appears to insert here a sort of contingency in divine being (in his words, “a double contingency”),36 an hermeneutical move so radical for the patristic tradition that it is attributed to Thomist or neo-Thomist influences on Florovsky.37 Again the Athanasian distinction between substance and will appears necessary for safeguarding the independence between divine and created natures, “God’s absolute . . .

Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation” (1962), CW, IV, 34, 35. Sergius Bulgakov, The Lamb of God, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 124– 5. In his excellent recent study on creation, Chryssavgis seems to incline toward a more “Russian” conception of nihil (that is, a non-radical understanding of nothing), rather than a “Greek” one (nihil as ontologically absolute) advocated by Zizioulas. In the following pages, however, it will become clear the importance of the radically absolute character of nihil in ontological terms for a proper theology of creation. 29 See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: A Selection with Introduction, ed., H. Gollwitzer (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 1957, 1994), 136. 30 Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 39 and see PWGF, n.30, 38. In relation to human freedom, Florovsky cites a saying by St. Irenaeus on the “ancient law of human freedom” (Against Heresies, 4.37,1 [PG 7, i, 1099B). 31 Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 40. 32 Ibid., 40, n. 37 (Editors’ comment). 33 Ibid., 41. 34 Ibid., 41, 42. 35 Ibid., 43. 36 Georges Florovsky, “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” (1949), 55, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 43, 45. 37 Dionysios Skliris, “The Quest for Novel Philosophy of Freedom in the Thought of Nikolai Berdyaev, Vladimir Lossky and Georges Florovsky,” Analogia 8 (2020), 167. 27 28

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aseity.”38 He argues that nothing created can ever be part of God meaning that even the idea of the world cannot in any way be part of God’s very being or nature—although this idea belongs to the level of the divine will. “God’s idea of creation has a degree of contingency . . . it must possess eternity of freedom, not of essence.”39 “God’s Idea of creation is not yet a creation.”40 This implies that creation can by no means be considered as a compulsory act on the part of God, as belonging to his nature: “God could choose not to create,” an option that would not cause any deficiency on the divine side.41 In his systematic account of the theology of creation, although referring to the Holy Trinity as the joint creator of the world, Florovsky mainly focuses on the divine essence-energies distinction as the primary ground through which to envision the salvation of creation.42 Building mainly on the Corpus Areopagitica, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas, Florovsky refers to the “developed teaching about God’s ‘nature’ and ‘energies,’”43 as the most adequate way of bridging the radical gulf between God and creation. The distinction made in God between “nature and action, or between ‘substance’ and ‘grace’”44 renders deification (theosis)—as “communion (metousia) with divine life and gifts”45—feasible. Adhering to the mainstream trajectory of the patristic tradition, Florovsky will dedicate the last pages of his seminal essay on creation to show that salvation can take place only through participation in God’s grace, the divine energies, and by no means in God’s essence.46 Such a task can be realized on the part of human history and creation by “freely accepting [God’s] his pre-eternal council . . . in the dual nature of the Church . . . Creation is Another . . . it must . . . ascend to God by its own efforts, albeit with God’s help.”47 Natural difference, freedom, contingency, and energy

Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 43. Ibid., 45. 40 Ibid., 46. Citing in this respect Augustine, among others: “They existed in God’s knowledge, but not in their own nature” (ibid., 47, n. 62). 41 “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 45. 42 See also: “The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy,” 68–9: “He descends to us by His ‘energies’. . . ‘Yet these energies are God Himself’. . . Divine Nature and Divine grace are utterly indivisible, in the unity of the Divine being. Yet we have to distinguish them . . . .The Divine ‘ousia’ is absolutely ‘incommunicable’ to the creatures, absolutely inaccessible for them . . . . Yet, God is still accessible to His creation-in His ‘energies’.” Without exaggerating, one could say that the Trinitarian persons do not play any particular role in divinity, especially with regard to creation theology. This is not something surprising if one takes into account Florovsky’s commitment to the divine economy, while could account for possible limited Thomist influence on certain aspects of his thought (see Thomas Aquinas, Summae contra Gentiles, I, 90, 4). 43 “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 53. 44 Ibid., 56. 45 Ibid., 60. 46 Ibid., 62. 47 Ibid., 63. 38 39

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are then the basic ontological tools by which Florovsky conceptualizes his understanding of the doctrine of creation.

ZIZIOULAS’S THEOLOGY OF CREATION Zizioulas dedicates considerable attention and studies to this thorny issue.48 Like Florovsky, he identifies the issue of self-referentiality of being (being = being) as the core challenge of Greek thought addressed by the Church Fathers. Hence, Aristotle gives priority to the unity of beings, to the “One” over the “many,” insofar as “nothing comes from nothing.”49 As Zizioulas puts it: If the beginning [of creation] was nothing, it would return by necessity to nothing, whereas if its beginning was “something” [cf. Timaeus], it would return by necessity to that “something” from which it came forth. Being would then have to be cyclical if it were to survive, as was in fact conceived by the ancient Greeks.50 Here Zizioulas adamantly highlights the major problem that lies in the background of any creation theology stresses the novelty of the Christian understanding against the prevailing theories in the early patristic era. On the one side, there was Gnosticism51 that believed the world is “penetrated by evil.”52 In this case, any endeavor to escape from this “evil” world was considered necessary for salvation. On the other side, there was Platonism (along with mainstream classical thought)53 according to which the created world is penetrated by divine presence. According to an ancient saying, “Everything is filled with gods.”54 While the concept of a created world is

See John Zizioulas’s seminal articles entitled “Created and Uncreated: The Existential Significance of Chalcedonian Christology,” in Communion and Otherness (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2006), 250– 85 (hereafter CO); “Preserving God’s Creation: Three Lectures on Theology and Ecology,” King’s Theological Review 12 (1989), 1–5, 41–45, 13 (1990), 1–5, and also his books Being as Communion (SVS Press, 2002), (ch. 1) and Communion & Otherness (ch.1 and ch. 6), where Zizioulas draws a link between creation theology and the environmental crisis and the role of human beings. See also “Man the Priest of Creation,” in Andrew Walker and Costas Carras (eds.), Living Orthodox in the Modern World (London: SPCK, 1996), 178–88 and The Eucharistic Communion and the World, ed. Luke Ben Tallon (London: T&T Clark, 2011), where most of the relevant studies have been republished (hereafter ECW). 49 Aristotle, Phys. 191Α, 23, (cited in “On Being Other” (2006), CO, 15, n. 3). 50 “On Being Other,” CO, 19. 51 Lectures in Christian Dogmatics, ed. Douglas H. Knight and Katerina Nikolopulu (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 83. 52 “Preserving God’s Creation” (1989-1990), ECW, 155. 53 Ibid., 156. 54 Ibid. 48

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highlighted, perhaps for the first time in the Demiurge, Plato’s account of God refers to a decorator, not a creator ex nihilo in an absolute sense. For Zizioulas, this “Demiurge had to create out of pre-existing matter and to do so with absolute respect for the ideas of Beauty and Goodness.”55 The whole question ultimately revolves around the proper understanding of the concept of creation, which must be examined dialectically along with its beginning or origin. For Zizioulas, the fact that the world had a beginning, in an absolute sense, seemed to “be utter nonsense and absurdity to all ancient Greek thinkers.”56 Again following Florovsky, he credits St. Athanasius for highlighting that “between God and the world there is total ontological otherness.”57 Nevertheless, a Christian view of creation requires a literal understanding of the beginning of created existence, as well as of the un-originate (ἀγέννητος) existence of the Creator. Christian theology was thus forced to innovate. “Creation as ktisis is a notion encountered for the first time . . . with the Apostle Paul, and it clearly presupposes an absolutely ontological beginning.”58 Zizioulas would advance Florovsky’s view here, speaking of the need to introduce the concept of “ktisiology” into Christian vocabulary. By adopting the term ktisis rather than demiourgia (the latter recalling Plato’s Demiurge), Zizioulas emphasizes the ontologically absolute character of the beginning of creation, which the Fathers interpreted as creation “from (absolute) nothing.” As he puts it: “The idea that the world has an absolute beginning could only be expressed through the formula that the world was created ‘out of nothing,’ ex nihilo.”59 Since the time of St. Athanasius and Nicaea I, there developed an awareness that between God and world “there exists an absolute, ‘abysmal’ otherness,”60 recalling Florovsky’s bold emphasis on the existent “natural otherness.” Like Florovsky, Zizioulas contends that if it were possible for something to arise from nothing (here he has in mind Thomas Aquinas or Karl Barth who understand “nothing” as a source of creation or a “void”),61 then it was also possible that a totally other being could exist vis-á-vis God’s being. As Zizioulas notes, “the doctrine of creation out of nothing was about otherness and freedom in ontology.”62 Unlike Florovsky, however, Zizioulas deepens his creation theology, since this view of creation ex nihilo also defines the parameters for

“On Being Other,” CO, 16. “Preserving God’s Creation,” ECW, 157. 57 “On Being Other,” CO, 17, quoting Athanasius, Contra Arianos 1.20–21 (PG 26, 53). 58 “Created and Uncreated,” CO, 253. 59 “Preserving God’s Creation,” ECW, 158. For a detailed account of the importance of nihil see also his “Created and Uncreated,” CO, 273–5. 60 “On Being Other,” CO, 19. 61 “Preserving God’s Creation,” ECW, 158–9. Compare with Florovsky’s understanding of nihil. 62 “On Being Other,” CO, 18. 55 56

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a dialectic between created and uncreated, which required an understanding of the God-world relationship as one of reciprocal poles in a relationship of absolute otherness and the existence of a third pole of absolute nothingness to which the other two should point. In this context, absolute nothingness signifies the lack of any kind of metaphysical kinship between God and creation at the level of existence: If god and the world were to confront one another for a moment and their relationship was to be turned into what we call a dialectic, it follows, in the spirit of ancient Greece, that the universe would collapse. Antitheses can certainly be used . . . but on condition that the antitheses are not ontologically absolute and that they do not give “space” or “time” to absolute non-being. Hence, ascent and descent are the terms of an opposition . . . emphasizing their unity . . . . There is no dialectical relationship, in an absolutely ontological sense. There is a mutual dependence.63 By emphasizing creatio ex nihilo, Zizioulas concludes, like Florovsky’s seminal essay, that the world is not eternal. Otherwise if the world was eternal it would not need to be created; and if it was not created from nothing then the world was created from something that has some other existence. This is clearly a reversal of the ancient view and leads to the conclusion that “existence is the fruit of freedom,”64 since the self-referentiality of being, found in ancient thought, is now abolished. The fact that the world was created from nothing and is not eternal means that there is also the possibility it would return to nothing and could not live eternally.65 Zizioulas emphasizes that one negative prospect is the ultimate activation of “the limitations and potential dangers inherent in creaturehood, if creation is left to itself,”66 inasmuch as nothingness continuously permeates and penetrates the world. Zizioulas’s emphasis on “nothing” indicates the abysmal chasm between God and creation and signifies that creation’s very being constitutes a gift from God. A crucial question now arises: “How did God want the world to survive?”67 For a Christian, this is not just a theoretical question but one which relates to the core of the Gospel. In the history of ideas, various solutions have been proposed. Zizioulas emphasizes the danger of falling into a view of “natural

“Created and Uncreated,” CO, 252–3. Ibid., 255, 256. 65 Lectures (2009), 89. 66 Being as Communion (2002), 102. 67 “Preserving God’s Creation,” ECW, 162. 63 64

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affinity”68 between God and the world, a return to the self-referentiality of being, if we accept that the world was endowed with a natural capacity for survival. This leads, for one thing, to the notion of the “immortality of the soul,”69 which Zizioulas regards as problematic. If there is anything that gives creation the possibility of existing in a natural way, it inevitably leads to an obligatory immortality. Equally unacceptable is a related proposition based on “moral” or “juridical” foundations,70 supposing that created being could improve itself by practicing or obeying natural or divine law. For Zizioulas, a proposal of this kind cannot overcome death inasmuch as the latter is an ontological problem, and not just a moral one. Given his firm preoccupation with ontology, Zizioulas boldly states: “No, death is not conquered like that. The only thing conquered is preoccupation with the problem of death.”71 How then can creation be saved? Zizioulas focuses on a creative interpretation of Chalcedonean Christology,72 the core axis of his overall vision,73 by highlighting its two dimensions: the cosmological and the ecclesiological. One must also, however, keep in mind the patristic idea of “hypostatic union,” which, for Zizioulas, gives priority to the person of Christ rather than to the two natures. Interpreting his patristic hero Maximus the Confessor, Zizioulas notes that, in order for death to be overcome, a relationship is necessary between created and uncreated,74 and that it is the human being who undertakes this role. Nonetheless, the Fall foiled this divinely ordained task, necessitating a change in the divine plan. What was required now was for the Logos to become human, “so that all that has been created can be united to the uncreated. For death to be overcome, the created has to come into relationship with the uncreated.”75 The Fall changed the natural condition of “difference” (διαφορά) between created and uncreated into one of “division” (διαίρεσις), according to Maximus,76 leading again to the non-existence that preceded creation. In this context, Zizioulas proposes an existential interpretation of the Chalcedonian

Ibid., 163. See also “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity” (1975) CO, 227. “Preserving God’s Creation,” ECW, 161, “Created–Uncreated,” CO, 258. [Compare Florovsky, “The Immortality of the Soul,” CW III, 213–40.]. 70 Zizioulas, “Created–Uncreated,” CO, 258. 71 Ibid. 72 See his “Created and Uncreated,” CO. 73 Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in dialogue (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 151–2. 74 Florovsky, Lectures, 102. 75 Ibid., 102. 76 “On Being Other,” CO, 22. Recall here the “natural otherness” argued by Florovsky based on John of Damascus. 68 69

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Definition, and particularly of the clause77 “without confusion” (ἀσυγχύτως) and “without division” (ἀδιαιρέτως), which describes the relationship between God and humanity in the person of Christ. “Without division” highlights the necessity that there be no separation between created and uncreated; on the contrary, there must be real communion at the ontological level in order to avoid the self-referentiality of the creation as well as death. “Without confusion” guarantees the freedom and otherness of the two realities; otherwise, the relationship would not be free. The two terms are mediated in the person of Christ, in whom communion and otherness coincide. His resurrection offers the whole of creation a victory over death and salvation. Following Maximus the Confessor, Zizioulas identifies that without the incarnation of the Logos,78 the ontological distance between God and the world cannot be overcome.79 Christ can thus be understood as the human being par excellence, who brings God and the world into relationship. As noted, Zizioulas envisions the Fall as “revealing and actualizing the limitations and potential dangers inherent in creaturehood, if creation is left to itself.”80 This formulation aroused suspicion about a possible conflation of creation with the Fall.81 For Zizioulas, the priority of nature over personhood that characterizes the created order because of the ex nihilo existence of the latter constitutes the main problem of creation in its entirety. There is thus a latent distinction and antithesis, clearly of an ontological and existential character, between created limits and absolute personal freedom, and it is not clear whether this is caused by creaturehood itself or by the Fall. To this end, one should also refer to the delicate issue of the causal understanding of the relationship between death and sin (“for the wages of sin is death” [Rom. 6:23]). It seems that in Zizioulas’s ontological perspective, which is also informed by modern science, death features as a latent dimension of creation due to the createdness of the latter. However, this view requires further clarification: Is the person of Christ the vantage point from which every aspect of creation is to be considered (the act of creation and the salvation of the ktisis)? A study of Zizioulas’ early work reveals an attempt to directly connect the Logos of God with the beginning of creation in an ontological perspective. Christ “is the ‘beginning [ἀρχή]’ of the

See “Created and Uncreated.” “On Being Other,” CO, 21ff. For Zizioulas the view of Logos as Person was one of the three available ways of bridging the gap between God and the world, the other two being: Logos as Mind, and the essence-energies distinction. Compare here with Florovsky’s structural use of the essence-energies distinction. 79 Ibid., 23–5. 80 Zizioulas, Being as Communion (1985), 102. 81 For instance, Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 81–2. 77 78

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world (ontological, cosmological Christology) because he is going to be the beginning [ἀρχή] of the world [to come] (eschatological Christology).”82 Driven by his Trinitarian metaphysics, Zizioulas attributes to God the Father not only the cause (αἰτία) of the personal mode of existence of the Trinity, but also of creation.83 Zizioulas bases his approach on the Cappadocians, but again focuses on Maximus in the framework of a relational ontology, highlighting the importance of communion-in-otherness between God and creation through the agency of the human being (as “microcosm”). It now becomes clear that the ontological perspective (creatio ex nihilo; the dialectic between created and uncreated) and the existential hermeneutical dimension (personhood; freedom; communion and otherness; etc.) are the pivotal themes of his thought.

BULGAKOV’S THEOLOGY OF CREATION Bulgakov does not dedicate any specific essay to this topic. “The problem of linking God to the world runs as a golden thread through all aspects of Bulgakov’s system.”84 In this context, creation is treated mostly in his The Lamb of God (1933), The Bride of the Lamb (1945), and his earlier Unfading Light (1917).85 From the outset, Bulgakov states that a Christian theology of creation needs to exclude “two polar opposite views: pantheistic, or atheistic, monism, on the one hand, and the dualistic conception of creation, on the other.”86 Much like Zizioulas (and Florovsky), he contends that in monism the world is considered as a self-sufficient reality, a closed and absolute being, characterized by the very self-referentiality of being. This approach to the world’s nature, more or less common in antiquity, leads to the uselessness of a divine principle outside of the world as its cause. Bulgakov argues that “this worldview denies the very problem of the origin of the world, since one cannot speak of the origin of an absolute being.”87 In the case of dualism—again reminiscent of Zizioulas—while one recognizes the world’s very creaturely nature, due to the actual presence of evil in the world, one is ready to admit the existence of two completely different gods that

John Zizioulas, Ελληνισμός και Χριστιανισμός: Η συνάντηση δύο κόσμων (Hellenism and Christianity: The Encounter of two Worlds) (Athens: Apostoliki Diakonia, 2003), 115. 83 Zizioulas, “The Father as Cause” (2006), CO, 113–18; Lectures, 106. 84 Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “Bulgakov’s Account of Creation: Neglected Aspects, Critics and Contemporary Relevance,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17:4 (2015), 451. 85 Bulgakov, The Lamb of God and The Bride of the Lamb, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002) and Unfading Light: Contemplations and Speculations, trans. Thomas Allan Smith (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012). 86 Bulgakov, The Bride of the Lamb (1945), 3. 87 Ibid. 82

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intend to safeguard both its absolute transcendence and creative relation with the fallen world (a sort of Gnosticism). In both cases, one is able to put aside God as unnecessary from the discussion regarding the beginning and the status of the created world. Since both worldviews strive to attribute a special place to the world, independently of an extra-world principle—to the extent “that it would be possible to juxtapose and, in a certain sense, even to oppose the world to God, to distinguish ontologically God and the world”88—one must take deeply into consideration the status of this place, anticipating in this way the modern quest for the dignity of humanity. As Bulgakov puts it: [T]o determine the actual relation between God and the world, another category must be used, a category for which there is no place in the immanence of the world. This category must be used to perform the metabasis eis allo genos that preserves both the positive connection between God and the world and the ontological distance between them. This category is not cause, or motion, but creation and createdness.89 In this respect, Bulgakov will turn to an interpretation of the creation ex nihilo doctrine (“creation out of nothing,” in his wording), to address the profound impasse of these perspectives. What, then, is the meaning of “nothing”? For Bulgakov nothing does not exist for God as something totally extradivine. It is not even a void . . . . There is only God and outside of and apart from God there is nothing . . . . In order to be, “nothing” must arise, having been established by God . . . nothing is a relative concept: it is correlative to something . . . “nothing” is thus not being but the state of being . . . finds a place for itself in becoming being.90 Additionally, [O]ne should not conceive this “nothing” as some something existing before the creation of the world as its necessary material or at least as the possibility of the origination of the world . . . . The nothing out of which the world is created is precisely a not-something, the pure not of ontological emptiness. In other words, the formula that the world is created by God out of nothing

Ibid., 6. Ibid., 36. 90 The Lamb of God, 124–5. 88 89

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has, first of all, a negative meaning: No extra-divine ground or creation exists . . . . In this sense we must distinguish two nothings without confusing them: 1) the precreaturely or noncreaturely nothing, or the pure ontological zero, emptiness, which is conceived by us only through logical repulsion, the negation of all being in a certain “illegitimate judgment” . . . ; and 2) the ontic, creaturely nothing, me on, which permeates creation, so to speak.91 Following Bulgakov’s ontological argumentation in the aforementioned passage, one should describe nihil in both a positive and a negative manner. In the first case, “nothing” is a sort of state—in other words the “place” (cf. “definitions of time”) within which the created world is called into existence in time, as a result of God’s creative act.92 In the second case, nihil is used as a necessary means of excluding any possibility of an extra-divine principle of the world. This simply means there is no other being “alongside God, outside of or apart from God.”93 In this vein, as recently argued, “this is certainly a version of creatio ex nihilo, although it seems more creatio ex deo,”94 to the extent that nothing excludes any extra-divine principle of creation.95 In any case, nihil describes the status of the world, its origin, as far as it is itself considered an autonomous being against God.96 Following his insistence on the creative and not causal character of the God-world relationship, Bulgakov is fond of endorsing the relevance of the “ontological boundaries” between God and world, so as to avoid the accusation of pantheism that completely removes such a boundary.97 With his ontological perception of nihil as the ἀρχή of creation, Bulgakov comes closer to Zizioulas than to Florovsky, although the latter’s radical understanding of the ontologically absolute character of nihil remains incomparable. Reminiscent of Florovsky, Bulgakov will continue to assert that God “does not need the world for Himself. For him the creation or noncreation of the world is not a hypostatic or natural necessity of self-completion . . . there is no place for creation in Divinity itself.”98 Though the world is not the result of a hypostatic or natural necessity, it does not mean that there is the “presence

The Bride of the Lamb, 6–7. The Lamb of God, 125. 93 The Bride of the Lamb, 43. 94 Brandon Gallaher, Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 87. 95 In a similar vein Chryssavgis argues that nothing “neither denotes nor implies an absence of God. It is in fact another way of understanding . . . the very presence of God” (Creation as Sacrament, 42). 96 Bulgakov, The Lamb of God, 121. 97 It is noteworthy that Bulgakov uses the word “boundary” and not “chasm or gulf,” thereby indirectly endorsing the close sophianic interrelation between God and the world. 98 The Lamb of God, 119. 91 92

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of randomness or arbitrariness in the being of the world,” created “without any reason and meaning for the Creator Himself.”99 A clear attempt is made here by Bulgakov to highlight the importance of the world itself (that it is not something incidental), while explaining why the world should be created in the first place and be in close relation with God (a soteriological perspective). “God needs the world, and it could not have remained uncreated . . . needs the world not for Himself but for the world itself.”100 It is clear that a different, albeit not contradictory, syllogistic is at play here in comparison to Florovsky’s reasoning. If the latter’s focus is on God’s freedom and sovereignty, the former’s insistence on the world’s dignity can be seen as the other side of the same coin.101 To fully apprehend the distinctive character of Bulgakov’s theology of creation, one should also briefly refer to his account of God. Besides the divine nature and the trihypostatic Person,102 there is also in God the Divine Sophia, which is “the Pleroma, the Divine world, existent in God and for God.”103 In other words, Sophia (so far as the divine being is concerned), while “nothing other than God’s nature,” is more than this, since it is the very self-revelation of the entire Holy Trinity, the divine world within which the divine ousia is revealed and hypostasized in three hypostases. As he puts it: “Sophia . . . as the divine world, which exists in God for God Himself.”104 Therefore, while there is no necessary relationship of any kind between the divine nature or the trihypostatic person of God and the world, the latter is included within the divine world, that is the Divine Sophia, thereby avoiding any kind of contingency on the side of God.105 Since God is all in all, the allunity,106 a metaphysical principle accepted a priori by Bulgakov, nothing can be found outside of Divinity, the divine world (even the nihil, the beginning of creation). This means finally that “the All in the Divine world, in the Divine Sophia, and the All in the creaturely world, in the creaturely Sophia, are one and are identical in content (although not in being),” something that preserves both the ontological distinction and the soteriological correlation between God and world.107

Ibid. Ibid., 120. 101 One might ask: “Was so much ink spilled in vain between the protagonists of the sophiological question?” 102 For a critical appraisal of Bulgakov’s Trinitarian theology, see Nikolaos Loudovikos, “What Is Sophia? Bulgakov, or the Biblical Trinity between Kant and Hegel,” Analogia 8 (2020), 103–6. 103 Bulgakov, The Lamb of God, 103. 104 The Bride of the Lamb, 30. 105 Compare to Florovsky’s “double contingency.” Bulgakov appears here closer to Zizioulas. 106 The Bride of the Lamb: “The Divine All belongs to the Divine Sophia; she is the all-unity of the Divine All,” 39. 107 The Lamb of God, 126. 99

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Nonetheless, one should avoid arguing that the created world, a sort of becoming and temporal being, somehow relates to the divine ousia, which remains unknowable per se, or depends on the three hypostases that are outside of time. As he puts it, while “in Himself God is . . . the Absolute . . . for the World He is the Absolute-Relative, existing in Himself but also outside of Himself.”108 God “did not begin to be the Creator at some determinate moment of time, when the creation of the world ‘began.’ For God and in God, His creative activity is just eternal as His being . . . the creation of the world begins only for the world.”109 Bulgakov is very cautious not to ascribe temporal or spatial dimensions to God’s very being. If this is the way that Bulgakov conceives the meaning of “creation out of nothing,” as a sort of the beginning of creation, then one should ask about the very cause of the creation. Bulgakov clearly states that God creates the world “by love.”110 Since God is love, and “it is proper for love to love and to expand in love” and “if it is in general possible for God’s omnipotence to create the world, it would be improper for God’s love not to actualize this possibility.”111 And he concludes that, due to the fact that God is love, “God-love needs the creation of the world in order to love, no longer only in His own life, but also outside Himself, in creation.”112 Therefore, the only reality that necessitates God in creating the world, is a kind of “a law of love,” a “necessity of love,”113 that determines God’s inner life. For Bulgakov, God would not be primarily or even exclusively understood as Absolute, as a self-explicable and self-definite reality. Due to the grammar of Revelation that seems to adhere closely to this reasoning, one should recognize that He is “God . . . is the Absolute existing for another.”114 In this case, “to exist is to be for another,” recalling Zizioulas’s famous assertion for “being as communion.” It is not an exaggeration in this respect to argue that Sophiology, as far as Bulgakov is concerned, is a sort of a theologically re-worked, relational ontology, to the extent that Divine and Creaturely Sophia are identical, while remaining other. In this sense, “the world could not fail to be created. It is necessary for God.”115 This bold statement should not imply an ontological and necessary

Ibid., 122. Ibid., 122–3. 110 Ibid., 130. 111 Ibid., 120. One could perfectly describe Bulgakov’s account here by referring to Chryssavgis’s understanding of the biblical phrase “God is love,” which “in turn implies that the ‘world is loved’” (Creation as Sacrament, 79). 112 The Lamb of God, 120. 113 Gallaher, Freedom and Necessity, 97. 114 Bulgakov, The Lamb of God, 121. 115 Ibid., 120. 108 109

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bond between God and creation. One should also recall that Bulgakov’s methodological starting point is not primarily a metaphysical a priori superstructure, that renders obligatory a close relationship of the two realities (a monistic view), but mainly his soteriological concern, which makes clear that the Lamb of God “is pre-eternally ‘sacrificed’ in the creation of the world, as the expressly cosmic hypostasis, the demiurge in Divinity.”116 To imply that the world is necessary for God points to Bulgakov’s emphasis on creation and its dignity (definitely not its self-referentiality). Only in relation to God does something attain proper status. This sort of relation can be understood as being necessary not for God but for the created order. Insofar as God created the world by love, it would be logically inconsistent for him to “spare His own Son for its sake!”117 Bulgakov adds that “one can even say that God created the world in order to become incarnate in it . . . in the Incarnation, God showed His love for creation.”118 In this perspective, he asserts that “the Incarnation is the inner foundation of creation, its entelechy.”119 According to the Russian theologian, “the interaction of God with the world is based on the interrelation of the Divine Sophia and the creaturely Sophia,” as this interrelation is mainly depicted in the Christological dogma of the “God-man.”120 As far as the Godman is concerned, “the world is created, but it is not only created, for in its proto-image, in its idea, it is not created at all but exists from all eternity in God.”121 Bulgakov’s view is reminiscent of Zizioulas’s existential interpretation of the Chalcedonian Definition, although the emphasis is given here to love (ἀ διαιρέτως), and not to freedom (ἀσυγχύτως). What then is the foundation of the world? The Divine world, “the Divine Sophia became also the creaturely Sophia, God repeated Himself in creation . . . the creation is the Divine ‘ecstasy’ of love.”122 Thus, the Divine Sophia should be understood as the very foundation of creation, insofar as it is the eternal proto-image of the created world in God. As Bulgakov concludes: [T]he Divine world and the creaturely world are correlated with one other as the eternal Sophia and the Creaturely Sophia. Being identical in their foundation, the Divine world and the creaturely world are different in their

Ibid., 129. Ibid., 122. 118 Ibid., 169–70. 119 Ibid., 173. 120 Ibid., 159. 121 Ibid. Recall Florovsky’s novel conception of two kinds of eternity. 122 Ibid., 126–7. 116 117

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mode of being. The former is pre-eternally existent in God, whereas the latter, as having arisen “out of nothing” is a becoming world.123 By closely linking the Divine and Creaturely Sophia, Bulgakov identifies the foundation of the God-man. In this regard, he would interchange his view between the ontological (priority of Sophia as the Divine world repeated in the created world) and methodological-soteriological simultaneously (the Christological dogma of God-man as the culmination of the Revelation) level, depending in each case on the starting point of his theological reasoning. A similar view is clearly evinced in Zizioulas, who appears to share the common ontological preoccupation, but not certain premises of the Russian theologian. In this context, one can better appreciate how Bulgakov conceives of the very cause of the Incarnation. Although the Incarnation will be accomplished as Redemption due to the Fall (the dominant narrative in the Bible), at the same time “the mystery of the Incarnation was decided ‘before the foundation of the world’.”124 This further implies that, while methodologically the Redemption seems to be the very starting point and cause of the Incarnation, ontologically God has decided pre-eternally his condescension to the world, an idea shared by all the three of our theologians.125 In both cases, Bulgakov is prompt to highlight the soteriological perspective of Sophiology, insofar as the close relation of God to his world is concerned. In so doing, he is clearly closer to Zizioulas, who also boldly insists on the Christological foundation of the salvation of the world, while being more cautious to secure the otherness between the two perspectives (ontological/methodological). In discerning Bulgakov’s theology of creation, then, it is clear that the ontological perspective (nihil, creation ex amore) and the soteriological methodological perspective (Divine and Creaturely Sophia, sophianicity of creation) are the pivotal themes of his thought.

CREATION THEOLOGY AND THE GODWORLD RELATIONSHIP: THEOLOGICAL METHOD IN QUESTION The aforementioned survey of creation theology in three pioneering theologians brought to the fore several questions related not only to the topic per se but also

Ibid., 444–5. Ibid., 170. 125 See, Florovsky, “Cur Deus Homo? The Motive for the Incarnation” (1957), CW, III, 163–70, 310–14; Zizioulas, “Preserving God’s Creation,” ECW; see also Chryssavgis, Creation as Sacrament, 75–7. 123 124

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to the relevance of methodology in theology. In the remainder of this chapter, I would like to comment briefly on certain aspects of the debate in light of their methodological implications.

(1) The creation ex nihilo doctrine occupies a central place in the thought of all three theologians. This is of great importance insofar as the definition of the status of the created order and subsequently its relation to God constitutes a crucial issue, with which Christian theology has wrestled since the earliest times. Moreover, it has radical implications not only for doctrinal issues (for instance, the uncreated or created nature of the Logos) but also for methodological reasons (like the relation between transcendent and immanent Trinity, the conceptualization of the God-world relationship, etc.) As pointed out by Florovsky, referring to the Arian controversy, “the problem of creation was the crucial philosophical problem in the dispute. No clarity could be reached in the doctrine of the God until the problem of creation had been settled.”126 Florovsky himself, however, did not pay proper attention to the second part of the clause (namely, the doctrine of God, in contrast to Bulgakov and Zizioulas), both for methodological (history of salvation as the ground of his theology) as well as soteriological reasons. The aforementioned analysis determined that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was initially intended to secure the absolute transcendence of God, despite the different emphasis of authors, while at the same time seeking to highlight freedom as a core aspect of being (both divine and human), which is more or less a common idea in all of our thinkers. In other words, what the three modern doctores ecclesiae attempt to clarify is the ἀρχή (level of nature, Florovsky, Zizioulas, Bulgakov), the origin of creation (from the creative will and energy of God, not from his substance, Florovsky, Zizioulas) against any constant thread of conceiving the world as a necessary alter ego related permanently to God’s being (i.e. pantheism). Most contemporary Orthodox theologians would agree about the unquestionable relevance of this doctrine (as a sort of foundation for the Christian character of theology) with a view to understanding the relation between created and uncreated as dialectical in its absoluteness, insofar as this understanding preserves the absolute and impassable hiatus or gulf between God and world, rendering impossible the existence of any necessary metaphysical bond or medium between them, which would devaluate God’s absolute

Florovsky, “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation,” CW, IV, 47.

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transcendence. The being of creation is understood as a dependent and therefore contingent being, penetrated by an inherent “me-onic” (Florovsky) tendency that preserves the ontological difference and division between created and uncreated. In this light, one should carefully qualify the possible implication of this radical understanding of the ἀρχή of creation (absoluteness of nihil primarily in Zizioulas, natural otherness in Florovsky, and less clearly in Bulgakov), that is a separation of creation from God, with the necessary reflection on the other side of the coin, namely the αἰτία (level of grace), the cause of the creation, which is the incarnate Logos, “before the foundation of the world” (Bulgakov, Zizioulas-Florovsky represents a tension here). Both Zizioulas and Bulgakov seem to follow from the beginning an understanding of the relationship between God and creation in the person of Jesus Christ (almost exclusively in an ontological or cosmological manner), while never adopting the divine essenceenergies distinction to conceptualize their vision. This differs from the early Florovsky, who might thus be considered as an implicit pioneer of the neo-Palamite revival.127 Moreover, Florovsky would insist on the anhypostatic, impersonal character of the energies, thereby seemingly failing ultimately to overcome his philosophical background. Although he seeks to break the ontological affinity and continuity between God and the world through a strong emphasis on a theology of creation, at the same time by making use of an “ontology of energy,” Florovsky indirectly somehow associates God and the word on the level of being. This is clear when he argues that there is no exit out or from existence for the created order.128 To put it otherwise, while Florovsky succeeds in detaching the world from God’s being, speaking of their “natural difference,” he finally fails to fully disconnect God and the world on the level of being, given that there is a lack of any radical understanding of nihil as an absolute concept concerning the beginning of creation. In this regard, the implied lack of a clear dialectical relation between God and world is of crucial importance for the acceptance of a full ontological transcendence and freedom

See Stoyan Tanev, Energy in Orthodox Theology and Physics (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2017), esp. ch. 1. Compare to Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 240: “The Palamite distinction between the unknowable essence of God and the uncreated divine energies did not play a noticeable role in Florovsky’s neopatristic synthesis” (ibid., 143). Although Gavrilyuk’s statement is in principle correct (particularly with regard to his mature work), one has to take into consideration the structural use by Florovsky of the Palamite distinction in his creation theology (especially in his seminal essay). 128 Florovsky, “Creation and Createdness,” PWGF, 39. 127

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of God both ad intra and ad extra in relation to creation. Despite this ambiguity in Florovsky, all three theologians ascribe greater or lesser importance to creatio ex nihilo as a necessary step for safeguarding the absolute transcendence of God (Zizioulas), the natural otherness between God and creation (Florovsky), or the pre-eternal sophianic foundation of the creation in the divine life and its dignity (Bulgakov). Yet, while Bulgakov attempts to provide a necessary and balanced perspective of the αἰτία of creation (God-love), Florovsky and Zizioulas (despite their differences) stress in principle the ἀρχή of creation (nihil, natural otherness, gulf etc.). What I would highlight here is the necessity of keeping the close link between arche (origin) and aitia (cause)129 of creation for preserving both the absoluteness of the dialectical relationship between created and uncreated but also the “agapeic”130 character of God’s creativity toward creation—in other words, to link the ontological and soteriological aspects of a Christian theology of creation that fulfill the provisional perception of the Old Testament (Genesis).

(2) In searching for a proper doctrine of creation that “preserves the freedom of both God and the creature . . . without separating them,” one needs “to be able to say something about [the] in-between realm,”131 dealing in other words with the aitia-God’s love of creation. In this light, the issue at stake in a genuine creation theology is primarily that of the perception of the concept of God’s selfrevelation in creation—what I would call the grammar of the realism of Revelation. Considering the revelation of God in creation and history as the only legitimate starting point of a Christian reflection on the God-world relationship, it inevitably follows that “Christ is the only mediator” between God and humanity (1 Tim. 2:5). In this case, on the one hand, the person of Jesus Christ would be understood as the only personal and absolutely free and agapeic way of bridging the ontological gulf (a clear view in Zizioulas) or boundary (Bulgakov) that exists between God and the world; and on the other hand, the entire paschal mystery—the once-and-for-all historical and soteriological events (Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Second Coming)—would really translate to the salvation of creation, to its

The distinction between arche and aitia seems to be a predominant issue since antiquity, as well as in the early Christian period. See Karamanolis, The Philosophy. See also Chryssavgis, Creation as Sacrament, 82–4. 130 See William Desmond, God and the Between (Oxford: Wiley–Blackwell, 2008). 131 See Andrew Louth, “Theology of the ‘In-between,’” Communio Viatorum 55:3 (2013), 223–36, at 232. 129

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well-being and ever-being, while preserving God’s soteriological indwelling within the created order. Otherwise, if one replaces this personal and salvific bond between God and world, namely, the Incarnate Logos of God with another, like the divine energies, as in the early Florovsky, one jeopardizes the distinctively Christian character of the divine-human communion. In other words, a “theology inbetween” is legitimate if one is adamant about responding accurately to the question of “Who” or “What” is “in between” God and the world: Jesus Christ, God-man, divine energies, or Sophia? One might argue that the way one replies to this question shows the very starting point of one’s theological view: post-Christum, pre-Christum or remoto Christo? For instance, one can hardly negate Florovsky’s bold Christocentric theology. At the same time, however, a clear tension is evident in his creation theology, which points out the difficulty of the topic and the hermeneutical need in this respect. In summary, the issue at stake here is whether one can deal with creation independently of the paschal mystery (in purely philosophical manner) or whether one should operate via the only legitimate God-like way of reflection (namely, through the Incarnate Logos).

(3) There is a growing “Sophiological revival” in recent years, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, made possible through the translation of Bulgakov’s writings in English. Following the previous analysis, a certain confusion becomes apparent related to the definition of Sophia in Bulgakov’s system. In an early letter to Bulgakov, Florovsky is adamant in interpreting Sophia through the lens of the palamite essence-energies distinction by arguing that “Sophia is nothing other than God revealed, God towards the world.”132 However, despite the merits of this critical appraisal, one should be ready to recognize the long (biblical and patristic) tradition referring to Sophia in diverse ways,133 as well as to study closer Bulgakov’s mature work. In his Unfading Light, the Russian theologian makes extended use of the palamite distinction, by which he seeks to justify his own focus on the soteriological understanding of the God-world relationship.

Georges Florovsky, “Pis’ma G. Florovskogo S. Bulgakovu i S. Tyshkevichu,” in A. M Pentkovskogo, ed. Symvol 29 (September 1993), 205–6. An English translation is available at Ishmaelite​.blogspot​ .com​/2009​/05​/palamas​-florovsky​-bulgakov​​-and​.html (last retrieval March 15, 2020). Cf. also Norman Russell, Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 55. 133 See Nikolaos Asproulis, “La réception de la sagesse dans la sophiologie russe: Rôle et controverses dans l’orthodoxie,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 2 (2020), 221–42. 132

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Considering the palamite distinction as an “unfinished Sophiology,”134 Bulgakov goes “beyond Palamas”135 in articulating a view that more inclusively brings into a close soteriological relationship God and the world. Thus, if one carefully reads his major dogmatic trilogy On Godmanhood, one realizes that despite certain inappropriate expressions or inner ambivalence, at the end of the day, Sophia is by no means a substitute to Christ, but primarily or exclusively a means of successfully grasping the God-world relationship. In this vein, one could understand Sophia as a more inclusive concept beyond any possible one-sidedness of theological concepts like ousia, and energy, or even personhood—a necessary fourth concept whereby one will be able to articulate more comprehensibly how God not only in his personal mode of being or in his energy but as God himself and Divinity, as divine world in total, is directly related to creation. The basic motivation of Sophiology was to show that God is a living God, a God for us, who relates constantly “before the foundation of the world” to creation, a God for creation (or, better, within creation), a concern that brings to the fore the very soteriological core of the Gospel. Although one could identify latent pantheistic tendencies in this Sophiological tradition, it is important to remember that one could use Sophia not as a kind of an ontological in-between (which is not Bulgakov’s understanding of the concept), but primarily as “God’s selfrevelation and this revelation contains all the God is, including God . . . creating and relating to what is not God . . . God is eternally for the other-than-God.”136

(4) The principal way that Florovsky himself (at least in his early, European period) and most contemporary Orthodox theologians have conceptualized the God-world relationship is the divine essence and energies distinction. Addressing the debate, Andrew Louth attempted to articulate a “theology in between” by which he sought to reconceptualize this fundamental principle of modern Orthodox theology, through an interpretation of St. Athanasius provided by Florovsky that still remains undeveloped. The Athanasian (read

The Bride of the Lamb, 18. As pointed out by Russell, Gregory Palamas, 51. 136 See Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Sophia, Apophasis and Communion: The Trinity in Contemporary Orthodox Theology,” in Peter C. Phan (ed.), Cambridge Companion to the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 246. A successful endeavor is made by Chryssavgis in his Creation as Sacrament (especially ch. 4) to combine sophiology with the essence-energies distinction as more or less two facets of the same doctrine that aims at highlighting the strong loving relationship of God and his creation. 134 135

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through Florovsky’s later work) Christological perception of the divine energies, meaning that, as Louth puts it, “it is through the Word that creation comes into being and is sustained in being-the Word being present to and active in the created order by his powers,”137 would be of great importance for limiting the overemphasis on the essenceenergies distinction, or rather to address the danger of “ontologizing” the divine energies,138 in modern Orthodox theology, since especially Vladimir Lossky. According to Lossky, the antinomy of divine-human communion in the incarnation, which is the union of two ontological others-the uncreated and the uncreated . . . demands that theology be apophatic . . . . Apophaticism is the affirmation that God’s very being is antinomic insofar as God is simultaneously transcendent to and immanent in the other of God, the not-God . . . . Such an understanding of God is the basis for . . . the distinction between the essence and the energies.139 If this radical and maximalized perception of energies is taken for granted (a feature clearly present in Florovsky’s early work, but almost absent in Bulgakov and especially in Zizioulas), I think that it would be difficult to avoid a limitation of the personal (as free, unconditional, and “agapeic” simultaneously) engagement of God the Father with his “two hands” (following Irenaeus) in the created order. This does not imply that divine energies do not belong to the divine being, but that they are only expressions (not in a natural or automatic way) of the divine ousia, operated through the Trinitarian persons, who are the agents of creation and the salvation of creation. This requires a careful and deep work on defining the right relationship between the divine essence, energies, and persons—an endeavor undertaken to some extent only by Bulgakov in his attempt to provide a Sophiological correction of the palamite underdeveloped distinction.140 Otherwise, without a proper approach between essence, persons, and energies in Trinitarian metaphysics, the critical reservations posed by Dorothea Wendebourg,

Louth, “Theology of the ‘In-between,’” 228–9; In the mature text “St. Athanasius’ Concept of Creation” from 1962, on which Louth comments, Florovsky appears to balance his exaggeration of the Palamite distinction found in his seminal work on creation. A methodological maneuver that often appeared in various studies of Florovsky oeuvre relates to a unified reading of his corpus, without taking seriously into consideration internal tensions or certain developments in his thought. 138 See for instance Nonna V. Harrison, “Zizioulas on Communion and Otherness,” SVTQ 42 (1998), 273–300, and discussion in Zizioulas, “On Being Other,” CO, 29. See also n. 138. 139 Papanikolaou, “Sophia, Apophasis and Communion,” 248–9. 140 See Sergius Bulgakov, The Comforter, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 244 (as cited in Russell, Gregory Palamas, 52). 137

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regarding a possible “defeat of Trinitarian theology”141 and the cutting off of the soteriological engagement of the Trinitarian persons from creation because of the prioritization of an “ontology of energy,”142 challenge our core soteriological premises. To put it another way, if one makes the essence-energies distinction the ultimate ontological tool of the conceptualization of the God-world relationship, one needs to find a good explanation, at least from a pastoral perspective, on how to pray to God the Father, according to Our Lord’s prayer, rather than to the divine energies understood as impersonal or an-hypostatic (even by Florovsky). Unless one conceives of the divine energies as hypostatic,143 (according to the view that Athanasius seems to hold in Florovsky’s interpretation, which could be conceived of as an indirect correction of himself), it is doubtful that one can preserve the Christian character of doing theology. Lossky represents a remarkable case in this respect as one who prioritizes the epistemological aspect (implied in his exaggeration of apophaticism) over the soteriological core of Christian faith, in contradistinction with the grammar of the realism of Revelation.

CONCLUSION On the fortieth anniversary of his death, Florovsky’s “neopatristic synthesis” remains a valuable point of reference in much of contemporary Orthodox theology. Despite certain shortcomings, his seminal work on creation theology still provides important elements for the discussion on the Godworld relationship. A critical survey of his exchange with the contemporary interlocutors or his influence on certain pupils not only offers a comprehensive history of twentieth-century Orthodox theology but also highlights the latent relevance of the topic for theological methodology. In this way, Florovsky widely opens the necessary discussion about the nature, parameters, and scope of doing theology in a particularly Orthodox manner.

Dorothea Wendebourg, “From the Cappadocian Fathers to Gregory Palamas. The Defeat of Trinitarian Theology,” in Studia Patristica XVIII (Akten des XVIII. Internationalen Kongresses für Patristik, Oxford 1979) (New York, 1982), 194–8. 142 Sergei Horuzhy, “Neo-patristic Synthesis and Russian Philosophy,” SVTQ 3–4 (2000), 319, 326. 143 By saying this, one by no means negates the divine essence as the source of the energies. On the contrary, one merely highlights the person as the sole agent of the energy. 141

Chapter 19

Ecclesiology in Relation to History Church and World in the Christian Vision of Fr. Georges Florovsky WILL COHEN

INTRODUCTION When we think of the question of the identity or distinction between the church and what is “outside” the church in the thought of Fr. Georges Florovsky, we tend to think first of Fr. Florovsky’s ecumenical theology. Two whole volumes of his collected works are devoted to the question of the church and the churches—the Orthodox Church, for him the one true church, and the other Christian Churches or communities separated from her. We think less often of his treatment of the church-world relationship, especially if the interest, as it will be in my chapter, is to consider the mode of God’s presence and grace in the world outside the church. It was his older contemporary Sergius Bulgakov, after all, whose Sophiology appeared to lend itself much more to an already graced view of nature—Bulgakov who indeed referred to the moment of creation as “the first Pentecost,”1 and whose pneumatological emphasis is sometimes considered to stand in contrast to Florovsky’s highly Christological

1

Sergius Bulgakov, The Comforter, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 157.

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focus, the former supporting a more open ecclesiology and the latter a more closed. Yet in a number of passages in Florovsky’s work, the question of the activity of God’s Spirit outside the church arises, if more often indirectly than directly, and is treated with a complexity that warrants close attention. In this chapter I would like to bring several such passages and their implications into focus. Two quite different, though ultimately related, lines of thought in his writing have significant relevance to his understanding of the church-world relationship and in particular to the idea that what is outside the church is itself a realm of grace to which human beings are always variously responding positively or negatively. One such line of thought concerns Florovsky’s view of the world as already more than itself in consequence of the incarnation. The other has to do with Florovsky’s reflections on the necessity of the historian to exercise judgment. Although Florovsky’s insights on ecumenism are not this chapter’s focus, in a limited way they, too, will be considered insofar as on the basis of their logic we may draw certain inferences relevant to the broader church-world question. In laying out key elements of Florovsky’s thinking more or less on its own terms, I will also seek to compare it with insights and approaches of a trio of authors from what may seem a very distant theological galaxy (if not, indeed, an altogether different universe), namely, that of Latin American and North American liberation theology. In this school of theology the churchworld dynamic has been probed more vigorously than elsewhere, and just how Florovsky’s approach differs from and, in perhaps surprising ways, accords with the respective approaches of these authors—Ignacio Ellacuría, James Cone, and Jon Sobrino—will allow us to highlight certain dimensions of Florovsky’s thought not always emphasized. It will also allow us to ask questions of Florovsky he did not appear to ask himself and to consider what kinds of answers may be consistent with the Orthodox faith he espoused.

THE RELATION OF CHURCH TO WORLD, SALVATION HISTORY TO GENERAL HISTORY Florovsky spoke of the “double condition” of the church, the paradox of her having a “dual life, or rather ‘two lives’ at once”: on the one hand, she is “a visible historic community or institution,” and on the other hand, “the body of Christ.”2 Florovsky derived from this “double condition” the following insight pertinent to our topic. “The human condition is not abrogated by the divine grace but only redeemed and transfigured. And the presence of the divine is real

2

Georges Florovsky, “The Historical Problem of a Definition of the Church” (1963), CW, XIV, 31.

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and genuine. That which ‘is not of this world’ is already here ‘in this world’. And this presence gives new significance and meaning to ‘this world’ itself.” One may take Florovsky’s concluding comment in two distinct interpretive directions. A first possibility is that when he speaks of “this world itself ” having new significance and meaning, Florovsky is speaking strictly of the church. In this reading, this world otherwise remains just this world, unchanged and unresponsive to the divine presence. The church would then stand in stark contrast, even in opposition, to what is outside the church. According to a second interpretation, however, what Florovsky means by “this world” when he says that the divine presence gives it new significance and meaning is not just the portion of this world that is the church, but also what is outside the church. The question arises at once: In that case, gives it new significance and meaning to whom? And the answer is that it is clearly to those within the church that the world’s new significance and meaning—the world’s being “more than itself,” the world’s transparency to the divine reality which infuses it—is fully perceived and understood. This different line of interpretation nevertheless makes a critical difference. For in this case the world’s new significance and meaning is predicated of what is outside the church no less than of what is within, even if the perspective in which all is so seen remains from within, looking out. In the first interpretation, in which only the church bears the ultimate significance conferred by the presence of the divine on earth, it may be said that the church is then the sacrament of what the world is not. But in the second interpretation, in which there is no portion of the world at all that is strictly and only “the world,” it would be more true to say that the church is the sacrament of what the world is. The church then has the vocation of unveiling the world to itself. In this latter perspective, the church looking upon the world sees in it what the world does not see or know about itself. And this is so not only in terms of the world’s potential to be more than it yet is (a matter still of what the world lacks and must do to change) but also in terms of what the world actually is, positively speaking. When Jesus encountered human beings, it was not all or only darkness that his presence revealed. His human encounters also revealed instances of faith, humility, integrity, sincere desire for God. “These qualities—the true, the just, the pure, the lovable—are not qualities which have been revolutionized by the new creation wrought by the Incarnation of the God-man,” Florovsky wrote in an essay critically responding to Reformation theology; “they have not come into existence nor been revolutionized by Christian thought. Rather, they are within the very texture of human nature and existence, things that every conscience knows spontaneously.”3 Florovsky

Georges Florovsky, “Reformation Theology and the New Testament,” CW, XIII, 126. This essay also appears under the title “The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament: Reflections on the Critique of the Theology of the Reformation,” CW, X, 17–59. 3

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does go on at once to pinpoint what he understands to be the Christian difference: “What Christianity has done, however, is to break forth a new path for mankind to participate in the true, the just, the pure in a new way and with a new power through Christ. They now no longer exist as ideals, as the absolute, but are existentially and ontologically accessible to human nature through redemption.” Through baptism in Christ we are incorporated into the life of God. But does this mean it can be said that outside the church participation in God’s life is not possible, whether because divine grace is not given to those outside or is always only rejected by them? In his essay “Faith and Culture,” Florovsky strongly disapproves of such a “radical opposition between Christianity and Culture, as it is presented by certain Christian thinkers,” and attributes this to “an increasing devaluation of man.”4 His negative portrait of this pessimistic Christian outlook continues: “The world seems to be inimical and empty, and man feels himself lost in the flux of accidents and failures. If there is still any hope of ‘salvation,’ it is constructed rather in the terms of ‘escape’ and ‘endurance’ than in those of ‘recovery’ or ‘reparation.’ What can one hope for in history?”5 In another passage, Florovsky’s perspective is given further elaboration where he is critical of Anders Nygren’s account of the distinctiveness of Christian love. The command to love one’s enemies is rooted, according to Nygren, “in the concrete, positive fact of God’s own love for evil men.”6 While not disputing the importance of this aspect of what grounds God’s love for human beings, Florovsky argues that it is insufficient. Enemies are owed our love, Florovsky says, not just in imitation of God irrespective of anything of intrinsic value in our enemies but “because there is a spiritual value in the very fabric of human nature created by God, even fallen nature, and that value is to be found in each and every man, however dimly we may perceive it.”7 For Florovsky this is “the important aspect of human ontology,” which he says Nygren neglects. “We are commanded to love our enemy not only because God loves mankind, not only because ‘God maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good’ but God loves mankind because there is a value in mankind.” Florovsky’s notion of human ontology, of a “spiritual value in the very fabric of human nature created by God,” gives us further reason to think that the new significance and meaning he attributed to this world as a consequence of the

Georges Florovsky, “Faith and Culture” (1955), CW, II, 16. Ibid. 6 Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, trans. Philip Watson (London: SPCK, 1955), 66; quoted by Florovsky in “Reformation Theology and the New Testament,” 107. 7 Florovsky, “Reformation Theology and the New Testament,” 107. 4 5

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incarnation pertains to the world as a whole, in every corner of history and culture. Ignacio Ellacuría, the twentieth-century Jesuit who was rector of the Central American University (UCA) before his murder during the Salvadoran civil war,8 made reference along these lines to the “the real density of history” and the “metaphysical order of historical reality.”9 Implied in these phrases, in which the influence of the transcendentalism of Ellacuría’s teacher Karl Rahner may be seen, is a notion that everything everywhere bears ultimate significance, that nothing is outside the concern and purview of the one whom liberation theologians often refer to as the one Lord of history.10 Florovsky’s insights about the necessary non-neutrality of the historian offer a second line of his thought in which it is possible to see that for him, as for Ellacuría, the metaphysical stakes are high not only in the clash between church and world (where the line of demarcation seems most clear) but in every standoff between right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood anywhere such a conflict has played out on the stage of history: In any case, historical interpretation involves judgment. The narrative itself will be twisted and distorted if the historian persists in evading judgment. There is little difference, in this case, between discussing the Greco-Persian war and the Second World War. No true historian would escape taking sides: for “freedom” or against it. And his judgment will tell in his narrative. No historian can be indifferent to the cleavage between “Good” and “Evil,” much as the tension between them may be obscured by various speculative sophistications. No historian can be indifferent, or neutral, to the challenge and claim of Truth. These tensions are, in any case, historical facts and existential situations. Moral indifference can but distort our understanding of human actions, which are always controlled by certain ethical options. An intellectual indifferentism would have the same effect. Precisely because human actions are existential decisions, their historical interpretation cannot avoid decisions.11 Implied in these comments is that the decisions to be made in the face of history, whether existentially on the part of the one living it, or hermeneutically on the part of the one interpreting it, are of a necessarily metaphysical order,

Ellacuría was one of six Jesuits assassinated at the UCA on November 16, 1989, together with their housekeeper and her daughter. 9 Ignacio Ellacuría, “Salvation History” (1987), in Michael E. Lee (ed.), Ignacio Ellacuría: Essays on History, Liberation and Salvation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2013), 171. 10 Ellacuría is careful not to identify history with the divine. “In the interpretive context of the plurality and diversity of human histories . . . it is an exceedingly complex task to discern what things announce and facilitate the coming of God and what things conceal and obstruct it. History is old; many of its years can be, and are in fact, more propitious than others as a way to encounter God. . . . The universal, salvific will of God is not manifested or made present in the same way at different moments of history or in different peoples” (Ellacuría, “Salvation History,” 178). 11 Georges Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian” (1959), PWGF, 210–11. 8

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whether or not one understands them to be so. With further specificity, Florovsky makes the claim that history lived and interpreted is always in response to God’s self-revelation, the very concrete fact of Christ’s having entered into history. An attempt to write history, evading the challenge of Christ, is in no sense a “neutral” endeavor. Not only in writing a “Universal History” (die Weltgeschichte), that is, in interpreting the total destiny of mankind, but also in interpreting any particular sections or “slices” of this history, is the historian confronted with this ultimate challenge—because the whole of human existence is confronted with this challenge and claim.12 The belief that no section or “slice” of history is unrelated or unrelatable to salvation history, and that it is “the whole of human existence” past, present and future that is to be made sense of in terms of the challenge and claim of Christ, finds an echo in various remarks of Ellacuría, in spite of significant differences in approach. [I]t is history itself, and not only the individuals within it, that is called to be salvation history. The subject of this history is all humanity, the human species understood in all its breadth, complexity, and unity; this historical subject, not only collective but unitary, is the bearer of transcendentally open historicity—but not apart from historical works because these will be the objectification of either a “yes” or a “no” to God’s communication. All historical works, to different degrees, are either the objectification of grace (the working together of the divine gift and human action), or the objectification of sin (where human action is dominated by evil and objectifies it, while rejecting the offer of grace).13 Ellacuría puts this also in terms of an “option” with which every human being in every historical situation is faced, a concept he draws from the Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri. “The fundamental condition of revelation as such and of the faith that responds to it is the existence of an intelligence and a will, of an apprehension of reality and an ensuing option,” writes Ellacuría.14 For Florovsky as we have seen, the existential idea of the option is conceived as an option for or against freedom. Whether more can be made of the resonance between the two thinkers given Florovsky’s much more concretely Christocentric philosophy of history than Ellacuría’s, the latter with its

Ibid., 211. Ellacuría, “Salvation History,” 175–6. 14 Ibid., 174. 12 13

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Rahnerian transcendental tendency, is an obviously significant question. But the notions of the density of history and of the ever-arising option for or against grace within it appear to have an important place in how both thinkers relate ecclesiology to history, even if understood in distinct ways. James Cone, in his 1975 book God of the Oppressed, is as far from a philosophizing or spiritualizing of the concrete historical fact of Christ’s presence in history as Florovsky is. Between the two there is as well the shared notion of the need to take sides in light of the truth of Christ. But one could not find two more different thinkers otherwise about ecclesiology’s relation to history. Most radically different is that for Cone, the very community comprising the church as a subject comes to be recognized or located not by continuity and consistency with apostolic Christianity in its sacramental life and dogmatic teachings (though he does not dismiss these) but by a sociopolitical determination. What qualifies God’s people as God’s people is almost strictly a function of what is going on in the world of money, political power, class, and racial and other forms of social discrimination, for “God came, and continues to come, to those who are poor and helpless, for the purpose of setting them free.”15 In a significant further step, Cone writes: “And since the people of color are his [God’s] elected poor in America, any interpretation of God that ignores black oppression cannot be Christian theology.”16 The title of a book by Jon Sobrino, to whose perspective we will turn subsequently, epitomizes the same basic principle, though without specific reference to race: “No Salvation Outside the Poor.”17 Cone, for his part, insists that in the North American context, oppression of Blacks by whites is such an inescapable fact of history that its implications—in drawing God down into this history—are metaphysical and eschatological, in accord with Matthew 25’s identification of Jesus with “the least of these” who are hungry, naked, strangers, and so on. The least in America are literally and symbolically present in Black people. To say that Christ is Black means that Black people are God’s poor people whom Christ has come to liberate. And thus no gospel of Jesus Christ is possible in America without coming to terms with the history and culture of that people who struggled to bear witness to his name in extreme circumstances. To say that Christ is Black means that God, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, not only takes color seriously, he also takes it upon himself and discloses his will

James Cone, God of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 126. Ibid., 126. 17 Jon Sobrino, No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008). 15 16

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to make us whole—new creatures born in the spirit of divine blackness and redeemed through the blood of the Black Christ.18 Within the Orthodox tradition, no notion of race as a meaningful category of ecclesiology is apt to appear initially as anything but a slide into ethnophyletism, ruled heretical by an Orthodox council of 1872.19 Yet in light of Florovsky’s insistence on the need for the constant exercise of judgment on the part of the historian, it may be asked whether, where there has been a real and persistent collective “option” for racism as occurred in the history of the United States and where this option continues to be felt as a structural feature of the nation’s sociopolitical life, the question is not after all more complicated. Ecclesiology cannot define itself altogether apart from race in places whose history is marked by a particular form of racial oppression. In the book of Exodus, where the angel of death made a collective differentiation between Egyptians and Israelites, the reason God took sides for one whole ethnic group against another was because of the structure of their ethnic relations, those relations having taken the form of oppressors and oppressed. It is true that Israel’s election preceded her oppression; but when the author of the Letter to the Hebrews interpreting these events from Exodus writes, “[b]y faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share illtreatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Heb. 11:24-25), the ill-treatment is what is paramount. It is unthinkable that God could have been God to his people in anything like the manner he was in Exodus were they not ill-treated. Their being ill-treated and their being the people of God are inseparable.20 This point is driven home in the next verse of Hebrews in which the suffering of oppression is revealed as in fact Christological at its core: “He considered abuse suffered for the Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt” (Heb. 11:26). Cone’s own view that Christ truly joins himself to the oppressed in history suggests that whenever a human being in history chooses the option to suffer with those oppressed over

Cone, God of the Oppressed, 125. The passage continues, “Christ is black, therefore, not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor, the despised, and the black are, disclosing that he is with them, enduring their humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberated servants” (125–6). 19 For a concise presentation of the context of the 1872 ruling on phyletism, which is not identical to racism in the sense commonly understood but closely related to it, see John Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church (SVS Press, 1996), 153. 20 Although their election is irrevocable, once they are no longer the victims of ill-treatment but perpetrators of it God must find ways for them to suffer—God indeed plagues them as he did the Egyptians (cf. Amos 4:6-11)—in order for them to remain his people, a designation he indeed removes from them at least rhetorically and pedagogically (“For you are not my people, and I am not your God” [Hos. 1:9]) until they have returned to him. 18

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the option of complicity in acts or structures of oppression, he or she unites himself or herself with the activity of Christ in that moment. Although there can be no claim that from an Orthodox or a Catholic point of view this kind of uniting of oneself with Christ in a given moment can be rendered as a complete ecclesiology, Cone’s thesis nevertheless raises the foundational question of the nature or mode of the presence of God in history and the role of the canonical and apostolic church, as Florovsky understood it, in discerning this divine presence in the world. Here it may be helpful to draw on some of what Florovsky had to say about the Orthodox Church in relation to other Christian Churches or communities. Although for Florovsky no church separated from Orthodoxy was the one true Church as he believed only the Orthodox Church was, he did believe that “the Church continues to work in the schisms,”21 that “the Spirit of God breathes in Roman Catholicism,”22 and that “the most rigid ‘catholic’23 will regard all faithful Christians as related in a way which remains to be defined, or even as belonging to the Church of Christ.”24 In this regard Florovsky insisted more than once in his exchanges of views with Protestants that “in no way am I going to ‘un-church anybody.”25 Florovsky appeared to have been unwilling to say that in the life of a given non-Orthodox person or ecclesial community, God was inactive or somehow simply being rejected. We might therefore leave open the possibility that Florovsky would have been willing to give serious consideration to Cone’s claim that within the Black church in North America the crucified and risen Lord historically united himself with the tangible suffering of this oppressed people in a decisive and deifying way. This would then mean that an Orthodox ecclesiology inattentive or blind to the activity of such divine-human communion in its historical midst would be incomplete.

THE NEED FOR UNITY IN THE CHURCH If the church is to be open and responsive to the activity of God outside the church there must be an operative unity of the church. Such unity requires boundaries and effective conciliar structures.

Georges Florovsky, “The Limits of the Church” (1933), PWGF, 255. Georges Florovsky, “Rome, the Reformation, and Orthodoxy” (1933), CW, XIV, 57. This text and “The Problematic of Christian Reunion,” CW, XIII, 14–18, were originally combined under the latter’s title and are separated into two only by the editor of Florovsky’s collected works, Richard Haugh. 23 Florovsky was referring to himself here in the sense that Orthodoxy applies the term “Catholic” to its own communion. 24 Georges Florovsky, “Ecumenism and the Reformation” (1950), CW, XIV, 38. 25 Georges Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement,” PWGF, 279-288, at 285-286 (“The True Church” (1950), CW, XIII, 134). 21 22

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Florovsky had a very strong sense of the unity of the Orthodox faith. Indeed for his frequent reference to “the mind of the Fathers” he has been often criticized, as though he were eliding all the discrepancies and tensions of patristic thought, but his speaking this way reflected his belief that the faith really and finally is one, and can be accessed as one and the same reality across time. This unity of faith—apostolic and patristic, because constant from one age to the next—provided for him a measure of all things. “The ever-shifting present can be assessed in the Christian manner”26, he wrote in a sentence which continues, “ . . . only in relation and reference to the unique Past,” by which he means the incarnation, cross and resurrection and the tradition of Christian testimony thereto. What the first part of the sentence expresses in succinct form is Florovsky’s basic belief that evaluation of history is possible for Christians: “the ever-shifting present can be assessed in the Christian manner” is possible because, and only because, the faith given once and for all by the apostles is one and because we can know it from within the ongoing life of the apostolic church. Florovsky’s sense of the unity of the church, however, was actually not as well developed as his sense of the unity of the faith. It was I think for this reason that he was not always consistent with his own conviction, not always confident about how well in fact the “ever-shifting present” reality “can be assessed” in a Christian manner, even though as we have just seen he stated this as almost an axiom. I have in mind his hesitancy to say too much either way about the flux of the vestigia ecclesia, the Church working in the schisms. He offered as the justification of his hesitancy to pronounce too much either way about non-Orthodox ecclesial life a certain eschatological reserve. “The judgment,” he writes about the question of who ultimately belongs to the Church, “has been given to the Son. No one is entitled to anticipate his judgment. Yet the Church has her own authority in history. It is first the authority to teach and to faithfully keep the word of truth.”27 It is reasonable to wonder whether too sharp a wedge is driven here between history and eschatology. One must certainly concur with Florovsky’s insistence here and elsewhere on the difficulty of making a Christian assessment of what unfolds in the flux of history, whether in the life of other churches, or, for that matter, in spheres of human endeavor beyond the churches and not explicitly

Georges Florovsky, “Worship and Every-Day Life: An Eastern Orthodox View” (1963), CW, XIII, 97. 27 Florovsky, “The True Church,” 134. He makes the same point in very similar terms in “Ecumenism and the Reformation,” 38: “No anticipation of the ultimate eschatological judgment is implied in the ‘catholic’ claim. The claim is laid down on the level of history, i.e. on the level of Christian practice and action. The true composition of the Church is known to the Lord of the Church only— no ‘catholic’ has ever doubted that, and St. Augustine has stated it most frankly and emphatically.” 26

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Christian at all. It is also undoubtedly true that there is no place for Christians or the church in this world to make definitive pronouncements about the ultimate destinies of particular human beings (although the anathemas of some of the ancient councils appeared to come close to doing this). But beyond these concerns it seems to me that Orthodox ecclesiology’s perennial agnosticism about nonOrthodox church reality—an agnosticism Florovsky was expressing as his own— may be a function of something structural in Orthodoxy: that its lack of ecclesial nerve in rendering, for example, a formal, positive judgment about any particular instance of non-Orthodox Christianity (as, for example, the Roman Catholic Church has rendered formal, positive judgment about the Orthodox Church at Vatican II) has as its chief underlying factor a lack of functional and visible unity of the Orthodox Church in history. We need hardly be reminded that we saw this lack of unity at Crete. The Orthodox at Crete were unable to agree on what could be said or could not be said about what there is of church outside the Orthodox Church.28 If, as Florovsky said, “the ever-shifting present can be assessed in the Christian manner,” it should be possible for an assessment of particular nonOrthodox churches to be made by the Orthodox bishops gathered in council, especially since the ecumenical question is not a new one with which they have only begun to wrestle, but a long-standing issue into which Orthodoxy has been able to gain much insight over decades of ecumenical encounters, scholarly fora and writings, and internal Orthodox debate. Like the Christian historian who must make interpretive judgments, the church herself must judge unfolding history by entering as fully as possible into it and seeing how everything within it relates to her understanding of Christ. When Florovsky says in what was quoted earlier that “the Church has her own authority in history” and mentions specifically the authority to teach and the authority to keep the word of truth faithfully, can it not be added that the church has also the authority to make certain kinds of historical judgments about the activity of God’s Spirit in history—even if this takes time—and thereby, in a profound sense, to shed Christian light on all history, distinguishing Christian “options” wherever they have been made and in whatever concentration, even where they have not gone by that name?

THE PEOPLE AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD The unity of the church—a unity that is visible, structural, indeed canonical—is the sine qua non for the recognition of the Spirit’s activity beyond the unity of

For a treatment of the Council of Crete’s handling of the question of Orthodox ecumenism from various angles, see my presentation, “Does the Long-Contested Question of Orthodox Ecumenism Remain Open after Crete?,” International Journal of Systematic Theology, Volume 23, Number 1 (Jan. 2021): 11–24. 28

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the church. A certain closure or boundedness of the church is the prerequisite for the kind of openness to the world to which the church is called. Sobrino, in his book with the abovementioned title No Salvation Outside the Poor, seeks to hold the elements of ecclesiology and history, church and world, together in an important way. He insists on the essential interconnection between (1) the church in her canonical unity; and (2) the world—for him not knowable in its true condition apart from the world of the poor—in its metaphysical density.29 He does this by saying there must be in any complete ecclesiology both “the people of God” (a canonical subject) and “the people” (a more broadly historical subject). He connects the term or category “the people” to the social world Jesus entered into wherever the Gospels speak of his being among the “multitudes.” The term or category of “the people of God” is obviously the more specifically ecclesial designation, but the point is that the relatedness of neither of the two to Christ can be overlooked. We must “not back off on either side,” writes Sobrino, since “there is no people of God without ‘the people,’ nor is there a people that cannot be people ‘of God.’”30 Liberation theology at times too readily has identified “the people,” any people, insofar as they endure suffering and injustice, as “the people of God,” in effect collapsing ecclesiology into history. But a too common reaction has been to identify broad social justice movements and political aspirations in history as being merely “of the world” in the negative sense, in effect separating history from ecclesiology. Insofar as Orthodoxy goes in this latter direction, it abandons the church’s calling to provide, once more in Sobrino’s words, “Christian leaven to those historical struggles for justice and liberation.”31 Among many Orthodox, there has been frustration with the increasing preoccupation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) since the 1960s and 1970s with Life and Work kinds of issues of post-colonialism and the plight of Third World populations, and it is certainly true that in the WCC these matters of “practical ecumenism” have been too often left to those for whom theology is at best secondary. Properly understood, however, these are very much theological questions themselves rather than any drift into something

This does not exclude the world of the rich, yet for Sobrino, it has to do with our being unable to know reality, what is actually going on in history, unless we see that history “from below.” One may relate this to ontology in the sense that access to the one who is, the hō ōn, in history, and therefore access to the reality of history, is available through the perspective and experience of those who suffer the worst of a given society’s injustices; we otherwise do not know what is really going on in that society. We can lack the experience of the wealthy or the secure and still know what is, He Who is, in history, but we cannot lack the experience of and identification with those who are below. Herein lies the ontological basis of the Christian “preferential option for the poor.” 30 Jon Sobrino, “Helping Jesus’ Legacy to Bear Fruit in the Churches: Ellacuría on Archbishop Romero,” in No Salvation Outside the Poor, 113. 31 Ibid. 29

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else. At least, they entail “options” within history that cannot be located outside the purview of Christian judgment, which must regard all human interactions as having “metaphysical density” to be related to the person of Christ. Without a St. Herman of Alaska, or a St. Bartolomé de las Casas with whom St. Herman has been aptly compared, in their profound Christological identification in both word and deed with the unjustly treated Amerindians and Aleutians abused by their avowedly Christian colonizers, the theology and mission of the church coming to us from these slices of history would be incomplete: it would be ecclesiology without history, ecclesiology largely asleep to history in its metaphysical density. Thanks to the witness of a St. Herman, we can see that whatever the human failings of the church have been, in the authentic fullness of her calling the church is, as Sobrino puts it, “a ‘people of God’ intrinsically related to ‘the people,’” or in the terminology of the gospels, to the “multitudes” (or as the prophets say, the “poor”). The people of God are called to enter into this world of the multitudes and to perceive Christologically the nature of the options to be made in the face of the unending contest of good and evil, for freedom or against freedom, that runs everywhere through it. Florovsky’s ontology of the human person, and his philosophy of history according to which every “slice” of history bears significance to be interpreted and judged by the Christian historian, offer possibly fruitful elements for grounding an ecclesiological orientation toward the world that is at once open and critically Christological. “[I]t is not easy,” Sobrino writes in a deceptively simple statement, “to bring an historical struggle together with Christianity.”32 He calls it a miracle when it happens. Perhaps that is why it so often seems to the church of our time that history is best left to itself, to run its own course as though Christians can do the most for it by retreating far enough from its flux and flow to be able to commune with God in some semblance of peace, with the goal of drawing the unenlightened world in. If I have understood correctly Fr. Florovsky’s account of the relation of ecclesiology to history, his legacy can help us see that to “judge the ever-shifting present in a Christian manner” is a rather taller task than we have necessarily been ready to give ourselves to. It is a task of the church ad extra that, at one level, inevitably realizes the church’s unity anew, yet at another, cannot be effectively undertaken if the church’s unity ad intra is a contested matter already so demanding of our attention as to exhaust our energies.

32

Ibid.

Chapter 20

Overcoming Florovsky’s Opposition of the Charismatic to the Canonical in “On the Limits of the Church”1 ALEXANDER RENTEL

When sorting through the numerous texts on ecclesiology from the twentieth century, one regularly encounters an explanation as to why no great patristic texts on ecclesiology exist. The explanation often put forward is that the ancient

The author has used the translations of the sacred canons from the following editions: For the Seven Ecumenical Councils: N. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Vol. 1: Nicea I to Lateran V (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990); for the Council in Trullo: G. Nedungatt and M. Featherstone, eds., The Council in Trullo Revisited (Kanonika 6) (Rome: Pontificio Istituto orientale, 1995); for the Local Councils: P. Schaff and H. Wace, A Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Vol. XIV: The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church. Their Canons and Dogmatic Decrees, together with the Canons of all the Local Synods which have Received Ecumenical Acceptance, ed. H. Percival (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988); and for Basil’s Canons: Basil the Great, The Letters, trans. R. Deferrari, III (Loeb Classical Library 243) (London: William Heinemann, 1930). 1

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Church had no need to define what was “self-evident.”2 A seemingly logical corollary to this explanation is that the Church needs to do so now in this present age. Hence the development of the modern works on the Church mentioned at the outset. Notably the most significant works on ecclesiology, those that have endured and continue to find resonance with Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike, nearly all had authors wrestling with this very subject in the West or the so-called diaspora. As such, another logical inference would seem to be that the motivation for writing these works now, which were primarily articles, but also a few books, has been making sense, or coming to an understanding of the place of the Orthodox Church in the West. All of sudden the Church and theologians found themselves in a non-imperial, non-homogenous society where it and they were a minority, exotic, and in danger of losing cohesion and identity. And so, even further, and even more specifically, I suspect that these works emerged out of a desire on the part of the theologian to understand his place, his identity in this new situation that he found himself in. Thomas Hopko accurately described this motivation, arguing that it emerged from both the “encounter of Orthodoxy with the West” and also “the urgent need to find ways of ecclesiastical self-understanding and structural organization with the radically changing historical and political conditions in which the Orthodox have found themselves in recent centuries.”3 As such, these ecclesiological works set about defining the Orthodox Church (and Orthodox theologian) in relation to, often polemically so, Roman Catholics or Protestants. With only a few exceptions, this reflection generally remained an internal gaze. That is to say, Orthodox theologians have looked at the Orthodox Church and tried to discern her shape, scope, nuance, and color—what it means to be Church— in comparison with other Christian groups. The subject of our present study was a notable exception to this tendency. Georges Florovsky went further and considered the other, not only for what Roman Catholic or Protestants could tell us about being Church, although inferences surely emerge, but what or how the Church defined them. Of course, the work that I am referring specifically to is Georges Florovsky’s article from 1933, “On the Limits of the Church.” In it, he explored the ancient Cyprianic position regarding those outside the Church, schismatics, sectarians, or full-on heretics. He considers, in this article, that those in the Church are “bound to remember” this position of Cyprian of Carthage—extra

Among other places, see Georges Florovsky, “The Church: Her Nature and Task,” CW, I, 57. This is a claim Florovsky repeats in “On the History of Ecclesiology,” and more fully in “The Historical Problem of a Definition of the Church,” CW, XIV, 9, 29. Alexander Schmemann says something similar in his only article dedicated to ecclesiology, “Ecclesiological Notes,” SVTQ 11:1 (1967), 35. 3 Thomas Hopko, “On Ecclesial Conciliarity,” The Legacy of St. Vladimir, ed. J. Breck, J. Meyendorff and E. Silk (SVS Press, 1990), 210. 2

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ecclesiam nulla salus, and the complementary quia una est aqua in ecclesia sancta. Florovsky asserts that in fact the “theological premises” of this position have never been disproved.4 Florovsky’s concern in his article, of course, does not remain with further advocacy of a Cyprianic ecclesiology that sees the boundaries, the limits of the Church clearly fixed and delineated. Rather he is interested in exploring the implications of the receptions of converts into the Church not by baptism, but by chrismation or simply by confession of faith. Holding together the undisputed Cyprianic position with the praxis of the Church as found in the canonical tradition of the Church poses the key problem, a “certain mystical paradox” for Florovsky.5 In this article he focuses exactly on this point, because, as he points out, if the Church receives converts through anointing or confession of faith, while holding to the canon that everyone entering the Church must be baptized, then the Church accepts the authenticity or “reality of the corresponding rites performed over them outside the Church.” By way of explanation, Florovsky first agrees with Cyprian, only in the Church are the rites celebrated and performed efficaciously, but then differs with him by saying, “where the sacraments are accomplished, there is the Church,” even if these rites are celebrated outside the strict canonical limits of the Church.6 Up to this point, Florovsky hews closely to the canonical tradition of the Church: baptism is the only entrance into the Church, and, according to the same canonical tradition, the Church receives converts into it not through baptism, but anointing or confession of faith. This is, as I say and will demonstrate, the canonical tradition of the Church. Florovsky attempts in this article to explain or comment on the meaning of this tradition, a task that other commentators have likewise attempted, often in very different ways. In what follows in my study, I take exception neither to what he explains nor to his commentary, but the false dichotomy, I believe, he sets up in his work. That is to say, in his explanation, Florovsky asserts, “as a mystical organism, as the sacramental Body of Christ, the Church cannot be adequately described in canonical terms or categories alone. It is impossible to state or discern the true limits of the Church simply by canonical signs or marks.”7 He then goes on to distinguish between the canonical and the charismatic boundaries of the Church, and says, “In her sacramental, mysterious being the Church surpasses

Florovsky, “The Limits of the Church,” PWGF, 247–56, at 248 (Florovsky’s article has been published and republished, “The Limits of the Church,” Church Quarterly Review (1933), 117–31; reprinted in Sourozh 22 (1986), 13–23). 5 Florovsky, “Limits,” 248. 6 Ibid., 248–9. 7 Ibid., 248. 4

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all canonical norms.”8 Here, with all humility and respect, I have to disagree with Florovsky and assert that for the canonical tradition to be of service to the Church, it must be of the Church. Further, if it is of the Church—and here I draw on everything that Florovsky taught elsewhere—the canonical tradition must be of Christ, because he is all the Church knows.9 There can be no dichotomy between canon and charismatic in this vision of the canonical tradition, a vision that sees the texts of this tradition, the canons, as theological texts, and their applications as part of the divine dispensation applied philanthropically, because the canonical tradition like everything else in the Church has both its origin and goal in Christ. My argument, my point of departure with Florovsky, in other words, is that the canonical tradition and texts belong to the Church. As such, if they are to uncover and lead to participation in the mystery of Christ, then the canons must have the same origin and goal, and must be consistent with all aspects of the Church itself. This premise, I put forward, forms the interpretive key for the canons. Needless to say, there cannot be one Christ of the Gospels, liturgy, or spirituality and the patristic tradition, but then another for the canonical tradition. “Jesus Christ is the same” (Heb. 13:8) in the canonical tradition, as well as anywhere and in anything else within the life of the Church. It cannot be otherwise if the canons are to serve any purpose within the Church. My premise, then, that canons are theological texts that speak about Christ, his body, the Church, requires an additional step of reflection and consideration, really exegesis, to authentically apply the canons. The canons themselves serve as markers to what the Church considers the norm, and a guide to remedy problems that might arise in the Church. At each stage of their use, canons require interpretation. I say this even about those canons considered most fundamental to the Church. In the most obvious of examples, without empire or emperor, given the difference in the geographical delimitation of the Church from late Antiquity to the modern world, all of which were basic presuppositions about the canons when they were written, a simple, basic application of the canons must be preceded by interpretation. And so, when confronted with a particular issue, bishops, synods, and primates of Churches study, consider, reflect on the canonical, or normative tradition in order to best apply an appropriate solution to a canonical issue. The canons form the canonical corpus of texts, the corpus canonum, and the bishops

Ibid., 249. For example, “Christ Himself belongs to this community, as its Head, not only as its Lord or Master. Christ is not above or outside of the Church. The Church is in him. The Church is not merely a community of those who believe in Christ and walk in His steps or in His commandments. She is a community of those who abide and dwell in Him, and in whom He Himself is abiding and swelling by the Spirit” (Florovsky, “The Church: Her Nature and Task,” CW, I, 60). 8 9

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and those working with them contribute to the formation of the canonical tradition. Orthodox Christians are not subject to texts, but to the Church and the bishops who correctly interpret the canons and work within the framework the canons provide and the boundaries they establish. Christians of whatever rank do not serve texts, but their interpretation. The experience of the Church, its catholicity, the one and the many, the local and the universal, the Church throughout all the ages, the here and the now maintains and authenticates this interpretation through the hierarchy and those working with them and the activity of service and love. Bishops do this under “the inspection of God,” as the canonical tradition makes clear (Apostolic 38). The language of the canons is vivid on this point: bishops must take great care in applying the canons so as not to “grieve Christ” (Apostolic 52). The importance of application spoken of in this specific canon only underscores the importance of the proper interpretation of canons in general. The canons themselves speak in a way that is legal to be sure, but remain theological in origin and outlook. To confuse this point would be akin to focusing in on the importance of epistolatory prose, rather than theology in the letters of St. Paul. Requiring a method consistent with the love for mankind that Christ has shown, his φιλανθρωπία, the canons seek to guide the clergy (above all their intended audience) toward a proper exegesis of the divine plan of salvation, his οἰκονομία, in order to instruct the proper conduct of the Christian faithful, or to provide for the correct ordering of the Church.10 Canon 102 of the Council in Trullo explains this succinctly: For the entire concern of God and of the one entrusted with pastoral authority is to bring back the lost sheep and heal the serpent’s bite: neither pushing the sufferer to the precipice of despair, nor giving him rein to lead a dissolute or contemptuous life, but by one or another means, be it more severe and astringent medicines, or milder and more soothing ones, to stay the suffering and strive for the cicatrisation of the ulcer, examining the fruits of repentance and wisely guiding the man who is called to the splendour on high [τοὺς τῆς μετανοίας καρποὺς δοκιμάζοντι καὶ οἰκονομοῦντι σοφῶς τὸν πρὸς τὴν ἄνω λαμπροφορίαν καλούμενον ἄνθρωπον]. As the holy Basil teaches us: “We must, then, know both ways, that of strict observance and that of customary usage; and in the case of those who are not amenable to strictness [καὶ τὰ τῆς ἀκριβείας], we must follow the traditional model (καὶ τὰ τῆς συνηθείας].”

As Florovsky himself says, “‘[E]conomy’ is pastorship and pastorship is ‘economy’.” Florovsky, “Limits,” 249. 10

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This canon maintains a delicate balance between what is severe and what is mild, between despair and remaining in sin, strictness and what is according to the custom, taking care to establish parameters that allow for God in his love for mankind to work accordingly through those whom he has entrusted to do this work so that the suffering is stayed. As this canon says, as well as any number of other canons from the tradition, this process of reflection and examination (δοκιμάζοντι) and application (οἰκονομοῦντι) has as its goal the “splendor on high” and “the imperishable crown of glory” (II Nicea 4). This Trullan canon stands toward the far chronological end of the canonical corpus coming as it does at the end of the seventh century. At the other end, the Ancyra canons, which date to the fourth century, the same expectation for examination of the matter at hand with the careful application of mercy can be found. So, Ancyra 2, which deals with deacons who “have sacrificed and afterwards resumed the conflict,” can enjoy the “honor [τιμήν]” of the diaconate, but cannot offer the bread and the cup or make any proclamation (κηρύττειν). The last part of this canon mitigates the seeming strictness of the first part. In the last sentence, this canon leaves open the possibility of true repentance on the part of such a deacon. If a bishop notices one such deacon in “distress of mind and meek humiliation, it shall be lawful to the bishops to grant more indulgence, or to take away [what has been granted].” Even after the corpus of canons became more or less closed, the practice of applying the canons and the canonical tradition continued on with a consistent vision. Consider the famous statement of Nicholas I Mystikos, Patriarch of Constantinople (patriarch from 901 to 907, and then again from 912 to 925) in the midst of the so-called tetragamy affair in Constantinople. Arguing that oikonomia is not a seemingly capricious departure from the norm of the canonical tradition, he says that Economy does not happen to support sin, but for the freedom from sin and the salvation of the one sinning. Economy happens for the condemnation of error, for which those coming from sin are made worthy through the love for man of God [διὰ φιλανθρωπίαν]. Economy is common [κοινή τίς] and given to all those for whose benefit and salvation it is performed. It is not a personal favor restricted to the receivers.11 His sentiment that the application of the canonical tradition must have the same goal as anything else in the Church, “the freedom from sin and . . . salvation,”

Translation adapted from: “Tract on Tetragamy, XVI,” in Nicholas I Patriarch of Constantinople. Miscellaneous Writings, trans. L. G. Westernik (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae XX, Washington, DC, 1981), 45. 11

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underlines the basic theological vision found in both the text of the canons and the practice of canonists. Like many canons within the corpus, II Nicea 6 speaks to this theological orientation of the canons in the midst of discussing the normal work of synods: When such a synod [i.e., a biannual synod] is held to discuss canonical and evangelical matters, the gathered bishops should pay particular care and attention to the divine and life-giving laws of God: There is a great reward for their observance; for a law is a lamp, a regulation is a light, and reproof and discipline are the path of life indeed the law of the Lord gives light to the eyes. A synod meets biannually to consider a wide variety of topics with the goal of “setting any matters arising to rights” (Chalcedon 19). Of course, synods from throughout the history of the Church have faced a wide variety of issues, settling disputes, adjudicating disagreements. Such activity has much in common with typical legal proceedings by civil judges, lawyers, clerks, and so on. The canons in fact use language similar to language found in legal traditions, and, indeed, the canonical tradition witnesses to a long tradition that can be characterized as a legal one with bishops and ecclesiastical figures acting as judges, lawyers, clerks, and so on. But the scope of their activity and the goal of the application of the canons differ from any construction of civil law. Note that the aforementioned canon, II Nicea 6, speaks about synodal activity in a way that emphasizes the activity of the Church. The canon shows concern for both the canonical and the evangelical work of the Church, and for both a divine origin is provided. The laws, which I take here to be synonymous with the canons, the product of the deliberation of the bishops, are called “divine and life-giving,” a “lamp,” and a “light.” Their observance brings about a “great reward,” as they give “light to the eyes,” because the law is the “law of the Lord.” It is exactly this aspect, the ultimate goal of the application of the canons, that is fundamental. In order that there not be a dichotomy between the mystical and the canonical, the canonical texts should be placed in the larger context of Church life, and read and considered from within the Church and in light of other ecclesiastical texts, a methodology that Florovsky excels at in other contexts. Taking a cue from the canons themselves, these other texts primarily are biblical (see II Nicea 2) and liturgical (cf., Ephesus 8), although other texts from the life of the Church are also brought forward. Canons themselves are read crucially with other canons to draw out the dialogue they have with each other. Reading the canonical literature in this manner with these texts brings out their theological orientation more so than a historical, textual, or ecclesiastical legal study. By saying this, I do not mean to suggest in any way that such studies have no value; rather, they are not my focus. In fact, not only do these types of study have

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great value, but I should think that a historical study of the canons could easily bring out the same points. And indeed, the canonical tradition maintains many points of similarities to legal traditions. One of which is precedence and history of interpretation, which of course is indispensable in the practice of canon law. A comparative study of the canonical tradition and the different legal traditions could highlight any similarities between the two, but it would also point to what is unique about the canonical tradition. Canon law in this way is little different from the scientific study of other theological disciplines. For example, the various and diverse studies of the Old and New Testament—textual criticism, literary theory, comparative literary studies—have vastly increased our knowledge of the Bible. Within the Church, however, the point of scripture remains: “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (Jn 20:31). Just as this passage from the gospels, and just like any other ecclesiastical texts, canons can only be fully and authentically understood for the Church when the interpretive work is done from within the Church and in the light of Christ. It is to this question of interpretation that I turn. And so, to the exact problem that Florovsky addressed in his article, what can be said of the authenticity of the rites of groups outside the Church? Notably, to answer this question, Florovsky himself could have turned to canonical texts and relied above all on Basil the Great for his answer. In his first canon, Basil offers a definition of groups from outside the Church. He defines schismatics as “those at variance with one another for certain ecclesiastical reasons and questions that admit of a remedy.” In this same canon, Basil refers to another category, those who are members of illegal congregations or, parasynagoges. He defines these groups as “assemblies brought into being by insubordinate presbyters or bishops, and by uninstructed laymen.” Later in this text, he refers to heretics as those who disagree with the Church with regard to faith in God. Beyond Basil’s first canon, there are a number of other canons in the corpus that detail the process by which the Church receives non-Orthodox into communion. Two canons above all, I Constantinople 7 and Trullo 95, delineate the methods for receiving these groups into the Church when they seek entrance into it.12 These canons do not define the categories as Basil did, but some of the thinking about can be inferred. Trullo 95, which incorporates completely the text of I Constantinople 7, and some of Basil’s into its own, sets out a threefold division with a corresponding practice:

Good interdisciplinary works on this subject can be found in two recent works of liturgists: John Klentos, “Rebaptizing Converts in the Orthodox Church. Old Perspectives on a New Problem,” Studia Liturgica 29 (1999), 216–34; and S. Alexopoulos, “Accepting Adult Converts in the Orthodox Church: Theory and Practice,” in H.-J. Feulner (ed.), Liturgies in East and West: Ecumenical Relevance of Early Liturgical Development (Vienna: LIT-Verlag, 2013), 27–30. 12

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(1) Some need to be baptized, which suggests the faith and practice of these groups are so distinct from the Church that they can only enter the Church through the full rite of baptism.



(2) Some need to be received in through anointing and confession of faith without requiring the full rite of baptism, which suggests that the faith and practice of these groups are closer to the Church than those in group (1). A reasonable inference can also be made that the baptism of these groups has a connection to the Church’s salvific activity wrought through baptism.



(3) Some only “must present a document certifying that they hold their own heresy as anathema, as well as Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Severus, and the other leaders of these heresies and those who hold their doctrines, and also all the aforementioned heresies; and thus they partake of holy communion.” The inference here seems to be that these groups are so close in faith in practice to the Church since they simply need to renounce their previous group.

Holding the methods described in (2) and (3) together with the unwritten canon that says baptism is the only entrance into the Church, as Florovsky points out, an unspoken acknowledgment can be inferred that something of the Church exists in those groups that do not require baptism. Basil speaks about the baptism of schismatics and says that the “ancients” accepted the baptisms of schismatics because “they were still of the Church.” I note that Basil does not acknowledge that these groups are “churches.” As with the other two canons cited, he accepts the baptism of schismatics, admittedly “of the Church,” is accepted only when they return to the Church. A richer understanding of Basil’s first canon can be had when placed in its broader historical context. Among the many challenges the bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia faced was a schism in the Church of Antioch. Further examination of the known schismatics in Antioch and those who sided with them (Athanasius the Great, for example), and the actual text of Basil Canon 1, would prove fruitful to this point. Basil labored to heal this schism, and his efforts to reconcile the Church can be followed in his letters. In Letter XCII of the Deferrari edition, for example, he writes to the clergy of Italy and Gaul asking for help in the face of the ongoing schism. To the Westerners, he asks that they bring “a message of peace by bringing those of like convictions into unity. For this, clearly, is the most pitiful condition all—that even that group of us which is apparently sound has become divided against itself.”13

Basil the Great, The Letters, trans. R. Deferrari II, 141–3.

13

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Implicit here as well as in the canons cited earlier is that while these nonOrthodox groups are not part of the Church, they nevertheless have a faith similar enough to that of the Church. Faith in Christ above all else makes the Church distinct, but other groups may share this faith incompletely, or even have glimpses of a true and authentic faith in Christ, albeit incomplete to some degree, such as the men of Athens worshipping the unknown god (Acts 17:2232). The strictness of the exclusivity of the designation of Church, and the tacit acknowledgment something of the Church exists in non-Orthodox groups, while seemingly contradictory, emerge from the fundamental hermeneutic of the canonical tradition, Jesus Christ, and faith in him, who alone provides an understanding of and allows for proper application of the canonical tradition. This quick review of a selection from the canonical literature confirms the approach of Florovsky and the content of his article, but not the opposition of the canonical to the mystical or charismatic. The canons are theological texts and must be applied philanthropically if they are to be of service to the Church, as they themselves say. Perhaps, and this is mere speculation, Florovsky had canonists and their practice in mind, and not the canons, which he suggests when he says, “Must we not understand the canonical mode of action as a forbearing silence concerning gracelessness rather than as a recognition of the reality or validity of schismatic rites? And if so, is it then quite prudent to cite or introduce canonical facts into theological arguments.”14 According to my advocacy, yes, it is prudent, because the canons themselves are theological texts capable of and indeed necessary for the resolution to problems the Church faces, and for understanding the Church itself.

Florovsky, “Limits,” 249.

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Chapter 21

Fr. Georges Florovsky and Mission Witness “To,” “With,” or “Beyond” “Sacred Hellenism”? ATHANASIOS N. PAPATHANASIOU

The term “mission” may sound disturbing, since mission has largely been identified with colonialism and cultural suppression. However, while the rejection of all kinds of colonialism and suppression is a duty, it is also a duty to disentangle mission from this captivity and highlight its meaning as “witness” (martyria) in freedom. Mission is crucially important—not as a means of propaganda or as a means of ecclesiastical diplomacy and power games for jurisdictional expansionism. Mission is crucially important because it has to do with the very self of the church, which not only has a mission, but beyond this is mission, insofar as she is the sign, foretaste, and herald of the Kingdom. The Church is faithful to the Lord, insofar as she encounters the human realities with a view to transforming life into the “flesh” of Christ. As St. Maximus the Confessor states: “God’s Word, being God himself, desires the mystery of his incarnation to be effectuated in every place and time.”1 This understanding of mission as incarnation—or, in

1

Maximus, Ambigua, PG 91, 1084CD (my translation).

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current terminology, as inculturation and contextualization—implies a twofold movement. It implies both annunciation and denunciation, to use the words of Gustavo Gutiérrez;2 a transformation of life on the one hand and a clash with the powers of death on the other hand. In this perspective, mission is the heartbeat of the church, something that Fr. Georges Florovsky explicitly affirmed: The Church is essentially a missionary institution.3 The proclamation of the Gospel, the preaching of the Word of God, obviously belongs to the esse of the Church. The Church stands by its testimony and witness.4 A special issue emerges here. An important aspect of mission is the proclamation of the Gospel in different cultural contexts. But how will the Gospel be proclaimed in each case? And on what basis will the new local church be built? Apart from the verbal language of the people to whom mission is addressed, could we also possibly adopt their own conceptual tools, and rearticulate doctrine with these?5 As is well known, Florovsky claimed that Christian Hellenism, namely, the articulation of doctrine in Greek ontological categories, is a standing category of Christian existence and (of special importance here) a transcultural, universal norm: In a sense the Church itself is Hellenistic, is a Hellenistic formation, or in other words, Hellenism is a standing category of the Christian existence . . . . And thus any theologian must pass an experience of a spiritual Hellenization (or re-hellenization) . . . . Many shortcomings in the modern developments of Orthodox Churches depend greatly upon the loss of this hellenistic spirit. And the creative postulate for the next future would be like this: let us be more Greek to be truly catholic, to be truly Orthodox.”6

Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1973), 234. Georges Florovsky, “The Challenge of Our Times” (editorial), SVTQ 1:1 (1952), 4. 4 Georges Florovsky, “Revelation and Interpretation” (1951), CW, I, 17–36, at 26. 5 For what follows see my “Έσχατος εχθρός καταργείται . . . ο Χριστός; Ο ‘χριστιανικός Ελληνισμός’ του π. Γεωργίου Φλωρόφσκυ και η ιεραποστολή” [in Greek: “Is the Last Enemy that Shall Be Conquered . . . Christ?. Fr. Georges Florovsky’s ‘Christian Hellenism’ and Mission”], Theologia 81:4 (2010): 313–36. 6 Georges Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1939), PWGF, 153–7, at 157 (Original publication: Procès-verbaux du premier Congrès de théologie orthodoxe à Athènes, 29 novembre-6 décembre 1936 (Athens: Pyrsos, 1939), 238–42, at 242 [the ellipsis and the italics are from the original publication]). See also Georges Florovsky, “The Christian Hellenism,” PWGF, 233–6 (original publication: Orthodox Observer 442 (1957), 9–10). 2 3

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Hellenism can be said to have become a perpetual dimension of the Church, having been incorporated into the very fabric of Church life as an eternal category of Christian existence. Needless to say, this has nothing to do with ethnic Hellenism, with contemporary Greece or the Levant, or with the lateblooming and entirely unjustified Greek “phyletism.” The reference is to “Christian antiquity”—to the Hellenism of the dogmas, of the liturgy and of icons.7 For Florovsky this was not just an acknowledgment. He proceeded to the conclusion that the dogma cannot be reformulated, or rather rearticulated in other categories.8 As is also well known, Florovsky opposed the Protestant theologians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (especially Adolf Harnack and his Entmythologisierung), who denounced the Hellenization of the Church as the falsification of the Bible and Christianity. Fr. Georges rightly rejected all theologies that tended to reduce “the whole impact of Incarnation” to symbols. “There is,” he said, “a subtle but real docetic flavor in many recent attempts to re-state the traditional faith in modern terms.”9 Two clarifications are necessary in this context. First: in reality, opposition to Harnack and opposition to rearticulating doctrine are two totally different issues, and it is a great mistake to perceive them as the same issue. Second: whenever Florovsky referred to the impossibility of rearticulation, he expressly mentioned (and denounced) two trends: (a) the adoption of categories of modern Western philosophy and (b) the adoption of an alleged Slavic mentality. Yet, to my knowledge, he altogether bypassed the question of rearticulation into the categories of Global South civilizations, such as Far Eastern and African civilizations. This omission is not quantitative, but qualitative, because there are huge differences between Western philosophy and the Slavic mentality on the one hand and some of the Global South cultures on the other hand. Western philosophy and the Slavic mentality, regardless of any difference between them, are well aware of ontological concepts such as “being,” “essence,” “hypostasis,” “person” and so on, regardless of the attitude of any particular philosophy toward these concepts. On the contrary, however, great Far Eastern cultures seem to lack such ontological thinking. Their conceptual tools are instead pictures, narratives, and symbols.

Georges Florovsky, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159–83, at 168 (Also: “The Ways of Russian Theology,” CW, IV, 183–209, at 195). 8 Georges Florovsky, “‘Theological Will,’” PWGF, 241–4 (Blane, Georges Florovsky, 153–5). Cf. See also Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014), 201–19. 9 Georges Florovsky, “The Ever-Virgin Mother of God” (1949), 95–106, at 97 (CW, III, 174). For a genealogy of these theologies, see Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, part I, CW, V, 373–4, n. 230. Cf. my “Έσχατος εχθρός . . .” [“The Last Enemy . . .”], 321–2, where I trace the influence of Edwin Hatch on Harnack. 7

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* * * Florovsky passed away as the 1970s were also coming to a close. Still, already by the end of the 1930s, the voice of Third World Christians had begun to reverberate, demanding to express the faith in their own ways.10 The issue became central in the World Council of Churches with the dawn of the 1970s.11 The Catholic Church was also preoccupied with this perspective at the Second Vatican Council.12 But Florovsky (contrary to Nikos Nissiotis, also a protagonist in the ecumenical movement)13 did not pay any attention to this development. Even in his essay on the canonical and charismatic boundaries of the church, he focused exclusively on Christian divisions and ignored the question of God’s action among non-Christians.14 As already noted, Harnack on the one hand and rearticulation of doctrine on the other hand are two totally different issues. No matter how revolutionary it may sound, rearticulation is not really iconoclastic. The basis of rearticulation is faithfulness to dogma. For the adherents of rearticulation (among whom I include myself), the transcultural norm is the content of the dogma, not the ways of its articulation. Put otherwise: the transcultural norm is the fact of the Incarnation by itself. On the contrary, the crux of Harnack’s argument is the rejection of dogma itself. For him, the sweeping introduction of Greek philosophy into the Church in the second century led to the “hypostatization” of the individual

The third international missionary conference in Tambaram, India (1938), marked the decisive turning point. See Frieder Ludwig, Zwischen Kolonialismuskritik und Kirchenkampf. Interaktionen afrikanischer, indischer und europäischer Christen während der Weltmissionskonferenz in Tambaram 1938, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), esp. 137–8. 11 See Stanley Samartha, “Living Faiths and Ultimate Goals: Introducing a Discussion,” The Ecumenical Review 25:2 (1973), 137–47. 12 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, “Gaudium et Spes,” His Holiness Pope Paul VI on December 7, 1965. http://www​.vatican​.va​/archive​/hist​_councils​/ii​_vatican​_council​ /documents​/vat​-ii​_const​_19651207​_gaudium​-et​-spes​_en​.html (last accessed December 22, 2020). 13 See my “Νίκος Νησιώτης και θεολογίες της συνάφειας. Εννοήσεις της αλήθειας, της μαρτυρίας, της πράξης και της παράδοσης” [in Greek: “Nikos Nissiotis and contextual theologies. Understandings of truth, witness, action and tradition”], Synaxi 143 (2017), 74–88. Cf. Matthew Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History: Neo-Patristic Synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality,” Theologia 81:4 (2010), 113–14: “It must be asked whether what Florovsky wrote regarding attempts to re-interpret the Gospel message in the terms of Kant of Hegel does not apply equally to the ‘contextual theologies’ (feminist, liberationist, post-colonial, religious-pluralist, etc.) widespread in many Western confessions today.” 14 Georges Florovsky, “The Limits of the Church” (1933), PWGF, 247–56 (Original: The Church Quarterly Review 117:233 (1933), 117–31. Republished almost identically as “The Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Problem,” The Ecumenical Review 2:3 (1950), 152–61). On the question of God’s action among non-Christians, see Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “‘If I Cross the Boundaries, You Are There!’ An Affirmation of God’s Action outside the Canonical Boundaries of the Church,” Communio Viatorum 53:3 (2011), 40–55. 10

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characteristics of Yahweh. It was thus the Greek mind that invented the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation, which are consequently not transcultural at all.15 We must note here that Florovsky’s clash with Sergius Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdyaev was not connected with Harnack’s views. Both Bulgakov and Berdyaev acknowledged the importance of patristic theology. Yet, they maintained that theology was entitled to articulate the truth of revelation using the tools of modernity, just as the Church Fathers did in their times, using the dominant Greek categories as conceptual tools.16 This rejection of dogma has assumed new forms since the 1970s. Several Protestant and Catholic theologians have stepped away from dogma, looking for ways to proclaim the biblical faith in modes compatible with Far Eastern cultures. By way of example, I will briefly highlight the Indian theologian Stanley Samartha, who died in 2001. Samartha was a minister of the Church of South India and first director of the WCC program “Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies.” He proposed a “Theocentric” or “Mysterycentered” Christology, which posits a God-Mystery at the center, with Christ as one of its partial and local manifestations (resembling the Avatars of Vishnu in Hinduism).17 In this framework, Christ is not himself God by nature. Samartha uses the term “deity” only for God, while for Christ he uses the term “divinity” (again reminiscent of the avatars). Samartha maintained that the “homoousion” does not really exist, but is only a Hellenistic interpretation, which eventually prevailed through the cooperation of the Church with the emperor in the First Ecumenical Council.18 Likewise, he argues, not only the language of Trinitarian theology, but the very concept of the Trinity was a Hellenistic construction. What is needed in Asia, Samartha concluded, is not a rearticulation of Trinitarian theology, but a non-Trinitarian theology. We find the same logic in the theological trend of “Pluralist theology,” which was shaped in the West in the early 1970s, and has spread worldwide. Pluralist theology, which owes a great deal to John Hick, considers both Christology and Trinitarian theology not as universal truths, but simply as interpretations of a hidden God.19 Some Pluralists, however, such as Paul Knitter, accept

Adolf von Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums (München und Hamburg: Siebenstern Taschenbuch Verlag, 1964), 122–8. 16 Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky, 2014, 3, 140–5, 194. It is not by accident that Bulgakov himself “claimed that Sophiology was a creative contemporary reworking of the teaching of Gregory Palamas” (143). 17 S. J. Samartha, One Christ-Many Religions: Towards a Revised Christology (Bangalore: South Asia Theological Research Institute, 20004), 99–101. 18 Samartha, One Christ-Many Religions, 140–1. 19 John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1973) and The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age (Louisville, KY: Westminster and John Knox Press, 19932), 43. 15

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Christ’s Incarnation as a real action of God, but as a local action, only in the Mediterranean world, without any transcultural validity.20 Although rearticulation does not negate dogma (while the previously mentioned theological trends do negate it), Florovsky saw rearticulation as a potential hazard. Nevertheless, in some parts of his work, one can discern a sort of walking of a theological tightrope; there are some references in favor of rearticulation and “creating new names,” as St. Gregory Nazianzen had put it and Florovsky himself repeated: The identity of experience is loyalty to tradition. Loyalty to tradition did not prevent the Fathers of the Church from “creating new names” (as St. Gregory Nazianzen says) when it was necessary for the protection of the unchangeable faith.21 Revision and re-statement is always possible, sometimes imperative. The whole history of the Ecumenical Councils in the past is evidence of that. The Holy Fathers of the Church were engaged in this task. Yet, on the whole, the deposit was faithfully kept and the testimony of faith was gaining accuracy and precision.22 In this perspective the opposition of St. Gregory of Nyssa to Eunomius is of really crucial importance. Eunomius claimed that God reveals certain words. Gregory objected that God reveals meanings, not words. The articulation of the revealed truths in human tongues is the task and responsibility of humans.23 St. Gregory’s open-minded doctrine corresponds to the fundamental Christian postulate that whenever God addresses humans, God speaks the language of his interlocutor. Moreover, we should look at Florovsky’s essay “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology,” which appeared in 1931 and where Florovsky spoke of two legitimate languages of the Church. There, he admitted: Furthermore, the unchangeable truths of experience can be expressed in different words. The divine reality can be described in images and allegories,

Paul F. Knitter, Jesus and the Other Names. Christian Mission and Global Responsibility (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 73–83. Paul F. Knitter, “A New Pentecost? A Pneumatological Theology of Religions,” Current Dialogue 19 (1991), 32–41. 21 Georges Florovsky, “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” (1934), 257–71, at 266–7 (CW, I, 49–50). 22 Georges Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement” (1950), PWGF, 279– 88, at 285 (Donald Baillie and John Marsh, eds., Inter-Communion: Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement (New York: Harper and Bros, 1952), 196–205, at 204). 23 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 12, PG 45: 996D–1005D. Georges Florovsky, The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century, CW, VII, 153–4. 20

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in the language of praying poets and in religious art. Such was the language of the Old Testament prophets; the Evangelists also speak thus at times; thus did the Apostles proclaim, and thus proclaims also the Church even to our day in her liturgical hymns and in the symbolism of her sacramental rites. This is the language of the Annunciation and the Good News, the language of prayer and of mysticism, the language of “kerygmatic” theology . . . . Yet there is another language: the language of comprehending thought, the language of dogmas. [. . .] In no way is dogma a new revelation; dogma is merely a witness. The entire sense of dogmatic definition lies in its bearing witness to the unchangeable truth that is revealed and has been preserved since the very beginning.24 And he continues with remarkable vigor, praising the said alternative language of “kerygmatic” theology: The experience and knowledge of the Church is fuller and more comprehensive than her dogmatic statements. And the Church bears witness to many things not in dogmas, but in images and symbols—in other words, “dogmatic” theology cannot supplant or replace “kerygmatic” theology. The fullness of knowledge is given in the Church, but it develops and emerges partially and in stages; moreover, knowledge in this life is always only “partial” knowledge, the fullness of which will only appear at the Parousia [. . .] This dogmatic “incompleteness” is conditioned by the fact that the Church is still “under way,” is still in the process of becoming [. . .] What is more, the Church makes no effort to reveal or express everything; she makes no effort to crystallize her experience in a closed system of words and concepts.25 These are wonderful hints! However, Florovsky did not elaborate them. So I have the feeling that his reader must be very watchful and think long and hard in order to grasp or even develop the dynamics of these hints. Here is one example. In the same essay, Florovsky emphasized that the historical journey of the Church has not yet reached its end. Tradition is the mystical memory of the Church, yet this must be understood not in the sense of sheer loyalty to antiquity. Faithfulness to tradition is “the living connection to the fullness of ecclesial life.”26 God is constantly acting. “God revealed himself and is revealing

Georges Florovsky, “Revelation, Philosophy and Theology” (1931), PWGF, 115–27, at 120 (CW, III, 21–40, at 29–30). 25 Ibid., 124 (CW, III, 35–6). 26 Ibid., 124 (CW, III, 37). 24

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himself to man, and we are called to bear witness to what we have seen and what we are seeing.”27 This clarification may well be an encouragement for an encounter of the Church with unexpected and hitherto unknown cultures, which means that the issue of the rearticulation of dogma comes to the fore. In this perspective, every human language can become a vehicle of the truth, of course through careful and thoughtful missionary endeavor. But here another more conservative text by Florovsky interrupts this progressive line of thought: When divine Truth is uttered in human language, the words of this language are themselves transformed, and the fact that the truths of faith are clothed in logical images and concepts is witnessed by the transformation of language and thought: through this transformation, the words become holy. The words of dogmatic definitions are not “simple words” or “accidental words” that can be replaced with others. They are eternal words, unable to be replaced by others. This means that certain words, that is, certain concepts, have become eternalized in that they express the divine Truth . . . . This means that there exists a so-called philosophia perennis, something eternal and unconditional. However, this in no way signifies an “eternalizing” of a specific philosophical system. Richter said that Christian dogmatics itself is the only true philosophical “system.”28 The question (or perhaps the challenge) that now arises for us is as follows: It is indeed true that the words do participate in the divine truth (arguably, in the way in which the Lord’s flesh (Jn 1:14) or humanity participates in the Incarnation). But why should this acknowledgment lead inevitably to the exclusivist conclusion that the chosen words become irreplaceable? Or, rather, why could the chosen words not exist side by side with new ones? And why should potentially new words be a priori stigmatized as “accidental”? Rearticulation has to do with a careful and thoughtful endeavor, as we stated earlier. If it is true that “the words of this language are themselves transformed,”29 then why are new words a priori excluded from this transformation? Moreover, Florovsky identifies “certain words” with “certain concepts,” but I am afraid this identification is not in full consonance with the ecclesial experience of “creating new names,” as we saw Florovsky quoting St. Gregory Nazianzen earlier.30 Certain words do correspond to certain concepts, but other concepts are not expressed exclusively by certain words! Rearticulation does not aim at the abolishment of

Ibid., 127 (CW, III, 37). Ibid., 122 (CW, III, 33). 29 Ibid. 30 Florovsky, “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church.” 27 28

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the Hellenistic expressions, but to the translation of the truth they serve into other more apt ways of expression for the context. These new expressions do not eliminate or conflict with the old ones. Thus, I personally do not find any incompatibility between the perspective of rearticulation on the one hand and Florovsky’s observation that we always translate the Gospel from the Greek.31 To the best of my knowledge, Florovsky only touched upon some issues posed by cultures other than the Graeco-Roman and Slavic in his article on the history of the Russian missions (again an earlier work, published in 1933).32 There, Fr. Georges presented the admirable work of the Russian St. Stephen of Perm, a missionary to the tribe of the Zirians in the fourteenth century, while at the same time expressing reservations about this work. St. Stephen tried to establish not a Russian offshoot, but a truly Zirian church. Florovsky admitted that “St. Stephen’s idea was to create a local ‘Perm’ Church in which all the spiritual forces of the newly civilized people would have revealed themselves and received their consecration.”33 However, Florovsky was incredulous: Was St. Stephen’s vision perhaps too much for the Zirians? It is indeed possible that St. Stephen wanted to give the Zirians somewhat more than they really needed or were able to absorb and retain. Not all peoples possess their own culture, or indeed can possess it, and that “can” or “cannot” is a bare historical fact. Not every people or tribe has its own spiritual words, its own creative style for biological and spiritual expressions and phenomena of different grades. These facts present great difficulties for missionary work and a missionary must possess great tact and sensitiveness in order to learn and find the right way.34 The last sentence aptly sums up the hardship as well as the importance of missionary work. Yet, with all due respect, I feel that some problematic concepts have intruded into the entire approach of Fr. Georges, which seem to echo the old conviction that there are superior and inferior cultures. Florovsky was probably unaware that indigenous peoples have their own understanding of spiritual phenomena and proper vocabularies for them. Furthermore, no culture is a static entity. All cultures are complex realities, events that imply exchange and enrichment. This means that every single people usually

Florovsky, “Revelation”: “In any case, the Gospel has been given to us and to all times in Greek; it is in this tongue that we hear the glad tidings in all their integrity and fullness. This cannot mean that the Gospel cannot be translated; yet we always translate it from the Greek” (PWGF, 122 and see CW, III, 32) 32 Georges Florovsky, “Russian Missions: A Historical Sketch” (1933), CW, IV, 139–55. 33 Ibid., 141. 34 Ibid. 31

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receives and incorporates new concepts, and very often experiences a cultural transformation of itself. All this fermentation entails interaction between different civilizations; it does not imply that certain people can easily be labeled as culturally “inferior”35 or “uncivilized.” Allow me also to wonder whether Fr. Georges would express these reservations if the discussion focused on the evangelization of a then universally acknowledged “civilized” people such as the Chinese (it is noteworthy that his references to the Orthodox presence in China are anemic, while his mentions of the admirable missionary work in Japan are rather laconic).36 However, in the same essay, Florovsky provided a precious hint of inculturation, when he came to the discussion of the prerequisites for properly translating in this missionary context: In any case a missionary must have a great philological gift and sensitiveness; a loving and lively sense of the tongue; a desire and power to penetrate into the foreign soul and understand it; that is to say, one has in a certain sense to have the faculty of sympathetic reincarnation.37 Here is the crucial point: How will the missionary discover the treasures hidden in a foreign soul, especially in our days? The issue is extremely critical and complex. It may be possible, as some claim, that globalization together with postmodern relativism annuls every particular culture and especially non-Western cultures. However, we must not overlook the complexity of the phenomenon. Globalization is not simply a process of homogenization. At the same time, it brings to the fore and reinforces what was previously considered peripheral. For example, Far Eastern religions such as Buddhism are missionary religions, not bound to a specific culture or nation, which is why they appear very attractive to secularized Western societies.38 Moreover, some argue that China and its culture may, in the future, have a universal impact. Let us take, then, and consider the case of China’s peculiarity. I have to clarify from the outset that, unfortunately, my approach is inevitably insufficient, since I do not speak Chinese. My research concerning these matters has been focused on the English bibliography in this area. Nevertheless, I am profoundly happy to contribute somehow to the illumination of an issue largely ignored today by

For Fr. Georges the evangelization of a non-Christian people can be realized when this people accept a higher, Christian civilization: Florovsky, “Russian Missions,” CW, IV, 142–3. 36 Florovsky, “Russian Missions,” CW, IV, 147–51. 37 Ibid., 142. 38 Ernest M. Valea, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue as Theological Exchange: An Orthodox Contribution to Comparative Theology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015), xiii. 35

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the majority of Orthodox churches and theologians, in the hope that a fruitful discussion may begin. The current situation in China deserves special attention. As Alexander Chow notes: During the early 1900s, in what would be known as the May Fourth movement [1911] (wusi yundong) or the Chinese Enlightenment (zhongguo qimeng), Chinese reformers challenged all religious and spiritual traditions. Some thinkers would attempt to salvage and modernize the traditions, giving rise to such movements as Humanistic Buddhism (renjian fojiao) and New Confucianism (xin rujia or xin ruxue) or Contemporary neo-Confucianism (dangdai xin rujia or dangdai xin ruxue). But the overall critique was that these ancient teachings were relics of China’s premodern past and a hindrance for its future. Christianity would have the double charge of being both obsolete and foreign.39 Nevertheless: While various events [among which the Maoist “cultural revolution” holds a special place] brought a close to this Chinese Enlightenment, in the 1980s a Second Chinese Enlightenment (di er ci qimeng) or New Enlightenment (xin qimeng) would begin. Unlike its early twentieth century predecessor that sought to completely overthrow the previous culture, the Second Chinese Enlightenment followed a German model of enlightenment that is more sympathetic to China’s historical legacy and traditional teachings. It has been a time of great spiritual and moral crisis and has resurrected many debates— especially dealing with questions regarding the nature of humanity, sin and salvation.40

Alexander Chow, Theosis: Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment: Heaven and Humanity in Unity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), 2003, 1 (square brackets my addition). Also see Chow, Theosis, 23. 40 Chow, Theosis, 2 and also 27; “Protestants dominated Chinese attempts to contextualize the gospel in the early twentieth century. With May Fourth occurring in the days before Vatican II, Chinese Catholics took a more conservative approach toward indigenization than their Protestant counterparts. The Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith . . . upheld scholasticism as the main ‘official’ theology for Catholic churches, and all Catholic seminaries in China were required to teach the same curriculum. Moreover, Chinese Catholic leaders tended to utilize a ‘translational’ model of contextual theology that placed an emphasis on the indigenization of the clergy and liturgy rather than address fundamental questions of the faith. In the case of Eastern Orthodoxy in China . . ., its presence had mainly existed as a ministry to Russian expatriates. It would not be until after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 when an official autonomous Orthodox Chinese Church was established and separated from the Russian Orthodox Church. But its very inception came about out of a larger government agenda to sever 39

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At this moment in the Chinese-speaking world, particularly in Mainland China, according to the Chinese-American theologian Alexander Chow, a special fermentation is taking place and a new intellectual movement, called Sino-Christian Theology (hanyu jidu shenxue) or Sino-theology (hanyu shenxue), has emerged. This is developing with remarkable vigor and brings the Chinese mindset in dialogue with Western mainstream theologies. The scholars of this movement are often called “cultural Christians.” There is debate about the orientation of these people, insofar as some of them are scholars with no religious affiliation, some believe without belonging to a certain church community, while others believe and belong to the local Christian communities.41 However, regardless of different orientations, the important thing is that all Sino-Christian thinkers bring theological discourse into the public sphere.42 The peculiarity of China is a crucial issue and the subject of heated debates and research. Kenan Orborne, a Franciscan and professor of Systematic Theology, has summed up the issue as follows: Can we Westerners today see that a majority of human men and women do not understand Greek philosophical terminology and they see the physical world in a very different way than the terms substance, nature, person, etc.? . . . Greek key words such as person, nature, etc. have one meaning in Greek, but in other languages there are totally different frameworks for philosophical issues such as person and nature.43 According to Sinologist Jacques Gernet:

structural and economic ties with all foreign powers (in this case, the Soviet Union) rather than on developing an indigenous presence or contextual theology” (Chow, Theosis, 2). 41 Pan-chiu Lai and Jason T. S. Lam, “Retrospect and Prospect of Sino-Christian Theology: An Introduction,” in Pan-chiu Lai and Jason Lam (eds), Sino-Christian Theology: A Theological Qua Cultural Movement in Contemporary China (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2010), 1–4 and Chow, Theosis, 34. 42 Chow, Theosis, 70–3, 91; “Though the English does not make this clear, in Chinese, the term ‘Sino-Christian theology’ (hanyu shenxue, hanyu Jidu shenxue, or hanyu Jidjujiao shenxue) is analogous to ‘mother-tongue theology’ (musyu shenxue) because it can perhaps more literally be translated as ‘theology in the Han language’—that is, the Han ethnic majority of China. Hence, when speaking about the Chinese context, these terms are rough synonyms which focus on the cultural-linguistic context of the theologian” (Chow, Theosis, 76–7). 43 Kenan Orborne, An Infinite God and a Father-Son God: The Theology of God for a Contemporary World (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019), xii, xi. Cf. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “New Wine into Old Wine-Skins? Orthodox Theology of Mission Facing the Challenges of a Global World,” in Atola Longkumer, Po Ho Huang, and Uta Andrée (eds.), Theological Education and Theology of Life Transformative Christian Leadership in the Twenty-First Century: A Festschrift for Dietrich Werner (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2016), 37–9.

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Of all the languages in the world, Chinese has the peculiar, distinctive feature of possessing no grammatical categories systematically differentiated by morphology: there appears to be nothing to distinguish a verb from an adjective, an adverb from a complement, a subject from an attribute . . . . Furthermore, there was no word to denote existence in Chinese, nothing to convey the concept of being or essence, which in Greek is so conveniently expressed by the noun ousia or the neuter to on. Consequently, the notion of being, in the sense of an eternal and constant reality, above and beyond that which is phenomenal, was perhaps more difficult to conceive for a Chinese.44 However, it must be noted that Professor Zhang Longxi sharply disagrees, claiming that Chinese thought and language do have the capacity to express abstract notions, albeit in their own particular way. Zhang Longxi charges Gernet and other Sinologists with arrogance, insofar as they speak ex cathedra and erroneously assert the existence of a tremendous gap between IndoEuropean and Chinese concepts. Longxi claims that the Chinese language has its own grammar and “possesses general and abstract notions such as li (principle, reason), qi (universal energy, vitality, yin (the feminine principle), yang (the masculine principle), you (being, having), wu (nonbeing, nonhaving), dao (Tao, the way), and so forth.”45 The complexity of the situation is also noted through the study of two special Chinese terms, you and wu: The terms you 有 and wu 無 are among the most important metaphysical terms in the Chinese tradition . . . . They are often translated as “being” and “non-being,” but wu refers not to radical nothingness but to the lack of differentiated beings . . . Hans-Georg Moeller (2007) translates the two terms as “presence” and “non-presence,” Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall (2003) translate them as “determinate” and “indeterminate,” and Brook Ziporyn (2014) as “being-there” and “not-being-there” . . . . Taking the ultimate as no-thing, places it at or beyond the limits of language. How to speak of the ultimate without making it into an object or thing became another persistent philosophical issue. The Zhuangzi points out that as soon

Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, trans. Janet Loyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 238–47, esp. 241, cited in Pan-chiu Lai, “Theological Translation and Transmission between China and the West,” Lai and Lam (eds.), SinoChristian Theology, 97. 45 Zhang Longxi, Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 106–8. 44

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as you label something, even as no-being (wu), it becomes a thing that needs its own explanation.46 All this means that Missiology (which, I am afraid, is not the Orthodox Church’s most favored child) must combine doctrine with respectful knowledge of other cultures and languages, discerning the indigenous elements that may serve as necessary bridges for an introduction of the Christian faith. Needless to say, the whole difficulty for us has also to do with the fact that the “Chinese language is pictorial; the Chinese characters are pictures.”47 This is what the study group on Mission (in which I had the honor to participate) proposed at the Meeting of Scholars at the Phanar, January 4–5, 2016, seven months before the Orthodox Holy and Great Council of Crete of June 2016: A “mechanism” is needed, in order to gather information and reflect on the experience of the so-called missionary churches and issues of inculturation and contextualization. For example: What is the stance of Orthodox theologians and local churches towards the question whether the established ontological vocabulary of the systematic theology can be paired with the narrative vocabularies, which express the genius of several peoples (such as the peoples of the Far East) who do not think in Greco-Roman categories? We can mention here that in our days the narrative way of doing theology (which in a way belongs to the Church tradition, since it is the biblical manner to a great degree), has come to the forefront in modern discussions. So, it is worth examining how notions like the African concept of Christ as the Great Ancestor or Brother and the Asian concept of Christ as the

Franklin Perkins, “Metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy,” in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato​.stanford​.edu​/archives​/sum2019​/entries​/chinese​ -metaphysics/ (last accessed December 23, 2020) (the Zhuangzi is a Chinese text dating 476– 221 BC). Perkins continues: “This dialectic between being and no-being was later taken up in a different form through Buddhist debates about emptiness, and it can be considered one of the central metaphysical problems throughout the Chinese philosophical tradition [ . . . ]. Given the underlying ontology of change and process [in Taoism, where all things are classified as either yin or yang] categorization is not based on inherent qualities or essences but on typical ways of acting and reacting, does it tend to expand or contract, work gradually or swiftly, manifest itself obviously or subtly? Since these traits are relational, the same ‘thing’ may not always be in the same category (it might act like wood in one context but metal in another), and because they are dynamic, the categories give immediate information on how things can be controlled, influenced, or disrupted. The application of the categories depends on context and the context depends on our particular purposes, but they are meant to express real properties of things” (Perkins, “Metaphysics in Chinese Philosophy”). 47 Pelagia Yu Chuan, The Life of Jesus by Icons (New Taipei City: Orthodox Church of Taiwan Press, 2014), ii. 46

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liberating suffering God can come into a fruitful osmosis with the so-called classical theology. The study especially of the complex Chinese identity is of urgent importance. That means study of the Chinese traditional roots together with the traces of Christianity (which, by the way, is a present reality in China, in the face of Roman Catholic and Protestant communities as well as independent—self defined Christian communities) and the trend of China to gain global hegemony.48 At this point, I shall provide a few examples of efforts at rearticulation in several eras and to varying degrees.49 I would first like to consider the work of the so-called “Church of the East,” the eastern branch of the Syriac tradition (often called “Nestorian”)50 in China from the seventh through the thirteenth centuries.51 I wonder if this is a case that reinforces Paul L. Gavrilyuk’s claim that Florovsky somehow underestimated the oriental contribution to the church tradition.52 From this mission, I briefly single out four points: First, the missionaries translated parts of the Bible; however, they avoided any word for word translation. Their Christian Chinese texts are rather a recomposition or rewriting of Christian concepts. Notably, they do not touch the discussion on the two natures of Christ.53 Second, the missionaries worked out several translations of “the Holy Spirit.” Whenever they simply transferred the Syriac word ruah into Chinese, a hybrid word “Luke” appeared, which of course meant nothing to the Chinese. On the contrary, something fruitful seemed to emerge whenever missionaries adopted Chinese notions. For example, they used the Chinese words feng (wind), jingfeng (pure wind), liangfeng (cool wind). The latter (cool wind) in Chinese has the meaning of calming down, pacifying, and so on. Thus, the missionaries connected it to the Holy Spirit as Comforter.54

“Scholars in Mission, Education and Media,” (The Voice of Orthodoxy, Spring 2016, https://www​ .thevoiceoforthodoxy​.com​/scholars​-in​-mission​-education​-and​-media/ (last accessed December 23, 2020)). The members of the study group were: Anton Vrame, Paraskevas Hamalis, Nathan Hoppe, Athanasios Papathanasiou, Stavros Yangazoglou, and Theo Nicolakis. 49 Due to the limitations of space, I cannot examine the case of the great Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and the much discussed “Chinese Rites Controversy.” 50 Chow, Theosis, 177, n. 1. 51 Li Tang, A Study of the History of Nestorian Christianity in China and Its Literature in Chinese (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001), esp. 17–31. 52 Paul L. Gavrilyuk, “Harnack’s ‘Hellenized Christianity’ or Florovsky’s ‘Sacred Hellenism’: Questioning Two Metanarratives of Early Christian Engagement with Late Antique Culture,” SVTQ 54:3–4 (2010), 323–44. 53 Tang, A Study of the History of Nestorian Christianity in China, 128–9. 54 Ibid., 130. 48

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Third, in rendering the notion of the Holy Trinity, the Chinese Christian texts used the word fensjen, which means “to divide a body.” The term was familiar to the Chinese, referring to the fact that some powerful persons changed the appearance of their own body. Consequently, the word also meant “to give birth to.” The missionaries considered the word suitable for presenting the birth of the Son from the Father.55 Fourth, the “Church of the East” rendered the term “logos” from the Fourth Gospel as Tao—the fundamental concept of Taoism, meaning “the way” and the cause of the universe.56 Among contemporary Orthodox, we find “Logos” rendered as “Tao” in Hieromonk Damascene’s (Christensen) book, Christ the Eternal Tao (published in 1999). The author tries to rewrite the Gospel using Taoist categories57 and applying the theology of the “seminal word” (logos spermatikos). The book is itself a very important and admirable enterprise. I believe that it requires further discussion, but here I will simply note that much of the contextualization it has worked out seems adequate, while other points are rather weak indeed being undeveloped. Among its most promising points as a study, I would include the rearticulation in the face of Taoism of the Holy Trinity,58 uncreated grace or the divine energies,59 and the non-egoistic way of existence.60 The points that puzzle me are its reliance on ancient Chinese wisdom, which the author claims was distorted in the course of history (so the reader may wonder if the forgotten wisdom is a bridge proper to contemporary Chinese culture),61 as well as his emphasis on mysticism,62 or the use of the Taoist notion of the circle to denote self-emptying (the notion of circular return is very problematic for

Ibid., 136. Ibid., 123. 57 Hieromonk Damascene Christensen, Christ the Eternal Tao (Platina, CA: Valaam Books, 1999), 51. [This is published by the press of the missionary St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood in Northern California co-founded in 1963 by Fr. Seraphim (Rose) (1934–82) of whom Fr. Damascene was a monastic disciple. (Eds.)] 58 “The Primal Mind uttered the Primal Word. The Primal Action proceeds from the Primal Mind. As the Primal Word is like a sound, the Primal Action is like a breath. So, the Primal Breath rests in the Primal Word. But a Breath that is Spiritual and Personal. The Mind, word and Breath had this perfect love between them” (Hieromonk Damascene, Christ the Eternal Tao, 59–61). 59 “The word the—in those places where Lao Tzu employs it to speak of the Uncreated Power of Tao—corresponds to the English word ‘Grace’” (Christensen, Christ the Eternal Tao, 238–9). 60 “Because the Tao is self-existent, self-sufficient, and conscious of no wants, it can create, give and sustain life and at the same time seek nothing of its own . . . . Tao forgets itself and its own existence, being totally spontaneous and selfless” (Christensen, Christ the Eternal Tao, 240–1; See also 270). 61 Christensen, Christ the Eternal Tao, 221–9, 244, 322, 502. 62 Ibid., 164, 359, 374, 376 (on prayer techniques) and “Surrendering ourselves to the Way, we not only trust Him to protect us, but we are no longer even conscious of a ‘self’ (ego) that needs protecting” (Christensen, Christ the Eternal Tao, 324; see also 337). 55 56

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the Christian orientation toward the future).63 Still, all these do not negate the importance of Fr. Damascene’s work. Quite the contrary, it is a considerable contribution to a discussion that must be greatly expanded in the Orthodox Church.64 Much work remains to be done, not only on the basis of the differences between Graeco-Roman and Far Eastern mindsets, but also because several theological concepts—introduced in China since the early twentieth century by various Western Christian denominations (such as the notion of the original sin understood as hereditary guilt)—have nurtured the notion that the Christian faith is incompatible with the traditional Chinese anthropological optimism.65 Among many important issues, the understanding of cosmos and the ultimate reality is of special significance. The core of the Chinese worldview is expressed by the aphorism Tiansheng, rencheng (Heaven engenders, humanity completes), which means that there is cooperation between Heaven and humanity, initiated by Heaven. Though of shamanist origin, this aphorism has been incorporated in all Chinese religions and philosophies. Each of them in its own framework expresses the task for human self-cultivation.66 This means that the Chinese mindset is at odds with Christian theologies that favor a divine monergism. It has been argued that Orthodox theology, which exalts synergy (cooperation, human response to the divine initiative), is most fitting for the “Chinese soul.” The critical problem in this encounter is that for the Chinese mind Heaven is not transcendent in the way God is transcendent in Christian faith. Its transcendence is understood as different from the Earth. However, both Heaven and Earth comprise one reality, the one and only reality. God as a personal being, radically (ontologically) different from the entire cosmos is difficult to conceive in this cultural context.67 This is exactly where the

Christensen, Christ the Eternal Tao, 504, 124. I feel that we have much to expect from Archimandrite Jonah (Mourtos), an Orthodox missionary in Taiwan, who seems to understand the problem of Chinese contextualization, but unfortunately lacks the time necessary for publishing. His view has been reflected in Pelagia Yu Chuan’s work, The Life of Jesus by Icons: “Chinese language is pictorial, the Chinese characters are pictures, Chinese communicate using pictures. So, I started to do the catechism, presenting to my people icons. The result was marvelous. The beginners could understand the life of Jesus much better than reading a text” (Yu Chuan, The Life of Jesus by Icons, ii). Nevertheless, the brief texts accompanying the icons do not make use of Chinese notions. 65 Alexander Chow’s work is instrumental in this regard. Cf. Chow, Theosis, 37–9. 66 Chow, Theosis, 53, 121–5, 141. 67 Chow, Public, 81–5, 130–45. Chow proceeds to make several Orthodox theological proposals. See Chow, Theosis, 130–55. See also Chow, “Systematic Theology around the Globe,” August 13, 2019, https://alexanderchow​.wordpress​.com​/2019​/08​/13​/systematic​-theology​-around​-the​-globe/​ ?fbclid​=IwA​R0Vp​J8uc​AaEj​xR8T​dYI7​IDGm​cW7L​s6DP​0f2p​02ia​ohIZ​6CbL​QfnZ​pmecbA (last accessed December 23, 2020). 63 64

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theological laboratory of Missiology and missionary practice must be most intensely involved. Recently Korean theologian Heup Young Kim, a convert from Confucianism to Christianity, discussed “how the Trinity can be understood in the religiocultural matrix of East Asia, which is heavily influenced by Confucianism and Taoism.”68 He noticed that in Chinese literature from the second century BC we find the notion that “man is distinct from other creatures and forms a trinity with Heaven and Earth.”69 Kim tries to speak about the Holy Trinity using this Chinese trinity. The danger here is that one may conclude the cosmos is uncreated and co-eternal with God. Apparently to avoid this danger, Kim suggests that one might see the Father not as heaven, but as “the creative spirit in heaven”; the Son not merely as human, but as “the ideal human being” (the biblical “Son of the Man,” I might say); and the Holy Spirit not as the earth, but as “the agent of the world.”70 In any case, as the Vietnamese-American Catholic theologian Fr. Peter Phan, professor of Missiology in the United States, has stated, “any Christian philosophy must of course reflect on Christ as both divine and human,”71 and similar attention must be paid to the entire Trinitarian doctrine. There are many other examples, which space unfortunately prevents me from discussing. I will mention only Phan’s proposal here. Phan finds his inspiration in the African Christologies that portray Jesus as the Great Ancestor and Great Brother. In African tradition, life flows from God to the spirits of the ancestors and then to the living creatures. The Great Ancestor and the Great Brother occupy a special place; they share an immediate relationship with God and they take care of the whole tribe. African theologians have argued that this concept corresponds to the biblical description of Christ as “the firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1:15) and “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). So, Phan, himself born in Vietnam, adapts this African concept to the Far Eastern notions of Eldest Son and Ancestor.72 Moreover, he tries to rearticulate the Trinitarian doctrine in a characteristically Vietnamese way:

Orborne, An Infinite God and a Father-Son God, 30. Ibid., 31. 70 “One might also see God the Father as ‘the creative spirit in heaven.’ And one might also see God the Holy Spirit as ‘the agent of the world’ since the Spirit will, at the end of the world, testify that human can and have reached an ideal status” (Orborne, An Infinite God and a Father-Son God, 31). 71 Peter C. Phan, Christianity with an Asian Face: Asian American Theology in the Making (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003), 245. 72 Ibid., 130–1. See also Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “Χριστός, ο Πρόγονος και Αδελφός. Μια αφρικανική Χριστολογία” [“Christ, the Ancestor and Brother: An African Christology”], Δελτίο βιβλικών μελετών [Bulletin of Biblical Studies] 25:1 (2007), 59–82 [in Greek]. 68 69

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Basic to the Vietnamese worldview is what is called “three-element philosophy” (triet ly tam tai). The three elements are heaven, earth, and humanity (thie, dia, nhan or troi, dat, nguoi), forming the three ultimates constituting the whole reality . . . . “Heaven” refers to the firmament above humans . . . . “Earth” refers to the material reality lying beneath humans . . . . “Humanity” refers to human beings . . . that is, humans as the link or union between heaven and earth.73 Finally, there is something else that our theological discourse often overlooks. The Gospel narrative of the final judgment reveals that the criterion of salvation is orthopraxis. That means that praxis and solidarity with the victims of history are not a by-product of the church understood as an event. Quite the contrary, they belong to the very heart of church life, serving as applied Christology in the most profound contextualization—in the real life of the broken images of God the Son. Stripped of arrogance, we need to listen to the cries of Minjung Korean theology, which identifies Christ with the oppressed, the agony of Dalit Indian theology that recognizes Christ with the outcast, the effort of the Jesuit Aloysius Pieris from Sri Lanka to portray Jesus as the Poor Monk (an image familiar to Buddhists), and so on, in order to contribute the lavish Patristic emphasis on solidarity and accept every marginalized person as being akin to the holiest altar.74 * * * I firmly believe that rearticulation is a task stemming from the very nature of the Church. But eventually rearticulation involves a theological antinomy in its stance. It moves beyond the expression of “sacred Hellenism” but at the same time, involving the other side of the antinomy, remains faithful to the standing truths that “sacred Hellenism” expresses. For example, we are fully entitled to look for new ways of expressing the notion of “person,” but we are not allowed to abandon the notion of personhood and proclaim an impersonal god. In certain cases, then, we have to introduce the new “Christian Hellenistic”

Phan, Christianity with an Asian Face, 243. See Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “Social Engagement as Part of the Call to Deification in Orthodox Theologies,” Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 57:1–4 (2016), 87–106. I will refrain from discussing these theologies (Minjung, Dalit, Pieris) further. I simply repeat that contextualization implies a thoughtful theological endeavor. For example, it has been noted that it is not by accident that Pieris speaks of the “poor monk,” not of the “monk” in general. This happens because he is well aware that monasticism has very often been experienced as an oppressive power, so he alludes to a familiar, yet different, presence; a liberating one. See Phan, Christianity with an Asian Face, 119. In a similar way, as Orthodox, we must creatively negotiate the contribution of Dalit and Minjung theologies both respectfully and critically. 73 74

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concept into a cultural context that lacks it. In this perspective and in this sense, we can say that this introduction of the original Christian Hellenistic concept into a new culture is indeed an initiation into a “sacred Hellenism” of the Church. The key to all these points lies in Florovsky’s “kerygmatic theology.” This is certainly the valuable and necessary step for rearticulation. The examples I have offered above are precisely application of this “kerygmatic theology.” Awareness that cultures cannot be conceived in an essentialist manner—as static and unchangeable entities—is of special importance. Cultures are events of continuous exchange. And the Church is multicultural, not only in the sense that people of different cultural origin are her members, but also because every cultural contribution enriches the life of the entire Church and adds light to her experience. Thus, the Semitic contribution, the Greek, the Slavic, the African, the Latin American, the Far Eastern, and so on are offered to all. There are many complex issues involved in the missionary endeavor, and the answers to really difficult “technical” questions (that is, questions born from the “guts” of certain contexts, not from abstract, unhistorical theory) are not readymade and simply pulled, as it were, out of our theological and ecclesial pockets. I am afraid that if this discussion is not expanded in the various Orthodox churches, theological faculties and seminaries, the Orthodox presence risks lapsing into culturalism, disguising cultural expansionism as Christian mission. This is apparent not only in the realm of theological phrasing, but also in art, music, and icon painting. Allow me to strongly emphasize that this sort of hegemonic cultural-theological stance stands in complete opposition to the fact that Christ’s Incarnation took place in a specific current space and time and must be ever articulated anew in our current space and time. I will conclude with special mention of Wu Bofan (nom de plume Bo Fan), a Chinese academic theologian, who confesses to be a Christian. In a heated debate about the criteria for “Sino-Christian theology,”75 Wu Bofan—perhaps surprisingly for his Protestant theological milieu—quoted Sergius Bulgakov: Tradition is the vivid memory of the Church that contains orthodox doctrines, as its history shows. It is not a museum of archaeology or a catalogue of science, nor is it a “resort” for faith. It is the inherent vitality of any living, organic body. It exists in its own stream of life, with all that were in its past. All that were in the past are inherent in the present. So they are the present, too . . . . The history of the Church develops by manifesting and historically realizing the supra-historical substance. It translates the language of eternity into the historical language of human beings, and provided the

Shun-hing Chan, “Conceptual Differences between Hong Kong and Chinese Theologians: A Study of the ‘Cultural Christians’ Controversy,” Lai and Lam (eds.), Sino-Christian Theology, 74–5. 75

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substance remains unchanged, this translation reflects the characteristics of these languages and their times.76 I do not know if Wu Bofan was also aware of Florovsky’s work. I think that together with this extract from Bulgakov, he could quite easily cite Florovsky: Loyalty to tradition means not only concord with the past, but, in a certain sense, freedom from the past, as from some outward formal criterion. Tradition is not only a protective, conservative principle; it is, primarily, the principle of growth and regeneration.77 Eventually, Far Eastern mission may reconcile these two complicated, but otherwise respectful, friends, Fr. Sergius Bulgakov and Fr. Georges Florovsky!78

Bo Fan, “Who’s Christ and Which Tradition? Part IV, Conclusion,” Christian Times 454 (1996), 8, cited in Shun-hing Chan, “Conceptual Differences between Hong Kong and Chinese Theologians,” 77 [Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, trans. Lydia Kesich (SVS Press, 1988 [1935]), 10, 31. (Eds.)]. 77 Florovsky, “Sobornost,” PWGF, 265 (CW, I, 47). (Italics in the original). 78 See a description of the complex theological and personal relationship of Bulgakov and Florovsky in this book: Paul Ladouceur, “Georges Florovsky and Sergius Bulgakov: ‘In Peace Let Us Love One Another’.” (Eds.). 76

Chapter 22

The Timeliness of Patristic Thought, and the Contribution of Fr. Georges Florovsky to Contemporary Theological Dialogue METROPOLITAN GENNADIOS (LIMOURIS) OF SASSIMA

Our world is constantly changing, though there are some among us unwilling to realize this. In 1955, a concerned Fr. Georges Florovsky made the point that we all find it difficult to be part of a time of fleeting evanescence, and that nobody should ignore the transitory nature of our era.1 History, he went on to say, explains events, revealing their meaning and import. Historians should never forget that what they are studying and describing is the creative tragedy of human life. And the reason they should not forget this is precisely because

Cf. Georges Florovsky, “Faith and Culture,” CW, II, 9–30, at 9 (originally: St. Vladimir’s Quarterly IV: 1–2 (1955), 29–44) (also in Greek translation: Florovsky, WGF, II, 7). 1

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they too are immersed in history. There has never been—nor will there ever be—such a thing as objective history.2 And contemporary man, “fatigued” and “weary” as a result of the multifarious contradictory theories bandied about—be they philosophical, ideological, or scientific—in this era of atheistic Western European Enlightenment, has actually become nostalgic of the past, even becoming a visionary for the thrust behind the call for Christianity to repudiate intolerant fanaticism and embark on a quest for deeper unity through dialogue sustained by common faith and hope. Much has been said and written in our time on the bilateral and multilateral theological dialogues that the Orthodox Church conducts with other Christian Churches and Confessions under the guidance of common hope and looking to achieve restoration of unity.3 These dialogues are undoubtedly the most meaningful expression of inter-church relations in Orthodoxy, as well as with the other Christian Churches and Denominations. In these theological dialogues, both bilateral and multilateral, reference to the God-bearing Church Fathers made by Orthodox interlocutors are of great substance and significance, since patristic thought is not at all monolithic, stereotypical or immaterial, but spiritual and even sanctifying. It is replete with truth and clarity, filled with experiential grace and therefore unsusceptible to concessions or compromises. The goal of looking to patristic thought is always to bear witness to the faith, and sustain theological dialogue on the experience of sacramental life and Eucharistic transubstantiation. Thus, the framework in which the entire theological quest functions is contemporary theological discourse, nurtured by patristic spirituality and theological expression, so as to transcend theological differences between Christian Churches and Confessions, ultimately with a view to Church unity. In this manner, theological dialogue does not nullify history or Holy Tradition; on the contrary, it can lead to a potential rapprochement in truth, charity, and mutual respect for our circumstances here and now.

Cf. Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, Part One, CW, V, xvii (also in Greek translation: WGF, V, 7). 3 Cf. Chrysostomos-Gerasimos Zaphiris (formerly Metropolitan of Peristerion), Ὀρθοδοξία καί Ρωμαιοκαθολικισμός. Ὁ Ἀρξάμενος Θεολογικός Διάλογος. Γεγονότα καί Σκέψεις, (Orthodoxy and Catholicism: The Theological Dialogue Now Begun. Events and Thoughts) in Theologia 53 (1982), 74; also, Der Theologische Dialog zwischen der Orthodoxen und der Römisch-Katholischen Kirche, Ökumenische Rundschau 32 (1983), 57; as well as the noteworthy article of Prof. Georgios Martzelos, Οἱ Θεολογικοί Διάλογοι σήμερα. Τό Μήνυμα, ἡ Ἀξία καί ἡ Προοπτική τους. (Theological Dialogues Today: Their Message, Value and Prospects) (paper delivered at a Seminar organized on May 18, 2013, by the Holy Provincial Synod of the Church of Crete to mark fifty years from the late Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras’s visit to the Church of Crete along with the forty-seventh anniversary of the Translation Anew of the Venerable Head of the Holy Apostle Titus, Crete’s first Bishop). https://www​.academia​.edu​/27298388/ (July 13, 2020). 2

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At any rate, the Church Fathers enjoin us to remember that any attempt at a theological rapprochement requires much effort, pain, and prayer together with the perseverance and disposition of God and of us humans. Sensitive to his own weakness, man seeks to discover the Lord as creator and savior in order to encounter Him at some juncture of life. Often he succeeds in this through contrition and reconciliation of soul. There are other times when he despairs of his efforts and is led to failure. Herein lies the mystery of the petition addressed to the Lord by man in his frailty, begging Him to fortify his heart with spiritual strength capable of sustaining the burden of tribulation and temptation. Like the good Samaritan, he asks God to recompense the inn of his soul with divine grace, to protect him with the sanctifying grace of the AllHoly Spirit, so that he may come to share in His divine glory. It is then that the light of the divine radiates within man, and man becomes a partaker of divinity by grace. For this reason, theology should be doxology and predispose us to glorify God.4 It is within such a theological framework that Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893–1979)5 made his appearance as an exponent of theology. By all Orthodox accounts he was one of the major mid-twentieth-century Orthodox Theologians, with many considering him the greatest of all. With his authentic presence in theological writing, and amid the contemporary spiritual struggles of Orthodoxy, his is a truly patristic figure, inasmuch as he managed to contend with the problems of the contemporary world, while finding himself far removed from his homeland, and at the heart of a progressively disintegrating and multicultural “West.” His discourse and comportment had a beneficial effect on the Christian world in its entirety, but chiefly on the theological witness borne by the local Orthodox Churches, thereby contributing to their revival within the spirit of the patristic tradition. Senior Metropolitan John [Zizioulas] of Pergamon remarks about the Russian theologian’s personality: Fr. Florovsky understood the Greek Fathers as Greek more than they were understood by other contemporary Russian theologians. This observation does not conceal any inclination toward chauvinism. It is not a matter of national significance but rather a stance toward life, especially befitting Greeks, rendering Orthodoxy flesh of our flesh. Fr. Florovsky conceived of this manner of experiencing Orthodoxy, familiar to us Greeks, by studying

Cf. Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, trans. Joseph Roelides (Nicosia: Kykkos Monastery, 2002), 11. 5 This year [2019] marks the fortieth anniversary from his passing, on Wednesday, August 11, 1979, in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. 4

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the Christian world and the Greek Fathers in a way not to be found in other Russian theologians.6 Another eminent scholar, Atanasije Jevtić, formerly Bishop of Herzegovina, refers to his venerable Staretz, St. Justin Popović, who described Florovsky as “an icon in the iconostasis of Orthodox theology.”7 It is a fact that, in the past decade, there has been significant engagement with the work of Florovsky in academic theological studies, in Greek as well as in other languages. Dimitrios Avdelas characteristically affirms: The person who first adopted the terms “neopatristic synthesis” and “Christian Hellenism” seems to be at the epicentre of contemporary theology, which is not to say, however, that the scholarly interest generated by his work is ideologically uncontested. Quite the contrary: those contesting the theology of the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, and seeking to demolish it, are not few in number.8 Florovsky proved to be an eminent theologian in our time, succeeding in making the West gain an understanding of the Orthodox theological tradition in its truly authentic form. At the same time, he sought to formulate the Eastern Christian tradition as it relates to areas of concern addressed among “Churches” of the West. The anguished cry of St. Gregory the Theologian, that “we are not striving to prevail, but to bring our brethren back; for having been divided, we are devastated,”9 brings to mind that, for over twelve centuries, Christianity has suffered a profoundly visceral wound: the formal schism of 1054.10 Those

Cf. John Zizioulas, “Ὁ π. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ: Ὁ οἰκουμενικὸς διδάσκαλος” (Fr. Georges Florovsky: Ecumenical Teacher), in Synaxis 64 (1997), 13 et seq.; also an outstanding study by Vassilios B. Demetriadis, Ἡ Ὀρθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία καὶ ἡ ἀναζήτηση τῆς ἑνότητας τῶν Χριστιανικῶν Ἐκκλησιῶν στό ἔργο τοῦ π. Γεωργίου Φλωρόφσκυ (The Orthodox Church and the Quest for Unity of the Christian Churches in the work of Fr. Georges Florovsky), Post-graduate Dissertation, Theological Faculty, School of Theol., AUTh (Thessaloniki, 2011), 4. 7 Cf. Atanasije Jevtić, “Ὁ π. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ περὶ τῶν ὁρίων τῆς Ἐκκλησίας” (Fr. Georges Florovsky on the Limits of the Church), in Theologia 81/4 (2010), 137. 8 Cf. Dimitrios Avdelas, Ἡ Θεολογία τοῦ π. Γ. Φλωρόφσκυ ὑπό ἀμφισβήτηση: Ἡ ὑποτιθέμενη οὐσιοκρ ατία τοῦ Χριστιανικοῦ Ἑλληνισμοῦ καὶ ἡ σύγχρονη σχετικοκρατία (The Theology of Fr. G. Florovsky Cast in Doubt: The Presumed Essentialism of Christian Hellenism and Contemporary Relativism), Pemptousia, March 19, 2014, https://www​.pemptousia​.gr​/2014​/03​/i​-theologia​-tou​-p​-g​-florofski​ -ipo​-amfis/ (July 13, 2020); Indicatively, on this characterization of Florovsky, see John Zizioulas, “Ὁ π. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ: Ὁ οἰκουμενικός διδάσκαλος” (Fr. Georges Florovsky: Ecumenical Teacher), in Theologia 81/4 (2010), 31–48, 32. 9 Cf. Gregory Nazianzen, Or. XLI, 8, ΡG 36, 440 Β. 10 In this respect, see Vitaly Borovoy, “The Ecclesiastical Significance of the WCC: The Legacy and Promise of Toronto,” in Gennadios Limouris (ed.), Orthodox Visions of Ecumenism, Statements, 6

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considering that the unity of the Church is an institutional or intellectual matter are in error, as emphasized by Christos Yannaras, for whom the unity of the Churches is “an existential fact, in principle: a manner of existing that constitutes the Church.”11 Throughout his entire work, Florovsky became the groundbreaking protagonist in an active return to the Church Fathers—particularly after the Congress of Orthodox Theology held in Athens in 1936. With calm self-confidence, before an assembly of the most distinguished exponents of Orthodox Theology, the Russian theologian, at a mere forty-three years of age at the time, spoke of the need for a revival of a “Christian Hellenism”—that is, of a “Christianized Hellenism” that relates to the major issue of freedom.12 Florovsky “discovered in the Greek Fathers a full confirmation of the principle that freedom is key not only in history but in ontology as well, which is to say, in any attempt to interpret and understand reality and truth.”13 Moreover, in 1959, at Kifissia in Attica, he spoke of a “creative return” to “a new patristic synthesis,” maintaining it was the key project for present-day Orthodoxy, and its unswerving mission in our contemporary world. As the late Fr. George Metallinos (a distinguished scholar and member of the Academy of Athens) has so aptly pointed out, Florovsky succeeded in reiterating what patristic theological thought performs in each and every period: namely, a reformulation of the Orthodox tradition in tandem with the milieu of that time, with the means afforded by that time, thereby passing it on to ensuing generations. He would repeatedly stress, however, that such an approach does not merely entail a citation of patristic passages—he considered that as being fraught with danger and would refer to it as a “the hazardous mindset.”14 In this light, then, neither a renewed engagement with patristic

Messages and Reports on the Ecumenical Movement 1902-1992 (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1994), 227–8; also Fey E. Harold, ed., A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1948–1968, vol. 2 (London: SPCK, 1970); Georgios Tsetsis, Οἰκουμενικά Ἀνάλεκτα, Συμβολὴ στὴν ἱστορία τοῦ Παγκοσμί ου Συμβουλίου Ἐκκλησιῶν (Ecumenical Analekta, Contribution to the History of the World Council of Churches) (Katerini: Tertios, 1987), 21. 11 See Christos Yannaras, Ἀλήθεια καί ἑνότητα τῆς Ἐκκλησίας (Truth and Unity of the Church) (Athens: Grigoris, 1997), 2, 11, and Demetriadis, Ἡ Ὀρθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία καὶ ἡ ἀναζήτηση τῆς ἑνότητας τῶν Χριστιανικῶν Ἐκκλησιῶν στό ἔργο τοῦ π. Γεωργίου Φλωρόφσκυ, 91–2. 12 See Symeon Paschalides (ed., Preface), π. Γεωργίου Φλωρόφσκυ, Ἁγία Γραφή, Ἐκκλησία, Παράδοση (Fr Georges Florovsky, Scripture, Church, Tradition) (Thessaloniki: Athanasios Alditzis, 2018), 13. Paschalides goes on to write that “this issue is related, in contradistinction to the pertinent problems posed by ancient philosophy as well as by several philosophers in his time.” See Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1936), PWGF, 153–7, at 157 and “Western Influences in Russian Theology” (1936), PWGF, 129–51. 13 See Paschalides, Fr Georges Florovsky, 13. 14 See Georges D. Metallinos, Πρωτοπρ. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ (1893–1979), Πατερικὴ μορφὴ τοῦ 20οῦ αἰῶνος (Protopr. Georges Florovsky (1893–1979), A 20th Century Patristic Figure), in O Zoiforos​.g​​r,

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tradition—in Orthodoxy generally, but in Greek and Russian Theology more particularly—nor for that matter the revival in the 1960s of monasticism on Mt. Athos, can be properly interpreted without due reference to Florovsky’s theological contribution. The dynamic return to the Fathers became the lifework of Fr. Georges, in stark contrast to the philosophizing of his Russian peers, such as Fr. Sergius Bulgakov and his circle. Indeed, Florovsky saw the link indissolubly connecting the patristic spirit with “Christian Hellenism” since, as he firmly believed, Hellenism “came to its fulfilment within the Church” and ultimately became “the eternal category of Christian existence.”15 At this point, it is fitting to add that the bridgehead to the patristic mind wrought by Florovsky was fully developed by Fr. John Romanides (professor of Dogmatic Theology, a stalwart scholar and authority on the Eastern and Western tradition). Furthermore, in his patristic conscience, Florovsky emphasized the connection between Christianity and History—namely, the historicity of the Orthodox Church and its doctrinal teaching. In his work, The Ways of Russian Theology (1937), as Metallinos reminds us,16 Florovsky writes: A keen sense of history is a mandatory qualification for any theologian. It is the indispensible condition for a sense of the Church and one may doubt whether a man lacking all understanding of history can be a good Christian.17 In his theological thought, a significant place is also held by his awareness of Orthodoxy’s supranational character. Florovsky abstained from any nationalist or racist perception of Christianity, in contrast to those advocating a Slavoriented conscience, found among other Russians of the Diaspora. Fr. Georges would often point out the dangers of a religiously conceived nationalism, which constitutes a fundamental distortion of Orthodox ecclesiology. Christians, he maintained, know a different “system of legality” from that of adherents of other religions; therefore, as citizens of heaven, they are impelled to seek a kind of “extra-territoriality” beyond any state boundaries (cf. Phil. 3:20). It was in such a context that his endeavors were undertaken in America so that a united Orthodox presence might emerge. Thus, he remained faithful to the Pan-

Friday, December 17, 2010, from “Orthodoxos Typos” newspaper, December 17, 2010. https:// www​.zoiforos​.gr​/index​.php​/ar8rografia​/iereis​/georgios​-metallinos​/item​/309 (July 13, 2020) 15 Cf. Florovsky “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1936), PWGF, 153–7, at 157, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159–83, at 168–70 and “The Christian Hellenism” (1957), PWGF, 233–6. 16 See Metallinos, Πρωτοπρ. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ (1893–1979). 17 Cf. Florovsky, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159–83, at 167 (Ways of Russian Theology, Part One, CW, V, 295) and compare “Western Influences in Russian Theology” (1936), PWGF, 129–51 (also in Greek translation: Florovsky, WGF, V and IV).

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Orthodox condemnation of “ethno-phyletism” (Council of Constantinople, 1872), as well as to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, recognizing its historicocanonical “prerogatives.” Beyond the dogmatic perspective, he sought to support the canonical unity of Orthodoxy. His thinking on such matters was given expression with utmost clarity in his 1949 address in Philadelphia, “The Responsibility of the Orthodox Believers in America.”18 St. Nicholas Cabasilas stresses that “the Church is signified in the sacraments,”19 in the Body and the Blood of Christ, in the Holy Eucharist:20 the realization and revelation of the Church as communion or community of the Last Things.21 In the end, sinful man petitions the Lord to let him participate in the Eucharistic communion and be rendered worthy, through divine charity and philanthropy, of partaking in the holy sacraments. All theological dialogues ultimately look to this common sharing in the sacrament of Eucharistic communion because that is where the entire mystery of creation culminates. Created “in the image and likeness” of God, man becomes capable approaching with fear of God and faith in order to assert once more that his Lord is also his God. In this way, he communes, is renewed and transformed into an angel of the Lord, fervidly proclaiming that “Christ is Risen.” All of this means nothing more than that Christ is at the very heart of human History, comprising its center and source. As God by nature, He raised and transformed man to God by grace. All of human nature was thus resurrected through the Incarnation, and life was revealed through death. Indeed, the entire work was achieved by Christ in extreme “self-emptying” (kenosis), ineffable humiliation, inasmuch as the Lord descended on earth, “constrained” His power, and assumed the form of a servant. He appeared as a creature, humble and powerless, so as not to violate our freedom, desiring that we accept Him for the sake of love alone.22

Cf. Florovsky, “The Responsibility of the Orthodox Believers in America,” The Russian Orthodox Journal 2:6 (October 1949), 15–18 (reprinted: CW, XIII, 174–9); Florovsky describes the history of Orthodoxy in North America in his study: “The Eastern Orthodox,” National Council Outlook 5:9 (November 1955), 10–13 (reprinted: CW, XIV, 164–8); also see George H. Williams, “Georges Vasilievich Florovsky: His American Career (1948-1965),” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 11:1 (Summer 1965), 7–107 (also in Greek translation: Fr Georges Florovsky, An Introduction to his Thought, trans. Th. Papathanasiou (Athens: Parousia, 1989), 24–5). 19 St. Nicholas Cabasilas, Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 39, PG 150, 452–3; also Zizioulas, Εὐχαριστία καί Βασιλεία (Eucharist and Kingdom), in Synaxis 52 (1994), 81–2. 20 See S. Yagazoglou, Περί Ἐκκλησίας (Regarding the Church), in Κ. Agoras et al., Δόγμα, Πνευματικότητα καί Ἦθος τῆς Ὀρθoδοξίας (The Doctrine, Spirituality and Ethos of Orthodoxy), vol. I (Patras: GOP, 2002), 187. 21 Zizioulas, Eucharist and Kingdom, 81–2. 22 See Dimitris Ioannou, Ἡ Σταυρική Θυσία στή Θεολογία τοῦ π. Γ. Φλωρόφσκυ (The Sacrifice on the Cross in Fr G. Florovsky’s Theology), Antifono, July 12. 2017. www​.antifono​.gr/η-σταυρικη-θυσιαστη-θεολογια-του-π-γεω/ (July 14, 2020). 18

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A fundamental question arises now: Is theological dialogue at all useful for the purpose for which it is ostensibly undertaken? And ultimately to what does this entire, and so very arduous, effort contribute? After all, the goal established for a dialogue from the outset is what also determines its course and outcome. The Orthodox Church’s outlook in the theological dialogues, from their very inception, remains clear and steadfast—namely, that all existing theological differences are to be explored and interpreted according to the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils and in the light of Patristic Theology, which together constitute the Holy Tradition of Orthodoxy. Consequently, there is no “latitude” whatsoever, or any “capacity” for propounding new theological interpretations, often found to express tenets that are purely personal in nature. In the light of patristic thought, the unity of the Church is found in its variegated nature. It is often emphasized in dialogues that unity is to be found in the fundamental elements of life and hope. However, there is also a great and welcome wealth found in the formulation of this faith by different peoples and civilizations around the globe. It is a fact that bilateral theological dialogues today contribute toward a substantial understanding among the divided Churches and by extension toward the exploration and clarification of theological and historical references to the past, while full Eucharistic communion still remains a distant goal.23 Regrettably, however, in the last few decades dialogues have without exception journeyed “through an obstacle course” in order to respond to the level of expectation and achieve a realization of the initial vision for theological reconciliation and interpretation of past historical as well as ecclesiological disputes between West and East, with the ultimate objective being Eucharistic union and communion. The interlocutors’ efforts in these bilateral dialogues constitute an arduous struggle in order that, speaking from an Orthodox perspective, they might always proceed and theologize in the spirit of Sacred Tradition, but also of canonical and patristic theology. One primary goal is that the dialogue itself, along with its theological underpinnings, should evolve neither with any overstepping of boundaries nor with any concessions of any kind but, on the contrary, by offering the witness of faith, which would constitute its optimal outcome, providing an invaluable gift of the quintessence of Orthodoxy at every level. Therefore, it stands to reason that the contemporary multilateral and bilateral theological dialogues of Orthodoxy with other Christian Churches and Confessions cannot as yet be evaluated in any objective way regarding their pastoral perspective. The reason for this lies in the fact that both the Church

See Gennadios Limouris, “The Meaning of Communion/ Koinonia with regard to OrthodoxRoman Catholic Joint International Theological Dialogue,” Kleronomia 28, I–II (1996): 237–50. 23

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of Rome and Protestantism have not yet completely renounced old methods of imposition (such as Uniatism and Proselytism), which often go hand in hand with confessional competition. In every dialogue, the truth of Orthodoxy under the light of the Fathers is neither misrepresented nor watered down as to the catholicity of its witness, despite any human frailty or deficiency on the part of those who expound and interpret it. Indeed, this truth, which is illuminated by patristic thinking, is equally expressed by all local Orthodox Churches, whether they participate or not, because they share the same faith and living Tradition. There is often the risk of jeopardizing and obviously of distorting the mind of Orthodox delegates in the Ecumenical dialogues, but this does not impinge on Orthodoxy itself, which is safeguarded unadulterated and undiluted by the conscience of the Orthodox pleroma—that is to say, of its clergy and laity. By participating in the theological dialogues not only does the Orthodox Church not compromise the integrity of its Orthodox Faith; it also promotes it dynamically to the entire Christian world, thereby renewing its internal spiritual life. One of the priorities of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a “Church of dialogue” is always to advance dialogue in faith, charity, and truth,24 in a spirit of mutual understanding and respect. The late Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland (subsequently of Αdrianoupolis), a man well seasoned in dialogue, points out25 that the Orthodox Church was found unprepared and ill-equipped before the onslaught of theological altercations and ideological agitation that were rife in the western European world and were adopted with particular emphasis to assist the proselytizing activities of Latin propaganda and Protestant mission. By contrast, the Orthodox Church joined the dialogue unencumbered by any historical complex or burden of proselytizing, which was the means by which its people suffered a proliferation of trials in its centuries-long and beleaguered national life. A fundamental issue that, from the beginning of his ecumenical participation, constantly preoccupied Florovsky was the nature of the soughtafter unity within the ecumenical movement. Of course, he was on the drafting committee for the WCC’s foundation document-report of Amsterdam in 1948, which unquestionably established the theological foundations of the search for visible unity in the Church. What he had to say about the matter is vital: “God

See J. Ratzinger, “Prognosen für die Zukunft des Oekumenismus,” Oekumenisches Forum 1 (1977), 36. 25 See Metropolitan Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Switzerland, Ἡ Ποιμαντική τῶν Διαλόγων (The Pastoral Aspect of Dialogues), School of Theology Scholarly Yearbook, University of Thessaloniki, 28 (Thessaloniki, 1985), 419–28. 24

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has given to His people in Jesus Christ a unity which is His creation and not our achievement.”26 Florovsky’s effort to stay the ecumenical course was manifest both at Lund in 1952, where the Faith and Order Commission held its third meeting, and at the WCC Assembly in Evanston two years later, where the goal of visible unity was affirmed “not for the sake of the Church as a historical society, but for the sake of the world.”27 One of his ecclesiological “demands” was that the Church is One and, therefore, that unity symbolizes the very “being of the Church.” In every one of his theological studies, he always arrives at the “being of the Church.” For this reason, Florovsky’s thinking on a range of issues regarding the reunification of Christians is unequivocally interwoven with his teaching on the Church. In any case, how could it be otherwise when his insistence on resolving ecclesiological issues pointed to his conviction that reunification depended on the resolution or not of those issues. Already in a Russian article, as early as in 1933, he spoke of the existence of an Ecclesial body which, theologically speaking, is a unitary and indivisible organism, since the Church is the Body of Christ.28 Thus, true unity can exist only within the Church, which, in the Holy Spirit, and in the name of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, subsists “in its image and likeness” inasmuch as the Trinity vivifies and vouchsafes this unity.29 In his theological discourse, the Russian theologian states that, through the long centuries of division, what was and will always be missing is love for God, implying probably that what is missing from the Ecclesial Body is love for Him who, in utmost generosity, offered us salvation (namely, the Church).30 Florovsky was open and friendly toward the other Christian Churches. He earnestly supported the advancement of unity and convergence. However, under no circumstance would he shift his position or accept and deviation from the official doctrinal positions of Orthodoxy. In this regard, he points out that

In this respect, see Blane, Georges Florovsky, 120 (in Greek translation: Andrew Blane, Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman, trans. Helen Tamaresi-Papathanasiou (Athens: En Plo, 2010), 214). 27 Cf. Blane, Georges Florovsky, 120 (Greek translation: Andrew Blane, Georges Florovsky, 214). 28 “The Problematic of Christian Reunification: The Dangerous Path of Dogmatic Minimalism,” Put’ 37 (February 1933), Supplement issue, 1–15 (Partial English Translation: CW, XIII, 14–18, at 14) and Greek translation in Theologia 81 (2010), 119–33. 29 In this respect, V. Demetriadis states that: “Regrettably, such unity is not as an historical event for some thirteen centuries and is perpetuated as a problem, the solution to which is ever postponed and relegated to the Greek calends or, more aptly, to an eschatological perspective for the contemplation of both the world and the Church.” 30 Cf. Florovsky, “The Problematic of Christian Reunification,” CW, XIII, 16–17 (Greek translation: “The Problematic of Christians Reuniting,” Theologia 81 (2010), 122). 26

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“the source of the divisions lack of love. But first and foremost, it is not lack of love for one’s fellows, but precisely lack of love for God.”31 In fact, within the ecumenical movement, Fr. Georges envisioned the actual transcendence of the chasm created by the Christian schism, despite the fact that, from the outset, he also acknowledged the peculiar and even paradoxical nature of the undertaking as a whole.32 His reference to the Fathers of the Church is often astounding, since we discover that they are far more attuned to the trials and tribulations of our times than the theological output of recent writers. The Fathers struggled and anguished over existential problems, with the revelation of perennial issues recorded and described in Holy Scripture.33 Florovsky stressed that, in the patristic mind, the Church is indeed “apostolic,” but it is also “catholic and patristic.” These two attributes are intertwined. Only when the Church is “patristic” can it truly be “apostolic.” The witness of the Fathers goes far beyond being a mere historical feature or voice from the past.34 Here I should like to quote from a conversation between Fr. Georges and Yves Congar, which I heard as a student at a meeting in Paris in 1976, during which Florovsky spoke about the Holy Spirit to the Dominican theologian: You keep writing and theologizing about the presence of the Trinitarian God; we in the East try to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharistic gathering, as well as in the worship and sacramental life of the Church. The Spirit speaks and acts of its own, provided you accept and experience it existentially and willingly. And to the great “Parisian” Roman Catholic liturgical scholars of the 1970s, Pierre-Marie Gy and Irénée-Henri Dalmais, he would stress the following: Liturgics as a scholarly pursuit is not merely an academic course of study or an expression of the tradition of the Church, but the experience of the Church’s catholicity within the framework of sacramental life, where the Church is “signified,” according to Nicholas Cabasilas.

Ibid, 16. (Greek translation: “The Problematic of Christians Reuniting,” 122.) In this respect, see Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement” (1950), PWGF, 279–88, at 279 (Greek translation: Issues in Orthodox Theology (Athens: Artos Zois, 1973), 211). 33 CF. Florovsky, “Revelation and Interpretation” (1951), CW, I, 20–1 (Greek translation: Issues in Orthodox Theology (Athens: Artos Zois, 1973), 46). 34 Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1959), PWGF, 221–32, at 223 (CW, I, 107) (Greek translation: Florovsky, WGF, I, 2nd ed., 186–7). 31 32

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Within the Church, the Fathers embody and express its life and mind as they uphold its members with their work, providing solutions to theological problems. The place of the Fathers in the history of spirituality and in world literature has yet to be assessed and has not yet received its due. Here we would only underscore the following: For the world at large, the Fathers represent and articulate a new spiritual reality, which appeared through the incarnation of the Divine Word, transforming humanity to a significant degree and offering to the world a new spiritual standard. In the history of world literature, too, they occupy an exceptionally important place because they engaged in dialectical exchange with classical Greek thought and, through their writings, composed with faultless style answers to the human quest and solutions to the impasse of ancient Greek tragedy.35 The Greek Fathers and Church teachers are the spiritual pillars of the over thousand-year-long life of Byzantium, just as the Latins became the nurturers of all the Western world up until the Renaissance. They were truly illumined by God and moved by the spirit. We must never forget this as we seek to address theological and ecclesiastical issues solely on the basis of our own strength. We must certainly mobilize our resources, but they are not sufficient to lead us to the truth. At this precise juncture, the Fathers remain our teachers through the ages. They indicate that, to respond correctly to an issue of our time, we must accept what they formulated in the light of the Holy Spirit. In this way, their contribution becomes perennial and fitting even for our present-day theological dialogues, offering knowledge, spiritual wisdom, and witness in faith. The Fathers theologize in order to reveal the authentic truth and point to the falsehood of sundry heretical teachings. They express the truth revealed by divine grace, whose gifts are received by those who struggle spiritually in the good fight of the faith. This experience of the presence of the living God was set forth in ascetic and other forms of patristic literature, which is permeated with the worship and glory of God. Divine truth, as the Trinitarian God and His work that saves the world, was revealed in the life of the Church progressively. The conviction of the Fathers in everything they write about Trinitarian theology, Christology, and Soteriology stems from the light granted by the Holy Spirit and is based on the “valedictory” utterances of the Lord to His disciples:

In some way, the Fathers are “judged” by history as the greatest writers of their era. The Greek Fathers, in particular, make an immense contribution in preserving classical Greek culture and, to a degree, are the continuation of this immense spiritual legacy. 35

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These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (Jn 14:25-26) In accordance with this reassurance of the Lord and its application in the example of the Fathers, Christ had more things to tell His disciples, which the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, would teach them, recalling all that He had said and taught. The teaching of the Fathers and the doctrine of the Church truly continue to be the same “simple message,” in other words the joyous message of salvation in Christ, which was delivered to the Apostles once for all and preserved by their disciples through the centuries. In this sense, the teaching of the Fathers is a “standing category of Christian existence,” a measure and criterion of true faith that remains unwavering and sublime.36 The Fathers are not just witnessing to the old faith, as testes antiquitatis. Beyond this, they are witnesses to the true faith, as testes veritatis, whose mind is shaped by means of the Church’s catholicity.37 As has been rightly said by the French Catholic theologian Louis Bouyer: “The Catholic Church of all ages is not merely the daughter of the Church of the Fathers; she is and shall remain the Church of the Fathers.”38 In theological dialogues, the patristic witness belongs fully and inwardly to this very makeup of the Orthodox Faith. In equal measure, the Church has full trust in the preaching of the Apostles and in the doctrines of the Fathers, who interpret it. Both are her patrimony, and they are unquestionably inseparable. The Church is more a reality that we experience, than an object that we analyze or study, as Bulgakov rightly said: “‘Come and see’: one recognizes the Church only by experience, by grace, by participation in its life.”39 The chief distinguishing feature of patristic theology is its “existential” nature. The Fathers theologized, as St. Gregory the Theologian notes, “in the manner of fishermen, not in that of Aristotle.”40 The theology often referred to in dialogues is a continuous and unceasing witness. Without life in Christ, theology is not persuasive; and separated from the life of faith, it can easily degenerate into an empty dialectic, vain chatter, something of no spiritual

Cf. Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology” (1936), PWGF, 153–7, at 157. Cf. Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1959), PWGF, 221–32, at 223, and “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 289–302, at 293. 38 Cf. Louis Bouyer, “Le renouveau des études patristiques,” La vie intellectuelle XV (1947), 18. 39 Cf. Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, trans. Lydia Kesich (SVS Press, 1988), 3 (French translation: L'Orthodoxie (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan 1932), 4). 40 Gregory Nazianzen, Homily XXΙΙΙ, 12, PG 35.1164C and cited at Florovsky, “Saint Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers” (1959), PWGF, 221–32, at 224 and “The Ethos of the Orthodox Church” (1959), PWGF, 289–302, at 293. 36 37

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consequence. As Florovsky clarifies, theology transcends doctrine in the sense that the latter springs from the former. Theology constitutes a “divine-spiritual” and a “heart-mind” vision that nourishes dogma, which is gradually formulated or complemented. Theology contains a profound spiritual vision, which is first and foremost what Fr. Georges sought to capture in translating patristic thought into contemporary vocabulary.41 In this manner, the theology of the Fathers is rooted in the decisive “deposit” of the Faith, and this is why their theology is and shall remain eternal and perennial. The exhortation of Florovsky to “return to the Fathers” and to their authority implies a theology that springs from the spiritual experience and subsequently from the knowledge of the challenges facing each era so that it can indeed be truthful and creative. The heritage of the Fathers constitutes a challenge for our generation in ministering to the Church and beyond.42 One ought not to forget that Florovsky, always a searching and restless spirit, did not embark on the way of theology from the outset of his studies.43 His identity as a clergyman added a strong dynamic to his theological witness because he always moved along the margins of worship and society, always exercising and experiencing the catholicity of Orthodoxy—namely, its apostolic and patristic nature. He was not a “deskbound or academic theologian” but rather a theologian of the altar and pastoral ministry. He became a proponent of a creative return, when his voice sounded the clarion in Greek circles, urging the revival of a Christian Hellenism.44 However, it must be stressed in this context that he also sought to rejuvenate the theological language of Orthodoxy with a readjustment of the language of Christian preaching for the sake of approaching modern man. An eminent scholar, the late Metropolitan Meletios Kalamaras of Preveza, has said characteristically that, nurtured on the guileless, rational milk of the wisdom of the Greek Fathers, and profoundly well versed in their teaching, Fr. Georges never ceased to stress that “the preaching of the apostles and the doctrine of the fathers, enhanced the one faith of the Church.”45 Theological

Cf. Dimitris G. Ioannou, π. Γεώργιος Φλωρόφσκυ: Θεολόγος καὶ Τραγωδὸς (Fr. Georges Florovsky: Theologian and Tragedian), Antifono, October 8, 2016, www​.antifono​.gr/π-γεώργιος-φλωρόφσκυθεολόγος-και-τρα/ (July 15, 2020). 42 See Florovsky, The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church (trans. to Greek by Ι. K. Papadopoulou), in Theologika Dokimia Νο. 3, Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies, Thessaloniki, 1972, 115. [English translation appears in this volume; introduction in PWGF, 273–7. (Eds.)] 43 Ibid., 10. 44 Ibid. 45 Kontakion on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the 1st Ecumenical Council; also Archim. [later Met.] Meletios Kalamaras (trans. and ed.), “Preface,” in Florovsky, Anatomy of Problems of Faith (Thessaloniki: Rigopoulos, 1977), 5. 41

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dialogue is today the framework par excellence for the responsible and fruitful witness of Orthodoxy and its Tradition. It is clearly evident and demonstrable that, in his rich output as a writer, in just a few brief words, Florovsky succeeds in making a contribution that others fail to provide even with many words. It would be otherwise difficult to explain how he came to be acknowledged as a paramount theologian almost unanimously and unreservedly.46

See Florovsky, The Body of the Living Christ, 12. [Text found in this volume. (Eds.)]

46

Chapter 23

Georges Florovsky and the World Council of Churches1 ARCHBISHOP JOB (GETCHA) OF TELMESSOS

THE LEADING ARCHITECT OF ORTHODOX ECUMENISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Besides being one of the greatest Orthodox theologians of the last century, Father Georges Florovsky has been called “the leading architect of Orthodox ecumenism in the twentieth century.”2 According to him, the participation of the Orthodox to the ecumenical movement was not only possible, but most of all an obligation: “a direct obligation coming from the essence itself of the Orthodox consciousness and the obligation which lies for the true Church to witness everywhere.”3 Therefore, Florovsky considered the participation of the Orthodox in the ecumenical movement as a form of missionary action. He stated: “The Orthodox Church is specifically called to take part in the

Extracts of documents are published by permission from the World Council of Churches (WCC) Archives (Geneva). 2 Matthew Baker and Seraphim Danckaert, “Fr. Georges Florovsky,” P. Kalaitzidis (ed.), Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education (Volos: Volos Academy Publications with WCC Pub. and Regnum Books Intl., 2014), 211–15, at 211 [compare to Matthew Baker, “Neo-Patristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition,” in this volume (Eds.)]. 3 Georges Florovsky, “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” Irénikon 22:1 (1949), 5–25 at 9. [See translation of this article as “Orthodox Participation in the Amsterdam Assembly,” CW, XIV, 174–81]. 1

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ecumenical exchange of ideas precisely because she knows herself as the guardian of the apostolic faith and of the Tradition in its integrity and fullness, and to be in this sense the only true Church.”4

FLOROVSKY’S ROLE IN THE FORMATION OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES As the first secretary general of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Willem Adolf Visser ‘t Hooft, puts it, Florovsky played a very important role in the process of formation of the WCC in the early years of its life. In the WCC, Florovsky always represented the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The story begins in 1937 at the second World Conference on Faith and Order in Edinburgh, where he was the most effective spokesman of the Orthodox position, stressing that it was impossible to jump over all the doctrinal differences into a reunion of Churches that would rather be a confusion of Churches.5 It is at Edinburgh that the two movements, Faith and Order on the one hand and Life and Work on the other, decided to merge and constitute the WCC. Fr. Georges Florovsky and Archbishop Germanos of Thyateira were then the two Orthodox delegates to guide the process of formation of this new institution called to incarnate the “koinonia of Churches” for which the Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of 1920 had prophetically called all the Churches of Christ everywhere. Florovsky served on the Provisional Committee of the WCC from 1939 to 1948. The WCC archives preserve a rich correspondence between Florovsky and various leading figures of the WCC. In a letter of September 23, 1947, to the future secretary general of the WCC, Willem Adolf Visser ‘t Hooft, Florovsky already noted the lack of interest of the Orthodox for the Ecumenical Movement: My personal feeling is that the real difficulty we have to face is the utter unreadiness of the Orthodox people to visualize any Christian activity unrelated to the particular worldly concerns of those involved. This does not depend upon the special conditions of our time, and cannot be explained by any external pressure. There is a lack of true ecumenicity behind it, which is only strengthened by the political tensions of today.6

Florovsky, “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” 9. W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Role in the Formation of the WCC,” SVTQ 23:3–4 (1979), 135. 6 WCC Archives File 42.0029/6. 4 5

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In January 1948, Florovsky wrote a paper on “The Church and Her Responsibility” for the Assembly Commission I on “The Universal Church in God’s Design” preparatory to the constitutive General Assembly of the WCC that took place a few months later in Amsterdam, from August 22 until September 5, 1948, and whose theme was “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design.” Before constituting the WCC, it was essential to understand what was meant by “Church.” In his paper, Florovsky pointed out that it is hardly possible to define the Church. The current definitions in textbooks or catechisms are of a late date and “situation conditioned.” Therefore, the task of the ecumenical movement is to get beyond the modern theological disputes and regain a wider historical perspective and a true “Catholic mind.” According to him, the Ekklesia is related to the Chosen People of God, the new People of God. But for him, to be Christian means to belong to a community. Regarding this, he quoted the ancient saying Unus Christianus—nullus christianus. For Florovsky, Christianity means a life in common. In the Church, Christians are united not only among themselves but first of all they are one in Christ. He stressed that the Ekklesia is a sacramental community, and that Baptism and Eucharist are the two “social sacraments of the Church” since the unity of the Church is effected by them. For him, strictly speaking, the messianic community, gathered by Jesus Christ, was not yet the Church before his Passion and Resurrection, before the “promise of the Father” was sent upon it in the mystery of Pentecost. In his view, the sacramental life of the Church is the continuation of Pentecost. By the Spirit the Christians are united with Christ and are constituted into His Body. The Church of Christ is one in the Eucharist. Christ sacramentally abides in the Church which is His Body. Florovsky said: The idea of the organism must be supplemented by the idea of a symphony of personalities [in which the mystery of the Holy Trinity is reflected, cf. Jn 17:21,23] and this is the core of the conception of catholicity [sobornost]. This is the chief reason why we should prefer a christological conception of the Church rather than a pneumatological (such as Khomiakoff or in Möhler’s Die Einheit in der Kirche). For the Church as a whole has her personal centre only in Christ, she is not an incarnation of the Holy Ghost, nor is she merely a Spirit-bearing community, but precisely the Body of Christ, the Incarnate Lord.7 Florovsky underlined that the Church is a visible historical society and the same time is the Body of Christ. The Church is a sacramental society—that means

7

WCC Archives File 31.013.01.

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eschatological. The primary task of the historical Church is to proclaim the Gospel. The Church is more than a company of preachers, or a teaching society, or a missionary board. The ministry of the Word is completed in the ministry of the sacraments. According to his words, “Historical failures of the Church do not obscure the absolute and ultimate character of its challenge, to which it is committed by its very eschatological nature.” The historical life and task of the Church is antinomical: either a flight out of the world and a radical denial of any external authority (flight to the desert—monasticism) or a reform and reorganization of the secular life on the basis of Christian principles (Christian Empire). The unity of the Christian task is thus broken. The separation of the two ways is inevitable: there is a danger of sectarian temptation in the first, of secularization of Christianity in the second. In the view of Florovsky, “a practical program for the present age can be deduced only from a restored understanding of the nature and essence of the Church.” In a letter sent on July 18, 1948, from Geneva to Henry Smith Leiper, Executive Secretary of the American Committee for the WCC, Florovsky was unhappy at the initiative of the Church of Russia to convene a so-called panorthodox council in Moscow in 1948 that sought to be negative with regard to the ecumenical movement. Florovsky was afraid that the Orthodox Church would be divided at the constitutive assembly of the WCC that ought to gather in Amsterdam one month later: You have heard indeed of our deliberations at Bossey. Our small commission N° I on the Church and her responsibility was much helped by the contribution of Prof. Clarens Craig of Yale. The Fourth Commission on the International Affairs was less successful. You have heard already I trust of the consultation convoked by the Moscow Patriarch to deal on the first place with the question of the Orthodox participation in the Ecumenical Movement and kindred subjects. All Greek-speaking Churches have declined the invitation, pointing out that the authority for such gathering belongs to the Ecumenical See of Constantinople. This means a deep split in the Orthodox Communion and is of a momentous importance for the composition of the Amsterdam Assembly. Two Orthodox groups, Moscow with the Satellites and Greeks, will probably take a different line of action. For the moment, I am rather in the deep waters of theology, more than in the urgent problems of today.8

8

WCC Archives File 450.005—Florovsky File.

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THE FIRST CONSTITUTIVE ASSEMBLY OF THE WCC (AMSTERDAM, AUGUST 1948) At the first constitutive assembly of the WCC in Amsterdam in August 1948, Fr. Georges Florovsky was appointed a member of the new Central Committee, and at its first meeting, was chosen to serve on the Executive Committee. He served these committees until 1961 very actively, underlining always the dynamic character of the WCC and not considering it as being a static institution: indeed, he viewed the WCC rather as a process and not as an institution.9 But the Amsterdam constitutive assembly had not clarified the question of the ecclesiological significance of the WCC. After Amsterdam, in a report on the Central Committee meeting at Chichester, UK, in July 1949, Florovsky stated: With regard to the fundamental ecclesiological issue, the Council can state clearly and unambiguously that it has not prejudged the question of the nature of the Church. It is definitely possible for a Church which considers itself the true Church to enter into the Council. Nothing in the official documents contains the slightest suggestion that the Council takes its stand on an ecclesiology according to which each church is to think of itself as one of the many equally true churches. Ecumenism does not mean ecclesiological relativism or syncretism. It is precisely the originality of the ecumenical movement that it invites churches, many of which are as yet unable to regard each other as branches of the same tree, to enter into fraternal conversation and cooperation with each other, so that they may come to know each other and, if the Lord wills, advance toward a wider manifestation of unity in Him.10 Further Florovsky added: There is a “deepest disagreement” and everyone is aware of the fact . . . . We have to clarify, again and again, our intuition in a sincere self-criticism and self-examinations, and perhaps finally the “deepest difference” will cease to be anonymous, as now it is to a great extent . . . . To speak so much and so persistently of difficulties and tensions is not to indulge in a hopeless pessimism. Just the opposite is true. The growing realization of difficulties is the greatest ecumenical promise. The Amsterdam decision “to

9

Florovsky, “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” 6. WCC Archives File 42.0029/6.

10

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stay together” will be vindicated only if it will stand the test and trial of fraternal controversy and common pain.11

THE TORONTO STATEMENT In 1950, Fr. Georges Florovsky sought to have a decisive influence on the socalled Toronto Statement, whose proper title is “The Church, the Churches and the World Council of Churches,” and which ought to discuss the ecclesiological question after the constitutive Assembly of Amsterdam of 1948. This document was received by the meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC in Toronto in 1950. Its subtitle is “The ecclesiological significance of the World Council of Churches.” Prior to that, in September 1949, representatives of the WCC met Roman Catholics at the Istina Centre in Paris. It was an important stage in the preparation of the document. The secretary of the Faith and Order Commission, Olivier Tomkins, together with the WCC Secretary General, W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft, drafted a statement that was then discussed in Toronto. The Toronto Statement begins by quoting the Amsterdam resolution on the “authority of the Council” and then goes on by stating “what the World Council is not.” The WCC is not a super-Church. Florovsky had already underlined in an article in 1949 on the First constitutive Assembly of Amsterdam 1948.12 The WCC does not exist to negotiate unions between the Churches. Florovsky had already underlined this in his article of 1949 when stating that “the ecumenical fellowship cannot be considered as the reunion of the Churches.”13 The WCC is not based on a particular conception of the Church. The membership in WCC does not mean that we consider our own conception of the Church as relative and does not mean that we accept a specific doctrine concerning the nature of Church unity. Furthermore, the Toronto Statement affirms: “The member churches of the World Council consider the relationship of the other churches to the holy catholic Church which the creeds profess as a subject for mutual consideration. Nevertheless, membership does not imply that each Church must regard the other member Churches as Churches in the true and full sense of the word.” This last sentence led to a long and intensive debate. The Orthodox regarded the other churches as essentially incomplete. During that debate, Florovsky made what Willem Adolf Visser ‘t Hooft considered to be “the most important speech he ever made in the history of the

Ibid. Florovsky, “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” 6. 13 Ibid., 13. 11 12

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World Council.”14 Florovsky pointed out that there was already, from the very beginning, a division among the WCC. In the minutes of the meeting we read: Now it is no secret that in this matter there are divisions between us. In Section I in Amsterdam this was clearly shown. We can either say that these disagreements do not destroy the WCC fellowship, or that they are so great that we have no common language and cannot speak together. Fr. Florovsky continued that some members regard other churches as essentially incomplete. If it is felt undesirable or impossible to retain such members, and hence such cleavages in the WCC, it had better be said clearly and plainly. Possibly the viewpoint of this tradition is too sharp for some, and if so it may be time to part . . . . He did not threaten, but gave a serious warning that this was no matter of editorial revision, but a matter of principle.15 In Toronto, many Protestant and Anglican agreed with the position of Florovsky. Finally, the Toronto Statement was adopted and showed the originality of the WCC, which is a fellowship of Churches who are not yet able to give full recognition to each other. This document is still of a significant importance until today concerning the participation of the Orthodox in the WCC, as reminded by the conciliar document on the “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest the Christian World” in paragraph 19. The Central Committee meeting in Rolle (Switzerland) in August 1951 appointed Florovsky to a committee concerning the change of the basis of WCC. The basis, taken from the Paris YMCA basis, confessed “Jesus Christ Savior and God according to the Scriptures.” Florovsky noted that on the one hand the “fundamentalists” made a critique of this affirmation as being too vague, as on the other hand, for the “modernists,” there was no evidence in the Scriptures that Jesus is God.16

FAITH AND ORDER COMMISSION At the Lund Conference of 1952, Florovsky was elected a member of the Faith and Order Commission as a representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and he remained a member until 1971. He participated very actively in the Faith and Order Working committee. For its meeting in August 1953 in Bossey, he prepared a memorandum entitled “Tradition and Our Traditions,” where

Visser ‘t Hooft, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Role in the Formation of the WCC,” 136–7. WCC: Minutes and reports of the Third Meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC. Toronto (Canada), July 9–15, 1950 (Geneva: WCC, 1950), 15–16. 16 WCC Archives File 301.012/2. 14 15

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he stated his fundamental principles for ecumenism, which have become the fundamental principles of the Orthodox in the ecumenical movement until today. According to Florovsky, Christianity is an historical religion, founded on the revelation in Jesus Christ, the Apostolic message, and the Paradosis (Tradition). The Paradosis is constituted by the Church, the Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit. Florovsky emphasized that the Church grew and developed: There is a variety of Christian traditions. It is of a great importance to define their relation to what should be described as Tradition. The existing variety is not to be regarded simply as an inevitable consequence of the growth. There is an obvious aspect of disintegration.17 According to him, the Church had a common history. Therefore, An attempt may be made to restore the communication between the historical denominations of today, just taking them as they are now, as fixed systems of beliefs and convictions. This method not only is bound to fail, but is intrinsically fallacious, because it dangerously obscures the relation between the stabilized traditions and that common paradosis, out of which they came and by which they should be measured and judged.18 Florovsky believed that it is necessary to identify the common tradition, the additions or deviations to that common tradition, in a non-polemical way, recognizing the essential kerygma and paradosis in other Christian communities than our own. He stated: Only by an historical analysis is it possible to identify the distinctive ethos of the existing denominations and their relation to that abiding paradosis, which only can vitally relate the broken aspects together.19 According to the minutes of the Faith and Order Working Committee meeting of August 1953 in Bossey, the question of what can be recognized as a Church and the question of the recognition of sacraments was discussed. Florovsky explained that the Orthodox Church considered always the possibility of recognizing another Church as possessing all necessary marks of the Church and therefore being qualified to administer the sacraments and exercise ministry.20

WCC Archives File 23.3.002/2. Ibid. 19 Ibid., paragraph 6. 20 WCC Archives File 23.3.002/3. Minutes, 9. 17 18

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But he said that recognition of baptism did not in all cases immediately establish intercommunion. Sacraments could not be used as means toward unity. He stressed that even in the Eucharist Christians were divided. Variety might not be divisive, but there were also divisions that depended primarily upon human sin and resistance.21 Florovsky considered that it was misleading to speak about the Church as the people of God, and said it was precisely the doctrine of the Body of Christ that returns us to the early Church, before juridical conceptions arose at all. The Church is, on the one hand, the Body of Christ, and, on the other hand, it is separated from Him. For this reason, the Church had to be cleansed (cf. Eph. 5:26). Therefore, it is not something perfect by itself.22 Florovsky suggested that instead of comparative theology, an ecumenical theology should be instituted.23 He considered that his emphasis was not on the doctrine of tradition itself, but on the relation of the various traditions to the idiom of the Church Universal as it was used before people lost the ability to speak one language.24 Concerning the name of the Commission on Faith and Order, Florovsky noted that some regarded order as something additional or different from the faith, and therefore had no dogmatic conviction about order, and others that considered order belonged to the integrity of the catholic faith.25 Only six years after the foundation of the WCC, Florovsky regretted the shift within the WCC from doctrinal discussions to practical cooperation. In a report sent to Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in January 1954, Florovsky deplored that the theme for the second WCC Assembly in Evanston (Christ— the Hope of the World) was of practical character and that “there will be no room for doctrinal disputes.” He suggested to the Ecumenical Patriarch that “the Orthodox will be guided even in the discussion of practical topics by their basic beliefs and convictions.” But he pointed out that the interest of our Holy Orthodox Church may require from its representatives a clear definition of the Church’s position and conviction. It would not contradict the principles set by Your Holiness in Your Encyclical Letter of January 31, 1952, if the Orthodox delegates, when required, would make statements on the Orthodox faith and teaching, in order to elucidate their standing and attitude in the practical field itself. The only thing they should not do is to initiate debates on doctrine or to expose the Orthodox teaching to criticism.

Ibid., 12. Ibid., 23–4. 23 Ibid., 41. Cf. paragraph 6 of his memorandum. 24 Ibid., 47. 25 Ibid., 53. 21 22

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He stressed that “the Orthodox will be put in a difficult position if they will not be allowed to bear witness to their faith.”26

THE CHALLENGE OF DISUNITY At the second assembly of the WCC in Evanston in 1954, Florovsky presented a paper entitled “The Challenge of Disunity,” in which he stated that there is One Church as there is One Lord, but the Christians are divided. This distinction between the unity of the Church and the division of Christians is fundamental. According to Florovsky, the Church is not divided, but the “the Christian World is in schism.” He stressed that there is no common “Christian language” and therefore pointed out the existence of a problem of communication. He said, “The years of the modern Ecumenical Movement may have improved the situation, but not to any considerable extent, simply because the movement itself was confined rather to an advanced minority in the churches. The Churches are still divided.”27 What does it mean when we speak about “our unity in Christ and our disunity as Churches”? According to him, first, Christians are united by Christ. Second, Christians are at one in their common allegiance to the same Lord. According to Florovsky, “the greatest achievement of the modern Ecumenical Movement is in the courage to acknowledge that there is a major disagreement.” Florovsky also pointed out that divisions were not always necessarily due to human errors and failures, but sometimes connected to a zeal to remain faithful to the true faith: It has been so often suggested that all Christian divisions are, as they always have been, just human misunderstandings [. . .] The very sting of Christian tragedy is in the fact that, in the concrete setting of history, many divisions had been imposed, as it were, precisely by the loyalty to Christ and by a sincere zeal for the true faith.28 He stated that for some Christians, our disunity as churches should not prevent a communion in sacris, as others believe that “the tragedy of Christian disruption goes much deeper and had affected the very basis of the Divine Institution.” Therefore, these “would insist that first of all these structural losses or distortions should be recovered and healed, and that unless this had been done, any manifestation of the alleged ‘oneness in Christ’ will be unreal and

WCC Archives File 42.0029/6. WCC Archives File 32.15/16. 28 Ibid. 26 27

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insincere.” This became the fundamental principle of the Orthodox within the ecumenical movement, rejecting any possibility of intercommunion. “Charity should never be set against the Truth,” said Florovsky. He added: “It must be plainly acknowledged that the present ‘schism’ or ‘disunity’ is not only a stigma of sin, but also a witness to a deep disagreement about the Truth.” For Florovsky, the Tradition is the main criteria to judge the Christians confessions. In the same paper he affirmed: Christian convictions must be submitted to the test of paradosis, of tradition. And probably it is precisely in this process of a common return to the glorious Tradition, which was continuing in the midst of all conflicts and dissensions, if often in a disguised and distorted shape, we, the “divided Christians,” will meet on a safer ground than ever before. This “Tradition” is the Church herself, in which the Lord is ever present.29 According to him, the purpose of the ecumenical movement was to help the divided Christian to find the proper direction: The full knowledge and understanding are reserved for the Day of Judgement, but at least, a knowledge of direction is available for the Church already in her earthly “Pilgrimage.” To recover this sense of direction is the first task of the Ecumenical Movement at the present. The goal is distant, and the path is narrow. But a sure and infallible guide is given to all who search with humility and devotion, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, He will lead the faithful believers into the Fulness of Truth.30 In a letter to Visser ‘t Hooft of June 21, 1954, Florovsky noted about this text he had prepared for the Assembly: “Keep in mind that I am speaking the whole time of Christendom, and not simply of the actual Ecumenical Movement (WCC or anything of that sort). This accounts for my emphasis on radical tension. In fact, Orthodoxy in this respect is in the same position as Rome.”31 The second assembly of the WCC of Evanston in 1954 has been perceived as the zenith of Florovsky’s ecumenical activities.32 There, Florovsky prepared a declaration concerning the main theme of the Assembly—Christ, the Hope of the World—on behalf of the Orthodox delegation, in which he stated that the Orthodox agree with the theme, since she “has been proclaiming to the

Ibid. Ibid. 31 WCC Archives File 42.0029/6. 32 Baker and Danckaert, “Fr. Georges Florovsky,” 213. 29 30

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world that Christ [who is] the hope.” Nevertheless, he stressed that it must be affirmed, to begin with, in stronger terms, that the Christian Hope is grounded on Christian faith. Christian Hope is grounded in the belief that Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Lord, came down from Heaven to save the world. Therefore, “it is misleading to describe the Church simply as the ‘pilgrim people of God’ and to forget that the Church Triumphant and Church Militant are but One Body. It is precisely in this unity that the Christian Hope is grounded.”33 Although it is correct to connect Christian Hope with the belief in the second coming of Christ, the declaration stated the following: It is necessary to place an adequate emphasis on the actual presence of the Kingdom of God in the Church. The Kingdom has been founded by God through the Incarnation of His Son, the Redemption, the Resurrection, the Ascension of Christ in glory and the Holy Spirit. It has been existing on earth since Pentecost and is open to all men, bestowing to all who enter, the power transforming and renewing human existence now on earth. Life eternal is not only an object of future realization; it is given to those who were called by the Word of God in the Sacrament of Baptism (Rom. 6) and it is continuously renewed through participation in the Holy Eucharist.34 The declaration written by Florovsky stressed that Hope in Christ is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit: The power of God is operating in the midst of human weakness . . . . The Church of Christ, as the realized Kingdom of God lies beyond Judgement, whereas her members being liable to sin and error are subject to Judgement . . . . In proclaiming that Christ is the Hope of the World, we must not lose sight of the reality that Christ is not separated from His Father and the Holy Spirit . . . . Hope in Christ means hope in the Blessed Trinity.35 Already in 1959, Florovsky had concerns about the Orthodox participation within the WCC with regard to their representation. In a letter to Visser ‘t Hooft of December 28, 1959, Florovsky stated: The Executive must give more thought to the peculiarity of the Orthodox position in the WCC, if not only we want to have a real, and not just a formal participation. Of course, it was quite irresponsible to speak of an “agony of

WCC Archives File 32.17/29. Ibid. 35 Ibid. 33 34

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the Orthodox” in the ecumenical movement (in connection with the Oberlin Conference). But, on the other hand, the difficulties of the Orthodox should not be ignored, as well as the lack of agreement among them concerning the whole ecumenical problem. At the present, I am afraid, the true “ecumenical balance” is broken in the WCC. It deserves close and urgent attention of those who want to keep it really “ecumenical,” and not just “anti-Roman.” I recall well, how you yourself regretted the unfortunate phrase of William Temple in 1937, describing the Faith and Order movement as an “antiRoman bloc.” Now it is even more unfortunate than ever. Orthodox are not on the Protestant side, nor are they on the Roman. They are a side themselves. You must be aware of this feeling widely spread, although for various reasons it is not voiced aloud.36

THE LAST TWO DECADES IN THE WCC In 1961, at the Third WCC Assembly in Delhi, Florovsky led the forty Orthodox representatives in a statement (sometimes referred to as the “Florovsky statement”) reiterating the Orthodox ecclesiological terms of the involvement in the WCC based on his former theological principles. This statement affirms that for the Orthodox, the basic ecumenical problem is of schism. The unity has been broken and must be recovered. The Orthodox Church is not a confession, one of many, one among the many. It cannot accept the idea of a “parity of denomination” and cannot visualize the Christian Reunion just as an interdenominational adjustment. For the Orthodox, the Orthodox Church is the Church. The declaration criticized “ecumenism in space” aiming at an agreement between the denominations, and advocated for “ecumenism in time” that seeks the common ground among the denominations in their common history and in the common ancient and apostolic tradition from which all of them derive their existence. The declaration stated that the Orthodox Church is willing to participate in this common work as the witness that had preserved continuously the deposit of apostolic faith and tradition. For this reason, the immediate objective of the ecumenical search is, according to the Orthodox understanding, a reintegration of Christian mind, a recovery of apostolic tradition, a fullness of Christian vision and belief, in agreement with all ages.37 After 1961, Fr. Georges Florovsky remained a member of the Faith and Order Commission until 1971. Throughout these years, he always advocated for the participation of the Orthodox in the WCC as a responsibility of the

WCC Archives File 42.0029/6. Document published in C. G. Patelos, The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1978), 97–8. 36 37

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Orthodox in witnessing to the Christian world by turning the conversation toward ecclesiology and introducing patristic studies into the Faith and Order Commission. He deplored the trend toward secularization leading the WCC to be inattentive to doctrine and being increasingly influenced by the political agendas. Such tendencies, according to him, made the problems of the ecumenical movement “perhaps insoluble.” In 1971, he noted that the reason of the decline of the ecumenical movement in general, and of the WCC and its commission on Faith and Order in particular, was the result of “decisions made by men who are ignorant of dogma and ignorant of Church history, tradition, Christian culture. Hence, they feel that what we need to do is find what we have in common, then forget the rest.”38

CONCLUSION Following the death of Fr. Georges Florovsky on August 11, 1979, the first secretary general of the WCC, Willem Adolf Visser ‘t Hooft, expressed the wish that “the younger generation in the World Council will not forget what we owe to Fr. Georges, who represented a quite unique combination of strong, deeply rooted theological conviction with ecumenical breadth.”39 As the leading architect of Orthodox ecumenism in the twentieth century, Florovsky was convinced that the participation of the Orthodox in the ecumenical movement was an obligation for the true Church to witness everywhere. Based on this idea of the martyria of Truth, he firmly rejected the confusion of Churches that would result from any denial of the doctrinal differences. For him, ecumenism did not mean ecclesiological relativism or syncretism. Florovsky believed that it was possible for the Orthodox Church, as the true Church, to enter into the WCC. For him, as it was later stated in the Toronto document, the WCC was not a super-Church, and therefore, each member Church was not considered as one of the many equally true churches. For the same reason, the WCC could not be considered as the reunion of the Churches. Florovsky made a distinction between the unity of the Church and the division of Christians. According to him, the Church is not divided, but the Christians are divided, and thus, do not speak a common “Christian language.” According to Florovsky, the courage to acknowledge that there is a major disagreement was in fact the greatest achievement of the ecumenical movement. He believed that it would be insincere to close our eyes on the present division. For this reason, intercommunion between the Christians was impossible unless

Baker and Danckaert, “Fr. Georges Florovsky,” 211. Visser ‘t Hooft, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Role in the Formation of the WCC,” 138.

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the dogmatic issues would be resolved first. The criteria to resolve these issues lie, according to him, in Tradition. Florovsky already regretted the shift within the WCC from doctrinal discussions to practical cooperation. For him, the basic ecumenical problem is the resolution of a schism. The unity has been broken and must be recovered. For him, the Orthodox Church is not one confession among many, but the true Church. Florovsky criticized “ecumenism in space” aiming at an agreement between the Christian Churches, and advocated for “ecumenism in time” that seeks the common ground among the Churches in their common history as well as in the common ancient and apostolic tradition.

Chapter 24

Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Understanding of the New Mission in the West1 IVANA NOBLE

Father Georges Florovsky’s understanding of the new mission in the West may be summarized very briefly: The rediscovery of the unity in Christ by rekindling the spirit of the Fathers, and equipped with their living companionship, face together the problems of the Modern World. The longer, more detailed, and sympathetically critical approach, however, needs to wrestle with some of the more problematic categories used by Florovsky himself, when he spoke of the mission, namely, those of pseudomorphosis and (re)Hellenization. Related to this subject are two questions that have puzzled me for a long time: (1) Why has the strongest impact of Florovsky on his students emerged when he actually does not teach mainly theology, but history and Russian literature? (2) Why is Florovsky so loved among the ecumenically minded Greek theologians who would be far from accepting the hegemony of the Hellenic paradigm or the synthetic reading of the Fathers? These two questions have guided my investigations of his understanding of the mission of the Orthodox in the West after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the subsequent destruction of the

This study is part of the work supported by Charles University Research Centre No. 204052: “Theological Anthropology in Ecumenical Perspective.” 1

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religious and intellectual life in the country, and the massive exodus of Russians to the West. In my chapter, I will first look at two formative influences on Florovsky’s reading his own context, the German philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) and the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881). It will be important to consider what Florovsky took from them; what he took from them and altered; as well as what he took and reacted against.

SPENGLER AND DOSTOEVSKY: TWO GUIDING INFLUENCES When, in 1918–22, Oswald Spengler published his two volumes of The Decline of the West, the work became very influential upon Russian émigré intellectuals, and in particular in the nascent Eurasian movement, in the early stages of which Florovsky took part. In my understanding, however, Spengler’s impact lasted even when Florovsky parted with the movement and criticized its “intolerant spirit” and “political intrigue.”2 Florovsky was only partly influenced by what, for the movement, was an attractive prospect, since it suggested that even if now Russia experienced destruction, its time was yet to come, as it was the West that was in decline, not the East. Spengler spoke about cyclical movements in history that were related to the life span of what he saw as distinct and largely unrelated “high cultures.”3 These were born, according to him, “in a moment when a great soul awakens out of proto-spirituality . . . of ever childish humanity, and detaches itself, a form from the formless, a bounded and mortal thing from the boundless and

The Eurasian Movement rose among Russian emigrants in Sofia in the early 1920s, under the leadership of Nikolai Trubenskoi, Peter Suvchinsky, and Peter Savitsky, Influenced by Spengler’s theory of separated cultures and their cycles, but also by his understanding of the decline of the West, they maintained incompatibility between Russian culture and the West. Russians together with the Muslims of Central Asia (former Mongolian khanate), according to them, formed a unique amalgam of cultures, a unique civilization, which had the potential for regeneration, unlike the Latin-German West. Florovsky was part of this movement in 1921–3, but while criticizing its “intolerant spirit” and “political intrigue.” Georges Florovsky, “Iz pisem o. Georgiia Floroskogo Iu.Ivasku” (April 8, 1965), Vestnik ruskogo khristianskogo dvizheniia 4:130 (1979), 45–7, in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 11–217, here at 38–40, the quotation: 39 and 180, n. 5. Gavrilyuk maintains, however, that some of the Eurasian ideas remained with Florovsky throughout his life. See Paul L. Gavrilyuk “Florovsky’s Neopatristic Synthesis and the Future Ways of Orthodox Theology,” in George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds.), Orthodox Constructions of the West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 102–24, here at 105–6; Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 60–79. In my understanding, Spengler’s influence had the lasting impact, but not Eurasianism. 3 According to Spengler, these were the Indian, the Egyptian, the Chinese, the Mexican (Mayan— Aztec), the Arabian (Magian), the Classical (Greek and Roman), and Western (Euro-American). See Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West II: Perspectives of World History, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), 33–51. 2

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enduring.”4 Their life span was like that of human life: it included birth, youth, maturity, old age, and death.5 Russian primitive religious genius, according to him, could not die in the way high cultures could and did.6 Florovsky did not opt for the value of the primordial Russian religiosity, but he shared Spengler’s critique of the Westernized Orthodoxy7 as something alien to Russia, as a “pseudomorphosis” of Russia’s own roots. He even applied the very term that Spengler took from mineralogy, where it signified a contradiction between the inner structure and the external shape of volcanic stones.8 Florovsky, like Spengler, would speak about “historical pseudomorphosis,” which designated the domination of a stronger and older alien culture over the younger and weaker local one, forced to fit into external structures alien to its “soul.”9 He agreed with Spengler’s saying that revolution did away with the pseudomorphosed Orthodoxy. And Florovsky’s understanding of the mission in the West would remain related to the project of rediscovering the more organically Orthodox theology. For Spengler, a return to the “more enigmatic . . . pre-period” meant embracing what was “still primitive through and through,”

Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West I: Form and Actuality, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927), 106. 5 Ibid., 107. 6 “Primitive religions have something homeless about them, like the clouds and the wind. The mass-souls of the proto-peoples have accidentally and fugitatively condensed into one being, and accidental, therefore, is and remains the ‘where’—which is an ‘anywhere’ . . . ‘immaterial so far as concerns their inward significance’.” Spengler, Decline of the West II, 278. 7 Spengler criticized the reforms of Peter the Great as bringing about not only the Westernization of Russia, but produced in effect also outbreaks of religious fanaticism, nihilism, and political revolutions. See Spengler, Decline of the West II, 278. 8 “In a rock-stratum are embedded crystals of a mineral. Clefts and cracks occur, water filters in, and crystals are gradually washed out so that in due course only their hollow mould remains. Then come volcanic outbursts which explode the mountain; molten masses pour in, stiffen, and crystallize out in their turn. But these are not free to do so in their own special forms. They must fill up the spaces that they find available. Thus there arise distorted forms, crystals where inner structure contradicts their external shape, stones of one kind presenting the appearance of stones of another kind. The mineralogists call this phenomenon Pseudomorphosis.” Spengler, Decline of the West II, 189. 9 It takes place, when “those cases in which an older alien culture lies so massively over the land that a younger culture, born in this land, cannot get its breath and fails not only to achieve pure and specific expression forms, but even to develop fully its self-consciousness. All that wells up from the depths of the young soul is cast in the old moulds, young feelings stiffen in senile works, and instead of rearing itself up in its own creative power, it can only hate the distant power with a hate that grows to be monstrous.” Spengler, Decline of the West II, 189. Spengler speaks about the pseudomorphosis forced to “the primitive Russian soul” first in the form of Baroque, then the Enlightenment and then the nineteenth century; see ibid., 192. We need to note, that if we follow Spengler’s scheme, then in the case of Russia, the older culture is not only the Western one, but also the Byzantine and the Mongolian. There is a chain of pseudomorphoses, and of hatred directed to different sides. See Ivana Noble et al., The Ways of Orthodox Theology in the West (SVS Press, 2015), 37–58, 75–104. Florovsky’s analysis, however, is very close to that of Spengler; see Georges Florovsky, The Ways of Orthodox Theology I, CW V, xvii–xviii. 4

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while more distinctly “anticipating and pointing in a definite direction,”10 that which could bring a renewal also to the West but to which the West on its own does not have access.11 For Florovsky it meant embracing Christian Hellenism.12 With that difference, Florovsky still accepted also Spengler’s contrasting two ways in which the Russian soul was related to the West (even if he would not use the term “Russian soul” itself), one represented by Tolstoy, the other by Dostoevsky. Spengler said: Tolstoi is the former Russia [that is the one which underwent pseudomorphosis and died with the revolution], Dostoievski the coming Russia. The inner Tolstoi is tied to the West. He is the great spokesman of Petrinism even when he is denying it. The West is never without a negative . . . . Hating it, he hates himself and so becomes the father of Bolshevism . . . . This hatred Dostoyevski does not know. His passionate power of living is comprehensive enough to embrace all things Western as well—“I have two fatherlands, Russia and Europe.” He has passed beyond Petrinism and revolution, and from his future he looks back over them as from afar. His soul is apocalyptic, yearning, desperate, but this future is certain. “I will go to Europe,” says Alyosha; “I know well enough that I shall be going only to a churchyard, but I know too that that churchyard is dear, very dear to me. Beloved dead lie buried there, every stone over them tells of a life so ardently lived, so

Spengler, Decline of the West II, 276; see also II, 278. In Spengler’s system the “Russian soul” is identified with the primordial religiosity, compared to the Magian culture, as a pre-period of the Western Culture. “The Russian soul, will-less, having the limitless plane as its prime symbol” flourishes in the “brother-world of the plane” before the “I” is elevated. See Spengler, The Decline of the West I, 309. 11 “The religions of the high Cultures are not developed from these, but different. They lie clearer and more intellectual in the light, they know what understanding love means, they have problems and ideas, theories and techniques, of strict intellect, but the religious symbolism of everyday light no more. The primitive religiousness penetrates everything; the later and individualized religions are self-contained form-worlds of their own.” Spengler, Decline of the West II, 276. Spengler related the undestroyability of the Russian culture with the religious immediacy, and he compared it to “the Magian hierarchy of heaven—angels, saints, persons of the Trinity.” Spengler, Decline of the West I, 187. He makes the link even more solid, as he says further: “The Magian Culture, geographically and historically, the midmost of the group of higher Cultures—the only one which, in point of space and time, was in touch with practically all others. The structure of its history as a whole in our world picture depends, therefore, entirely on our recognizing the true inner form which the outer mould distorted. Unhappily, this is just what we do not yet know, thanks to theological and philosophical prepossessions, and even more to the modern tendency of over-specialisation” (Spengler, Decline of the West II, 190). And then he said that in the sphere of pseudomorphosis these grew “paler and paler, more and more disembodied” (Spengler, Decline of the West I, 187). 12 See, e.g., Georges Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” in Hamilcar Alivizatos (ed.), Procès-verbaux du Premier Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athens: 29 novembre–6 decembre 1936 (Athens: Pyrsos, 1939), 23–242 (PWGF, 153–8); Georges Florovsky, “The Christian Hellenism,” The Orthodox Observer 422 (1957), 10 (PWGF, 233–6). 10

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passionate a belief in its own achievements, its own truth, its own battle, its own knowledge, that I know—even now I know—I shall fall down and kiss these stones and weep over them.”13 In the 1920s and 1930s Florovsky himself dedicated several studies to Dostoevsky and he returned to him when he was appointed to teach not only patristics and history but also Slavic literature at Harvard.14 In “Dostoevsky and Europe,” an article he wrote in Sofia in 1922, Florovsky, like Alyosha in Brothers Karamazov, recognized his belonging to the two homes. While Florovsky shared Dostoevsky’s strong criticism of the theocratic Catholicism, he stated that Europe was a bearer of ecumenical heritage combining the elements of classical antiquity and Renaissance. This combination, as Dostoyevsky uncovered, is present not only in the greatness of Europe but also in its sickness, caused by a big distance between the enormous cultural past and present values. This was the paradox of Europe. We can see here echoes of Spengler’s interpretation, according to which Europe did not have sources for revival within itself, and thus needed the help of Russia. Russian exodus to the West could thus be seen as providential, as it could bring to this great European culture the timeless value of Orthodoxy.15 Dostoevsky did not influence Florovsky so much through his notion of Christ as the beauty that would save the world, or by the humility in which Christ is iconically mirrored in the world,16 but by other doctrinal themes. Florovsky tried to distil and systematize, and make out of them a backbone of what he saw as an Orthodox theological mission in the West.17 These were the depiction of the divine humanhood, and of pan-unity experienced as sobornicity, themes

Spengler, Decline of the West II, 195. When Florovsky started to organize informal seminars at his home while teaching in Harvard, the very first one, which took place in 1957, was dedicated to Dostoevsky. See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 116, and 197, n. 114. 15 See Dimitrios G. Avdelas, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Ecumenical Task: From Dostoevsky to Neopatristic Synthesis,” International Journal of Orthodox Theology 7:1 (2016), 128. He refers to Georges Florovsky, “Dostoevsky and Europe,” CW, XI, 69, 72, 74. 16 See Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot III.v; Brothers Karamazov I.iii.3; See also Dostoevsky’s own comments on the figure of Christ in The Idiot in his letter of May 27, 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Complete Letters III, ed. David Allan Lowe and Ronald Meyer, (New York: Ardis, 1990), 17; Michel Terestchenko, “Literature and the Good II: Prince Myshkin, the Perfectly Beautiful Man,” on https:// www​.cairn​-int​.info​/article​-E​_RDM​_041​_0312-​-literature​-and​-the​-good​-ii​-the​.htm (accessed March 23, 2021), 312–25, esp. n. 3. 17 “The creative path of Dostoevsky was not direct, it meandered . . . . The works of Dostoevsky are raw metaphysical ore; they both await and demand speculative processing.” Georges Florovsky, “The Brothers Karamazov: An Evaluation of Komarovich’s Work,” CW, IX, 93; Avdelas, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Ecumenical Task,” 134–5, n. 30. 13 14

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that came to Dostoevsky via Solovyov18 and the Slavophiles,19 and which grounded Dostoevsky’s ideal of humanity created in the image of God.20 Florovsky sees here in Dostoevsky, “an independent and complex culturalsocial ideal, an ideal of the great, universal, all-national, all-fraternal union in Christ’s name,” something that can be realized in the universal church on earth, “to the extent that the earth may contain it.”21 Orthodoxy is seen here by Florovsky as a synonym for “human progress and human civilization,” and it is understood this way by the Russian people when they “trace everything to Christ . . . personify their future in Christ and in Christ’s truth because they cannot imagine themselves without Christ.”22 Florovsky wrote this in Sofia, two years after he fled from Odessa together with his father, mother, and sister, convinced that he would never return either to Ukraine or to Russia.23 Dostoevsky represented for him the intuition of universal Orthodoxy rooted in Christ, that which needed to be transmitted to a new territory. Florovsky returned to Dostoevsky at the beginning of the 1930s, when he taught patristics as St. Serge, and was more and more involved with the rising ecumenical movement, but at the same time less and less at ease with the Sophiological foundations, which Fr. Bulgakov, who promoted him in both of these worlds, carried into them. In the “Dead Ends of Romanticism” Florovsky criticized the excess of the chiliast (and in his time also Sophiological)

Solovyov was close to Dostoyevsky, and influenced him by his notion of Godmanhood, grounding his ideal of humanity as created in the image of God. Regarding pan-unity, while Florovsky appreciates Solovyov’s genuine desire for Christian unity, he criticizes his decision to belong to both Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church at the same time: “The true legacy of Soloviev is not his ‘Romanticism’ and of course not his utopian, theocratic dream, but his acute sense of Christian unity, of the common history and destiny of Christendom, his firm conviction that Christianity is the Church” (Georges Florovsky, “Russian Orthodox Ecumenism in the 19th Century,” CW, XIV, 151). Elsewhere he adds: “He did not help the West to grasp the deepest ethos of the Christian East, and his zealous followers in Russia did even more harm in this respect. Nor did he help Russians to appreciate the treasures of the Western tradition—in worship and in spirituality, in Christian philosophy, and in other fields, of which he probably was not fully aware himself” (Georges Florovsky, “The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter,” in E. J. B. Fry and A. H. Armstrong (eds.), Rediscovering Eastern Christendom: Essays in Memory of Dom Bede Winslow [London: DLT, 1963], 70). For the development of Florovsky’s relation to Solovyov, see Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 98–113. 19 For the Slavophile concepts of integral knowledge and of sobornicity and their reception, see Sergei Khoruzhi, “Transformations of the Slavophile Idea in the Twentieth Century,” Studies in Philosophy 39:2 (1995), 7–25; Parush Parushev, “Philosophical Grounding and Theological Development of the Slavophile Movement in Russia” (English) Богословска мисъл 16:3–4 (2012), 45–62. 20 Avdelas, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Ecumenical Task,” 130, n. 16. 21 Florovsky, “Dostoevsky and Europe,” 78. 22 Ibid. 23 See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 33. 18

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optimism.24 Dostoevsky serves him as a finger pointing at the tragic in human civilization. Dostoevsky’s deep analysis of the demonic in the human heart and human world underlines the only possibility of renewal in Christ.25 In “The Evolution of the Dostoevskian Concept of Human Freedom,” Florovsky expands his Christocentric reading of Dostoevsky toward ecclesiology.26 In “The Dead Ends of Romanticism,” Florovsky stated that in Dostoevsky, the Great Inquisitor is the paradigm image of the Roman Catholic power ambitions violating the community,27 while he sees the type of a Russian monk as the fulfilment of the Russian socialist dream: a man truly transformed and hence truly capable of solidarity.28 This solidarity, which Spengler also found so attractive in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, found its way to Florovsky, too, in his evaluation of the Russian theological past, and in his engagement in the ecumenical movement. In The Ways of Russian Theology Florovsky pleaded not only for a free and equal encounter with the West29 but also for studying and sympathizing with the “inner creative life” of the West, for experiencing that life and sympathizing with it “precisely in its full problematicality, searching and anxiety,” concluding

See Avdelas, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Ecumenical Task,” 131. See Georges Florovsky, “The Dead Ends of Romanticism,” CW, XII, 59–61. Compare to Spengler’s reading of Dostoevsky, Spengler, The Decline of the West II, 194–5, 218. Williams says there that he appreciated in Dostoevsky the way how he deals with violence. Being a Christian for him does not mean closing eyes to human misery and suffering, but uncovering where love is real, embodied, where and how it brings hope, reveals itself in humility, encouraging people’s responsibility, and sharing burdens with each other. See Rowan Williams on Dostoevsky, on https://www​.youtube​ .com​/watch​?v​=Dsswa​-CFJhs, StJohnsTimeline, published on March 30, 2015 (accessed March 23, 2021). 26 See Georges Florovsky, “The Evolution of the Dostoevskian Concept of Human Freedom,” CW, XI, 85. As Avdelas summarizes: “Dostoevsky’s synthesis could only be achieved within the church. Freedom is accomplished through love and brotherhood, which are the fundamental elements of the catholicity (sobornost) in Christ’s body (church).” Avdelas, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Ecumenical Task,” 133. 27 Florovsky, “The Dead Ends of Romanticism,” 59–60. According to Rowan Williams, the central question posed by the various moral crises to which Dostoevsky was seeking to respond is: “What is it that human beings owe to each other?” The incapacity to answer that question coherently—or indeed to recognize that it is a question at all—was for Dostoevsky more than just a regrettable lack of philosophical rigor; it was an opening to the demonic—that is, to the prospect of the end of history, imagination, and speech, the dissolution of human identity. John Garvey, “Novelist as a Theologian,” https://www​.commonwealmagazine​.org​/novelist​-theologian, published April 19, 2010 (accessed August 21, 2019). 28 Florovsky, “The Evolution of the Dostoevskian Concept of Human Freedom,” 85. John Garvey, in his review of Rowan Williams’s book on Dostoevsky, “Novelist as a Theologian,” emphasizes that Fr. Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov is for Florovsky, whom Williams quotes, “an unquestionably a modern man. Educated, self-aware in a contemporary way, experiencing the divided self unavoidable for a committed Christian in an Enlightenment culture.” See Garvey, “Novelist as a Theologian.” 29 See Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology II, CW, VI, 308 (PWGF, 179). 24 25

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that “only such compassionate co-experience provides a reliable path towards the reunification of the fractured Christian world and the embrace and recovery of departed brothers.”30 The mission is understood by Florovsky here as a “new creative act . . . Orthodox theology has been called upon.”31

CHRISTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW MISSION AND OF THE NEW UNIVERSAL PARADIGMS Florovsky is in search of a universal paradigm throughout his career. His brief association with the Eurasian movement has taught him that the universal paradigm cannot be race, nation, not even a civilization. As Matthew Baker and Seraphim Danckaert pointed out, he refused to give them any “fixed hypostatic character.” For Florovsky, as they sum up, “True solidarity exists in Christ, in whom alone freedom coincides with ‘organic’ oneness—an eschatological unity, transcending natural realities, built up historically through faith and sacrament.”32 This true solidarity in Christ, such as Spengler admired in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, is also a starting point of Florovsky’s notion of the mission in the West. The West needs to be loved as much as the East, Florovsky underlines, and both need to rediscover that faith in Christ binds East and West together.33 It is clear that his critique of the pseudomorphosis of Russian theology, religious and social life concerned not the West, but the loss of what was authentic for the East. The free encounter with the West, and, indeed, with Dostoevsky, we could even say, appreciating the West as the second homeland, presupposes understanding and appreciating also what is unique for the

Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology II, CW, VI, 301 (PWGF, 172). Ibid. 32 Matthew Baker and Seraphim Danckaert, “Fr. Georges Florovsky,” in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas Fitzgerald, Cyril Hovorun et al. (eds.), Orthodox Handbook of Ecumenism: Resources for Theological Education (Volos: Volos Academy, 2014), 211–15, here at 211. 33 “It is hardly so easy to separate Russia and Europe in terms of spiritual and historical dynamics; and it is hardly necessary. It is necessary to keep this firmly in mind: the name of Christ connects Russia and Europe, no matter how distorted and even profaned it may be in the West. . . . this does not negate their inner mystical and metaphysical bond and their mutual Christian responsibility. Russia, as the living successor of Byzantinum, will remain the Orthodox East to the non-Orthodox but Christian West, within a shared cultural and historical cycle” (Georges Florovsky, “Evrasziskii soblazn,” in Iz proshlogo ruskoi mysli, 322–33, in Matthew Baker, “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism: Towards the ‘Reintegration’ of Christian Tradition,” in Andrii Krawchuk and Thomas Bremer (eds.), Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 235–60. Here I work with the longer version accessible on https://www​.academia​.edu​/6269335/​_Neopatristic​_Synthesis​_and​_Ecumenism​ _Towards​_the​_Reintegration​_of​_Christian​_Tradition​_Published​_version​_in​_Andrii​_Krawchuk​ _and​_Thomas​_Bremer​_eds (accessed March 24, 2021), 5 of 30, n.18. [This latter text of Baker is reprinted in this volume. (Eds.)]) 30 31

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first homeland, and what the first homeland can bring as a gift when both homelands and their religious and intellectual cultures seek for a rebirth in Christ.34 Florovsky then transposes the Dostoevskian idea of the paradox of the West into the paradox of the schism: the Church is ontologically one, but in its existence in history it is full of divisions.35 Unity in Christ, however, is ontological, going before, beyond and above every division. Here Florovsky agrees with Solovyov, although he does not accept his personal solution to the problem. Instead, Florovsky engages in the ecumenical mission through working toward doctrinal renewal and agreement that would be based in what he calls the “mind” or the “spirit” of the Fathers.36 According to Florovsky, “the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, were interpreting the Apostolic message, the original Good News, in Greek categories.”37 From here, then, he derived his notion of Christian Hellenism as a permanent category of Christian existence, and as something both Eastern and Western Christians need to embrace.38 The problem with his patristic, and later in the ecumenical circles, neopatristic synthesis39 is that he wants to systematize the voices of the Fathers too much, at

Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology II, CW, VI, 303 (PWGF, 174). See also Georges Florovsky, “The Legacy and Task of Orthodox Theology,” Anglican Theological Review 31:2 (1949), 69–70 (PWGF, 189–90). Baker points out that in this essay Florovsky even calls himself a Westerner by adoption. See Baker, “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism,” 13, n. 58. 35 See Florovsky, “The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter,” 63–76, here 65; see also Baker and Danckaert, “Fr. Georges Florovsky,” 212; Avdelas, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Ecumenical Task,” 144. 36 See Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” 238–42, esp. 240 (PWGF, 153–7). More than two decades later, he repeats: “We quote the Fathers, with assurance and conviction, but do we really live by their message? Precisely because, in our own days, the Orthodox Church is facing new issues, new problems, in a changing and changed world, and has to respond to the new challenge of the contemporary situation in complete loyalty to her tradition, it is our bounded duty to recover the creative spirit of Christian Hellenism, and to be as alive to the claims of our own epoch, as the masters of the old were alive to the challenge of their age.” Florovsky, “The Christian Hellenism” (PWGF, 236). 37 Georges Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” Theology Today 7:1 (1950), 67–79, here at 74. 38 Gavrilyuk points out that Florovsky elaborated his notion of Christian Hellenism in opposition to Harnack’s critique of the Hellenization of Christianity. See Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 6. I have dealt with this theme more extensively in Ivana Noble, “History Tied Down by the Normativity of Tradition? Inversion of Perspective in the Orthodox Theology: Challenges and Problems,” in Colby Dickinson (ed.), The Shaping of Tradition: Context and Normativity, (Leuven-Paris-Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2013), 283–96. For a critical evaluation of the usage of “Hellenism” and “Byzantinism,” see also Paul Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology: Behold, I Make All Things New (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 419–21. 39 He says: “We are perhaps on the eve of a new synthesis in theology—of a neopatristic synthesis, I would suggest. Theological tradition must be reintegrated, not simply summed up or accumulated. This seems to be one of the immediate objectives of the Church in our age. It appears to be the secure start for healing of Christian disruption.” Georges Florovsky, “The Legacy and the Task of 34

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the expense of appreciating the uniqueness of each and their differences. And at the same time, he assumes that his synthesis has a permanent value.40 When it comes to synthesis in ecumenism, Florovsky did not follow Spengler’s and Dostoevsky’s intuitions, but built upon the doctrinal understanding of unity. He saw ecumenism as a program, where to a large degree such a synthesis can be undertaken this side of the eschaton. And he took it as his mission to labor toward that end. He said: “There is no common mind in the Christian world. The first ecumenical task is namely that of creating it.”41 And he later explained: If I define the task and nature of Orthodox participation in the Ecumenical Movements as missionary, I do not understand the term as meaning direct propaganda or proselytizing . . . . The Orthodox theologian can and must represent the contemporary “East” less than the ecumenical antiquity itself . . . . Orthodoxy represents the patristic moment in Ecumenism.42 The “task” of Orthodox theology, a word he prefers to “legacy,” was for him ecumenical through and through. He emphasizes that as “the Patristic tradition is not a local one, but an ecumenical one,” being rekindled by the fire of the spirit of the Fathers in his time includes necessarily the need to “secure an ecumenical, a truly universal appeal.”43 But Florovsky’s ecumenism as a “missionary activity”44 does not count with an equality between Christian East

Orthodox Theology,” Anglican Theological Review 31:2 (1949), 65–71, here at 69 (PWGF, 191). See also Matthew Baker, “‘Theology Reasons’—in History: Neo-Patristic synthesis and the Renewal of Theological Rationality,” Theologia 81:4 (2010), 81–118, esp. 103–8; and “Neopatristic Synthesis and Ecumenism,” 236. 40 See Ivana Noble, “The Tension between an Eschatological and a Utopic Understanding of Tradition: Tillich, Florovsky, and Congar,” Harvard Theological Review 109 (2016), 400–21; Ivana and Tim Noble, “A Non-synthetic Dialectics between the Christian East and West: A Starting Point for Renewed Communication,” in Christine Büchner et al. (eds.), Kommunikation ist Möglich. Theologische, ökumenische und interreligiöse Lernprozesse. Festschrift für Bernd Jochen Hilberath (Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Ostfildern, 2013), 273–81. For the variety of Patristic syntheses, see also Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 172–715. 41 Georges Florovsky, “Ecumenical Aims and Doubts: An Address at the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam, 1948,” CW, XIII (1989), 22. 42 Georges Florovsky, “The Orthodox Contribution to the Ecumenical Movement,” CW, XIII, 161. 43 See Florovsky, “The Legacy and the Task of Orthodox Theology,” 70 (PWGF, 190). 44 He cites Florovsky, “Une vue sur l’Assemblée d’Amsterdam,” Irénikon 22:1 (1949), 5–25, here 9 [abridged translation: CW, XIII, 160–4 (eds.).] cited in Brandon Gallaher, “Georges Florovsky,” in S. J. Kristiansen and Svein Rise (eds.), Key Theological Thinkers—From Modern to Postmodern Theologians (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 353–30; I use here the republished version in two parts from Sourozh series of Christian Philosophers, especially the second part entitled “Florovsky’s Ecumenism: Orthodox Ecumenism as Missionary Activity and the Limits of the Church,” available in https://www​.academia​.edu​/29717959​/Georges​_Florovsky​_Sourozh​_111​_Nov​_2016​_86​_97 (accessed March 23, 2021), 86–97, esp. 94–7, here at 94, n. 6.

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and West for which he pleaded in the 1920s and 1930s. Now the pendulum has shifted to the other side, toward the superiority of the East. In his ecumenical writings Florovsky moved between an inclusive approach to both Latin and Orthodox Christianity,45 and identifying the Orthodox Church as the supreme witness to the Patristic tradition.46 When he said that “Christian reunion is just universal conversion to Orthodoxy,”47 he meant both the Orthodoxy that goes beyond the current division into the Christian East and West, and the Orthodoxy of which the Orthodox Church is a privileged representative, even if her canonical borders are not identical with her spiritual borders.48 The ecumenical mission was closely interwoven with the Pan-Orthodox mission. Both sought to put into practice a new way toward what Florovsky saw as a foundational universalism. Florovsky was dispirited by the juridical divisions in the Western diaspora, and welcomed different efforts to rediscover and recreate the inner Orthodox unity, be it the first meeting of Orthodox theologians in Athens, at various ecumenical activities, or in different student initiatives. As Blane sums up, he understood as an Orthodox mission in the West the need to disengage the Orthodox from the preoccupation with “ethnic nostalgias” and “inherited animosities.”49 However, he did this with a very strong pro-Greek agenda, which irritated some of his Slavic colleagues, church hierarchs, and fellow believers.50 However, in his understanding of PanOrthodoxy, as well as in his understanding of ecumenism, Florovsky remained a significant voice that has attracted people in the next generations.

CONCLUSION It is usually recognized that Spengler was influential upon Florovsky during the period of his engagement with the Eurasian Movement, and that his Ways of Russian Theology employed Spengler’s concept of pseudomorphosis, while

This position has been explored in an earlier study; see Ivana and Tim Noble, “A Latin Appropriation of Christian Hellenism: Florovsky’s Marginal Note to Patristics and Modern Theology and Its Possible Addressee,” SVTQ 56 (2012), 269–87. 46 See Florovsky, “The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” 72, 74. 47 See Georges Florovsky, “Confessional Loyalty in the Ecumenical Movement,” The Student World 43:1 (1950), 59–70 (PWGF, 279–88); Gallaher, “Florovsky’s Ecumenism: Orthodox Ecumenism as Missionary Activity and the Limits of the Church,” 94–5. 48 See Georges Florovsky, “The Limits of the Church,” Church Quarterly Review 117:233 (1933), 117–31 (PWGF, 247–56); “Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Movement,” The Ecumenical Review 2:2 (1950), 152–61; Gallaher, “Florovsky’s Ecumenism: Orthodox Ecumenism as Missionary Activity and the Limits of the Church,” 95. 49 See, Blane, Georges Florovsky, 94. 50 This was one of the reasons why he was forced to step down as a dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary. See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 94–6, 109–111. 45

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developing it in a different way.51 In my understanding, the influence was far more profound and lasting. Florovsky distanced himself from some aspects of Spengler’s theory, such as the separation of the high cultures, and he replaced Russia’s life-giving link to the primordial religiosity compared to what Spengler called the Magian Culture with that of Christian Hellenism. Still, we could say that Spengler gave Florovsky the categories to speak about the mission in the West as something which is deeply linked to Orthodox religious roots. In Florovsky’s case, these roots were Christological. Spengler influenced Florovsky’s interpretation of Dostoevsky, and also his positive approach to the West in the West, while being aware of its mortal illness. Coming back to the first guiding question, as to why the strongest impact of Florovsky on his pupils emerged when he actually does not teach mainly theology, but Eastern Church history and Slavic, especially Russian literature, it is possible to say that Florovsky’s engagement with Russian literature forced him out of his schemes. As we could see in Florovsky’s engagement with Dostoevsky, despite Florovsky’s best efforts to systematize Dostoevsky, the writer resisted. Dostoevsky’s figures remained more messy, and in this sense more real, or, as Rowan Williams says, “three-dimensional.”52 Christ is not primarily a correct doctrine there, but a source of life, in surprising and unexpected ways, making the transformation of human life possible. Here, perhaps, we need to pause and say that while in his favorite writer, God came usually in the most humble way, at the edge and often beyond the edge of being humiliated, Florovsky did not take this from Dostoevsky. Perhaps, there were echoes of the humble Christ in his courses on literature. Likewise, we could say that he did not take from Spengler the emphasis on the value of Russian proto-spirituality. His plea for the (neo) patristic synthesis is Western through and through, a fruit of the Latin-Germanic spirit. The question then, is, of course, whether as such it can bring anything genuinely different to the West, or indeed, whether it can open an access to the springs to which the West does not have access. As we saw, Florovsky’s notion of the new mission in the West has three facets: the humanist-cultural; the ecumenical; and the Pan-Orthodox. All three were Christocentric. The humanist-cultural was, perhaps most heavily inspired by Dostoevsky and by Spengler. The ecumenical facet attempted to synthesize the inclusive and exclusive interpretation of the relationship between Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Church, especially when it came to the witness of Patristic Christianity. The Pan-Orthodox facet of the mission

See, for example, Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance, 178; Andrew Louth, “Fr Georges Florovsky and the Neo-Patristic Synthesis,” in Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present (London: SPCK, 2015), 77–93, here at 80, 83. 52 See Rowan Williams on Dostoevsky, https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch​?v​=Dsswa​-CFJhs, StJohnsTimeline, published on March 30, 2015, accessed March 23, 2021. 51

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in the West stood on Florovsky’s highly romanticized and idealized notion of Christian Hellenism, an attitude he ardently criticized in others. Thus it is not surprising that speaking about spiritual (re)Hellenization was not that attractive for those Orthodox in whose historical memory mission and forced Hellenization of their culture coincided. For Greek theologians this elaboration of Florovsky’s Christian Hellenism had a very different meaning, closer to what Florovsky intended. Florovsky made it possible for the Greek theologians of the 1960s53 to see Hellenism in a non-nationalist manner, perhaps, more as a task than a heritage,54 something that needs to be creatively developed in each generation, and which, as a living stream of the interpretation of Christ, belongs to all Christians. Thus he opened for them a broader horizon. This is my response to the second guiding question, as to why Florovsky is so loved among ecumenically minded Greek theologians, who would be far from accepting the hegemony of the Hellenic paradigm or the synthetic reading of the Fathers. It is interesting that this love has not concerned only his former pupils from Harvard, such as John Romanides and Metropolitan John Zizioulas, but Florovsky continues to be appreciated also among the young generation of Greek theologians, who draw on all three facets of Florovsky’s understanding of the mission in the West. For Nikolaos Asproulis, Florovsky belongs to “the ecumenical thinkers and figures . . . [who] articulated and promoted a creative theological vision with respect to an Orthodox understanding of ecumenism”; he is appreciated for distinguishing between the canonical and the charismatic borders of the church making possible “the embracement in the first place of the Christian ‘other’ and also all humanity.”55

I have analyzed the contribution of the Greek Theology of the 1960s in an earlier work; see Ivana Noble et al., Mnohohlas pravoslavné teologie na Západě (Many Voices of Orthodox Theology in the West) (Brno: CDK, 2016), 38–43; compare also to Ladouceur, Modern Orthodox Theology, 134–8. 54 See Georges Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Church Historian,” in Walter Leibrecht (ed.), Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich (New York: Harper, 1959), 140–66, esp. 163 (PWGF, 193–219). 55 Nikolaos Asproulis, “Ecumenical Theologians and Important Leaders from Orthodox Tradition— General Introduction,” in Kalaitzidis, Fitzgerald, Hovorun et al. (eds.), Orthodox Handbook of Ecumenism, 169–70, here 169; Asproulis also offers a more detailed analysis of his position in “Revelation, Dogma and Terminology in G. Florovsky and J. Zizioulas,” in Ioan Tulcan, Peter Bouteneff and Michel Stavrou (eds.), Dogma and Terminology in the Orthodox Tradition Today (Sibiu; Astra Museum, 2015), 32–43. Asproulis points out that this distinction goes back to the thought of Augustine, whom, along with Florovsky, he sees as “a Father of the undivided Church” and regrets that he is too often neglected by the Orthodox. See Asproulis, “Ecumenical Theologians and Important Leaders from Orthodox Tradition,” 169–70; compare to Georges Florovsky, “The Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Problem,” The Ecumenical Review 2:2 (1950), 152– 61, here at 156. 53

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These, together with an understanding of tradition as living, as a stream of life we go forward to, have the lasting impact, and represent the best in Florovsky’s notion of the new Orthodox mission in the West. However, at the same time, especially the ecclesiological notions of his understanding of the mission need to be pruned from artificial over-systematization.

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PART IV

The Body of the Living Christ An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church

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Chapter 25

Introduction to Georges Florovsky’s The Body of the Living Christ: An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church ROBERT M. ARIDA

But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Eph. 4:15-16)

I “The Body of the Living Christ” stands as one of Fr. Georges Florovsky’s most extensive works on ecclesiology. Its content draws from his previous writings, in

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which one finds an ever-probing intellect seeking to articulate the multifaceted and inexhaustible character of Orthodox theology and life. Published in February of 1948 in a French Protestant publication,1 the article continues to provide challenges not only for ongoing ecumenical dialogue but also for the Orthodox Church in the modern/postmodern era. Consequently, “The Body of the Living Christ” remains a living text and therefore relevant for today. Among its many historical and theological assets, it courageously and prophetically calls the Orthodox Church as it sojourns in history to understand its inner life, its “living tradition,” as ever expanding. To appreciate this fundamental idea, seen as radical and un-Orthodox by some, requires the reader to perceive Florovsky as a theologian whose monumental contribution to the revival of Orthodox theology and its place in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue emerges from his inner need to struggle not only with his theological opponents but also with himself.

II “The Body of the Living Christ” appeared six months prior to the first General Assembly of the World Council of Churches convened in Amsterdam, Holland. It leads a collection of articles by three Protestants and one Roman Catholic.2 The collaboration of these theologians witnessed to a willingness and therefore a need on the part of Christians throughout the world to promote and to engage in dialogue that would not mitigate the theological tensions that resulted in a divided Christendom. This collaboration was also intended to provide a venue in which divided Christians could appreciate what was held in common and to offer the possibility of learning from the other. In a tribute to Florovsky written shortly after his death, W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft (1900–85), the first secretary general of the World Council of Churches, recounts the major role Fr. Georges played in Amsterdam. There, Florovsky sought to focus on the central importance of the Church if serious theological dialog was to ensue. Visser ‘t Hooft recounts how Florovsky was insistent that the section devoted to The Universal Church in God’s Design should “describe the ‘deepest difference’ between the churches as a difference between the

“Le Corps du Christ vivant: Une interprétation orthodoxe de l’Eglise,” in La Sainte Eglise Universelle: Confrontation oecuménique (The Holy Universal Church: An Ecumenical Confrontation) (Neuchâtel and Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1948), 9–57. 2 Franz J. Leenhard, “Réalité et caractères de l’Eglise” (Reality and Aspects of the Church); Regin Prenter, “L’Eglise, d’apres le témoignage de la Confession d’Augsbourg” (The Church according to the Testimony of the Augsburg Confession); Alan Richardson, “Une interprétation anglicane de l’Eglise” (An Anglican Interpretation of the Church); R.P.C. Spicq, O.P., “L’Eglise du Christ” (The Church of Christ). 1

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ecclesiology based on the apostolic succession and that based on the ecclesiology of the gathered church.”3 Even though it was decided, under the influence of Karl Barth (1886–1968) and Michael Ramsey (1904–88), that the focus would be on the difference between Catholic and Protestant understandings of the Church, one can safely assume that Florovsky shared ideas from “The Body of the Living Christ” at this and subsequent meetings of the WCC with clarity and passion. While Visser ‘t Hooft’s recounting of Florovsky’s request might give the impression that these two accents placed on ecclesiology, that is, apostolic succession and the gathered church, were in conflict, “The Body of the Living Christ” affirms that they are inseparable and are fundamental aspects of one ecclesiology necessary for maintaining the integrity of the Church as a historical and eschatological reality. As one of the most articulate representatives of the Orthodox Church, Florovsky was consistent in his “critical interventions when he considered that important theological or ecclesiastical principles were not taken sufficiently into account.”4 Basically, for Florovsky there could be no serious ecumenical dialogue without returning to the doctrinal and ecclesial issues that ultimately led to the division of Christians. The reunion of the churches, or more specifically the return to what Florovsky liked to refer to as the Una Sancta (i.e., the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church), could only manifest itself in light of theological and sacramental concord. Consequently, for Florovsky, separated Christians gathering in an ecumenical context was not considered as an expression of ecclesial unity. For Florovsky a united Christendom within the Una Sancta is built on the apostolic foundation of the historical episcopacy that in turn witnesses to the sacramental, kerygmatic, and dogmatic fibers of tradition. Hence, his insistence on apostolic succession and the Eucharistic community. As a theologian and a historian, Florovsky understood ecumenism as an opportunity for the Orthodox Church to recover and share within its own unfolding tradition the creative spirit of the Fathers: The road ‘to the Fathers’ in any case leads only forward, never back. The point is to be true to the patristic spirit, rather than to the letter alone, to light one’s inspiration at the patristic flame rather than engaging in a collection and classification of ancient texts. Unde ardet, inde lucet [light is emitted from that which burns]! Genuine faithfulness to the Fathers can occur only in creation, never by imitation alone.5

Visser ‘t Hooft, “Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Role in the formation of the WCC,” SVTQ 23:3–4 (1979), 136. 4 Ibid. 5 Georges Florovsky, “Breaks and Links” (1937), PWGF, 159-83, at 166 (Ways of Russian Theology (1937), CW, VI, 294) 3

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Though “The Body of the Living Christ” stands within an ecumenical context, it simultaneously extends beyond the realm of ecumenical dialogue. Ecclesiology for Florovsky became the social and political underpinning from which he sought to articulate the nature and goal of history together with the freedom of the human person.6 Both of these concerns—history and human freedom—are embedded in the Church’s proclaiming and living out of the Gospel in time and place. Consequently, for Florovsky, history and human freedom found their meaning in the Church and not in the idealized world of metaphysics or the laws of nature. History and freedom found their raison d’être within the “living tradition” of the ἐκκλησία articulated by its ever-expanding and clarifying kerygmata and dogmata.

III The Church as the locus for the revival of Orthodox thought and life was not something Florovsky was initially drawn to. Although he did not contend with a crisis of faith that would temporarily drive him away from the Orthodox Church, unlike many of his predecessors and contemporaries of the “Russian Religious Renaissance,”7 he nevertheless wrestled with an internal crisis of doubt that drew him to mathematics and science.8 In summarizing the assessment of the Russian historian Anatoly Cherniaev, Paul L. Gavrilyuk describes Florovsky’s crisis of faith: “Hidden behind the self-confident façade was a deeply conflicted and emotionally lonely man, who for many years could not find his true calling.” Cherniaev perceptively correlated a period of intellectual wanderings of the old generation away from the Church with the early period of Florovsky’s scholarly career (1913–25), during which “he was searching for an intellectual center of gravity outside of theology.”9 Confirmation of these remarks can be found in such works

F. Lewis Shaw, “The Philosophical Evolution of Georges Florovsky: Philosophical Psychology and the Philosophy of History,” SVTQ 36:3 (1992), 237–56. 7 For a general history of the Russian religious renaissance see Nicolas Zernov’s still useful The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1963). 8 Shaw, “Philosophical Evolution,” 239. 9 Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 43–4. This study is destined to remain for some time among the most insightful and thorough reflections of the life and work of Fr. Georges Florovsky. Other studies providing useful background material are: Andrew Blane, Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman (SVS Press, 1993); Marc Raeff, “Enticements and Rifts; Georges Florovsky as Historian of the Life and Mind of the Church in Russia,” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 6 (1990), 187–244; and George H. Williams, “Georges Vasilievich Florovsky: His American Career (1948–1965),” GOTR 11:1 (1965), 7–107. 6

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as Florovsky’s “The Cunning of Reason” (1921),10 “The Substantiation of Logical Relativism” (1924),11 and “Utopianism” (1926). These and later articles, particularly “The Crisis of German Idealism I: The Hellenism of German Idealism” (1931)12 and “The Crisis of German Idealism II: The Crisis of Idealism as the Crisis of the Reformation” (1932), all provide necessary background for appreciating Florovsky’s spiritual wanderings that eventually brought him to theology and to what he later refers to as the “neopatristic” synthesis. It should be stressed that Florovsky’s spiritual and intellectual odyssey by no means led him to a tranquil oasis. On the contrary, he continued to wrestle with his opponents inside and outside of the Orthodox Church. But just as important and just as intense was Florovsky’s struggle with himself. This ongoing selfcross-examination accounts for the vibrancy, depth, and challenge of his work, especially as it relates to his neopatristic synthesis.13

IV Many would agree that the concept “neopatristic synthesis” is not well defined. Consequently, it has been easily manipulated to support various and even opposing theological and historical “visions” in which some have not been at all helpful in promoting a universal and ecumenical Orthodoxy. Misused, the neopatristic synthesis has played into the hands of those who would close Orthodox Christianity from the West. Unfortunately, this has led many Orthodox to assess virtually all of Western theology as being opposed to Greek patristic thought.14 While Father Florovsky was intellectually combative in the ecumenical arena, he was neither a sectarian nor one who understood the theological enterprise as a closed synthetic system based on a reworking of German idealism and romanticism. To suggest otherwise is to overlook Florovsky’s skill

Robert M. Arida, “An Introduction to Father Georges Florovsky’s, ‘The Slyness of Reason,’” https://static1 ​ . squarespace ​ . com ​ / static ​ / 535 ​ 7 de0 ​ f e4b ​ 0 191 ​ d 0dc8cf13 ​ / t ​ / 580 ​ 8 ae4 ​ 5 b3d ​ b 2b7​ e7824df7d​/1476963910128​/Father​+Georges​+Florovsky​.pdf (last accessed March 26, 2021). 11 Robert M. Arida, “Gleanings from Father Georges Florovsky’s ‘On the Substantiation of Logical Relativism,’” Theologia 84:1 (2013), 17–25. 12 Robert M. Arida, “Father Georges Florovsky: Aspects of German Idealism (I),” https:// static1​.squarespace​ . com​/ static​ / 535​ 7de0​ f e4b​0191​ d0dc8cf13​ / t​ / 580​8 ae4​ 5 b3d​ b 2b7​ e 7824df7d​ /1476963910128​/Father​+Georges​+Florovsky​.pdf (last accessed March 23, 2021). 13 In his otherwise informative article, “‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: Identity and Polemic in the Neopatristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” Modern Theology 27:4 (2011), 659–91 [a revised version is published in this book (Eds.)], Brandon Gallaher does not probe enough into Florovsky’s own spiritual and intellectual struggles. 14 Ibid. 10

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in extrapolating and utilizing the language and concepts of German idealism to articulate the Greek patristic legacy in new language and within a new historical context. Indeed, Florovsky was among those Russian intellectuals who turned a critical eye toward German philosophy. By doing so, he and others sought to give Russian philosophy and theology a more independent and authentic voice. As early as 1834, the poet Vissarion Belinsky (1811–48) sarcastically wrote: “We have judged everything, we have disputed everything, we have adopted everything without having cultivated . . . or created anything. Others have toiled for us, and we only took the ready-made and utilized it: this is the secret of the incredible swiftness of our progress and the reason for its incredible unreliability.”15 Scholars have convincingly traced the concepts and language of Florovsky’s neopatristic synthesis back to German philosophy. Indeed, while criticizing aspects of German idealism and romanticism, Florovsky was simultaneously using the German philosophy of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to promote, under the guise of the Greek Fathers, a foundation for his neopatristic synthesis.16 However, what seems to be understressed is that Florovsky, in seeking to overcome Orthodoxy’s “western captivity,” was imitating the best of the Greek Fathers who criticized and even condemned Greek philosophy while using its vocabulary and concepts to promote the Gospel and the inexhaustible content of theology. Florovsky’s use of and, as some claim, dependency on German idealism and romanticism have raised the question regarding the originality of his thought. While Florovskian terms such as “pseudomorphosis,” “Western captivity,” and “synthesis,” can be traced to others, it seems that Paul Ladouceur provides a more thoughtful and insightful evaluation of Florovsky’s neopatristic superstructure: Perhaps in the end it was not Florovsky’s “message” that was so original, it was rather the “medium,” the uniting of a series of “influences” and ideas into a more or less coherent theological program, pithily gathered in the slogan “neopatristic synthesis,” and the passion and determination with which Florovsky pursued his objective over a period of some four decades.17 Successful or not, Florovsky’s critique and use of German philosophy was an attempt to integrate or synthesize it with patristic thought. Consequently, this

“Literaturnye mechtaniia” (Literary Musings) quoted by Margaret D. Setchkarev, Vsevolod Mikhailovich Setchkarev: A Short Biography (Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner, 2014), 17. 16 Gallaher, “Waiting for the Barbarians.” 17 Paul Ladouceur “Georges Florovsky’s Theological Vision,” Review Essay, SVTQ 58:4 (2014), 463. 15

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would allow theology to behold limitless horizons, albeit, paradoxically, within the parameters of Christian Hellenism.

V Contrary to Florovsky’s aversion to metaphysical categories, he understood Christian Hellenism as a universal law necessary for theology. Among the tragic limitations of Christian Hellenism are (1) its critical and theological myopia which helped to maintain a Greek patristic chauvinism that minimized and/or basically jettisoned the Syriac tradition, and (2) its misuse by those for whom reference to the historical past becomes the point from which the Church [dis] engages the culture. The latter is clearly and poignantly summarized by Pantelis Kalaitzidis: Indeed, the particularly defensive way of understanding Florovsky’s “return to the Fathers” and the systematization of his theory about “Christian Hellenism,” which considers the latter to be the “eternal category of Christian existence” and “something more than a passing stage” in the Church and which is integrally connected with Hellenism, patristics, and catholicity, eventually helped consolidate the idea that we need constantly to take refuge in the Church’s past—and, in this case, the Fathers in particular—so that we could be certain that we were within the limits of the truth.18 The tragic consequences of returning to the Fathers as a return to the past has virtually imprisoned and paralyzed the Orthodox Church to the extent that it can only react and not respond to issues such as human rights, the secularization of politics and institutions, the desacralization of politics and ethnicity, the overturning of established social hierarchies in the name of a fairer society, the affirmation of love and corporeality and the spiritual function of sexuality, the position of women, social and cultural anachronisms and so forth.19 For Florovsky, life in the Church provides the way to address these and other issues. But life in the Church for Florovsky had to be seen as more than an intellectual return to Christian sources. Life in the Church presupposed a return to the Church itself not as an institution or definable entity but as the

Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need for a Modern Orthodox Theology,” SVTQ 54:1 (2010), 8–9. 19 Ibid., 25. 18

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living body of Christ. As Florovsky wrote in 1926, “It is insufficient to know Christianity . . . it is necessary to be a Christian, to live ‘in Christ’ and this is possible only through life in the Church.”20 In “The Body of the Living Christ,” Florovsky describes ecclesial life as being inextricably bound to apostolic succession and apostolic tradition. The apostolicity of the Church is twofold. Apostolic Succession reveals and represents the objective or divine aspect of the Church. It allows for the continuity of grace, the perpetuity of Pentecost. Apostolic Tradition expresses the subjective or human aspect of the Church. It allows for the continuity of ecclesial consciousness and the identity of the received and preserved message. The two are inseparably linked: one is the ministry of the sacraments and the other is the Church’s doctrinal magisterium [i.e. teaching authority].21 The continuation of Pentecost as a pneumatological event within the Church helps to relieve some of the burden of criticism leveled at Florovsky’s emphasis on a Christocentric ecclesiology. Honed by his ecumenical encounters, his reasons seem to be twofold. The first stems from Florovsky’s concern that without a Christological foundation the ecclesial community would be replaced by a charismatic individualism requiring no ecclesial affiliation and no regard for the history of a divided Christendom. Related to this was his second concern; that is, an unbalanced pneumatology fostered an ecclesiology in which the unity of Christians superseded doctrinal and canonical boundaries: “Charity should never be set against the truth.”22

VI “The Body of the Living Christ” remains a major contribution to Christian ecumenism. It also witnesses to the continuing challenges faced by the Orthodox Church today. Throughout his intellectual and spiritual sojourn, Father Florovsky was by no means exempt from the same challenges of our time that relate to the understanding and living out of the Church’s tradition. The careful reader can sense Florovsky’s self-cross-examination in which he wrestles with

Georges Florovsky, “The Father’s House” (1926), CW, XIII, 58. See below, 467. 22 Cited in Williams, “Georges Vasilievich Florovsky,” in Blane, Georges Florovsky, 313. Blane goes on to write that what became frustrating for Florovsky was his refusal to accept “the theory especially dear to the Churchly-minded free Church-men in the World Council of the Churches that ecumenical councils are manifestations of an inchoate unity . . . the closely related theory that the Holy Spirit is ever free to operate through all the Churches and communions regardless of canonical boundaries in a new Pentecost.” 20 21

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the often conflicting realities of change vis-à-vis permanence and becoming visà-vis the pre-determined. These interrelated tensions or antinomies permeate historical, philosophical, and theological themes. While Florovsky attempts to clarify the dynamics of these deeply implanted dualities he is acutely aware that there remains a cloud of ambiguity and uncertainty hovering over them. For the Church of the twenty-first century to presume that the tension can be easily resolved is to ultimately stifle the Spirit. To accept and live in the tension enables the Church and therefore all the faithful to walk by the Spirit. To remove the tension ultimately paralyzes the body and compromises the fullness—the catholicity—of ecclesial faith and life. In section IV, “The Identity of the Message,” Florovsky draws attention to the concept of tradition and its relationship to development. For Florovsky, tradition and development—permanence and change—correspond to the Christological doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon (451). “Like the mystery of Christ, the mystery of the Church is antinomical in structure: it exemplifies the implied antinomy of the Chalcedonian dogma. It is two realities, divine and human, without fusion yet in one indivisible and perfect unity. One must distinguish these realities with care, never opposing or separating them.”23 Florovsky begins his investigation of tradition by quoting Bulgakov: Tradition is not a kind of archaeology . . . . First and foremost, tradition is to be understood as a living force, as the conscience of a living organism which includes its prior life. Tradition is uninterrupted and inexhaustible, it is not only the past but also the present in which the future already abides.24 Florovsky extends this train of thought: Tradition is a rule of continuity, a living turning point of time. It is the perpetual conscience of the Church that protects its unity and identity throughout the ages but which is enriched by all its experiences. Therefore, true traditionalism in the Church does not preclude development. On the contrary, tradition lives and grows. Consequently, being faithful to tradition does not signify an obstinate fidelity to the Church’s past, even to the apostolic past. Fidelity to the apostolic tradition is, above all, fidelity to the apostolic message.25 Development and growth in relationship to the apostolic message provide a creative tension necessary for the life and mission of the Church throughout

“The Body of the Living Christ,” 441. Ibid., 469. 25 Ibid., 469. 23 24

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all of history. In continuity with his earlier articles,26 Florovsky opens a way in which the Church can respond to the issues raised by Kalaitzidis. In these earlier works, Florovsky sets out to demonstrate that knowledge and truth could not be subjected to or contained within any specific epistemological or metaphysical system claiming to be exhaustive. With regard to tradition, Florovsky allows a place for what can be construed as “growth” and/or “development.” This is possible because tradition is not only guided by the Spirit but is, for Florovsky, the “permanent dwelling of the Spirit in the Body of Christ and not merely the memory of theological definitions.”27 Although it is linked to the past, the Church is not a slave of the past. True fidelity to tradition does not only imply an accord with the past, but also in a certain sense, a freedom with regard to the past understood as an authority that is completely exterior and formal to the catholic experience. In this sense, tradition is not only a principle of conservation but also a principle of living progress, a principle of growth, of regeneration, of reformation.28 Tradition is “a principle of living progress” because of the nature of catholicity. As the fullness or wholeness of ecclesial life, catholicity has its completeness in Christ, who through the Holy Spirit simultaneously vivifies and expands the tradition throughout history. Tradition maintains the integrity of catholicity for it is the Church’s unceasing growth in the life in Christ. Tradition is not a mechanical receiving and passing on of catholic life and thought derived solely from the past. Tradition is also moored to the present and the future. Limiting tradition only to the past renders the Church incapable of engaging and utilizing the present so as to project its ever-expanding eschatological vision. Paradoxically, the only authentic way to understand the past is to view it from the future within the context of the present. The eschatological vision of the Church judges the past as it lives and proclaims the Gospel in the present. Without this comprehensive historical dynamic of tradition the wholeness of catholicity becomes compromised. By confining tradition to the past the Church becomes incapable of discerning and utilizing the social, moral, political, philosophical, scientific, and technological challenges faced by successive generations to reveal its catholic life:

For example “The Slyness of Reason,” “The Crisis of German Idealism” (Parts I and II), and “On the Substantiation of Logical Relativism,” CW, XII. 27 ”The Body of the Living Christ,” 470. 28 Ibid., 470. 26

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In Christ and in the communion of the Holy Spirit, the catholicity of the Church is already given. The catholicity of the Body is determined by the Master and the Comforter. Nevertheless, catholicity always remains a problem to be resolved for each new generation, for each local community, and for each of the faithful. Full catholicity implies a complete transfiguration of human life, which is only accomplished by spiritual efforts, by love, and by renunciation.29 This is the difficult, uncertain, and treacherous path the Church must travel as it sojourns in history if it is to be a saving and deifying presence that raises all into the “life of the world to come.” Tradition must maintain a tension between the two poles of history, that is, the past and the eschaton as they coexist in the present. Without this creative coexistence the Church risks idolizing the past while fearing and insulating itself from all that is new and different or it will ultimately vilify and reject the past as it deifies the ceaseless flow of all that is new, different, and ever changing. Tradition is dynamic and stable. These terms help clarify the inherent intellectual and spiritual antinomies of the Church’s living tradition, especially with regard to its articulation of dogma and its own self-reflection and reformation needed to serve and proclaim the Gospel faithfully in this century. The dynamism of tradition comes from the Church guided by the Spirit in history. Yet, one can detect in “The Body of the Living Christ,” Florovsky’s internal struggle with himself as both theologian and historian. As theologian he is aware that revelation is complete, that is, Christ who is “the Revelation” abides fully in the Church once and for all. One can say that he is the head and therefore the stable—unchangeable—content upon which tradition stands. All teachings springing from the Church are expressions of its life in time and space. All teachings and therefore all dogmas of the Church are unchanging because Christ himself is the same “yesterday, and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). However, while Florovsky recognizes doctrine to be immutable and eternally bound to the Trinity, as a historian he also recognizes that it expands over the course of history as it comes to be understood by the Church. The “stable” or unchanging nature of dogmatic definitions does not preclude their ever-expanding or “dynamic” understanding that comes from a living faith. All definitions remain incomplete and limited in their articulation and understanding. Florovsky stresses that “dogmatic definitions still give only an outline of the truth of contemplation derived from contemplation: the rule of

Ibid. 459.

29

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faith is never a substitute for faith.”30 Given the inherently imperfect quality of all dogmatic definitions, Florovsky maintains that the content of faith is and remains forever a mystery. This is why one is always compelled to check cataphatic theology by apophatic theology. One can never describe the mystery in positive terms: one must often appeal to negative terms that oppose limiting the divine mystery to all that is given us in the realm of creation. But these modes of intellectual expression must continually complement each other.31 One may add that the modes of cataphatic and apophatic theology, in order to complete each other, must continually undergo expansion based on the dynamic of faith that the Church articulates when it is able to extrapolate from the surrounding culture new vocabulary and insights. This dynamic of faith with the accompanying expansion of tradition and revelation is supremely expressed in the celebration of the Eucharist: It is in this sense that it is possible to say that revelation continues. The Lord, who is the head of his Body, remains master of the many ways that he has revealed himself and has made himself known to those who are incorporated, by the mystery of his love, into his incarnate life. And it is above all the Eucharistic experience, or rather the Eucharistic revelation, that completes and deepens what one hears in the preaching of the Word: the Jesus of history is above all recognized as Christ and Lord in fractione panis. [in the breaking of the bread] (cf. Lk. 24:35)32 The antinomies of change and permanence—ever-moving stability (στάσις ἀεικίνητος)—are marks of the Church’s living faith and inexhaustible ascent into the divine and mysteriously dynamic stasis of Trinitarian life. For Fr. Florovsky, movement and stability, change and permanence, time and eternity, history and eschatology are the inherent antinomies necessary for the Church to manifest the eschaton here and now.33

Ibid., 473. Ibid., 475. 32 Ibid., 471. 33 Maximus the Confessor, Cap. Div., PG 90, 1369A. The same concept is expressed in relationship to eternity (ἀιών) and time (χρόνος) in Ambiguum 10, PG 91, 1164 B, C. See also, Sotiris Mitralexis, “A Note on the Definition of χρόνος and αἰὼν in St. Maximos the Confessor through Aristotle,” in Maxim Vasilijevic (ed.), Knowing the Purpose of Creation through the Resurrection: Proceedings of the Symposium on St. Maximos the Confessor (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2013), 419–26. 30 31

Chapter 26

The Body of the Living Christ An Orthodox Interpretation of the Church GEORGES FLOROVSKY Translated by Robert M. Arida

Totus Christus: caput et corpus. St. Augustine

I. INTRODUCTION It is nearly impossible to begin with a precise definition of the Church, for indeed, there are none that would be able to make claim to a recognized doctrinal authority. Neither in the Holy Scripture, nor in the Fathers, nor in the decrees or canons of the ecumenical councils, nor even in subsequent documents can such a definition be found. The doctrinal statements that the Eastern Church drew up at various times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as statements that are often (but wrongly!) regarded as the “symbolic books” of Orthodoxy, do not give a definition of the Church either. The only exceptions were the times when reference was made to the corresponding article of the Creed, followed by some explanations. One is surprised not to find a special chapter on the Church in the systematic treatises of the Holy Fathers. Bishop Pierre Batiffol has, with regard to Origen, rightly pointed out that,

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the Church is not numbered or listed among the subjects that he approaches ex professo [explicitly] in the Peri Archon [On First Principles]. There is a treatise on the divine unity, there is a treatise on the end times, on the rule of faith, but there is no treatise on the Church. A strange omission, destined to perpetuate itself in Greek dogmatics—for example in the Catechetical Discourse of St. Gregory of Nyssa, and above all in the work of St. John of Damascus—an omission also destined for the works of the medieval schoolmen.1 It is true to say that the topic of the Church is not completely omitted since one finds in the Fathers much more than one would expect on the nature and vocation of the Church. And then again this “omission” is found not only in Greek dogmatics. The omission is typical of all pre-Scholastic and medieval theology. St. Thomas Aquinas himself speaks of the Church only in passing. And yet, the reality of the Church is always the indispensable foundation of the entire dogmatic structure: its existential basis, one could say. Indeed, rather, instead finds in the great teachers a clear and glorious vision, a sure and distinct intuition that abandoned all forms of an abstract idea or formal concept. On the contrary, the ancient Fathers were not very concerned about precise formulas just because the triumphal reality of the holy Church of God offered them a spiritual vision with convincing clarity. One does not need to define what is absolutely evident. The Church is a reality that one lives rather than an object one analyzes and studies. Fr. Sergius Bulgakov has spoken well on this subject: “Come and see—one recognizes the Church only by experience, by grace, by participation it its life.”2 And that which is most precious to the Fathers is precisely this total vision, that perspective of God’s plan in which the mystery of the Church is envisioned and contemplated. It is this perspective of the faith that has unfortunately been obscured in subsequent times. And so the pressing need for formal definitions has been put to the test. The definitions of the Church that we find today in our manuals of theology and in our catechisms are obviously rather recent. And the formulas of Eastern theologians are copies of Western examples. Even in the West, the first formal definitions were mainly drawn up at the time of the Reformation. It is also the case that in the Roman Church, definitions were made in a spirit of confessional controversy and polemics. Rather, instead, they were intended more to satisfy the demands of a particular epoch than to express spontaneously the sum of

L’Eglise naissante et le catholicisme (The Developing Church and Catholicism) (Paris, 1927), 395–6. 2 Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church (SVS Press, 1988), 3. 1

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the spiritual experience of the truly catholic Church.3 All these definitions are formulas of circumstance. To regard them as unchangeable would be to misjudge their nature and theological scope completely. In given historical circumstances these definitions might rightly have been seen to insist on the visibility of the Church and to describe it as a “society” (or “congregation”) precisely because in those particular times and places this was the crux of the controversy. But it was only natural that these definitions would reveal themselves as inadequate and even illusory once the spiritual climate changed. This occurred in the West with the theological renewal of the nineteenth century in the Romantic period, and the blossoming of the spiritual and philosophical horizon it brought about, thanks to which the organic nature of the Church appeared in broad daylight. Here one remembers Johann Adam Möhler and the entire Christian school at Tübingen. In the Orthodox East, the same movement of revision had begun with the programmatic essay by Alexis Khomiakov, “The Church is One,” which was probably inspired by Möhler. But well before Khomiakov, and with more insight and authority, the great Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, in his sermons, knew how to provide a larger vision of a Church that was filled with life.4 In all these cases, the inspiration was above all patristic. Behind the alleged gaps or deficiencies of the Fathers there was an inexhaustible source of vision and life. Later, the liturgical movement provided other vivifying inspirations. And one finds, for example in Russia, much light on the mystery of the Church in such a master of Eucharistic piety as the celebrated Fr. John of Kronstadt (+1909). Recently it has been acknowledged that the doctrine of the Church again finds itself in a pre-theological state.5 In any case, the traditional definitions

[In The Body of the Living Christ, Georges Florovsky draws heavily on the notion of catholiké in developing his theology of the Church. This word is typically translated as “catholic,” meaning “universal,” “fullness” or “plenitude,” a reference to the third “mark” of the Church in the NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed. Florovsky almost always uses the word “catholic” in this sense, and not to refer specifically to the Roman Catholic Church; he typically calls the latter “the Roman Church” or “the Church of Rome.” Unless at the beginning of a sentence, the translation here uses “catholic” with a lower case “c,” except when it is clear that Florovsky is referring to the Roman Catholic Church. Florovsky also occasionally uses the word “orthodox” in much the same sense as “catholic,” not referring specifically to the Orthodox Church as it is now known, but rather in the historical sense of “orthodox” or “catholic” members of the Church, as distinct from heretics and schismatics, and similarly he refers to “the orthodox faith.” (Eds.)]. 4 It is true that in his Catechism (published with the approval of the Holy Synod of Russia in 1823) Philaret of Moscow remained faithful to the current school formulas. See especially the magisterial work of P. A. Gratieux, A.S. Khomiakov et le Mouvement Slavophile (A. S. Khomiakov and the Slavophile Movement), two volumes, Paris 1939, in the series: Unam Sanctam 5 and 6. On Philaret, cf. J. N. Korsunsky, “La définition de l’Église chez Philarète de Moscou (The Definition of the Church according to Philaret of Moscow),” Khristianskoje Ctenije (July–August 1895), or that of A. Gorodkov, Dogmatic Theology in the Works of Philaret of Moscow (Kazan, 1887) (in Russian). 5 Cf. M. D. Koster, Ekklesiologie im Werden (Evolving Ecclesiology), Paderborn, 1940. Within Russian theology A. L. Katansky, professor at the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg, stressed this fact more than a half century ago. 3

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belong, on the whole, to the academic theology of the Church. Strictly speaking, they do not have the support of any teaching authority. For this reason they must not be considered as complete or obligatory. They bear a theological and not a doctrinal quality. They are rough, vague, and temporary. For the most part they consist of scholarly conjectures, the private opinions of theologians, although they may have been widely accepted. A number of theologians, Roman Catholics as well as Orthodox, have candidly ascertained that the Church itself has not defined its own essence and nature. Die Kirche selbst hat sich bis heute noch nicht definiert [to this day, the Church has not defined itself], says Robert Grosche.6 And if we ourselves propose to go beyond these accustomed definitions we are not suggesting any doctrinal revisions but only a new theological adjustment of our formulae to meet the demands of a thorough spiritual experience. One would be able to speak rather of a return to the tradition of the Fathers. In our time it is necessary to go beyond modern discussions and controversies so as to recover a broader historical perspective, one that is truly universal (quod semper, ubique et ab omnibus creditum est!) [that which is believed by all, in all places, and at all times], in order to discover anew the true catholic spirit, which is to say, an integrating spirit that desires to embrace the whole of the experience acquired by the Church in its pilgrimage through the ages. It is also necessary to return from the classroom back to the temple, to the Church that worships and prays (die betende Kirche!) and that bears witness by its faith and by its hope. And again, perhaps it is necessary to replace the Scholastic vocabulary of theology with the metaphoric and symbolic language of devotion, which is also the language of Holy Scripture. The true nature of the Church can be depicted or described rather than properly defined. And this description can certainly be accomplished only from within the Church. At the same time it is convincing only to those who are of the Church. For the mystery of the Church is known only by faith. Christian truth is one and indivisible. One must not and cannot isolate its components. To try to do so would be to risk dangerously disfiguring and misjudging them. The true theological method always takes place from within the life of the Church. The Church is the vital tie or knot of the mystery of

Pilgernde Kirche (The Church in Pilgrimage), Freiburg im Breisgau, 1938, 27; cf. again Scheeben, Dogmatik (Dogmatics), vol. IV, 290–1, or Mgr. B. Bartmann, Précis de Théologie Dogmatique (Manuel of Dogmatic Theology), vol. II, 1944, 146: “It ought to be observed regarding this subject that the Church existed for about fifteen centuries without reflecting on its nature and without searching to specify it with a logical definition; and this applies to the Church of the West and to the Church of the East.” On Orthodox theology, see Stefan Zankow, Das orthodoxe Christentum des Ostens, sein Wesen und seine gegenwärtige Gestalt (The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Essence and Present State), (Berlin, 1928), 65ff. and the notes. (There is an English translation by Dr. Lowrie, The Eastern Orthodox Church [Milwaukee, WI: Morehouse, 1929], but without notes). 6

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salvation. It is the new creation of God, the living summary of the redemptive work of Christ. It is the place and the mode of his continued presence in the world until the end of the ages. Even more than this: the Church is Christ himself, the entire Christ, totus Christus, to use the formula of St. Augustine. “Jesus Christ spreads out and makes himself known” (Jacques-Bénigne Boussuet). Origen states it well: “It is only in the community of the faithful that the Son of God is able to be found, and that is because he lives only in the midst of those who are joined together.”7 The theology of the Church is only a chapter, and an essential chapter, of Christology. Without this chapter, Christology would not be complete. It is in this Christological framework that the mystery of the Church is announced in the New Testament. It is also within this framework that the Greek and Latin Fathers presented the mystery of the Church. As St. Athanasius said, “The Word of God became a human being so we might become God.”8 The Church of Christ is precisely that mysterious place where the divinization or deification (θέωσις) of all humanity is achieved and perpetuated by the operation of the Holy Spirit. In ea disposita est communicatio Christi, id est Spiritus Sanctus [In it (the Church) communion with Christ, which is (through) the Holy Spirit, has been set in order], says St. Irenaeus. The Church is “the door of life” (vitae introitus).9 Likewise, by its existence, the Church is the permanent witness of Christ, the pledge and revelation of his victory and his glory. One can say that the Church is the recapitulation of all his work. Christianity is the Church. It is not only true doctrine or a rule of life but new life, the life “in Christ,” ἐν Χριστῷ, a totally new existence, the reunion of humanity with God, the true and intimate communion with him by grace and by faith. And yet, the Church is at the same time a historic entity, an earthly and visible reality. Like the incarnation of the Word, the Church is also itself a historic event although a mysterious one accessible by faith alone. Like the mystery of Christ, the mystery of the Church is antinomical in structure: it exemplifies the implied antinomy of the Chalcedonian dogma. It is two realities, divine and human, without fusion yet in one indivisible and perfect unity. One must distinguish these realities with care, never opposing or separating them. The only correct definition of the Church would be the gathering of Christians. And perhaps Fr. Pavel Florensky was correct in stressing:

Origen, Comm. In Mt., XIV, I, PG 13, col. 1188. St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione (On the Incarnation), 54, PG 25, col. 192B; French trans. by P. Th. Camelot (Paris, 1947: Sources chrétiennes 18), 312, cf. the introduction, 90ff., and above all Father Louis Bouyer, L’Incarnation et l’Eglise—Corps du Christ dans la theologie de saint Athanase (The Incarnation and the Church—The Body of Christ in the Theology of St. Athanasius) (Paris, 1943) (Unam Sanctam 11). 9 St. Irenaeus, Ad. haer. III.24.1 and I.4.1, PG 7, col. 966 and 855. 7 8

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The idea of the Church does not exist, but the Church itself exists, and for each living member of the Church the ecclesiastical life is the thing most definite and the most tangible of all that is known.10

II. THE NEW COVENANT The Greek word ἐκκλησία, used by the first Christians to designate the new and glorious reality to which they belonged, implied and suggested a very clear conception of what the Church was for them. Due to the influence of the Septuagint and the way the term was used in that context, ἐκκλησία was chosen since it underlined two main points of view: the organic continuity of the two covenants and the social character of Christian existence. From the outset, Christian existence was conceived within the sacred perspective of messianic preparation and fulfillment. A well-defined theology of history was implied. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the ages” (Heb. 1:1-2).11 This was the supreme revelation, the messianic consummation, the coming of the promise. The days of waiting were over. The day of the Lord had burst open. Christian existence began to have one meaning and one eschatological quality. And nevertheless, the New Covenant, inaugurated by Jesus Christ, dead, risen and glorified, and sealed by the Holy Spirit in the sublime mystery of Pentecost was the same covenant of old, restored and perfected, resumed and renewed. The nascent Christian Church openly identified itself with the true Israel of God. Christians were, in spirit, the true Israelites, the inheritors of the messianic promises of former times. Or rather, they were the

P. Florensky, Der Pfeiler und die Grundfeste der Wahrheit, [The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth], in Oestliches Christentum [Eastern Christianity], published by N. v. Bubnoff and Hans Ehrenberg, Munich 1925, vol. II, 30: Es gibt keinen Begriff der Kirchlichkeit, aber es gibt die Kirchlichkeit selbst, und für jedes lebendige Glied der Kirche ist das kirchliche Leben das bestimmteste und greifbarste, was er kennt. Aber das kirchliche Leben lässt sich nur lebensmässig aneignen und erfassen, nicht durch Abstraktion und verstandesmässig. Wenn es sich als notwendig erwiese, es in irgendwelchen Begriffen auszudrücken, so wären nicht juristische und archäologische, sondern biologische und ästhetische Begriffe am passendsten. [See The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters, trans. Boris Jakim with an introduction by Richard F. Gustafson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 8: “There is no concept of ecclesiality, but ecclesiality itself is, and for every living member of the Church, the life of the Church is the most definite and tangible thing that he knows. But the life of the Church is assimilated and known only through life—not in the abstract, not in a rational way. If one must nevertheless apply concepts to the life of the Church, the most appropriate concepts would be not juridical and archaeological ones but biological and aesthetic ones.” Trans.] 11 Trans. by P. J. Bonsirven, Saint Paul, Épitre aux Hébreux (St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews) (Paris, 1943) (Verbum Salutis 12). 10

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“faithful remnant,” set apart from the rebellious people of old, once elected and now cast off because of their infidelity. The name “little flock” given by Jesus to the messianic community that he reunited around himself (Lk. 12:32) seems a just designation for this “remnant” of Israel—those who recognized the Messiah, who had received the message of the Kingdom of God in their hearts. And probably, in the beginning, the name of ἐκκλησία was reserved precisely for the first Judeo-Christian community at Jerusalem that represented this remnant. Later, the others also, Gentiles, Greeks, and barbarians, had to be incorporated by a new call from God. And finally, the two separated races, Jews and Gentiles, were formed into a totally new race, a spiritual race, tertium genus (a third race). Such was one of the principal themes prophesied by St. Paul (see especially the letters to the Romans, Galatians and the second chapter of Ephesians).12 The name of Israel had always been a theological or even a hieratic term rather than a purely ethnic designation. It expressed the act of calling and of divine election. And there was through the two covenants one identity from this redeeming election. In this sense Origen did not hesitate to say candidly that the two Testaments were equally new: “They have not the same age, but objectively they have the same newness.”13 For the exegetes of old, the books of the Old Testament had spoken of the same Christ and even of his Church but from beneath a veil, while the Church, without any veil, speaks clearly of Christ.14 Already in the Old Testament, the word ἐκκλησία (the Greek translation of the Hebrew qahal) implied a particular insistence on the organic unity of an elect people conceived almost as a sacred entity. The Christian Church was also a people, the holy people, the people of God, “a chosen race, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Pet. 2:9). From the beginning, Christianity existed as a corporate reality, as a community. To be a Christian consisted precisely of belonging to this community. One could not be a Christian by oneself, an isolated individual. One could be a Christian only with “the brethren,” in solidarity, in being joined together with them. “Unus Christianus—nullus Christianus” (one Christian—no Christian). Personal conviction or even a particular discipline of life did not make one a Christian. Christian existence presupposes and implies incorporation, a participation in the community. But it has to be stated from the outset that the Christian existence is in the apostolic community. The Christian community, or rather the messianic community (it is important not to forget that Christ means precisely “Messiah”),

Cf. P. L. Cerfaux, La théologie de l’Église suivant Saint Paul (The Theology of the Church according to St. Paul) (Paris, 1942) (Unam Sanctam 10) 13 Origen, In Num. hom. IX, 4, PG 13, col. 628–9. 14 Cf. St. Augustine, In Psalm, XXX, 2 enarr., PL 36, col. 244. 12

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has been established by Jesus himself “in the days of his flesh,” and he himself gave to those who were the least a provisionary organization, by electing and establishing in their charge the twelve to whom he gave the name (or rather the title) messengers or ambassadors (Lk. 6:13: “to whom he gave the name apostles,” ἀποστόλους ὠνόμασεν). For the sending of the twelve was not only a transitional mission, but a very solemn commission in which they were invested with power or authority (Mk 3:15; Mt. 10:1; Lk. 9:1: ἐξουσίαν). In any case, in their position as witnesses established by the Lord (Lk. 24:48 and Acts 1:8) the twelve were charged to ensure the continuity simultaneously of both the message and of common life. This is why communion with the apostles (“the twelve” including, without doubt, Acts 2:42: κοινωνία (communion/fellowship) was the fundamental mark of the original Church of God in Jerusalem. The preaching of Jesus was never addressed to separate individuals but to the people, to the Israel chosen by God. And the Christian Church is the fulfillment of this messianic community he gathered together. The twelve are the link that unites the successive phases of the life of the community in new and ancient times: for the community is always Israel, the elect people, now rebuilt and reestablished, brought into a new perfection. One can say that the twelve also affirmed the continuity of the two Testaments, the living unity of a continuing Israel. The faithful are integrated into this unity by a divine plan and decree, through the will and power of God. Their unity comes from on high; it is totally spiritual, and it is given to them by God in Christ the Lord. Only in Christ and by the Holy Spirit are they one, as those who are born anew in him “rooted and built up in him” (Col. 2:7) and who “were baptized by one Spirit forming one body” (1 Cor. 12:13). The Church of God has been established and supremely formed by God. Christianity presupposes a life in common. Christians must be considered among themselves as brethren (in fact this was one of their first names). They are members of one community, tightly linked one to another. And this is why fraternal love must be the first sign and also the first proof that witnesses to this fellowship (cf. Jn 13:35). We have the right to say that Christianity is one community, one body, one fraternity, one “society” of the faithful—coetus fidelium. Considered as a first approximation, such a definition can certainly be of great help. But obviously it must be more specific and qualified since it passes over a crucial element in silence. One will ask, in effect, in what is this unity founded and rooted, this joining together of the many that nevertheless must also be an intimate and organic union of members belonging to the same body?15 What is the power that assembles them and links them one to another?

See, for example, St. John Chrysostom, In Eph. Hom. XI, I, PG 62, col. 79, and also In 1 Cor. Hom. XXXIII, 3, PG 61, col. 280. 15

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Is it only a social instinct, an impulse of mutual affection, or some other natural attraction? Is this unity founded simply on unanimity, on an identity of views or of convictions for some ideological agreement? In short, is the Christian community—the Church—only a human society, a voluntary association of human beings? The New Testament sets before us all the evidence that goes beyond a purely human plan for the Church. Christians are not only united among themselves but, before all else, they are all one in Christ. Only this union or communion with Christ renders possible the true communion between human beings in him. The center of unity is the Lord. And the power that brings about and arranges this unity is the Holy Spirit. The Church is not a human society, but rather a divine society that is both earthly and human. Without doubt the Church is a society that exists in time. It is visible and must be in this world. In this sense it is comparable to other groups, but it is also a sacred community that intrinsically is no longer of this world, no longer of this age, but that already belongs to the age to come. which it announces and anticipates. One can say that the faithful, through their longing or their fidelity, through their own desire, gather around the Lord. It is the Lord who assembles them and attracts them. It is he alone who gives them this unity. Without him, no unity, no true accord, would be possible. True love and true faith do not stem from human sentiments and emotions. Love and faith are a gift from God, a vital inflowing of Christ by the Holy Spirit. The fraternal love of Christians is founded only on that new adoptive filiation that we have been given in Christ. And in a strict and real sense we are brothers of one another. Insofar as Christ is made the brother of each of us, he consequently makes us all adopted sons [and daughters] of the heavenly Father. This is why the spiritual masters of the Orthodox Church insist with particular vigor on the absolute difference between “psychic” or “natural” affections and spiritual or “pneumatological” realities, that is, “charismatic” realities. On a purely ethical level true unity is never created by man; it is always given by God. Since the only source of unity is God himself. And the only model of perfect unity is the All-Holy Trinity, in which the three persons make up, or rather are, only one unique being. It is on this supreme example that Christian unity must be modeled.16 The fraternal unity of men has a profound ontology. And sin has dangerously compromised this profound unity; it has torn this human unity. Man’s unity can be restored only by Christ, who has reintegrated mankind in himself and has restored to

In modern Russian theology, this idea has been presented with glowing inspiration by the late Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky): see his essays on “The Moral Idea of Church Dogma” and “The Moral Idea of Trinitarian Dogma,” in his Works, vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1911). There is a French translation. 16

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men the lost possibility of being united among themselves.17 True community is possible only by mystical participation in the humanity of the Incarnate Word. Thus, the Church is more than a human community, for Christ himself belongs to it. He is the head of this community and not only its Lord or Master or Leader. Christ is not above or outside the Church. And the faithful are not only those who follow him or obey his commandments; They are those who have been incorporated into him, who live in him, or rather, in whom he himself mysteriously dwells. It is thus essential to note that the Christian community, the ἐκκλησία, is a consecrated or sacramental community and that the unity of the Church is brought about by means of the sacraments: Baptism and the Holy Supper being the two social sacraments. In them the true power of Christian cohesion is manifested and confirmed. Or, to put it more strongly, the sacraments constitute the Church. It is precisely in the sacraments that the Christian community exceeds the purely human dimension and becomes the Church. This is why “the correct administration of the sacraments” (recte administrantur) belongs to the essence of the Church, to its esse. Indeed the sacraments must be received piously. Consequently, they cannot be separated from the spiritual effort and the interior posture of the faithful who receive them. One should be prepared for baptism by repentance and by faith. A personal relationship must be established beforehand between the candidate and his Lord by means of the preaching of the Word, the message of salvation, which then needs to be received in the heart of the penitent. Afterward an oath of loyalty to God and his Messiah is indispensable for the administration of baptism (probably this was precisely the early sense of the Latin term: sermentum sacramentum (oath of oaths), attested to by Tertullian and St. Cyprian). The catechumens have already been enrolled among the faithful by virtue of their faith. Moreover, when the baptismal gift is received, it is kept by faith and by faithfulness, by persevering in the faith and through fidelity to the oath. But the efficacy of baptism comes only from the Holy Spirit who is the supreme and unique author of regeneration of spiritual birth. In general, the sacraments are not only the signs of faith, but also the efficacious signs of grace, of the free gift of God—not the symbols of human aspiration, but precisely the exterior symbols of divine activity. In them our human existence is linked to, or rather elevated toward the divine life, by the Holy Spirit, “the giver of life” (Ζωοποιόν). Strictly speaking, the messianic community assembled by Jesus Christ before his passion and glorification was not yet the Church. It was not yet the

Cf. P. Henri de Lubac, S.J., Catholicisme, les aspects sociaux du dogme (Catholicism, the Social Aspects of Dogma) 2nd ed. (Paris, 1947) (Unam Sanctam 3), 3ff., which provides many patristic references. 17

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Church before “the promise of the Father” descended upon it and by which it would be “endowed with power from on high” and “baptized by the Holy Spirit” (cf. Luke 24 and Acts 1:4-5), even though the Eucharist, the supreme sacrament of unity, had already been instituted in the same night as the Passion. Before the victory of the cross was revealed in the glory of the resurrection, the Church was sub umbraculo legis (under the shadow of the law); that is, it was on the verge of fulfillment. Pentecost witnessed to the victory of Christ and also confirmed it. The new aeon was truly revealed and had truly begun at that moment. This being the case, the sacramental life of the Church is the continuation of Pentecost, or, in other words, the life of the Church is founded on two correlative mysteries: the mystery of the Holy Supper and the mystery of Pentecost. This twofold aspect is found everywhere in the Church’s existence. The outpouring of the Spirit has truly been the supreme revelation. Once and forever, in a majestic and ineffable mystery, the Spirit-Paraclete entered the world, where it had not yet been present as it would be from then on. The superabundant source of living water was poured out that day, here on earth, in this world that had already been redeemed and reconciled to God by the crucified and glorified Lord. The Kingdom had come, for the Spirit itself is the Kingdom.18 The coming of the Spirit depends on the ascension of the Son (Jn 16:17). “Another Comforter” comes to render witness to the Son, to manifest his glory and to seal his victory (15:26; 16:7,14). In the Spirit is assuredly the glorified Lord himself, who returns to abide with his own forever (14:18,28). Therefore, Pentecost was the mystical consecration, the baptism of the entire Church (Acts 1:5). And the Lord administered this baptism of fire: it is he who baptizes “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Mt. 3:11 and Lk. 3:16). He has sent the Holy Spirit from the Father as a pledge into our hearts. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of adoption in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit is “the power of Christ” (2 Cor. 12:9). By this Spirit we recognize and confess that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). The operation of the Holy Spirit in the faithful is precisely their incorporation into Christ, their baptism into the unity of the body (1 Cor. 12:13) of Christ. As St. Athanasius said: “Watered by the Spirit, we drink Christ.” For the rock was Christ.19 Through the Holy Spirit Christians are united to Christ; they are united in him and established in his body. One body, ἕν σῶμα, which is Christ: this excellent comparison which St. Paul takes advantage of in different passages when he describes the mystery of Christian existence is, at the same time, the

Cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De oratione Dominica (On the Lord’s Prayer), 3, PG, 44, col. 1157–60, St. Gregory refers to a variant verse of the Lord’s Prayer, Lk. 11:2: ἐλθέτω τὸ ἄγιον πνεῦμα σου ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς καὶ καθαρισάτω ἡμᾶς (“your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us”). 19 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Epist. 1 ad Serapionem, PG 26, col. 576A; French translation by P. J. Lebon (Paris 1947: Sources chrétiennes 15), 116.

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best witness he is able to give to the intimate experience of the apostolic Church. In no way is this an accidental metaphor: it is above all a summing up of faith and experience. St. Paul always insists on the intimate union of the faithful with the Savior, on their participation in his fullness, on Christians being truly ἐν Χριστῷ (in Christ). As St. John Chrysostom points out in commenting on Col. 3:4, St. Paul strives in all his writings to demonstrate that the believers “are in communion with him in all things” and it is “precisely by showing this union that he speaks of the head and of the body.”20 It is very possible that the term body itself was put forward because of the Eucharistic experience (cf. 1 Cor. 10:17) and has been deliberately used to accent this sacramental connotation. The Church of Christ is one in the Eucharist, for the Eucharist is Christ himself, the New Adam and the Savior of the body who abides sacramentally in the Church. And the Church is the body of its head. The Church is truly a body, an organism rather than a company or a corporation. It is precisely the organism of Christ in which glorified life is continually poured out. Perhaps this word organism is the best modern language rendering of the Greek σῶμα that St. Paul uses. The other images and analogies used by St. Paul and throughout the rest of the New Testament accentuate in the same way the organic unity between the Savior and the faithful: the bride of the Lord and the mystical wedding between Christ and the believers; the building constructed of many living stones, which nevertheless presents itself as only one stone;21 the vine and the branches—all these and many other images serve the same objective. Yet it is the image of the body that is the strongest and most expressive among them. Moreover, the Church is the body of Christ and his fullness. Body and fullness, τὸ σῶμα and τὸ πλήρωμα, are two correlated terms that are closely tied to the spirit of St. Paul’s teaching, the one term explaining the other: “which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23).22 The Church is the body of Christ by which and as much as it is his complement. In this sense, St. John Chrysostom accurately explains Pauline thought: “The Church is the complement of Christ in the same way that the head completes the body and the body completes the head.” Christ is by no means alone; “He has prepared all of humanity to follow him, attaching it to himself, joining it to his retinue.” Chrysostom insists: “Notice how he [that is, St. Paul] presents the head as

St. John Chrysostom, In Col. Hom. VII, PG 62, col. 375. Cf. The Shepherd of Hermas, Vis. III, 2. 6: ἐξ ἑνὸς λίθου (from one stone), ed. Lelong (Paris, 1912), 30–1; compare 6. 5–6, 40–3. 22 Vulgate: plenitudo ejus qui omnia in omnibus adimpletur (“the fullness of him who fills all in all”). Origen had already emphasized that the text contains τοῦ πληρουμένου (passive) and not τοῦ πληροῦντος (active). He was followed by St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom and many others. The usual translation is not very exact. See P. F. Prat, La Théologie de saint Paul (The Theology of St. Paul), vol. II, 341ff and J. Armitage Robinson, Commentary on Ephesians (London, 1904), 42–46, 87ff and 255–9. 20 21

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needing all the members. This signifies that the head will be completed only when the body is made perfect, when we will all be together, counited and bound together.”23 In other words, the Church is the extension and the fullness of the Incarnation, or rather of the incarnate life of the Son, “with all that has been accomplished for our salvation: the Cross, the tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand of the Father” (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the prayer of consecration at the Anaphora). The Incarnation therefore continues to be accomplished in the Church. In a certain sense, the Church is Christ himself, in his fullness, which embraces all (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12). This identification of the Church with Christ is implied elsewhere throughout the understanding of the Incarnation professed by the Fathers of the Church: the entire human nature has been assumed in the union with God. St. Augustine gave the explanation and justification of this in a very eloquent way: “Non solum nos christianos factos esse, sed Christum” (not only have we become Christians, but we have become Christ). For if he is the head then we are the members: the entire man composed of him and us, “totus homo, Ille et nos—Christus et Ecclesia” (the whole man, he and us—Christ and the Church).24 Or better yet: “For Christ is not simply in the head and not in the body, but Christ is entirely in the head and in the body”—“non emim Christus in capite et non in corpore, sed Christus totus in capite et in corpore” (not that Christ is in the head and not in the body; rather he is fully in the head and the body).25 The expression totus Christus is found very often in St. Augustine, especially in his catechetical works. There it is a fundamental and favorite idea, obviously suggested by St. Paul. “When I speak of Christians in the plural, I understand them as being one in the one Christ. You are therefore many and you are still one; we are many and we are one”—“cum plures christianos appello, in uno Christe unum intelligo.”26 “For our Lord Jesus is not only in himself, but also in us” (Dominus enim Jesus non solum in se, sed et in nobis).27 “One man until the end of the ages” (unus Homo usque ad finem saeculi extenditur).28 The principal intention of all these emphatic expressions is evident. Christians are incorporated into Christ and Christ dwells in them and this mystical and intimate union constitutes the mystery of the Church. The Church is, so to

St. John Chrysostom, In Eph. hom. III, PG 62, col. 29. St. Augustine, In Evang. Joannis, tract. XXI, 8, PL 35, col.1568; cf. also St. John Chrysostom, In I Cor. hom. XXXIII, PG 61, col. 279–83. 25 St. Augustine, In Evang. Joannis, tract. XXVIII, PL 35, col. 1622. 26 St. Augustine, In Psalm. CXXVII, 3, PL 37, col. 1679. 27 St. Augustine, In Psalm. XC enarr. I, 9, PL 37, col. 1157. 28 St. Augustine, In Psalm. LXXXV, 5, PL 37, col. 1083; cf. In Psalm XXX, enarr. 2, I, 3–7: Una quaedam persona loquatur igitur Christus, quia in Christo loquitur Ecclesia, et in Ecclesia loquitur Christus, et corpus in capite et caput in corpore. PL 36, col. 232; St. Hilary, In Psalm. CXXV, 6, PL 9, col. 688: “Ipse enim est Ecclesia, per sacramentum corporis sui in se universam eam continens.” 23 24

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speak, the place and mode of the saving presence of the glorified Lord in the world, or in the humanity he has saved. As Anders Nygren quite admirably said, “the body of Christ is Christ himself. The Church is Christ inasmuch as he is present among us after his Resurrection and meets us here on earth.”29 Or, in the words of Karl Adam, “Christ, the Lord, is the very ‘I’ of the Church.”30 This Pauline conception of the Body of Christ was simultaneously repeated and diversely commented upon by the Fathers of the Church in the East and in the West. Later it was, in a manner of speaking, neglected and even given up.31 Now it is time to return to this experience of the ancient Church, which offers us a solid foundation for a modern theological synthesis. Indeed, though this conception was often forgotten by theologians, it was not forgotten by the Church itself, since this conception always remained the existential foundation of all sacramental and spiritual life throughout the centuries. Nevertheless, no analogy should be pushed or pressed to an extreme. The idea of an organism, when applied to the Church, has its limits. On the one hand, the Church is composed of human persons who must never be regarded as mere parts, cells of the whole, since each person is in direct and immediate union with Christ and his Father. The personal must not be sacrificed or dissolved in the corporate. The Christian idea of conjoining must not degenerate into impersonalism. The idea of organism must be accompanied by the idea of a symphony of persons, for this notion is at the heart of the Orthodox conception of catholicity (sobornost’; see further on). It is the main reason for which one must prefer a Christological conception of the Church (or rather a rigorous Christological orientation in characterizing the Church) to a pneumatological conception (such as, for example, that of Khomiakov)32 or of Möhler in Die Einheit in der Kirche [The Unity of the Church].33 On the other hand, the Church in its totality has its personal center only in Christ. It is not an incarnation of the Holy Spirit but precisely the body of Christ, the Lord Incarnate. That he saves us from impersonalism without abandoning us to some humanistic personification.

A. Nygren, “Corpus Christi” (The Body of Christ), in En Bok om Kyrkan, av Svenska teologer (A Book about the Church by Swedish Theologians) (Lund, 1943), 20. 30 Karl Adam, Das Wesen des Katholizismus (The Nature of Catholicity) (1927), 24: “Christus der Herr ist das eigentliche Ich der Kirch” (Christ the Lord is the Actual I of the Church). 31 See the documentation in the magisterial work of Fr. Émile Mersch, S.J., Le Corps Mystique du Christ (The Mystical Body of Christ), 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Paris-Brussels, 1936). 32 Alexis S. Khomiakov, The Church Is One, in his Complete Works, vol. II (in Russian); there is an English translation by W. J. Birkbeck, Russia and the English Church (London, 1895), ch. 23 and also in German, vol. II of Oestliches Christentum (Eastern Christianity). 33 See the French trans. by Dom A. Libienfeld in the series Unam Sanctam 2 (Paris), L’Unité dans l’Eglise (Unity in the Church). Cf. the collective volume: L’Eglise est Une. Hommage à Moehler (The Church is One. A Tribute to Moehler), published by Pierre Chaillet (Paris, 1939) (the same in German). 29

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Christ is the Lord and the only head and only master and leader of the Church. “It is in him that all is being built, being fit together, rising to form a holy temple in the Lord; it is in him that you also are conjointly built, becoming the dwelling place of God by virtue of the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21-22).34 The Church is still in statu viae (on the way), and yet it is also already in statu patriae (at home—in the Kingdom of God). It has, as it were, a double life, being at the same time in heaven and on earth.35 The Church is a visible historical society, while at the same time it is the Body of Christ, it is presently the Church of the ransomed and that of the destitute sinners. “The entire Church is the Church of the penitents, the entire Church is the Church of those who are perishing” (St. Ephrem the Syrian). Two things occur at the same time. On the historical plane the end has not yet been attained. But the last reality has already been manifested and revealed, or rather given. And this last reality, τὸ ἔσχατον, is always accessible in spite of all the imperfections of history and even though it is only granted under provisionary forms. The Church is a sacramental community. And sacramental signifies precisely the eschatological. Τὸ ἔσχατον does not signify primarily the last as in a series of temporal events; rather, it signifies the end (or that which is decisive). And “that which is decisive or conclusive” is able to be, and in fact has been, realized in the unfolding of the events of history. That which “is not of the world” is already here “in the world,” not abolishing this world but giving it new meaning and new value. The Church, moreover, is still only an anticipation, a pledge of the final consummation. Yet the Holy Spirit already truly dwells in the Church. And this constitutes the ecclesiological mystery: a visible and earthly society is an organism of divine grace.

III. THE CATHOLIC MYSTERY The Church is one. There is only one Church of Christ, for the Church is his body, and Christ is never divided. In Christ, the incarnate and glorified Lord, the unity of the human race, compromised of old by the Fall and rent by sin, has been supremely restored. Through the creation of the Christian Church, a totally new

This trans. is from P. J. Huby, S. J., Saint Paul, Les épîtres de la Captivité (St. Paul, The Epistles in Captivity) (Paris, 1935), 163–4 (Verbum Salutis VIII). 35 Cf. St. Augustine, In Evang. Joannis tract. CXXIV, 5, PL 35, col. 1973: duas vitas novit Ecclesia, quarum una est in fide, altera in specie, quarum una est in labore, altera in requie, una in via, altera in patria, una in opere actionis, altera in mercede contemplationis, una bona est sed adhuc misera, altera melior et beata, ista significata est per apostolum Petrum, illa per Joannem. (There are two states of life that are known to the Church. The one in faith, the other in sight; one in labor, the other in repose; one on the way, the other in the fatherland; one in active work, the other in the wages of contemplation; one is good but suffers, the other is better and blessed. The one was signified by the Apostle Peter, the other by John.) [Trans. John Gibb and James Innes, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, First Series, ed. Philip Schaff, Hendrickson Pub. Inc., 450, republished 1995.] 34

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way of existence has been inaugurated, a catholic way of life, which is to say, a manner of existence opposing that disastrous state of dislocation and fragmentation in which all of humanity was imprisoned by original sin. Salvation involved a veritable reintegration, a total recapitulation. The Church is one. This oneness is not a particular sign of the Church (nota ecclesiae) among others, but rather its very nature. And the primary function of the Church in the world is precisely the gathering together of the separated and dispersed and the incorporation of them into one organic and living unity in Christ. The unity of the Church is the beginning and end of its existence, its foundation and its mark, its primordial given and the means to resolving the problem [of disunity]. Unity is a dynamic principle, a principle of life and of growth. The unity of the Spirit has been given to the Church from the beginning. But it must be maintained and perpetuated by the bond of peace, by an unceasing effort of faith and love. It is always a synergism of grace and human faith. Finally, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:3,15). “One” and “catholic” are two aspects of the same living reality. The word catholic is found in the ancient symbols of the faith: ἐκκλησία καθολική, the catholic church. The origins of this term are obscure. At times it is held to be derived from a common source. Without doubt, καθολική is derived from καθ᾽ ὅλου. Etymologically, the most natural understanding of the meaning would be “assembly,” or “in one,” or perhaps “entire.” In any case, in the most ancient documents, the term ἐκκλησία καθολική was never used in a quantitative sense, that is, as a way of designating the geographic expansion of the Church. The term referred to the integrity of the faith or to the integrity of doctrine. It referred to the fidelity of the Great Church to the full and ancient tradition, in opposition to the tendencies of heretical sects that had separated themselves from the original fullness, each following its own specific line of belief and particular identity. Καθολική signified above all orthodox, rather than universal. It is in this sense that the term seems to be used for the first time by St. Ignatius of Antioch36 and afterward in The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp.37 Later, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical Homilies, gives a synthetic interpretation:

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epist. To the Smyrnaeans, 8.2: “Where the bishop appears let the community be there just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” Trans. by P.Th. Camelot (Paris, 1944: Sources chrétiennes 10), 98. Cf. J. A. Moehler, Unity in the Church, French trans., 246–7: “The predicate, catholicus, as Clement of Alexandria previously remarked (Strom. VII, 17, ed. Stählin, III, 75–6), was given to the Church in opposition to heresy: in effect, just as heresy signified separation from the unity [of the Church], likewise ἐκκλησία καθολική indicates unity in plurality . . . . The word catholicus, in the sense already cited of an organic unity of all the faithful, likewise the Christians of a specific community, can only be truly united around their bishop; thus the author proves the unity of a community by that of the whole Church.” 37 The Martydom of Saint Polycarp, 8:1: καὶ πάσης κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας, “and the fullness of the catholic church spread throughout the world,” or 19.2 ed. Lelong (Paris, 1910), 36

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The Church is called catholic based on the fact that it exists throughout the entire earth, from one end to the other, teaching completely and without omission (καθολικῶς καὶ ἀνελλειπῶς) all the dogmas which ought to be borne by man’s knowledge, of things visible and invisible, of things celestial and terrestrial; on the fact that it submits to true worship every category of mankind, the governing and governed, knowledgeable and ignorant; finally on the fact that it nurses and heals catholically (integrally) every kind of sin, those of the body as well as of the soul; whereas it equally possesses every kind of virtue, in works, in words, in spiritual gifts of all sorts.38 The original stress on the integrity of the Church’s faith and spiritual life is well attested to here. The universal geographic extension is only a manifestation or explication of that interior integrity, of the spiritual fullness of the Church.39 It is only in the West, with the intense struggle against Donatism, that this term was given, especially by St. Augustine, an exclusively quantitative interpretation as a way to counter the geographic provincialism of the Donatists.40 From the time of St. Augustine, the equation or identification of terms catholic and universal was adopted into the standard theological vocabulary, first in the West and later also in the East, becoming customary to the extent that today one obstinately refuses to believe that the predicate καθολική in the Creed might have a meaning other than that of spatial universality.41 One recalls from a passionate syllogism of John Henry Newman, also taken from a phrase of the

138 and 154. Moehler, Unity in the Church, 248, has well stated: “that from this addition to καθολικός it appears that its ancient meaning was not ἡ ἀπὸ πέρατων τῇς γῇς διὰ περάτων” (that which extends from end to end of the earth). 38 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis, 18, 23, PG 33, col. 1044. 39 Cf. Moehler, Unity in the Church, 248: “This is why ἐκκλησία καθολική (catholic church) can signify an aspect of the Church that in no way was subject to temporal or local conditions.”  40 Cf. Mgr. P. Batiffol, Le Catholicisme de saint Augustin (The Catholicism of St. Augustine) (Paris, 1929), 212. St. Augustine himself, caught up in the polemic, went as far as to absolutely condemn a derivation of the name catholic to mean ex observatione praeceptorum omnium divinorum atque sacrementorum (from observing all the divine precepts and even the sacraments), and, instead, to impose on it ex totius orbis communione (communion with the entire world): Epist. 93, ad Vincentium, 7.23, PL 33, col. 333. We have seen that St. Cyril tried to unite the two. St. Augustine, nevertheless, knew that “Catholica” came from καθ᾽ὃλου, secundum totum (according to the whole), “quia per totum est,” (since it is according to the whole): De Unitate Ecclesiae (The Unity of the Church), II, 2, PL 43, col. 391ff., where he speaks precisely of the unity of the mystical body and of the organic link between the body and head. In the West, shortly after St. Augustine, Pacian still favored the ancient interpretation. 41 See for example an anonymous article: “What Is the Meaning of the Phrase ‘The Catholic Church’ in the Symbol of Faith?” in the official review of the Holy Synod of Russia, The Ecclesiastical Gazette, 1906, no. 2, 49–54 (in Russian); the author was actually N. N. Gloubokovsky, an eminent professor of the New Testament at the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy (and later in the Theological Faculty in Sophia), and for this reason his article was symptomatic of a profound neglect of the true ancient tradition.

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polemicist St. Augustine that inspired him: securus judicat orbis terrarum! (the verdict of the world is conclusive) and that led him to submit to Rome. In fact this was a formidable reduction of the grand catholic idea, an unfortunate mutilation of the ancient idea. The principal accent was transferred onto that which is only secondary and derivative, neglecting what was truly essential. Now true catholicity, that is the catholicity from within, is an intrinsic quality of the Church of which catholicity from without is only one manifestation. The essential catholicity is not a topographic or spatial conception. The Church of Christ was no less catholic on the day of Pentecost when it was completely contained in a small room in Jerusalem than later when the Christian communities were still dispersed like islands nearly lost in an ocean of unbelief and pagan superstition. On the other hand, the Church will remain supremely catholic until the end of the ages, when the mystery of iniquity will be unveiled and the Church itself will probably be reduced, one more time, to a “little flock,” to a new faithful remnant. “But when the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?” (Lk. 18:8). In spite of everything, the Church will remain forever catholic regardless of all eventual separations. “If whatsoever city or country would separate itself from the universal Church,” said Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, “the Church will nevertheless remain an integrated and incorruptible body.”42 The true catholicity of the Church cannot be measured by external signs. To repeat the phrase of a modern Roman Catholic theologian, “Catholicity is not a matter of geography or numbers.”43 It is not the numbers that determine catholicity but the quality of belief. Without a doubt, numbers are important; but in fact, it was possible in a particular epoch for the heretics or atheists who were everywhere, ubique, to come to outnumber the faithful, so that the catholic Church was empirically reduced to a negligible quantity, being driven into the desert or “into the caverns and dens of the earth.” There are enough historical examples, and there will probably be more still to come. But these historical accidents most certainly change nothing in the essential catholicity of the Church, nor will they deduct anything from its catholicity. For it is true to say that catholicity does not depend on the missionary success of the Church. It is a given from the start. Catholic is not a collective term. The Church is not catholic simply because of the coming together of all the local communities. It is catholic in all its

Responses and Opinions of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, on Matters of the Eastern Orthodox Church (St. Petersburg, 1886), 53 (in Russian). Cf. A. S. Khomiakov, L’Église latine et le protestantisme au point de vue de l’Église d’Orient (The Latin Church and Protestantism from the Point of View of the Eastern Church) (Lausanne and Vevey, 1872), 393ff. Khomiakov was the first theologian in Russia who attempted to restore the term “catholic” to its qualitative fullness. 43 H. De Lubac, Catholicisme (Catholicism), 26; cf. E. Mersch, S.J., La Théologie du Corps mystique (The Theology of the Mystical Body), vol. II (Paris and Brussels, 1946), 234ff. 42

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components, in all its acts, and in all the moments of its life. The entire structure, the living tissue of its body, is catholic. And each member of the Church also is and must be catholic. The entire Christian existence must be organically catholicized, that is to say, reintegrated, concentrated, interiorly centralized. The goal and criterion of this catholic unity is “that the multitude of believers would have one heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32), as was the case in the nascent Jerusalem community. Otherwise the life of the Church is reduced. Catholicity is also at the same time an initial given and a problem to resolve. Note that regarding these two aspects of catholicity, one is objective and the other subjective; the one is divine and the other human. Objectively, the Church is catholic in its sacraments. Together, all the sacraments are one, but they are manifested in diverse and varied manners, in acts of incorporation and integration: baptism, confirmation [i.e., chrismation], and above all the Holy Eucharist. These three form the triune act of Christian initiation. They are not only a point of departure, but rather, a permanent source, a new élan vital, of a spiritual and inexhaustible quality. Sacramental grace is always a grace of union, of a triple union: the Holy Spirit unites us to the Lord, incorporating us into his body and holy humanity; the Holy Spirit unites us to one another, forming us into one catholic body; and in each soul, the Holy Spirit becomes a living source of peace and spiritual simplicity. By the Holy Spirit it is the Lord himself who carries out this glorious unity, who creates a unique image of the Holy Trinity in his body and who in this way perpetuates his eternal priesthood—as the High Priest of the faith that we profess (Heb. 3:1)—so that “he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). One could say that the Church is circumscribed by the sacraments. For it is precisely by the sacraments that it is separated from the world, set apart, so as to be the very possession of God. The very source of the entire sacramental life of the Church is Pentecost, which, through this supreme event set it apart. The Spirit descended upon the Church where it has dwelt ever since. The Spirit is not in the whole world, for there is still an impermeable boundary between the sacred and the profane. And the line of demarcation is made up precisely by the sacraments. Pentecost continues and is perpetuated in the Church. The sacraments are the usual means of this perpetuation. “Therefore it is the Spirit who vivifies: in effect, the Spirit renders life to the members; but the Spirit makes alive only those members whom it finds in the body which it animates.”44 The separation from this world is therefore an inevitable state of being incorporated into Christ, who also is not of this world. It is not possible

St. Augustine, In Evang. Joannis, tract 27, PL 35, col. 1618.

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to be one with him without being separated from the world, without leaving and renouncing it. The sacred Mysteries are the way the Lord traced by coming to us, this gate He opened by entering into the world. When He returned to the Father He suffered it not to be closed, but from Him He comes through it to sojourn among men, or rather, He is constantly present with us and, in fulfillment of those promises, is with us for ever.45 These words of Nicholas Cabasilas, the renowned master of Byzantine liturgical spirituality, introduce us to the full mystery. The supreme minister of the sacraments is Christ the Savior himself. Therefore, the Church of Christ comprises not only the Word of God or its authentic preaching. Above all it is constituted by the presence of the Savior, that is, by his sacramental and absolutely true presence. Above all, it is his presence in the Eucharistic mystery that masterfully safeguards the catholic unity or even the identity of the body in time and space. The sacrifice of Calvary is never repeated. But the Divine Liturgy, or the Mass, is nevertheless much more than a symbolic or commemorative image of this unparalleled and majestic mystery of salvation. It is the same continuing sacrifice and its mystical identity is perfect and complete. The Holy Supper is not only imitated or represented, but is continued. And it is the same Lord who is the true celebrant of each Mass, the same one who, on the eve of his redeeming passion, administered the Holy Sacrament to his apostles. The Fathers of the Church were unanimous on this crucial point of all sacramental theology: St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine.46 “It is you who offers and is offered, who receives and is shared, Christ our God.”47 A whole new vision is granted to the Church. It is not the contemplation of an intelligible world of eternal and immutable ideas in which the sensible world would be only an imperfect and passing shadow. It is no longer a faithful observance of an unavoidable succession of events that disappear one after the other. It is above all a vision of a glorious integration of these moments, simultaneously strange and mysterious, of a life that is full and without end. Much more than a vision, it is a participation in

Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 1.6, trans. Carmino J. De Catanzaro (SVS Press, 1974), 51. St. John Chrysostom, In Matt. hom. 50 (al. 51), PG 58, col. 507; hom. 82, I, col. 738ff; In Joann. hom. I, PG 59, col. 29; In epist. ad Hebr. hom 15, no.2, PG 63, col. 120; St. Cyril of Alexandria, De adoratione in spiritu et veritate, PG 68, col. 289ff; St. Ambrose, De officiis ministrorum, I, 48, 49, no. 238 and 239, PL 16, 94; In Ps. 38 enarr. 25, PL 14, col. 1051f; De benedictione Patriarch, IX, 38, col. 686: St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 6, 20, PL 41, col. 284, 298: ipse offerens, ipse et oblatio (himself as offerer and offering). 47 “The Prayer of the Cherubic Hymn,” in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, E. Mercenier and F. Paris, La Prière des Églises de rite byzantin, I (Prieuré d’Amay, 1937), 233. 45 46

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that eternal life that was manifested once in time so as to precisely reintegrate time itself. Here is a most important aspect of the Incarnation. In the holy humanity of the Savior, all of human nature is integrated, and all divided and separated individuals are restored within the unity of the one body, of one unique organism, animated by the eternal Spirit in communion with the head, simultaneously being divine and human. Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, and in him all generations of Christians are united; those who were called from the beginning as well as those called at the eleventh hour. The unity that triumphs over the separation of time is already revealed and manifested within the liturgical experience of the Church, above all within the Eucharistic liturgy. It is not only the living faithful of a local community who gather before the altar, but it is truly the entire catholic Church fully assembled that is present at the time of each celebration of the sublime sacrament of unity. For Christ is never separated from his Body. In this sublime sense the Eucharist is always and each time a majestic revelation of the total Christ. In the Eucharistic experience the present time stops, so to speak, mystically and mysteriously, μυστικῶς, sacramentally. The synthesis of eternity is truly anticipated. Time is no longer divided and no longer separates those who live in Christ, those who already repose in peace, and those who still struggle in their earthly pilgrimage. The Church militant and the Church triumphant are one single Church, one single body. Within the Church, death itself has lost its power to separate because death is already destroyed by the resurrected Lord. The eternal life in which all the members of Christ, in the Holy Spirit, already participate, unites them and links them in a perfect communion. This is not vain speculation, neither is it a pious and poetic dream, nor is it a fraudulent claim. For all that is implied in this essential vision of the Church, or rather in the vision of the Savior, is one and unique for all. It is always the same vision, identical throughout the centuries. It is not only the Redeemer of old or only the Judge who is to come. Redemption itself is not only an isolated act but rather the inauguration of a new aeon. This does not diminish the most glorious and all definitive consummation of the world, when the Lord will come in absolute glory. But, in a certain sense, he is never absent, even before his return, for he is the head of the Church. The communion of saints is thus implied in the very definition of the Church, or perhaps more than implied: it is the very definition of the Church. On this subject a most remarkable passage from the commentary on the Apostles’ Creed by Nicetas, Bishop of Remesiana, ought to be cited: Ecclesia quid aliud est, quam sanctorum omnium congregatio? ab exordio enim saeculi, sive patriarchae, Abraham et Isaac et Jacob, sive prophetae, sive apostoli, sive martyres, sive caeteri justi, qui fuerunt, qui sunt, qui erunt, una ecclesia sunt, quia una fide et conversatione sanctificati, uno Spiritu signati, unum corpus effecti sunt; cujus corporis caput Christus esse perhibetur et

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scriptum est . . . Ergo in hac ecclesia credis te communionem consecuturum esse sanctorum.48 (To what extent is the Church the community of all the saints? From the beginning of the ages, whether the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whether the prophets, whether apostles, martyrs or the rest of the just who were, are and will be, one Church because of one sanctifying faith and way of life, sealed by one Spirit, made into one body; Christ being the head as we are told . . . therefore in this Church you must believe that you are being gathered into the communion of the saints.) This catholic unity is truly lived and experienced in the Church’s sacramental liturgy. It is given there. In this sense, the Church already belongs to the eternal order. It is, so to speak—even throughout its pilgrimage across historical battles, full of traps and pitfalls—the living image of the divine eternity in Christ. The King is already reigning, and his glory is already reflected in the sons of the Kingdom who are called to inherit this Kingdom. One can say that the Church is anticipated eschatology and not realized eschatology. For in fact, the eschaton is not yet realized, that is, accomplished, although it may nevertheless truly be anticipated in a sacramental manner within the Church’s liturgical life. The Church is still only a temporary authority, which will be surpassed in the coming age. Nevertheless, it is much more than an image; it is something totally other. The world to come, in effect, is not simply prefigured or symbolized in the Church as the New Testament was prefigured in or by the Old. For, at that time, Christ had not yet come. The Old Testament was thus only a shadow of the messianic fulfillment, whereas the Church of the New Testament is precisely founded on this accomplishment. It is rooted there, it lives by that messianic reality of acquired salvation, of the victory of the cross and resurrection. The Lord has already come, and he is staying. However, there remains an historic interlude, of pilgrimage and combat, of growth and development of the Body. One can say that the Church is eschatologically inaugurated. Eschatology does not exclude nor does it contradict history. For history itself becomes eschatological, since the eschatological elements have been inserted into it. Indeed in a certain sense all of history, for Christians, is an eschatological process, oriented to advance toward the goals established by God the Creator. But the history of the Church is eschatological not only in this general sense. The temporary authority or regime of the Church is already the way of salvation. Therefore one does not minimize the impact of the victory of

Nicéta de Rémésiana, De symbole, 10, ed. A. Burn, Niceta of Remesiana: His Life and Works (Cambridge, 1905), 48. 48

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the cross, which is the foundation of all Christian existence: that victory is not only commemorated but precisely perpetuated, represented (“made present”), and actualized in the sacramental life. The Lord is already glorified! In Christ and in the communion of the Holy Spirit, the catholicity of the Church is already given. The catholicity of the Body is determined by the Master and the Comforter. Nevertheless, catholicity always remains a problem to be resolved for each new generation, for each local community, and for each of the faithful. Full catholicity implies a complete transfiguration of human life, which is only accomplished by spiritual efforts, by love, and by renunciation. The Christian life is a communal life, a communion, κοινωνία. Above all it is the communion of souls. A spiritual harmony, a symphony of persons is where the true center of gravity exists. The conjoining of persons must be perfected so that they may become one complete reality. All isolation of persons must be surmounted. There is no place for any impenetrability within a single organic body. The cold distinction between “mine” and “yours,” as St. John Chrysostom loved to say, must be abandoned in Christ. Therefore, this communal life is a matter of a true catholic transfiguration of the soul and heart. To be sure, what is totally catholic can never be built on dissonant elements. A multitude of persons mutually sealed and closed to the other can never become a brotherhood. The fraternal impulse must come from within. A brotherhood is composed of brothers. The fraternal disposition precedes incorporation. One is unable to enter into the Church without any unitive predisposition, without a desire for a common life, which is actualized in the very same κοινωνία—that is, without a complete renouncing (of self) in humility. In that strange book The Shepherd of Hermas, the growth of the Church is represented by the image of a tower in the process of construction using various types of stones. There were stones in the form of blocks and others that were round. The stones in the form of blocks were cut and were put in the place of those that had been removed; as for the round stones, they could not be placed into the edifice for they were hard to cut, and it would require much time; but they were placed at the foot of the tower to be cut later and to be placed in the construction, for they were very shiny.49 The symbolism is not difficult to decipher: Are not the round and the other brilliant stones an eloquent symbol of [self-]sufficiency and isolation—teres atque rotundus (“smooth and round,” an image from the Stoics; see Horace)? Unlike the stones in the form of blocks, these round stones are not able to fit one into the other. From this one concludes that (self-)sufficiency should

The Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes, IX, 6. 8; trans. A. Lelong (Paris, 1912), 238-239.

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be cut off before entering the Church edifice.50 Without a doubt, this mutual adaptation can be achieved only inside the Church, the only place where an effectual force is provided by the Spirit. And yet, the operation of the Spirit presupposes a soul that is open and humble, that is to say, a converted soul. One is unable to describe that conversion by purely psychological or moral categories. The conversion is accomplished in a profoundly ontological and spiritual way. The very same personality must be profoundly changed. Therefore the renouncing of one’s self neither suppresses nor destroys the personality. On the contrary, the personality is truly realized only in a catholic conversion with others. In renouncing ourselves, we expand our existence, we open ourselves to others, we bear them in our mind and our heart. We ourselves become more. The model of this is the sublime unity of the Trinity. With zeal, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) clearly stated the problem: The personality in our immediate consciousness appears as absolutely separated from all other personalities. Generally we are able in our spirit, by our immediate consciousness (intuition) to make the contrast between our “I” and another person or an other object, between the “I” and “not I,” between the notion of opposition and of differentiation of objects. It is not difficult for me to represent myself as a member of a collective concept: a crowd, a society, a monastery, an academy. But the comparisons put forth help me very little so that my personality, conscious of itself, understands itself at the same time as a part with many others, and a being so perfectly unique that it is impossible to speak of it as a “collection of beings” but must rather be defined as “one sole being.” But this is precisely what the faith teaches us about the supreme being of God: the three Divine Persons are one sole being. And it is according to this model that Christian unity must be based. (See John 17) Metropolitan Anthony continues: The principal obstacle in penetrating the dogma of the Trinity resides in the personal and spontaneous consciousness of the natural man, dividing one personality from another personality until there is an absolute visible opposition. If the society of Christians is revived by grace, fulfilling the prayer of Christ, that it become one as we are one, it would be impossible

The explanation given in the text itself is narrower. The roundness [of the stones] is interpreted as a sign of vain wealth and enjoyment of this world (Similitude IX, 31.2 and Vision III, 6. 5–6; 300–1 and 42–3). But without a doubt, such enjoyment of the vain wealth of this world precisely implies that egocentric narrowness which prevents a person from entering into the solidarity of an organic wholeness. 50

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to admit among its members, without provoking a new rupture of unity, a personal consciousness that is completely individualistic and which is seen in one who is not regenerated or rather not penetrated by the grace of re-birth. The Christian, according to the measure of his spiritual perfection, must be free of the spontaneous opposition between “I” and “not I,” to receive the sensation of his interior unity with Christ, with the Father and with the brethren within the faith. But to attain this, one must essentially modify the fundamental attributes of the individual human consciousness . . . . Perhaps this condition will appear strange, presenting itself as an abdication of reason for holy insanity. But if we examine this more carefully we will see, to the contrary, the appearance of true human reason previously darkened by the sin which corrupted our nature . . . [this corrupted reason] came under the law of our individuality, already stated above, and not as an absolute primordial law, but a law of corrupted consciousness. Being abolished, the law of corrupted consciousness has been transplanted and [re]established by its rebirth in Christian love.51 This new consciousness will in no wise be an impersonal fusion and its “catholic” attitude will have nothing to do with collectivism. Catholic consciousness is not a collective consciousness, nor the Bewusstsein überhaupt (consciousness as such) of the Idealists. It is precisely a transfiguration of personal consciousnesses. It is a new attitude, quality, and mode, a sublimation of the personality. It is an expansion and rising toward a new height, in which the consciousness is in no way diminished. [Consequently] one finds oneself in a symphonic and harmonious communion, inspired by the Spirit of divine peace. In this new situation one finds the possibility of representing or expressing the life and experience of this communion not as someone possessed or as a medium, but by a creative and sympathetic resonance. Most certainly, the full measure of interior catholicity is not realized in all the members of the Body. Yet it is able to be realized through each member. Those who have attained it are recognized by the Church as its teachers and doctors or as its Fathers precisely because they did not offer their private opinions, but rendered witness to the catholic faith of the entire Church, that they have spoken to us of the depth of that glorious unity of

Metropolitan Anthony, L’Idée morale des dogmes de la T.S. Trinit., de la divinité de Jésus-Christ et de la Rédemption (The Moral Idea of Dogmas of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Divinity of Jesus Christ and of Redemption), French trans. Count A.M. du Chayla (Paris, Librairie H. Welter, 1910), 15, 17ff., 19. Moreover, Metropolitan Anthony did not go far enough in that the metaphysical sources and his principal emphasis turned always on love and not enough on deifying grace. See the very profound considerations of a remarkable Russian philosopher, Prince Sergei Troubetzkoi, an intimate friend of Vladimir Solovyov, in his essay, On the Nature of Human Consciousness, Works, vol. II (Moscow, 1906) (in Russian). He insists on the catholic character of the consciousness, in radical opposition to individualist theories that arise above all, in his opinion, from the Reformation. 51

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all in the one Christ—of the depth of catholic fullness. As a hermit in the desert one can acquire this catholic standard, when the soul has been purified and strengthened in its spiritual battles in the unity of the Church’s fullness. The human side of the Church has never fully conformed to the divine model. The Church must continually make itself catholic. But this is possible only because it is essentially catholic in its Lord. Besides this, the catholic restoration must not begin by an organized universal action, but rather by a catholic renewal of the spirit, which will, without doubt, know how to find adequate expressions in its outward activities. The main problem to resolve is always that of the re-creation of the catholic and integrated mind, the integration of faith and spirit. The organic unity of the Church is not created by Christian love. Indeed, it is created by love, but rather by the love of God, by his redeeming ἀγάπη. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10). God has made us brothers by adopting all of us into his only begotten Son. In this way, the body of Christ has been created and formed already through the Incarnation, which was also the supreme manifestation of the creative love of God. The Fathers of the Church have often spoken of this. Above all, once again, St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril of Alexandria in the East and Sts. Hilary and Augustine in the West. St. John Chrysostom in particular underlines the intimate relationship between Christian love and the Eucharistic reality. The fraternal love of which he was a convinced and zealous apostle and preacher was not inspired by altruistic sentiments or human sympathy. It was above all a response to the love of God manifested in the Eucharistic mystery. He came that we might become his body, not only through love, but that we would in fact be blended with his own flesh. It is this that brings about the nourishment which he gives to us, as proof of his love. Therefore, he himself is mingled with us, he implants his body in us so that we might become one sole reality, as a body united to its head. And so, in effect, we are made into those who fervently love.52

St. John Chrysostom, In Joann. hom. 76, PG 59, col. 260; In Heb. hom. 17, 3, PG 63, 131, the identity of the sacrifice is strongly accentuated: ἕν σῶμα ἐστίν καὶ οὐ πολλὰ σώματα, οὔτως καὶ μία θυσία (he is also one body and not many bodies, and thus, he is also one sacrifice) and consequently one sacrifice; Christ is always and everywhere complete, ἐντᾶυθα πλήρης ὣν, καἰ ἐκεῖ πλήρης ; In Matt. hom. 50, 3, PG 58, col. 507, and hom. 82, col. 744; especially De proditione Judae I, 6, PG 49, col. 380; In 1 Cor. hom. 24, PG 61, col. 200; St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Joann. XI, 11, PG 74, col. 557ff.; Glaphyra in Num. PG 69, col. 624; St. Hilary, De Trinitate, VIII, 6ff., PL 10, col. 241ff. The texts of St. Augustine are very numerous especially in his sermons, see Mersch’s well arranged selections, La Théologie du Corps mystique II (The Theology of the Mystical Body), 84ff. 52

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But beside the Eucharistic altar there is another altar no less venerable: the living body of the faithful: “The altar of which I speak,” he says, is made of the living members of Christ, and the body of Christ becomes an altar for you. Venerate it. You there, make sacrifice to the Lord. This altar is more awesome than the stone altar which is raised up in this church, and, for this reason, it is more awesome than that of the old law. Do not be amazed by this. That this altar made up of the members of the Church is awesome and majestic is due to the victim who comes upon it. He who is merciful is not only on the stone altar since the altar made up of the faithful is also made up of the same victim. The one is majestic because, made of stones, it is sanctified by its contact with the body of Christ; and the other because it is the body of Christ . . . . And you, you venerate the stone altar when the body of Christ descends upon it. But the other which is the body of Christ, is neglected and you remain indifferent to it when it dies. You can see this altar raised up everywhere in the lanes and public places and at every hour you can offer sacrifice there, for this too is the place of offering. And as the priest stands at the altar calling [down] the Spirit, you likewise do the same thing by calling [down] the Spirit as oil poured out in abundance.53 The Greek Fathers, above all, have occasionally been accused of an unrefined and materialistic idea of the sacraments and of the Church itself. This is a mistake. For this realism is always inspired by an intuition based on a profoundly deep intimacy with the Savior. Above all, the Eucharist is conceived within this intimacy, which is at the very foundation of the Church: “for there is no gap between the body and head; if there were, the head would no longer be the head and the body would no longer be the body,” says St. John Chrysostom.54 This is because the Eucharist is the last revelation of the total Christ and the last sacrament. “One is not able to go beyond, nor able to add anything; for, obviously, the first [Baptism] calls the next [Chrismation] and this calls the last [the Eucharist]. For after the Eucharist, there is nothing more to turn to: one must stop there and consider the means to preserve it until the very end.”55

St. John Chrysostom, In 2 Cor., hom. 20, PG 61, col. 540 [Chrysostom adds that the calling down of the Spirit is enacted by both the priest and the faithful: “The priest calls down the Spirit through his voice. The faithful call down the Spirit through works.” Καὶ καθάπερ ὁ ἱερεύς ἕστηκε τὸ Πνεῦμα καλῶν, οὕτω καὶ σὺ τὸ Πνεῦμα καλεῖς. ἀλλ᾽οὐ διὰ φωνῆς, ἀλλὰ δι ἔργων. col. 540. – Trans.]; cf. In Rom. hom. 27, PG 60, 649. 54 St. John Chrysostom, In Eph. hom. 3, PG 62, col. 26; cf. In 1 Cor. hom. 8, PG 51, col. 72–73: “the least space [between head and body] would cause us to die”; In 1 Tim. hom. 15, PG 62, col. 586: “I do not wish for anything more to come between us; I wish for the two to become one.” 55 Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, IV, 1; also his Commentary on the Sacred Liturgy, translated recently into French by P. S. Salaville (Paris, 1944: Sources chrétiennes 3). 53

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The Eucharist is the mystical center, the spiritual source of the Church and of its catholic unity. The ministry of the Church is primarily “the ministry of the sacraments.” From this perspective the entire ordained ministry (or the hierarchy) is an organ of unity. This ministry functions for the Church in the same way the circulation of blood serves the body of an animal. Each priest is the minister of unity in his particular community. The community is assembled and integrated by its minister, who functions through it. He is appointed for this office by the sacerdotal charism. These communities remain apart from one another and are integrated into the larger and complete unity by the episcopal office. The only difference between a bishop and a priest is that the bishop has the power to ordain. This power is not a purely canonical or jurisdictional privilege.56 It is precisely a sacramental power superior to that of the priest. In the administration of the Eucharist and of the other sacraments, the bishop possesses nothing more than the priest, since the plenitude of ministerial authority is manifested in the ordinary priest who is ordained primarily for the ministry of the Eucharist. The Holy Supper and Pentecost are inseparably linked. The Paraclete descends after the Son has been glorified by his death on the cross. Nevertheless, these are two correlated, but indubitably different, mysteries. And the same distinction can be applied, so it seems, to the two degrees of hierarchical orders: the bishop is above the priest. It is the priest who serves the unity of the Church inasmuch as he is a minister of the Holy Supper, whereas Pentecost is perpetuated through the episcopal ministry. In this sense, the episcopate is the apostolic ministry par excellence. And it is by its bishop, or more exactly in its bishop, that each local or particular church is included in the totality of the catholic Church. By its bishop each community being linked to Pentecost is united to the primary source of the Church’s charismatic life. The episcopate is the ministry of Pentecost. The charismatic unity of the Church is assured by apostolic succession, i.e., by the uninterrupted succession of ministerial ordinations in which each local community is incorporated, by its minister, within the organic totality of the Church. Apostolic succession is not primarily, as it were, a canonical skeleton of the Church. It is not only a means of assuring unity of organization or administration. Above all, it is a

See St. John Chrysostom, In Tim. hom. 10, PG 62, col. 5505. Cf. St. Jerome, Epist. 146, ad Evangelium, (To Evangelos) 1, PL 22, col 1194: quid enim facit exceptus ordinatione episcopus quod presbyter non facit? (For with the exception of ordaining, what function belongs to a bishop that does not also belong to a presbyter?). [Trans. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W. G. Martley, From Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers. Second Series, vol. 6, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http//www​.newadvent​.org​/fathers​/3001​.htm.] It is necessary to be precise. In the ancient Church, the ordinary and normal minister of all the sacraments was the bishop, who presided above all in the Eucharist, but always surrounded by the priests or presbyters who concelebrated with him. However, the distinction between the two orders remained. 56

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charismatic organ that guarantees the identity and the unity of the living body. Through the ages, the Church remains one and the same, precisely by and in its ministry. By the continuity of ordinations the entire Church is consolidated in unity. This continuity is the only means by which the Church approaches the unique source of charismatic life and from which it draws life, revealed once and for all. However, episcopal succession is not only a line, a chain; it is above all a network of lines that goes back to the apostolic college. For each bishop is consecrated for his office by several others and in the name of the entire episcopate (see Apostolic Canon 1). The consecrating bishops do not act in their capacity [solely] as local bishops but as a college of bishops, which represents the totality of the Church, including the faithful. This is why ruling bishops are the consecrators, i.e., those who truly represent their flocks (see Chalcedon, canon 4). The episcopate is not only an administrative order but also a continuity of office and function: it is not a detached system being self-sufficient in itself but is always joined to the living body. The bishops therefore act as representing specific local churches, and the entire Church acts within these same churches. For this reason ordinations and above all “abstract” consecrations (i.e., without a specific title, without a see or specific flock) are expressly forbidden (Chalcedon, canon 6). Secret ordinations are also forbidden. They must be public, performed before the people and with the people’s active consent. For the participation of the faithful cooperating with the bishops is expected and prescribed in the same rites. The Christian people are not considered mute observers who do nothing but follow the actions or the prayers of the clergy. The presence of the people is an actual witnessing. And the confirming acclamation, prescribed by the rite: ἄξιος, or the amen of the people, is not merely a pious accompaniment, but precisely a witnessing of the people of God, as well as their canonical consent: a consent of accord, obedience, and of love. Certainly, the power of holy orders pertains only to the bishops, and the administration of the sacraments is entrusted only to the ordained ministers. This power and authority does not come from the people but from above, from the Spirit of Pentecost, by the intermediary of apostolic succession. The ministers therefore act in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) by virtue of a special charism. But this sacramental authority they possess is given for the churches, for the faithful, as long as they are with the faithful among whom they are appointed pastors. This power of ordaining must, however, be exercised in the bosom of the community. In this sense the ministers also act in persona ecclesiae (in the person of the Church). In fact, these two aspects cannot be separated: Christus et ecclesia, Christ and the Church, the head and the body. Holy orders and jurisdiction cannot be separated. This is why the titular bishops or those who have resigned do not have the authority to confer holy orders except it be given by a delegation of bishops who have the

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responsibility and are truly in real and organic communion with the faithful. This is why the assistance of the clergy and of the people is required, according to the formula of St. Cyprian: Nihil sine consilio vestro [scil. Presbyterorum] et sine consensu plebis mea privatim sententia gerere (I decided to do nothing of my own opinion privately without your advice [i.e., the presbyters] and the consent of the people.).57 On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended not only on the twelve but on the entire multitude that was with them, on all the Church that was present at that time in Jerusalem. But, though the Spirit is one, its gifts and ministries in the Church are many and different. The Spirit descends on all, but only the twelve receive the sacerdotal and ministerial power, according to the solemn promise of the Lord. The distinction of offices and functions is not, therefore, abolished due to this general outpouring of grace. The simultaneity of the catholic outpouring of the Spirit on the entire Church is, however, a sign that this priesthood, or ministry of the sacrament, is given and is implanted in the whole body. Consequently, there is not an automatic transmission of sacramental grace. The minister and the priesthood are in the Church, inside the Church, not above it or outside it. There is a differentiation of functions that assures the unity, but this differentiation, as elsewhere in animal organisms, presupposes and implies a differentiation of structures that nevertheless do not destroy the unity of the organism.58 One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic: These attributes are not independent of one another. There is an organic and intimate link between them. The Church is one only by its holiness, that is, by the sanctifying grace of the Spirit. It is holy because it is apostolic, that is, linked to the apostles by the living continuity of charisms. The Church is catholic by the grace of the Spirit. It is the sole body of the only begotten Lord. It is a unity in multiplicity, a living and differentiated unity. For the Church is, and must be, the created image of the majestic and holy Trinity—the one and only God. This is the mystery of the catholic Church. One final remark is essential. Occasionally it is claimed that the vision of the Church in Eastern Orthodox spirituality and theology is dangerously incomplete and unbalanced. Orthodox ecclesiology, it is claimed, “neglects the specific status of the Church militant.”59 There is something very true in this

St. Cyprian, Epis. 5 (alias 14), no. 4, trans. Sister Rose Bernard Donna, C.S.J., Saint Cyprian, Letters 1-81, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 43. 58 The “organic” conception of ministry and of the apostolic succession has recently been very clearly developed by H. Burn–Murdoch, Church, Continuity and Unity (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1945). 59 Fr. M.J. Congar, Chrétiens désunis: Principes d’un oecuménisme catholique (Divided Christians: Principles of a Catholic Ecumenism). Unam Sanctam 1 (Paris 1937), 268 and all of chapter VI, “Une Ecclésiologie orthodoxe” (An Orthodox Ecclesiology), 249ff. 57

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observation. But the real reason for this alleged negligence is more profound. It is above all a result of a truly catholic attitude that has, since the age of the Fathers, always been very typical of Eastern theology. This stems from a concern to see the particulars of ecclesiology as not being separated from the whole, that is, as being within the framework of the totality of history. This is because Orthodox theologians always prefer to interpret the status of the Church militant in terms of the whole Church, embracing all the plans of salvation. One can criticize their premature integration from the point of view of history. Indeed, the whole theology of the Church can be guided only by the laws of history. Certainly one must not ignore the terrestrial and all the particulars proper to the provisionary plan of things. But neither is one to lose sight of the supreme unity of all plans. The true synthesis that will finally reveal the essence of the Church is possible only in terms of the future life, of the age to come. In any case, the Church triumphant is without a doubt more the Church than the Church militant in its historic limitations. After all, there is only one Church identical to itself that spans the outline of history. There are always exaggerations to be avoided. There are always two dangers to avoid. The first is the danger of super-historicism, where one concentrates all attention on the historical state of the Church. The second danger is super-eschatologism, which tends to depreciate the value of what is already established and which points not only to the final realization of history, but professes that all true reality exists at the end of the age. These two opposing conceptions demonstrate the lack of a synthetic view of history by making an excessive separation of the two “ways or progressions” of Providence: history and eschatology. Now, the true message of Christ is precisely that history and eschatology are intimately united to and mingled with each other. The same Church in statu viae (on the way) is already at the same time in statu patriae (at home). This “at the same time” is the center of gravity. In any case it is the status patriae alone that is able to clarify and explain the status viae, the Church’s earthly pilgrimage and struggle.

IV. THE IDENTITY OF THE MESSAGE The apostolicity of the Church is twofold: apostolic succession reveals and represents the objective or divine aspect of the Church. It allows for the continuity of grace, the perpetuity of Pentecost. Apostolic tradition expresses the subjective or human aspect of the Church. It allows for the continuity of ecclesial consciousness and the identity of the received and preserved message. The two are inseparably linked: one is the ministry of the sacraments, and the other is the Church’s doctrinal magisterium. One knows well the magnificent passage of St. Irenaeus on the tradition of the Church that says its faith is based on the preaching of the apostles:

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It is the preaching which the Church has received; it is this faith, as we have said; and although it is scattered into all the world, it is carefully kept as if it were dwelling in one single home and there, unanimously believed, as if this home had one soul and one heart; and in one perfect accord it preaches and teaches it, it transmits it as if it had only one mouth. Without doubt, the languages over all the world are different, but the strength of the tradition is one and identical . . . . And neither the heads of the Churches, being most powerful in their words, will teach another doctrine, for no one is above the master, nor will the most inferior, through their words, diminish this tradition. For the faith being one and identical, is neither enriched by those able to say much nor impoverished by those who are only able to say a little.60 In this passage, St. Irenaeus speaks not only about a tradition or historical transmission, not only about a hereditary manner of teaching, but above all about the identity and continuity of the experience of the Church, of its life in grace. “The strength of the tradition,” vitus traditionis, is a dynamic principle, a veritable force that spreads. The apostles have deposited in the Church the fullness of truth (omnia quae sint veritatis) as into a treasury.61 But it is a living deposit, “a deposit that rejuvenates itself ” (quoddam depositum juvenescens), that also rejuvenates that in which it is contained.62 It is the elixir of truth (potam vitae).63 Tradition is a charismatic principle for it is protected and preserved by the Church’s episcopal ministry, by those who, qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum Patris acceperunt (according to the Father’s pleasure have received, through episcopal succession, the assured charism of truth).64 On account of this, tradition is a means or rather a factor of unity. Tradition is certainly, in a sense, the memory of the Church that guards the sacred deposit. However, one must meticulously distinguish this sacred memory from the purely historical and human forms of memory. In any case, tradition is not the same thing as traditions or customs of the Church or of the churches. Here we can cite the moving phrase of St. Cyprian: Dominus, ego sum, inquit, veritas. Non dixit: ego sum consuetudo (The Lord said, “I am the truth. He did not say, ‘I am custom.’”).65 “The tradition of truth” and ancient customs or habits, traditio veritatis and consuetudo, are not the same.

St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer., I, 10. 2. Translated by G. Bardy, La théologie de l’Eglise de Saint Clément de Rome à Saint Irénée (The Theology of the Church from St. Clement of Rome to St. Irenaeus), Unam Sanctam 13 (Paris, 1945), 87–8. 61 Ibid., III, 4.1. 62 Ibid., III, 24. 1 63 Ibid., III, 4. 1 64 Ibid., IV, 26.2. 65 St. Cyprian, Sententiae episcoporum numero 87, n. 30, ed. Hartel 3a, 448. 60

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It is true to say that tradition is not limited by the passing of history, or, as Fr. Sergius Bulgakov said: “Tradition is not a kind of archaeology”66—nor is it even a sacred archaeology. For what has in fact been deposited by the apostles in the Church, what they have entrusted to the Church, is not a fixed and preconceived formula, but a living faith, a message of salvation—no doubt well defined and exact—a witness that must be known and protected by the living faith. “First and foremost, tradition is to be understood as a living force, as the consciousness of a living organism, which includes its prior life. Tradition is uninterrupted and inexhaustible, it is not only the past but also the present in which the future already abides.”67 Tradition is a rule of continuity, a living turning point of time. It is the perpetual consciousness of the Church that protects its unity and identity throughout the ages but which is enriched by all its experiences. Therefore, true traditionalism in the Church does not preclude development. On the contrary, tradition lives and grows. Consequently, being faithful to tradition does not signify an obstinate fidelity to the Church’s past, even to the apostolic past. Fidelity to the apostolic tradition is, above all, fidelity to the apostolic message. This message is a seed that is regarded as authoritative. True catholic traditionalism is fidelity to the total experience of the Church in which this initial seed develops. This is why the true tradition of the Church cannot be identified or discovered outside it by purely historical or archaeological research. The Church alone is the guardian of tradition. For, after all, tradition is only a witnessing of the Spirit who continually reveals and renews the message that was in times past deposited in the Church. Thus, tradition is not solely a historical authority imposed from outside on the living members of the Body of Christ. Rather, it is the uninterrupted Word of God himself that is seized by faith; it is not only a witness of the past but, above all, a witness of eternity. Khomiakov formulated this point of view very well: It is not individuals nor a multitude of individuals in the bosom of the Church who guard the tradition or compose the Scriptures; but it is the Spirit of God who lives in the entire body of the Church . . . . For the one who is outside of the Church, neither the Scriptures nor tradition nor the works of the Church are intelligible. But to the one who lives within the Church and participates in its Spirit, the unity of Scripture, of tradition and of its works are evident by the grace that abides in the Church.68

Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 38. Ibid. 68 Khomiakov, The Church is One, sec. 5. I am citing according to the English translation of Birkbeck, Russia and the English Church, 198. The English translator had some difficulty arriving at an accurate translation. “Neither individuals, nor a multitude of individuals within the Church, preserve the tradition or write the Scriptures, but the Spirit of God, which lives in the whole body 66 67

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Conformity to the past is therefore only a consequence of fidelity to the whole. It is only an expression of the permanence and identity of the catholic experience across the changes of the centuries. To understand the tradition of the Church, one must be of the Church and one must know the Holy Spirit who animates this living body. Moreover, true fidelity to tradition does not imply only an accord with the past, but also in a certain sense, a freedom with regard to the past understood as an authority that is completely exterior and formal to the catholic experience. In this sense, tradition is not only a principle of conservatism but also a principle of living progress, a principle of growth, of regeneration, of reformation. The Church unceasingly reforms itself because she lives in the tradition. True traditionalism is always opposed to the tendencies of servile restoration that consider the past as a formal criterion for the present. For, indeed, tradition is nothing other than the power to instruct, potestas magisterii, the authority of witnessing and of proclaiming the truths of the faith. As the Church bears witness, it has no need to remember something or to lean on some sort of exterior authority. It renders witness from the fullness of its experience, living and perpetual, of the fullness of its catholic existence, because the Church is the living body of the One who is the Truth, the Way and the Life. Tradition is the Church itself in its catholic existence. It is the permanent dwelling of the Spirit in the Body of Christ and not merely the memory of theological definitions. It is a charismatic principle and not purely historical. The Holy Scripture is itself only the foundation of the entire tradition. This is so because one is never able to separate Scripture from tradition. The holy books reproduce and show the divine message to the extent that it was received and known by those to whom it was addressed. Rather than the message itself, the scriptures are the testimony rendered by the Church to the message it received. For the sole message is Christ himself; the message is firstly his person and not only his teaching and commandments. In any case, even from a historical point of view, the Church precedes the written New Testament. It is within the bosom of the Church that the New Testament scriptures have been recognized and promulgated as an authentic presentation of the message of salvation. They are the Word of God insofar as they authentically present the preaching of the apostles to whom this task and this authority had been entrusted or granted by the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who was given to them so as to lead them into the fullness of truth. In particular, the Gospels offer us the image of

of the Church . . . . To a man living outside of the Church, neither her Scripture nor her tradition, nor her works are comprehensible. But to the man who lives within the Church and is united to the Spirit of the Church, their unity is manifest by the grace which lives within her.” See German translation in Ehrenberg.

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Christ, which in itself makes them apostolic witnesses (through the twelve as the authorized witnesses by the Savior himself, and who received and kept the faith of the nascent Church). Certainly, Holy Scripture is the main source of doctrine and teaching for Christians. On the other hand, we must not forget that the same Scripture is both the rendered witness and teaching given by the Church under the continuous inspiration of God. For this reason, the Church is the only authorized interpreter of the Word of God, of Holy Scripture. For the Word is not addressed to scattered individuals, but primarily to the Church, to the community of the faithful. Likewise, preaching is entrusted to the special ministers authorized by the Church. Therefore the Bible is not a book addressed to just anyone, but it is the book of the Church, and only in the bosom of the Church can it be read and known as the living Word of the living God. Thus, revelation is kept by the Church and in the Church, and it is why the true preaching of the Word is a sign of the true Church. Revelation, the divine message, is, so to speak, protected by the written letter, protected and kept; but the letter of the Scripture does not exhaust the message. The Scripture is only an outline that must be completed by learning the faith. This is why the Scripture says and signifies infinitely more to the members of the Church than to strangers, for whom the true sense of the holy books is lost since they are unable to recognize that it is the Word of God. Scripturae non in legendo sunt, sed in intelligendo (Scripture is not in the reading but in the understanding), says St. Hilary.69 But our opposition to the purely historical witness is not a matter of a subjective and religious experience but the total experience of the whole and catholic Church. If we refuse to consider the Scripture as a sufficient and exclusive source of revealed truth, it is not at all because Scripture is incomplete or inaccurate or defective. The reason is simply that Scripture itself does not claim to be understood in this way. Scripture becomes almost silent, its content reduced, when one detaches it from the living context of the whole tradition. Without this living context, we expose Scripture to the danger of arbitrary and narrow interpretations. Thus, the sole criterion of the Bible—its existence and interpretation—is the total experience of the Church. It is in this sense that it is possible to say that revelation continues. The Lord, who is the head of his Body, remains master of the many ways that he has revealed himself and has made himself known to those who are incorporated, by the mystery of his love, into his incarnate life. And it is above all the Eucharistic experience, or rather the Eucharistic revelation, that completes and deepens what one hears in the preaching of the Word: the Jesus of history is above all recognized as Christ and Lord in fractione panis [in the breaking of the bread: cf. Lk. 24:35]. We are not in any way opposing Scripture to experience. On

St. Hilary, Ad Const. August., II, 9, PL 10, col. 570.

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the contrary, we are attempting to restore their organic unity, which existed from the beginning and which has sometimes been obscured by our excessively analytical processes. On the other hand we are not minimizing the value of history—we fully recognize its sacredness. We absolutely insist that the reality of history is precisely a sacred reality, that it has more than one dimension, that it has a divine dimension, outside of which, one could say, history could not be known without fatal deformations and disfigurations. For the existence of the Church is intrinsically historical. It is profoundly rooted in the historical facts concerning the coming of the Messiah, of the Incarnation, and so on. But these true historical facts that have been linked to a determined point in space and to a determined moment of time cannot be known and glimpsed except by faith. The experience of the Church, of its living tradition, is a memory, truthful and real, and not a reminiscence of that which is a long time past. It is above all the vision of that which is coming and that which is still present, at once the vision of what is past and of that which is present. In its catholic experience the Church forgets nothing. In the Church, partial experiences are integrated into a supratemporal totality. This total experience of the Church is never exhausted, neither in Scripture, nor in the traditions, nor by the definitions of the magisterium (teaching authorities, i.e., the bishops). And it can never be exhausted. This is not to say that all new and unexpected truths can be discovered sooner or later, for the Christian Revelation is (already) completed and only Christ’s return will make known a truly new revelation. Consequently, the Church today does not know Christ better than it knew him from the beginning. The truth is given, in effect, once and for all. But the apprehension of the truth is progressive. What develops throughout the ages of Christian existence is not therefore the truth itself, but the witness of the Church to that truth. Fidelity to the truth revealed once and for all is not compromised by what St. Gregory of Nazianzus called “the creation of new terms” (καινοτομεῖν τὰ ὀνόματα), which was necessary precisely for protecting and guarding the identity of the faith. And the later definitions are born of the same catholic fullness that was given from the beginning, given but not instantly known. The authority of doctrinal formulas therefore does not rest on when they were formulated but only on their conformity to the given essentials. In this sense all that the Church teaches possesses the same authority even when the Church goes beyond the vocabulary and letter of Holy Scripture. Over time the witness of the Church becomes more explicit, or it is translated into a new vocabulary, but it is always a witness returning to the same unique reality. This is not a dogmatic development; such a term is contradictory, for dogmas are not theoretical axioms from which one would be able to deduce new theorems. A dogma is precisely a witness, a rational summary of such and such mystery of faith. The mystery is contemplated and known in the silence of faith. But the truth of that contemplation must still be

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proclaimed, announced, and revealed to human understanding. This is done in two ways: one announces the mysteries either in symbols or in images, such as comprised the language of the prophets and of the Lord himself. This way is found in the language of the Church in its worship and art; it is the language of kerygmatic theology. And there is the other way, by which the same mysteries are made known in logical concepts, in the language of reason. This is the language of dogmas and of dogmatic theology. Kerygma and dogma are the two forms of witness.70 Therefore, a dogma is a definition and this is why the choice of terms is of supreme importance. A definition must be precise and unchanging; otherwise it would miss its primary objective. This is why dogmatic definitions also constitute the criterion of faith. But dogmatic definitions still give only an outline of the truth derived from contemplation: the rule of faith is never a substitute for faith. A Russian theologian has provided an image suggestive of what dogma is and what it is not in the life of the Church. The Church, before all else, offers us a key and not a system—it is not a map of the City of God, but the means of penetrating it. Without a map it is always possible to lose one’s way; however, even without a map, one already finds oneself in the same city, and all that is seen is the same reality. But the one who follows only a map risks remaining forever outside and learns nothing about the city in a direct way.71 It is preferable to have at the same time both the key and the map. This is the positive motive for a dogmatic explanation of the mysteries of faith. Indeed, a map is inevitably schematic, and one is able more or less to insert any details into it. But it can never become the living image that a symbol can sometimes be. Nevertheless, the promulgation of dogmas is of singular importance. It is the way for the Christianization of the human intellect. The painful conflict of faith and reason is not a final solution. Through faith, the human intellect is not condemned to remain forever deaf and blind to the one real truth in the Christian experience. We are speaking neither of a hasty agreement nor of an unworthy compromise. On the contrary, we are postulating a Christian transfiguration of the intellect. Faith also illumines the intellect, while it also

See St. Basil of Caesarea, De spiritu sancto (On the Holy Spirit), ch., 27, PG 32, col. 188, and the new edition with a French translation by B. Pruches in Sources chrétiennes 17 (Paris, 1947), 231ff. “Among the ‘dogmas’ and ‘kerygma’ preserved in the Church, we have received some from written teachings [hold on to the ones from the written teaching], and we collected the others, transmitted ἐν μυστηρίω (in silence), from the apostolic tradition. All have the same force with regard to piety; this no one will deny, even if a person has only the slightest experience of the ecclesiastical institutions.” We would prefer not to translate the Greek terms: dogma, kerygma, and mystery, since we do not think the French words suggested by Fr. Pruche (doctrines, définitions, secrètement) correspond exactly. 71 B. M. Melioransky, “Lectures on the History of the Ancient Church,” Strannik (The Pilgrim) (June, 1910), 931 (in Russian). 70

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seeks after reason, fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeks understanding). And the Fathers of the Church made the great effort to create a new intellectual system capable of providing a translation of the faith into words of reason. It was a very difficult and bold task that is still not finished. The great dogmatic decisions of the Church were organically linked to that speculative search. It was not a matter of searching for the truth, for the truth had already been fully revealed in the person of the Word Incarnate. What needed to be found was, above all, “an intellectual garment” for the truth.72 Dogmatic definitions were not only the means of defense, although for the most part they had been formulated during theological disputes. They always had, however, a perfectly positive objective to elaborate and establish the concepts and even new categories that would be able to make up the conceptual framework suitable for the presentation of the unadulterated Christian truth. This was not at all an adaptation of revealed or scriptural truth to the demands of “natural reason” or, in fact, to the Hellenic intellect. Under its Origenistic and other (incompatible) forms, “Hellenism’s high pitch” was harshly dismissed by the Church. On the contrary, dogma was rather the adaptation of reason to the demands of the revealed faith: it represented the transformation and transfiguration of the intellect. Without doubt this was only a sketch, an outline of a new synthesis, destined, moreover, to remain unfinished and quite imperfect. Nevertheless, this was an authentic Christianization of reason, and given all the new ideas being introduced to Hellenism, Hellenism’s principal intuition itself was, above all, being changed. Here, the most significant examples ought to be cited: a totally new concept of time that indicated the profound orientation of the intellect to history, which, apart from the Bible and the Christian experience, made no sense as, for example, when history and time are linked to the true becoming and concept of creation; the completely new idea of man no longer considered as an isolated soul or spirit but as an essentially twofold being,

Cf. the Kontakion of the feast of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council (the Sunday before Pentecost), probably composed by St. Romanos the Melodist (sixth century), P. Maas, Frühbyzantinische Kirchenpoesie [Early Byzantine Church Poetry] (Bonn, 1910), Lietzmann’s Kleine Texte, 52–3, 24: τῶν ἀποστόλων τὸ κήρυγμα καὶ τῶν πατέρων τὰ δόγματα ἡ ἐκκλησία φυλάττουσα μίαν τὴν πίστιν ἐσφράγισε; καὶ τὸν χιτῶνα φορούσα τῆς ἀληθείας; τὸν ὑφαντὸν ἐκ τῆς ἄνω θεολογίας, ὀρθοτομεῖ καὶ δοξάζει τῆς εὐσεβίας τὸ μέγα μυστήριον (Defending the one faith, the Church empowers the Apostles’ preaching and the Fathers’ doctrine; and bearing the robe of truth woven from theology on high, it rightly expounds and glorifies the great mystery of piety/ faith); see also the office of the Three Hierarchs (January 30). [Compare Florovsky’s citation of the Kontakion of the Fathers with what is more commonly used: Τῶν Ἀποστόλων τὸ κήρυγμα, καὶ τῶν Πατέρων τὰ δόγματα, τῆ Ἐκκλησίᾳ μίαν τήν πίστιν ἐκράτυνεν. ἥ καὶ χιτῶνα φοροῦσα τῆς ἀληθείας, τὸν ὑφαντὸν ἐκ τῆς ἄνω θεολογίας, ὀρθοτομεῖ καὶ δοξάζει, τῆς εὐσεβείας τὸ μέγα μυστήριον (The one faith of the Apostles’ preaching and the Fathers’ doctrine is held fast by the Church. And bearing the robe of truth, woven from theology on high, it rightly expounds and glorifies the great mystery of piety/faith). Trans.]. 72

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which implied a new awareness of human death and a strong emphasis on the resurrection; and above all, the new idea of God as Trinity. The content of faith is and remains forever a mystery. This is why one is always compelled to check cataphatic theology by apophatic theology. One can never describe the mystery in positive terms; one must often appeal to negative terms that oppose limiting the divine mystery to all that is given us in the realm of creation. But these modes of intellectual expression must continually complement each other. In short, one can distinguish several stages in the Church’s appropriation of the divine message. The message of salvation was delivered in deeds and in the person of Christ, and afterward in the very makeup of the Church. As the living body of the Lord, the Church is also God’s message to the world. It renders witness [in and to the world]. In the first place, this is done by witnessing to the same faith “which shows the invisible realities” (Heb. 11:1, trans. by P. Bonsirven).73 Second, it is through the combined witness of preaching in words and in symbols. The Holy Scripture and rituals, particularly the Eucharistic and baptismal rites, proclaim the mystery—τὸ κήρυγμα—that is accomplished through the Word of God and the divine mysteries or sacraments. Third, it is through the dogmatic witness which is possible only in the new framework of ideas that presuppose and imply elaboration of a theological doctrine. The basic dogmas, that is, those defined by the teaching authority of the Church, cannot be separated from the broader framework of doctrine, outside of which they say and express nothing. In this case they are only words and formulas. It is therefore incorrect to ask about the sources of faith or of doctrine in a simplistic way in which there is either only one source under the different titles of the Word of God, the Holy Scripture and the Bible; or in which there are two sources (in which case are they assumed to be independent of one other?), that is, the Bible and Tradition. Without a doubt the source is one, but it is not a written book. (Rather) the source is the true revelation of God, his intervention into human life and existence in all its many manifestations, centered in the person of the Incarnate Word. The creation of the Church, the body of the Incarnate Lord, is included there [in this source]. Tradition in the larger and inclusive sense, as was shown above, is only another aspect of the same revelation. For the same revelation implies two participants: the one who speaks and the one who listens. There is no point to revelation if the second participant is missing. Revelation is always in some way a dialogue, even if the one who listens remains silent: attentiveness is his way of participation; he is there, and his presence forms the dialogue. The supreme revelation in Christ is known through the Church. The Church is not a source by itself. But it is in

Idem., 454 and commentary, 460ff. St. John Chrysostom gives a definition of ὄψις, vision, In Heb., hom. XXI, PG 63, col. 151. 73

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the Church that the divine source has been established. The source is unique, but the forms of witness to it are diverse and multiple. And the unique criterion is the Church itself in its fullness, or rather it is the total Christ, totus Christus, caput et corpus. In this sense the Church is the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), columna et firmamentum veritatis. And it is in this sense that the Church, from its beginning, has attributed its decisions to the authority and pleasure of the Holy Spirit: “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us . . . ” (Acts 15:28). Visum est enim Spiritui Sancto et nobis. These words have become the traditional preamble of all the conciliar decisions of the Church. Christian truth is preserved in and by the entire Church. In this sense it can be said that the true guardian of piety is the people, the entire body of the Church itself—ὁ ὑπερασπιστὴς τῆς θρησκείας ἐστὶν αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἤτοι αὐτὸς ὁ λαός (the protector of piety is surely the body of the Church itself, i.e., the people) in the sentence of the Encyclical of Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs of 1848.74 The same idea is expressed in the Russian Catechism (composed by Philaret of Moscow and approved by the Holy Synod). To the question: “Is there a depository of the sacred tradition?” one responds in these terms: “All the faithful united by the sacred tradition of truth, all assembled and all in succession, are formed by God into one Church that is the true depository of sacred tradition, or, in the words of St. Paul, ‘the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth.’” It needs to be emphasized that “the entire Church, the entire body,” that is, the assembly of the people, includes within itself the ministry. Specifically, therefore, the faith is neither preserved nor guarded only by the clergy, isolated or independent of the Christian people; neither is it preserved or guarded solely by the people, isolated from the ministry or even opposed to the clergy. One can say: by the Christian people

Reproduced in Mansi, vol. XL (1909), col. 407–8. Khomiakov cites this Encyclical in his correspondence with W. Palmer and interpreted this passage in the following way: “The gift of truth is strictly separated from the hierarchical functions (namely, from Sacramental and Disciplinarian power), and the essential distinction from the Roman notion is thus established; the gift of unvarying knowledge (which is nothing but faith) is attributed not to individuals, but to the totality of the ecclesiastical body, and is considered as a corollary of the moral principle of mutual love.” Birkbeck, Russia and the English Church, 94–5. Recently, the accuracy of this interpretation has been contested; see B. Schultze, S.J., “A.S. Chomjakow und das Halb-Jahrtausend-Jubilaeum des Einigungskonzils von Florenz,” (A. S. Chomjakow and the Five Hundredth Jubilee of the Council of Florence) Orientalia Christiana Periodica IV: 3–4 (1938), 473ff. In our opinion, Khomiakov overemphasizes the moral aspect of catholicity, which is certainly not unimportanct, and wrongly opposed the charism of doctrinal infallibility with sacramental power. In fact, the apostolic tradition and apostolic succession are inseparable, and the first is only possible by the second. But we agree with Khomiakov that the deposit of the true faith is the entire Church, without excluding the hierarchy from this totality, which would be an obvious misinterpretation. In general, the people and the hierarchy are wrongly set in opposition: the people are organized only by the hierarchy, and the hierarchy is in the midst of the Christian people. 74

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and not the laity of the Church, the hierarchy and laity being the inseparable components of the whole body. So as to avoid any confusion or ambiguity, care is needed in distinguishing the two different meanings of the same word: the people, ὁ λαός, can signify either the “entire body” corpus christianum as it is differentiated in the Church structure or simply “the people” who stand opposite the clergy (i.e., the priest, the minister, the hierarchy). One must never overlook the structure of the body. And finally, the entire life of the Church, the preservation of the divine message or of the revealed truth, is rooted in the gifts of the Spirit that are perpetuated by the sacraments and transmitted by the hierarchical ministry through apostolic succession. Furthermore, it is indeed necessary to distinguish between preserving the faith and teaching it, to distinguish between the authority to proclaim and to define. Though the whole Body protects the truth, it is the sacerdotal ministry alone that is authorized to render the authentic witness, the authenticity of the witness being based on the charismatic continuity of the Church that is precisely assured by hierarchical succession, De omnium fidelium ore pendeamus, quia in omnem fidelem Spiritus Dei spirat (“Listen to what is said by all the people, for the Spirit of God breathes in all”).75 There are two constituent moments. The first, consensus omnium [the consensus of all], which is not so much the reception or the approval by the people of the decisions and witness of the magisterium, but rather the basis and criterion of these decisions and this witness. It is more an anterior accord—a previous agreement—than a posterior consent. One can and must always proclaim or promulgate, as the catholic truth, that which has always been believed and guarded by the whole Church. The tradition is itself the basis, the source, and the criterion. No one doubts this. Every doctrinal declaration is always demonstrated by references to Scripture, to the tradition, and to the liturgical witness. One knows well the famous phrase of St. Vincent of Lérins: Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est (That which is everywhere, which is always, which is believed by all). It is true to say that this is a tautology, that one is not able to use it as an empirical criterion. And yet, prior to any definition, this phrase strongly emphasizes universal and catholic accord. The difficulty presents itself when we attempt to empirically define the limits of universal agreement. Here it is necessary to recall the true nature of catholicity. Who are in fact “all” those whose faith is envisioned here? Certainly not those who pretend to be orthodox. Quite often a very severe process of discrimination is imposed—a rigorous selection is necessary. The heretics themselves always pretend to be orthodox. Majorities alone decide nothing. Consequently, the canon lerinense (the Vincentian Canon) provides

St. Paulinus of Nola [c. 354–431], Epist. XXIII, 25, PL 61, col. 280.

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us with no criterion to discriminate. One must refer to something else, to the true and interior tradition which is able to be preserved only by the (numerical) minority, concentrated in those few communities and not always attested by explicit testimonies. Nevertheless, these few communities are where true catholicity will be found: the veritable ubiquitas of the Church, the complete agreement of all the true faithful, the catholic identity of the message. This tradition has never been interrupted, although it has not often been easy to give an exact formulation of it adapted to the particular needs of a specific epoch. The charismatic tradition is truly catholic: in its fullness is embraced all manner of semper (always) and ubique (everywhere). But, in fact, it is indeed possible for the Church’s tradition not to be recognized or accepted by all those who pretend to be among those of the true faith. This is to say that universal approval, in this sense, does not give us absolute security. Moreover, it can even reveal a kind of confusion, a divergence of opinions. But what one seeks are not points of opinion. Even in science, one proves nothing by agreement. One seeks after objective proofs. Yet, in the Church, these objective truths are given by the catholic experience, by the faith that reveals the invisible. Therefore, it is the catholic truth itself that is the necessary criterion for evaluating the true significance of eventual agreements and disagreements among the faithful. The ultimate discrimination of truth and falsehood is only accomplished inside the Church, within the ongoing life of the Body. This is not done by the councils or by any other official authority. Instead, it is recognized and proclaimed by the authority of personal witnesses. The ecumenical councils are their eloquent witnesses. It was the faith of St. Cyril and of St. Celestine I that was established as a rule in Ephesus; it was the faith of St. Cyril and of St. Leo that was recognized and prescribed at Chalcedon; it was fathers such as St. Gregory of Nyssa and others who were recognized as authentic witnesses of Orthodoxy in Constantinople in 381. The councils did not discover the truth, for the truth had never been lost: once again the truth was recognized and solemnly proclaimed. The value of these conciliar proclamations does not rest in their ecumenical character—an “ecumenical” council with regard to the number of participants may be nothing more than a robber council, latrocinium, without any authority—but precisely in their catholicity. It is not the numerus episcoporum (the number of bishops) that matters. And it is a well-known fact that “antiquity without truth is only a well-established error” (antiquitas sine veritate vetustas erroris est). The scattered Church, ecclesia sparsa, is sometimes able to disavow the errors imposed by false pastors and to oppose them with the unadulterated orthodox faith, for in the Church truth always prevails. But the ways of this final victory of catholic truth are varied and diverse. The calling of councils is only one among others. The historical fact that for centuries an ecumenical council has not assembled in the Eastern Church only proves the point that the Church has not lost its teaching authority. This authority always

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lives in the light of the living faith, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the inner teacher who leads it into the fullness of truth and protects it against the assaults of the adversary. But all that is only one aspect of the Church’s persevering in the faith. Within the Church there is also a magisterium to regulate and rule, a true power to instruct, a veritable charisma veritatis that resides only in its own ministry of which it is an organic and component element. In a certain sense the whole Church is forever ecclesia discens (the learning Church), the Church being taught, that is, being taught by its Head and by the Spirit of Truth. The Church is entirely under the ultimate authority of revealed divine truth. As the body of the faithful, it is not autonomous. It is, if one wishes, under the judgment of Christ. But there is in the Church an intrinsic differentiation of functions and of respective structures. There are the teachers and those who are taught. And the right or the power to instruct, the power of truthful witnessing, is not based on personal skill, on erudition, not even on personal sanctity but on a special charism granted for the building up of the Church. The ministry of the Church does not derive its authority from the multitude of the faithful, but from the one who is Head of all the faithful—both clergy and laity. This authority is transmitted by apostolic succession, which represents, guarantees and seals the total catholicity of the one and holy Church. And yet, it is only an authority to proclaim, of identifying and recognizing what has been confided to the Church, that which is held by the Church whole and indivisible. Once again, the potestas magisterii (teaching power) is basically only the power of witnessing. Consequently, it is limited by the nature and by the contents of the truth attested to. This is because the magisterium never functions ex sese (by itself) but always ex consensus ecclesiae (by the consent of the Church). However, this is not an empirical consensus, it is not purely a consenting of the laity or of the people. It is rather conformity and fidelity to the total experience of the Church. The bishop must live in the Church, to be rooted in its life, in order to live its life—episcopus in ecclesia (the bishop in the Church). In this way the bishop represents the Church, he personifies it, he becomes its authentic voice—ecclesia in episcopo (the Church in the bishop). But it is only in its bishop, or rather in the entire episcopate, that the Church possesses the authentic exponents of its faith and hope. It is only in the episcopate that the Church has its catholic witness. For the bishops speak ex officio only in virtue of their representative character and not in their own name. For this particular purpose they speak precisely as the spokesmen of the Church in which they have been appointed. Again, we are stressing that the bishops speak for the entire Church, for the catholic Church and not for a particular church or a specific diocese in space and time. They even speak in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) by the authority of the total Christ, caput et corpus (head and body). Consequently, this is not a power of jurisdiction but precisely a charism, that is

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charisma veritatis certum (a charism of truth), of which St. Irenaeus spoke with such vigor. One must not submit to heretical bishops or their following. Often the Church has openly protested against these false pastors who corrupted the immaculate faith of the catholic Church, who themselves were not catholic in their faith and in their life. There is a law of resistance in the Church. But one opposes these errors in love and charity, in true catholicity. This opposition is not a matter of standing one set of opinions against another. Rather, all opinions are assessed in light of the entire catholic tradition. One understands that a certain task is not to be accomplished by detached individuals but only by the gathering of the Church, reassembled around its true pastors, the authorized witnesses of its faith. One can reproach our excessive optimism in our account of the life of the Church. We declare it quite willingly. It is an optimism, a true Christian optimism, filled with hope and based on the explicit promise of the Supreme Pastor: “et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam” (and the gates of hell will not prevail against it [Mt. 16:18]). If one wishes, it is an eschatological optimism. Not only in the sense that in the apocalyptic consummation all that is true will be restored and all errors disavowed. Even in its historical pilgrimage, extremely painful and full of temptations, the Church is not left alone, deprived of the assistance from its leader, of the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Yet, the Holy Spirit is not only a spirit of peace and of charity, but the sovereign Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father. The Church is always that which is the Body of Christ. There have been those epochs in the Church’s history in which even its great pastors and doctors were close to believing that Christ was sleeping and that the small boat was going to sink beneath the violent tempests, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus says somewhere. And many of the doctrinal quarrels were presented as a true “battle of the night” (νυκτομαχία)—taking a phrase from Socrates the [church] historian— when in the darkness one cannot be sure of distinguishing one’s allies from one’s enemies. Or in rereading the moving chapter (xxx) of St. Basil’s On the Holy Spirit, where he describes with bitterness the agonizing situation of the Church. And nevertheless it is the catholic truth that, in the final analysis, remains victorious. In each particular epoch, sooner or later the Church finds— or rather it is Christ himself who gives to the Church—the solution of all disputed questions, the appropriate expression of the orthodox faith. At times the price is very high, the ordeals formidable, and the pursuit quite costly. And individuals or even local communities can go astray and lose the catholic way. But the Church of Christ remains infallible under the assistance of the Spirit, even when it is reduced in numbers. The true apostolic succession can never be interrupted, for this would be, so to speak, a failure of Pentecost, which could never happen. There are within the Church controversial and disputed questions and a variety of admissible theological opinions, to the extent that

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they do not contradict already established principles and that they are attempts only at furthering the precision of these principles. The vision of the Church is still partial and yet always catholic: the details, sometimes, cannot be described in definitive terms, but the intuition of the Church embraces the whole vision. It is this fundamental intuition we will openly state: the vision of faith that the Church imposes on the faithful. The formulas come afterward in a totally natural manner as they give a precise contour to this intuition. There are still mysteries of the faith that ought to be received “in mystery,” ἐν μυστηρίῳ, in mystical silence, and which no human vocabulary could sufficiently express. These mysteries are above all related to the future of the Church itself or to the final end. There are also provisionary definitions, approximate theological hypotheses. But one can never exactly distinguish “the necessary” from “the ambiguous,” necessarium et dubiam. “The necessary,” is truly only the life in the Church, the participation in the catholic tradition of the sacraments of the faith. And all the rest is implied there. If one is in the faith one will inevitably follow the same way that the Church has followed throughout its history. One finds nothing new, but one progresses in the faith.76

V. HISTORIC ANTINOMIES The first task of the Church in history consists in proclaiming the Good News. And the proclamation of the Good News inevitably conveys pronouncing a judgment on the world. The Gospel itself is a judgment and a condemnation. It draws attention to the sin of the world. Between the Gospel and the world there is a final tension, a contrast and an opposition, for the Gospel is not of this world—it is the proclamation of the world to come. The Church witnesses to this new life, manifested and revealed in Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior. At the same time it does this by word and by acts, for the true announcing of the Gospel consists precisely in the practice of the new life, in the demonstration of faith through its acts. The Church is more than a group of preachers or a teaching society or a missionary organization. It has not only to call all but also to initiate them into

The ideas sketched in Chapters III and IV of this essay have already been presented by the author in a series of articles published in German or in English, of which the titles are: Des Vaters Haus, “Una Sancta” 1927 (The Father’s House, “Una Sancta”), Sonderheft; Die Ostkirche; “Offenbarung, Philosophie und Theologie,” Zwischen den Zeiten, 9:6 (1931), (Revelation, Philosophy and Theology), (a conference in Bonn, 1931); “The Work of the Holy Spirit in Revelation,” The Christian East 12:2 (1932), “The Sacrament of Pentecost (On Apostolic Succession),” The Journal of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, no. 23 (1934); “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church,” in The Church of God: An Anglo-Russian Symposium, ed. E. L. Mascall (London: SPCK, 1934). 76

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that new life to which it bears witness because it possesses that life. The Church is actually a missionary body, and its mission field is the entire world. But the aim of its missionary activity is not simply to communicate and to transmit to humanity certain convictions or certain ideas nor even to impose on it a determined discipline or a rule of life. Before all else and above all else, the Church introduces humanity into that new reality, transforming it, bringing it through faith and repentance to Christ himself so that it might be born anew in him by water and the Holy Spirit. Thus, in this way the ministry of the Word is achieved in the ministry of the sacraments. Conversion is a new start that must be followed by a long and difficult race. The Church needs to organize the new life of the converted. The Church needs to show the new type of existence, the new mode of life that is of the world to come. God claims the entire person and the Church gives witness to this total claim of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The Christian must be a new creature. This is why a Christian is unable to find a stable place within the confines of the “old world.” In this sense the Christian attitude is always revolutionary by its relation to “the old order” of this world. Not being of this world, the Church of Christ is able to be in this world only as it is in permanent opposition to it, even if it calls only for the reform or the regeneration of the existing order. In any case, that which it calls for must be radical and total. The life and task of the Church in history are profoundly antinomical and this antinomy will never be resolved or surmounted on the historical plain. Above all, it is a constant allusion to that which is “to come” in the future life. This antinomy is manifested in the alternative practices that the Church has had to confront since the beginning of its historic pilgrimage: either the Church exclusively and totally places itself outside of society, striving to satisfy all the needs of the believers both temporal and spiritual, not taking into account the existing order and sacrificing nothing to the exterior world, which implies a complete separation with the world, a fleeing outside of it and a radical rejection of all external authority; or the Church strives to Christianize the world by incorporating the world into itself, submitting all aspects of life pertaining to this world to Christian law and authority so as to transform and reorganize the life of this age according to Christian principles, to erect the Christian city. One finds in the history of the Church two opposing solutions: the retreat into the desert and the building of a Christian empire. This first solution was practiced above all by the monks, for a monastery was not purely a religious society but rather a complete community that organized and made demands on the entire life of its members. Monasticism was sometimes secularized, but in principle it remained, even today, a striving for Christian maximalism: an independent society, opposed to this world (cf., for example, the “monastic republic” of Mount Athos). The second solution was for the most part practiced much more in the Church, in the East as well as in the West, until the advent of

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militant secularism, although in our day this solution has not lost its appeal for most Christians. The theocratic empires of the East, Byzantium and Muscovite Russia, provide the greatest examples of this solution: in principle there was the attempt to Christianize all of life while striving to create the ideal Christian. It is well known that both of these solutions proved to be unsuccessful, for not all were able to flee to the desert, and the Christianization of the empires has always been nominal. Each of these two programs is contradictory in itself. The first consists of the inherent tension found in a sect. Consequently, the catholic character of the Christian message and aim are at the very least obscured or even denied by this solution.77 On the other hand, all attempts to Christianize the world under the form of a Christian state or empire that is universal (as was the Byzantine Empire in principle) or national (like Russia, which nevertheless pretended to be the “Third Rome,” and therefore a universal empire) have led the Church to a more or less acute secularization. We must, however, remember that Christianity is not an individualistic religion that is only occupied with “the salvation of the soul.” Christianity is the Church, that is to say, it is a community, the new People of God, building its corporate life according to its own precepts. This life cannot be divided into parts of which some would be governed by other principles differing from its own. We cannot serve two masters, and a dual allegiance is a contemptible solution. Mixed solutions and compromises have also been sought after reducing Christianity to an individualistic piety and looking to the Church only to provide solace. Hence, it is not only the state that is separated from the Church, but it is the entire life of faith that consequently degenerates into a dreamy pietism. In breaking up the unity of the Christian ideal we separate the consilia (counsels) from the praecepta (precepts), legitimizing a double moral standard: one for the ascetics who aspire to perfection and the other for the laity who do not.78 These historical failures of Christianity should not, however, hide the absolute and decisive character of the Christian ideal that aspires to an entirely Christian world. But this problem has no solution in history, for the ideal of perfection is essentially an eschatological ideal. On the historical plane one can provide a regulating principle but never a constitutional principle: a principle of discrimination, not a principle of construction. This is not due to Christian

Too often one forgets the provisional character of monasticism. St. John Chrysostom admitted that monasteries are necessary because the world is not Christian. If the world were converted, the need for monastic separation would disappear. 78 [Florovsky is associating the consilia with monastics who, striving for perfection, led lives of voluntary poverty, chastity and obedience, going beyond what became known as the praecepta or moral norms of the Gospel. The distinction between consilia and praecepta became a contested issue in the West beginning in the Middle ages and leading up to the Protestant Reformation. Trans.] 77

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defeatism; it is, on the contrary, due to maximizing the most consistent aspects of Christianity. In our time we cannot envisage the possibility of the conversion of all to a universal monasticism no more than that of the restoration of a truly Christian and universal state. The Church remains in the world as a heterogeneous body. The tension is stronger than ever, and everyone in the Church painfully feels the ambiguity of the situation. Therefore we are able to establish a practical program for the present time that recovers the sense of the nature and essence of the Church. The failure of all the utopian hopes cannot obscure the Christian message and hope. The King has come, the Lord Jesus, and his Kingdom is coming. Boulogne-sur-Seine, February 1948.

CONTRIBUTORS

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch V. Rev. Robert M. Arida Archpriest and Dean: Holy Trinity Cathedral, Boston MA (Orthodox Church in America) Dr. Nikolaos Asproulis Deputy Director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and Lecturer in the Studies in Eastern Orthodox Theology Postgraduate Program at the Hellenic Open University Rev. Dr. Matthew Baker (†2015) Formerly Adjunct Professor (Hellenic College/Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, MA) V. Rev. Dr. John Behr Regius Chair in Humanity (University of Aberdeen, UK); Metropolitan Kallistos Chair of Orthodox Theology (Vrije Universitet, Amsterdam, NL); and Dean Emeritus, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (NY) V. Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne; Honorary Professor of Theology (Sydney College of Divinity)

486

CONTRIBUTORS

Dr. Will Cohen Associate Professor of Theology (University of Scranton, PA) Rev. Dr. Brandon Gallaher Deacon of the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain; Senior Lecturer of Systematic and Comparative Theology (University of Exeter, UK) Dr. Paul L. Gavrilyuk Aquinas Chair in Theology & Philosophy (University of St. Thomas, MN) and Founding President of International Orthodox Theological Association (​IOTA) HE Metropolitan Gennadios (Limouris) of Sassima Professor of Canon Law (Theological Faculty of the Church of Cyprus) and Vicemoderator of the World Council of Churches HE Archbishop Job (Getcha) of Telmessos Permanent Representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the WCC (Geneva) and Dean of the Institute of Postgraduate Studies in Orthodox Theology (Chambésy, Switzerland) Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis Director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and Member of the Executive Committee of the European Academy of Religion Dr. Alexis Klimoff Professor Emeritus in Russian Studies (Vassar College, NY) Dr. Paul Ladouceur Adjunct Professor (Orthodox School of Theology at Trinity College, University of Toronto) and Professeur associé (Université Laval, Québec, Canada) Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin Commissioner on Liturgy and Church Art, and Commissioner on Canon Law (Patriarchate of Moscow) Dr. Ivana Noble Professor of Ecumenical Theology (Charles University, Prague)  Dr. Athanasios N. Papathanasiou Associate Professor (Athens Ecclesiastical Academy) and Chief Editor of the Quarterly Synaxis

CONTRIBUTORS

487

Dr. Marcus Plested Henri de Lubac Chair, Professor of Greek Patristic and Byzantine Theology (Marquette University, WI) V. Rev. Dr. Alexander Rentel Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America and Assistant Professor of Canon Law and Byzantine Studies (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, NY) Dr. Joost van Rossum Professor Emeritus in Patristics and Church History (St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, Paris) V. Rev. Dr. Nikolai Sakharov Brother of the Monastic Community of St. John the Baptist (Essex, UK) HE Metropolitan Chrysostomos (Savvatos) of Messinia Professor of Theology (University of Athens) V. Rev. Dr. Alexis Torrance Archbishop Demetrios Associate Professor of Byzantine Theology (University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN) HE Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia Formerly Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford (University of Oxford) Dr. Christos Yannaras Professor Emeritus of Philosophy (Panteion University, Athens) HE Senior Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon Formerly Professor of Systematic Theology (Glasgow University, King’s College London, and the University of Thessaloniki)

488

NAME INDEX

Adam, Karl  181, 194, 450 Afanasiev, Nicholas  47, 136 Alivisatos, Hamilcar S.  197, 221, 244 Ambrose of Milan  167, 208, 456 Arida, Robert  258, 429 Armstrong, A. H.  43, 202, 413 Asproulis, Nikolaos  254–7, 267, 310, 330, 420 Athanasius of Alexandria  34, 45, 56, 71, 88, 107, 116, 147, 207, 215, 262, 309, 311–14, 316, 327, 331–3, 355, 441, 447 Athenagoras (the Ecumenical Patriarch)  379, 401 Augustine of Hippo  34, 44, 59, 101, 138, 142, 160, 166–7, 186, 197–9, 212–13, 216, 221, 231, 233, 250, 256, 258, 260, 262, 268, 311, 314, 343, 420, 437, 441, 443, 449, 451, 453–6, 462 Avdelas, Dimitrios G.  381, 412 Baillie, Donald  15, 207–9, 362 Baker, Matthew  2, 15, 53, 91, 154, 163, 168, 171, 174, 181, 196, 209–10, 213, 220, 253–4, 256–8, 261, 264, 267, 293, 309, 360, 393, 403, 406, 415–17 Barth, Karl  3, 15, 163, 181, 196, 213, 251, 254, 263, 313, 316, 427

Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch  3, 37, 298 Basil the Great  43, 45, 56, 71, 121, 160, 167, 256, 286, 347, 351, 354–5, 473, 480 Behr-Sigel, Elisabeth  54, 96 Berdyaev, Nikolai  3, 21, 54, 78, 92, 94, 99, 116, 155, 194, 197, 232, 233, 245, 313, 361 Bird, Thomas  2, 4–6, 8–12, 14, 16–18, 21, 169, 192, 195, 213–14, 219 Blane, Andrew  2, 4–6, 8–12, 14–18, 21, 53, 58, 68, 69, 73–6, 81–2, 86–7, 89, 92, 103, 110–11, 137, 154, 156, 158–9, 161, 163, 172, 189, 192–3, 195, 204, 210, 214, 220, 244, 252, 264, 266, 292, 359, 387, 409, 412–13, 418, 428, 432 Bobrinskoy, Boris  3, 54, 154, 248, 250 Bouteneff, Peter  84, 165, 269, 281, 420 Bouyer, Louis  3, 109, 390, 441 Brunner, Emil  3, 15, 196 Bulgakov, Sergius  3, 8–12, 15, 17, 51– 109, 115–16, 126–8, 130, 136–7, 142, 148, 155–9, 161, 165, 168, 174, 183–4, 187, 197–8, 212, 219, 232, 245, 250, 254, 266–9, 277, 279, 281, 284, 287, 297, 309–11, 313, 320–32, 334, 361, 377, 383, 390, 413, 433, 469

490

Cabasilas, Nicholas  47, 384, 388, 456, 463 Cavafy, Constantine  153, 182, 226 Chetverikov, Sergii  9–10, 81–5, 98, 103–4 Clément, Olivier  52, 154, 248 Congar, Yves  3, 109, 169, 176, 194, 232, 388, 417, 466 Croce, Benedetto  41, 209 Cunningham, Mary  190, 253 Cyprian of Carthage  43, 197, 348–9, 446, 466, 468 Cyril of Alexandria  143–4, 456, 462, 478 Danckaert, Seraphim  15, 261, 393, 403, 406, 415–16 Daniélou, Jean  3, 199 Danilevsky, Nikolai  191–2, 194, 206 de Lubac, Henri  216, 232, 248, 318, 446, 454 Demacopoulos, George  161, 184, 186, 192, 248, 263 Dionysius Aeropagite (Pseudo-)  143, 148, 245–8, 252–3, 261–2, 268 Dobbie-Bateman, A. F.  76, 79–80, 82–3, 86, 102 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor  155, 217, 412–13 Ephrem the Syrian  199, 451 Evagrius of Pontus  54, 115, 246 Evdokimov, Paul  54, 61, 63, 109 Famerée, Joseph  198, 251 Fedotov, Georges  92, 99, 131 Frank, Simon  90, 107 Gallaher, Brandon  2, 8, 15, 18–19, 53, 94, 112–13, 185, 187, 189–90, 192, 211, 244, 263, 267–8, 281, 309, 322, 324, 417–18, 429–30 Geffert, Bryn  53, 81–2, 103–4, 156–7 Georgievskii, Evlogii  7, 156 Gilson, Étienne  136, 194, 196, 214, 232, 234, 248 Golitzin, Alexander  220, 247 Golubkova, Natal’ia  9, 68, 159 Gregory of Nazianzus  173–4, 246, 362, 364, 381, 390, 472, 480 Gregory of Nyssa  160, 167, 250, 268, 286, 362, 438, 447, 478

NAME INDEX

Gregory Palamas  168, 172, 186, 231, 245, 247, 250, 262, 271, 280, 282, 301, 314, 330–3, 361, 388, 390 Hallensleben, Barbara  99, 109 Hegel, G.  168–9, 177, 266, 323, 360 Heidegger, Martin  186, 210, 217, 242, 248, 251, 266 Herman of Alaska  346, 372 Herzen, Alexander  7, 68, 127, 136 Hilary of Poitiers  167, 197, 208, 449, 462, 471 Hopko, Thomas  144, 348 Hovorun, Cyril  271, 415, 420 Ignatius of Antioch  50, 452 Irenaeus of Lyons  20, 47, 50, 168, 176, 284, 286, 313, 332, 441, 467–8, 480 Isaac of Nineveh  55–6, 122, 234 John Chrysostom  444, 448–9, 456, 459, 462–4, 475, 483 John of Damascus  55, 58, 143–8, 231, 268, 303, 305, 318, 438 Julian of Halicarnassus  139, 141–2, 146, 148–9 Kartashev, Anton  9, 82, 92, 99, 126, 128 Kern, Kyprian  54, 56, 106, 126, 128, 130, 196 Khomiakov, Alexis  43, 59, 169, 176, 181, 439, 450, 454, 469, 476 Khrapovitsky, Antonii  161, 170, 302, 445, 460 Kireevsky, Ivan  169, 172, 175–6, 180, 183, 281 Knight, Douglas  218, 310, 315, 464 Kolerov, M.A.  68, 76, 158, 197 Kozyrev, Aleksei  9, 68–71, 159 Künkel, Christoph  160, 197, 203 Ladouceur, Paul  2, 8, 15, 18–20, 53, 102, 109, 158, 263, 267–8, 309, 377, 416, 420, 430 Lanne, Dom Emmanuel  199, 264 Leenhard, Franz  194, 302, 426 Lialine, Dom C.  80, 171, 211

NAME INDEX

Lossky, N. O.  69, 78, 128, 131 Lossky, Vladimir  3–4, 52–7, 60, 64, 78, 95, 102, 116–17, 119, 136–7, 143, 145, 154, 158, 166–7, 174, 187, 190, 211–15, 217, 220–1, 227, 231–4, 245–7, 249–54, 258–62, 268–9, 292, 297, 302, 313, 332–3, 380 Lot-Borodine, Myrrha  3, 154 Louth, Andrew  51, 112, 118–19, 160, 185, 190, 244–5, 247–8, 251, 253, 329, 331–2, 419 McPartlan, Paul  216, 318 Maritain, Jacques  3, 194, 196, 233 Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue  7, 176 Mascall, Eric  3, 15, 61–2, 77, 87, 160, 195, 214, 481 Maximus the Confessor  115, 139, 142–3, 185, 231, 234, 262, 286, 305–6, 314, 318–20, 357, 436 Meister Eckhart  214, 234, 248, 250 Mersch, Émile  194, 450, 454, 462 Meyendorff, John  3, 54, 60, 72–73, 80, 109, 126, 136, 140, 142–8, 150, 154, 157–8, 227, 230, 232, 247, 262, 303, 311, 341, 348 Mogila, Peter  161–2, 200–1 Möhler, Johann Adam  169, 171, 172, 174, 176–82, 186, 194, 281, 395, 439, 450 Nestorius  140, 355 Newman, John  198, 269, 453 Nicholas Cabasilas  47, 384, 388, 456, 463 Nichols, Aidan  53, 215 Nikolaev, Sergei V.  76, 100, 156 Nissiotis, Nikos  244–6, 360 Nygren, Anders  15, 337, 450 Origen  115, 220, 261, 313, 437, 441, 443, 448, 474 Ouspensky, Leonid  52, 63–4 Palmer, G. E. H.  56, 476 Papadopoulos, Stylianos  245, 269 Papanikolaou, Aristotle  161, 185–6, 192, 216, 244, 248, 263, 288, 302, 331–2, 409

491

Pashkovsky, Theophilus  13, 112 Payne, Daniel  187, 218 Pelikan, Jaroslav  4, 154 Philaret of Moscow  232, 439, 454, 476 Plato  64, 165, 251, 308, 316 Plekon, Michael  8, 84, 100, 156, 165 Plested, Marcus  186, 250–1, 253, 262, 268 Popovi, Justin  136, 235, 381 Raeff, Marc  201, 428 Ramsey, Michael  3, 15, 195, 427 Ratzinger, Joseph (Pope Benedict XVI)  29, 218, 386 Romanides, John  3, 17–18, 60, 126, 154, 160, 173, 187, 198, 221, 245, 383, 420 Russell, Norman  35, 160, 330–2 Sakharov, Sophrony  113–14, 116–18, 120–3, 154, 211–13, 292–3 Savitsky, Peter  191, 409 Schelling, F. W. J.  96, 169, 172, 175–7, 179–82, 186, 281 Schlacks, Charles  6, 160, 192 Schmemann, Alexander  3–4, 11, 16–17, 53–4, 60, 94, 109, 124–35, 150, 154, 190, 227, 348 Schultze, Bernhard  80, 476 Scotus, Duns  203, 234, 313 Sherrard, Philip  56, 226, 231, 246 Silouan (the Athonite)  46, 118 Sobrino, Jon  335, 340, 345–6 Solovyov, Vladimir  65–6, 68–74, 92–6, 105, 110, 127–8, 130, 155–6, 172, 174–5, 180, 191, 269, 310, 413, 416, 461 Spengler, Oswald  126, 191, 200–1, 232, 263, 409–12, 414–19 Stăniloae, Dumitru  136, 221, 245, 269 Stavrou, Michel  248, 269, 420 Symeon the New Theologian  55–6, 174, 230, 247, 274, 382 Tertullian  254, 446 Theokritoff, Elizabeth  190, 216, 253 Theophan the Greek (the Recluse)  63, 133

492

Thomas Aquinas  160, 198, 214, 218, 231–2, 234–5, 250–1, 253, 259, 268, 313, 316, 438 Thomson, F. J.  161, 200–1 Tillich, Paul  3, 41, 218 Torrance, Thomas F.  3, 209 Toynbee, Arnold  205–6, 209 Trubetskoi, Nikolai  7, 191–2 Tulcan, Ioan  269, 420 Turkevich, Leonty  13, 132 Valliere, Paul  53, 66, 105, 219, 231–2 van Rossum, Joost  158, 303 Vincent of Lérins  197, 477 Vinkovetsky, Ilya  6, 160, 192 Visser ‘t Hooft, Willem  3, 394, 398–9, 403–4, 406, 426–7 von Harnack, Adolf  41, 163, 197, 263, 267, 359–61, 371, 416

NAME INDEX

Ware, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia  4–5, 53, 56, 59, 62, 154, 246, 252, 268, 309 Wendebourg, Dorothea  200, 202, 263, 332–3 Williams, George H.  79, 94, 110, 197, 244, 384, 414, 428, 432 Williams, Rowan  52–3, 154, 166, 210–12, 219, 283, 288, 414, 419 Zenkovsky, Vasily  5, 9, 75, 79–82, 86, 92, 103, 106, 126, 158–9 Zernov, Nicolas  52, 62–3, 75–6, 78–9, 83, 99, 102, 130, 428 Zizioulas, Metropolitan John of Pergamon  60, 119, 126, 154, 190, 210, 215–17, 219–21, 232, 237–8, 244–5, 253–4, 284, 294–5, 298, 300–2, 308–10, 313, 315–20, 322–9, 332, 380–1, 384, 420

SUBJECT INDEX

aphthartodocetism  139–40, 148, 303 Apollinarianism  10, 255 apophaticism  116, 187, 212, 216, 218, 243–6, 248–52, 254–5, 259, 261–2, 302, 332–3

determinism  157, 178, 192–3 development, doctrinal  216, 269 diaspora  52–4, 57, 61, 63–4, 67, 77, 116, 123, 166, 213, 227, 246, 259, 265, 270, 348, 383, 418

Babylonian captivity  243, 263 Brotherhood of Saint Sophia  68, 159 Brotherhood of St. Photius  198

Ecumenical movement  3, 10, 12, 15, 22, 27, 30, 32, 38, 42, 76, 89, 92, 97, 109, 195, 360, 386, 388, 393–7, 400, 402–3, 405–6, 413–4, 417 Eucharistic ecclesiology  35, 47, 49–50, 185, 215 Eurasianism  6, 160, 191, 193, 206, 213, 409

canonical boundaries  198, 360, 432 catholicity (sobornost)  20, 23, 47, 59, 61–2, 76, 101, 118, 138, 168–9, 171, 174, 177, 298–9, 302, 395, 414, 450, 481 Chalcedon (Council of)  20, 58, 258, 296–7, 299, 303, 353, 433, 465, 478 charismatic boundaries  44, 349, 360 Christian philosophy  158, 164–5, 168, 171, 174, 176, 182, 193, 196, 256–8, 261, 292, 374, 413 communion of saints  49–50, 457 communion-spoon  270, 272–5, 277 Confucianism  367, 374 consensus patrum  18, 23, 172, 280, 282, 284, 288 creation  318–33 deification (theosis)  115, 296–7, 299, 301, 306, 314, 441

Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius  76, 79, 86, 98, 194 German idealism  96, 155, 157, 183, 196, 203, 232, 234, 263, 267, 429–30 Godmanhood  331, 413 Hellenism, Christian  3, 21, 58–60, 127, 129–30, 138, 154, 158–60, 163, 166–8, 171, 183, 195–200, 210, 231, 236–7, 239–42, 256, 262–8, 358, 381, 411, 416, 418–20, 431 Hellenization  20, 39, 41, 138, 163, 197, 263, 266–7, 358–9, 408, 416, 420 historicism  74, 125, 138, 178, 197, 467

494

idealism, German  96, 155, 157, 183, 196, 203, 232, 234, 263, 267, 429–30 intercommunion  8, 76, 98–101, 109, 156, 401, 403, 406 Lex orandi  40, 150, 252 Marxism  92, 119 mind of the Church Fathers (patristic mind)  18–22, 59, 114–15, 118, 170, 231, 281, 288, 343, 383, 388 Neoplatonism  155, 268 Nicaea, Council of  58, 316 nouvelle théologie  138, 230 pantheism  311, 322, 327 personalism  119, 186, 217–8, 232, 301–2, 450 philosophia perennis  250, 254–5, 364 podvig  45–6, 114, 193, 252, 262, 300, 313 pseudomorphosis  11, 126, 162, 166, 191, 195, 200–4, 210, 232, 263, 279, 408, 410–11, 415, 418, 430 ressourcement  3, 183, 220–1, 230 return to the Fathers  4, 23, 35, 58, 60, 94–5, 136, 186, 188, 197, 202, 209, 215, 237–8, 243, 250, 252, 263, 279–80, 383, 391, 431 Romanticism  21, 63, 155, 160, 171, 178, 181, 183, 232, 279, 281, 413–4, 429–30 The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR)  7–10, 12–13, 74, 77–80, 83–4, 94, 102, 104

SUBJECT INDEX

Russian Religious Renaissance  52, 54, 60, 92, 108, 113, 126–7, 148, 159, 187, 197, 212, 220, 293, 428 Sophia  61, 65–6, 69–71, 73–5, 79, 82, 88, 92, 94–6, 102, 105, 107, 142, 212, 250, 323–6, 330–1 Sophiology  8–10, 12, 53, 65–7, 71–9, 82–8, 93–6, 98, 101–5, 107–10, 142, 148, 155–9, 161, 174, 187, 212, 219, 250–1, 267, 279, 310, 324, 326, 331, 334, 361 synthesis, neo-patristic  3, 4, 8, 18, 416, 429–30 theology apophatic  143, 216, 234, 245, 247, 251, 253, 256, 258–9, 262, 436, 475 cataphatic  258, 436, 475 dogmatic  15, 67, 106, 115–16, 221, 248, 256, 282, 383, 473 kerygmatic  376, 473 mystical  116, 234, 243–6, 248–53, 259 theology of repetition  19, 23, 57, 172, 184, 271, 280 tradition (patristic)  22, 27, 40, 58–9, 84, 87, 94–5, 107, 142, 154, 165, 167–8, 197, 199, 203, 214, 216, 221, 233, 237, 260, 304, 309–10, 313–4, 350, 380, 417–8 western captivity  279, 430 World Council of Churches (WCC)  15, 21, 106, 167, 195, 204, 220, 345, 361, 386–7, 393–9, 401–7, 427

495

496