"Let books be your dining table, / And you shall be full of delights. / Let them be your
mattress,/
And you shall sleep restful nights" (St. Ephraim the Syrian).


Thursday, June 4, 2015

Modern Orthodox Thinkers

Given the explosion of scholarship in Eastern Christianity in general, and Orthodoxy in particular, we have for some time, as I've often noted on here, been seeing various dictionaries, handbooks, encyclopedias, and other "omnium gatherum" types of publication emerge with some regularity, trying to corral a great deal of material into one volume. Set for release next month under the editorial hand of one of the most distinguished Orthodox scholars of our time is Andrew Louth, ed., Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present Day (SPCK Press, 2015), 400pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:
A lively and perceptive account of the lives, writings and enduring intellectual legacies of the great Orthodox theologians of the past 250 years. This book explores and explains the enduring influence of some of the world's greatest modern theologians. Starting with the influence of the Philokalia in nineteenth-century Russia, the book moves through the Slavophiles, Solov'ev, Florensky in Russia and then traces the story through the Christian intellectuals exiled from Stalin's Russia - Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Florovsky, Lossky, Lot-Borodine, Skobtsova - and a couple of theologians outside the Russian world: the Romanian Staniloae and the Serbian Popovich, both of whom studied in Paris. Andrew Louth then considers the contributions of the second generation Russians - Evdokimov, Meyendorff, Schmemann - and the theologians of Greece from the sixties onwards - Zizioulas, Yannaras, and others, as well as influential monks and spiritual elders, especially Fr Sophrony of the monastery in Essex and his mentor, St Silouan. The book concludes with an illuminating chapter on Metropolitan Kallistos and the theological vision of the Philokalia.

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