From the 18th century until the mid-20th century, Greek theologians normalised the practice of using patristic treatises not so much to reveal the depth and beauty of ancient Church teachings, but rather to achieve polemical goals – to highlight the differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism or Protestantism. Currently, there is a consensus among scholars that such a purely apologetic reading of patristic works was an unjustified reduction and impoverishment of the true, profound meaning that the Church Fathers had intended for their texts.
An article by Norman Russell, a distinguished expert on Orthodox theological tradition, entitled “Modern Greek Theologians and the Greek Fathers”, was published in 2006 in the journal Philosophy & Theology. This study was intended to show how, after World War II, Greek theologians, with the help of some diaspora theologians and Western patrologists (primarily Henri de Lubac and Jean Daniélou), turned their attention to the Greek Church Fathers as living witnesses of God-human encounter, and not merely as providers of evidence to substantiate the correctness of the Orthodox worldview.
Norman Russell also draws attention to the strengthening of mystical-apophatic intonations in renewed Greek theology and the importance of faith as an indispensable hermeneutical key to understanding what the Church Fathers wanted to tell us and how they themselves approached the reception of revealed God’s truths. It is noteworthy that the article contains not only a complimentary, but also an intellectually honest and critical analysis of the controversial theological projects of Christos Yannaras and Metropolitan John Zizioulas.
The text of Fr. Andrii Shymanovych’s review of Norman Russell’s article is available at this link:
