DVHS 712-01 (22705) Eastern Christianity
Dr. Paul L. Gavrilyuk
Spring 2010
Thur 6:30 - 9: 00 PM; 108 BEC
Office Location: JRC 140
Office Hours: Thur 3:00-4:00 PM
Phone: 651-962-5326
Course Description
Focusing on theology and its relationship to other aspects of church’s life, we will explore various
dimensions of Eastern Christianity from its patristic roots to the present. The themes to be discussed
will include the following: the heritage of the undivided church (before the Great Schism of 1054)
the differences between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ approaches to theology (as historical realities and
as modern polemical constructions); Gregory Palamas and the reception of his theology in the
twentieth century; the link between theology and ‘spirituality’; various facets of the concept of
‘tradition’; different twentieth century versions of ‘Neopatristic synthesis’; apophatic and cataphatic
theology; liturgical theology; and ecumenism.
 10%. Attendance, preparation and participation.
 Regular attendance is essential.
 More than one absence will be penalized. Each absence will diminish your
attendance grade by twenty points (on a 100 point scale).
 10% Response sheet. Each student will write and submit to the instructor electronically one-page
double-spaced response sheets, 300 words max every week. In your response sheet (1) identify and
discuss one major point of the assigned reading and (2) share one or more questions that the reading
has raised for you. The response sheets should be e-mailed to the instructor at
plgavrilyuk@stthomas.edu. The response sheet is due at noon on Wed, one day before the class at
which the relevant readings will be discussed. Late response sheets will not be accepted. Each
missed response sheet will diminish this part of your grade by ten points (on a 100 point scale).
 20%. Presentation. Each student will present one seminar paper.
Paper guidelines (important):
1.
Your paper must be 5-6 pages, double-spaced, in length (ideally from 1500 to 1800 words;
2100 maximum).
2.
Focus as closely as you can on the analysis of the readings.
3.
Dedicate at least two pages to your own critical reflection upon the material of the
readings.
4.
The presentation must show that you have consulted the background readings relevant to
the topic(s) discussed.
5.
Provide the instructor with a double-spaced copy of the paper.
6.
Distribute single-spaced copies to each student in the class.
 60% Research Paper. Each student will write one research paper, 20-25 pages in length. The paper
is due on the last day of the class. The students should make individual appointments with the
instructor to discuss the topic and the bibliography of the research paper. The list of suggested topics
will be distributed in class. The research paper proposal, which must include one-paragraph abstract,
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paper outline, and a working bibliography, is due on the date indicated in the syllabus. The hard
copy of the paper is due on the last day of the class at 6: 30 PM. Note: research papers will not be
accepted in electronic form.
Required books:
1. George C. Berthold, trans., Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings (Mahwah, NY: Paulist
Press, 1985).
2. Meyendorff, John, ed. and trans., Gregory Palamas: The Triads (New York, NY: Paulist
Press, 1983).
3. Roth, Catharine P., trans., Theodore the Studite: On the Holy Icons (Crestwood, NY: SVS
Press, 1981).
4. Smith, Allan T., trans., The Pilgrim’s Tale (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1999). ISBN 08091-3709-7.
5. Bulgakov, Sergei, Sophia: The Wisdom of God, An Outline of Sophiology (Hudson, NY:
Lindisfarne Press, 1993).
6. Lossky, Vladimir, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002).
7. Zizioulas, John, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood,
NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985).
8. Schmemann, Alexander, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1998).
9. Plekon, Michael, ed. Tradition Alive (Oxford: Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, 2003).
Recommended books:
1. Athanasius: On the Incarnation, trans. A religious of C.S.M.V (Crestwood, NY: St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002).
2. Luibheid, Colm, trans., Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works (New York, NY: Paulist
Press, 1987)
Week 1. Feb 11. Introduction & Orientation.
Background Reading:
1. Ware, Kallistos (Timothy), The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin, 1993), full text at:
http://www.synaxis.org/catechist/Orthodox_Church.html
2. Ware, Kallistos (Timothy) The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1995).
3. Cunningham, Mary B. and Elizabeth Theokritoff, The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox
Christian Theology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
4. Nichols, Aidan, Light from the East: Authors and Themes in Orthodox Theology (London:
Sheed & Word, 1995). Text available on-line at books.google.com (search for the title of the
book).
5. Chadwick, Henry, East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church: From Apostolic Times
Until the Council of Florence (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Week 2. Feb. 18. Doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity.
Required Reading: Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, at:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm or at: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath2
inc.htm Recommended translation: Athanasius: On the Incarnation, trans. A religious of C.S.M.V
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002).
Background Reading:
1. Anatolios, Khaled, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought (London: Routledge, 1998).
Week 3. Feb 25. Apophatic Theology.
Required Reading: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology; Divine Names.
Recommended translation: Colm Luibheid, trans., Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works (New
York, NY: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 47-141. Rolt’s outdated translation on-line at:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolt/dionysius.txt (copy plain text version of this translation into the MS
Word, delete intro and error text at the end of the document, then print).
Background Reading:
1. Louth, Andrew, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys
(Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1989), esp. ch. 8.
2. Coakley, Sarah, and Charles M. Stang, Re-Thinking Dionysius the Areopagite (Oxford, UK:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), or at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121392130/issue
3. Rorem, Paul and John C. Lamoreaux, John of Scythopolis and the Dionysian Corpus
(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Week 4. March 4. Monastic ‘spirituality’ and theology. Deification.
Required Reading: Maximus the Confessor, The Four Hundred Chapters on Love. Recommended
translation: George C. Berthold, trans., Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings (Mahwah, NY:
Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 35-98.
Background Reading:
1. Louth, Andrew. Maximus the Confessor (London & New York: Routledge, 1996).
2. Prassas, Despina, trans. Maximus the Confessor: Questions and Doubts (Northern Illinois
University Press, 2009).
3. Von Balthasar, Hans Urs, The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor (San
Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1988).
4. Thunberg, Lars, Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood,
NY: SVS Press, 1985).
5. Mantzaridis, Georgios I., The Deification of Man (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1984).
6. Russell, Norman, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press, 2006).
7. Meyendorff, John, The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY: SVS
Press, 2001).
Week 5. March 11. Iconoclastic Controversy.
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Required Reading: Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons, trans. Catharine P. Roth (Crestwood,
NY: SVS Press, 1981), pp. 7-41.
Background Reading:
1. Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons (entire).
2. John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press,
2003).
3. Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY: SVS
Press, 1999).
4. Ouspensky, Leonid, Theology of the Icon, 2 vols. (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1992).
5. Peter Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, pp. 251-301.
6. Patrick Henry, "What was the Iconoclastic Controversy About?" Church History 45
(l976): l6-3l.
7. Iconoclasm., ed. Anthony Bryer and Judith Herrin (Birmingham, England: Centre for
Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, 1977).
8. Robin Cormack, Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and Its Icons (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985).
9. Ernst Kitzinger, "The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm," Dumbarton Oaks
Papers 7 (l954): 85-l50.
10. Daniel J. Sahas, Icon and Logos: Sources in Eighth-Century Iconoclasm (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1986).
11. Kurt Weitzmann, The Icon (New York: George Braziller, 1978).
Week 6. March 18. Palamism and Neo-Palamism
Required Reading: Gregory Palamas, Triads (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1983), pp. 25-111.
Background Reading:
1. Meyendorff, John, St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality (Crestwood, NY: SVS
Press, 1974).
2. Meyendorff, John, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New
York, NY: Fordham University Press, 1974).
3. Maloney, George A., Hymns of Divine Love by St Symeon the New Theologian (Denville,
NJ: Dimension Books, nd).
4. Krivocheine, Basil, St Symeon the New Theologian: In the Light of Christ (Crestwood, NY:
SVS Press, 1986).
5. Clément, Olivier, The Roots of Christian Mysticism (London: New City Press, 2005).
Week 7. March 25. Russian Monastic Spirituality.
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Required Reading: The Pilgrim’s Tale, trans. T. Allan Smith (New York, NY: Paulist Press,
1999), meetings 1-4. (Any other edition is fine too. Note that the same title is also translated as The
Way of a Pilgrim).
Background Reading:
1. The Pilgrim’s Tale, pp. 1-46.
2. George A. Maloney, Russian Hesychasm: The Spirituality of Nil Sorsky (Mouton, 1973).
3. John Meyendorff, St Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality (Crestwood, NY: SVS
Press, 1974).
4. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems
(London: Variorum Reprints, 1974).
5. George P. Fedotov, A Treasury of Russian Spirituality (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1975).
6. Ilarion Alfeev, Sviachennaia taina Tserkvi, 2 vols (Sankt-Peterburg: Aleteia, 2002), esp. chs.
IV-VII [In Russian].
Easter Break. No class on April 1.
Week 8. April 8. Intro to Russian Émigré thought; sophiology.
Required Reading: Sergei Bulgakov, Sophia: The Wisdom of God, An Outline of Sophiology
(Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1993). [Note: ‘Sergei’, ‘Sergius’ and ‘Sergii’ transliterate three
different versions of the same Russian name].
Background Reading:
1. Sergius Bulgakov, “Dogma and Dogmatic Theology,” in Michael Plekon, ed., Tradition
Alive: On the Church and the Christian Life in Our Time (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield
Publishers, 2003), pp. 67-80.
2. Bulgakov, Sergius, The Lamb of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008).
3. Bulgakov, Sergius, The Bride of the Lamb (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002).
4. Valliere, Paul, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), esp. part III.
5. Williams, Rowan, ed., Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1999).
6. Catherine Evtuhov, The Cross and the Sicle: Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate of Russian
Religious Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).
7. Zernov, Nicholas, The Russians and Their Church (London: SPCK, 1954).
Week 9. April 15. East/ West Dichotomy; Apophatic/ cataphatic theology; Neopatristic
Synthesis.
Required Reading: Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood,
NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), chap. 1-6.
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Background Reading:
1. Lossky, Vladimir, In The Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2001).
2. Lossky, Vladimir, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1973).
3. Georges Florovsky, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church,” at:
http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/church_tradition_florovsky.ht
m#n1
4. Blaine, Andrew, ed., Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual, Orthodox Churchman
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993), esp. 287-340.
5. John Meyendorff, “Does Christian Tradition Have a Future?”, in Tradition Alive,
Michael Plekon, ed. (Oxford: Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), pp. 135-148.
Week 10. April 22. Communion and Personhood.
Required Reading: John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), chaps. 1-3.
Background Reading:
1. Zizioulas, John D., Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the
Church (Continuum, 2007).
2. Papanikolaou, Aristotle, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human
Communion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).
Week 11. April 29. Liturgical Theology
Required Reading: Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998).
Background Reading:
1. Schmemann, Alexander, The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1973-1983
(Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2002).
2. Schmemann, Alexander Introduction to Liturgical Theology (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press,
1986).
3. Schmemann, Alexander The Eucharist (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1988).
4. Schmemann, Alexander, Of Water and the Spirit (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1974).
Week 12. May 6. Ecumenism & Christian Unity.
Required Reading:
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1. Nicolas Afanasiev, “Una sancta”; Sergius Bulgakov, “By Jacob’s Well”; Anton
Kartashev, “The Paths Towards the Reunion of the Churches” in Michael Plekon, ed.,
Tradition Alive, pp. 1-30, 55-66, 203-212.
2. Ut unum Sint, at:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jpii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html
Background Reading:
Week 13. May 13. Summing Up the Results. Research papers due. Brief presentations of
research topics by students.
For Further Reading:
1. Staniloae, Dumitru, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (Brookline,
MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998).
2. Plekon, Michael, ed., Tradition Alive: On the Church and the Christian Life in Our Time
(New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 2003).
3. Paul Evdokimov, The Sacrament of Love: The Nuptial Mystery in the Light of the
Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1995).
4. Hart, John Bentley, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003).
5. Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY: SVS
Press, 1999).
H1N1
The University of St. Thomas is committed to a healthy campus community. During the 2009-2010 academic year, there
will be ongoing concerns regarding the prevalence among university faculty, staff and students of both the H1N1 virus
and seasonal influenza. To help limit the spread of these illnesses, the Centers for Disease Control has provided college
campuses the following recommendation: students, faculty, or staff with influenza like illnesses (temperature of 100.0 or
greater, plus a cough or sore throat) are directed to self-isolate (or stay home) for at least 24 hours after their fever is
gone without the use of fever-reducing medicine. In the event that students are unable to attend classes due to this selfisolation recommendation, they should consult the university’s pandemic web site
http://www.stthomas.edu/pandemic/plan/default.html and complete an on-line form informing professors of their absence.
In accordance, faculty will provide opportunities for these students to participate in alternative educational delivery due to
this illness.
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