chapter i - Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church

Ways of
Russian Theology Fr. George Florovsky
Content:
1. The Crisis of Russian Byzantinism.
Introduction. The Pagan Era. The Baptism of Rus'. Second "South
Slavic" Influence Eremitical Renaissance Ivan III and the West. The
Judaizers. Josephites, Transvolgan Elders and Maxim The Greek.
Metropolitan Makarii and the Council of a Hundred Chapters.
2. Encounter With the West. Orthodoxy in West Russia.
Artemii and Kurbskii. The Ostrog Circle and Bible. Konstantin
Ostrozhskii. The Union of Brest; "Brotherhoods"; the Kiev Monastery of
the Caves. Uniatism. Metropolitan Peter Mogila of Kiev. The Orthodox
Confession. The Kiev Academy. The "Pseudomorphosis" of Orthodox
Thought.
3. The Contradictions of the Seventeenth Century.
Introduction. Correction of Books. Patriarch Nikon. The Schism. Kievan
Learning in Muscovy. Conclusion.
4. The St. Petersburg Revoltuion.
The Character of the Petrine Reforms. The Ecclesiastical Schools of
the Eighteenth Century. Protestant Scholasticism. Russian Freemasonry.
The Reawakening of Russian Monasticism. The Russian Bible Society.
5. Struggle for Theology.
Introduction. Alexander I; Prince A.N. Golitsyn; The Coming of
Pietism. The Revival of Russian Freemasonry. Reform of the
Ecclesiastical Schools, 1805-1814. The Russian Bible Society.
Translation of the Russian Bible. Return to Scholasticism.
Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow. Theology in the Reformed
Ecclesiastical Schools. The Moral-Rationalistic School. Church and
State Under Nicholas I. Conclusion. Notes to Chapter I. Notes to Chapter II. Notes to Chapter III. Notes
to Chapter IV. Notes to Chapter V. About the Author. Editor's Preface. On August 11, 1979 Fr. Georges Vasil'evich Florovsky, one of the more
influential of twentieth century theologians and historians of
Christianity, died. With his death a part of our scholarly world also dies.
The scholarly world finds itself in a rather unusual situation. Unlike
other renowned writers who, upon their death, have already shared their
best works with their contemporaries, only posthumously are Fr. Florovsky's
greatest works being published in English - Ways of Russian Theology (in
two volumes), The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century, and The Byzantine
Fathers from the Fifth to the Eighth Centuries. One pauses with wonder when
one realizes that Fr. Florovsky was so influential without these works
having been published in a western language.
Fr. Georges Florovsky was born in Odessa in 1893. He was the
beneficiary of that vibrant Russian educational experience, which
flourished toward the end of the nineteenth century and produced many
gifted scholars. The revolution aborted this rich, growing tradition. As a
result of the revolution, trained Russian scholars became a part of the
Russian emigration in Western Europe and in the United States. A tragic
deprivation for Russia became a gift to western culture. One could perhaps
compare the flight of Russian scholars to Western Europe and the United
States and their concomitant influence with the flight and influence of
Byzantine scholars in the fifteenth century. In both cases the western
scholarly world was surprised at the high level of learning in both Russia
and Byzantium.
Fr. Florovsky personified the cultivated, well-educated Russian of
the turn of the century. His penetrating mind grasped both the detail and
depth in the unfolding drama of the history of Christianity in both eastern
and western forms. He was theologian, church historian, patristic scholar,
philosopher, and Slavist. And he handled all these areas exceptionally
well. As theologian he wrote brilliantly on the subjects -inter alia- of
creation, divine energies, and redemption. As church historian he wrote on
personalities and intellectual movements from all twenty centuries. As
patristic scholar he wrote two volumes on the eastern and Byzantine
fathers. As philosopher he wrote exceptionally well -inter alia- on the
problem of evil and on the influence of ancient Greek philosophy on
patristic thought as well as on the influence of German philosophy on
Russian thought. As Slavist there was virtually no area of Russian life
that he had not at some point analyzed.
Many western churchmen found him a positive challenge. Others found
him intimidating, for here was one who possessed something similar to
encyclopaedic knowledge. Here was one who had the ability to analyze with
insight. Here was a voice from the Christian east capable of putting
theological discussion, long bogged down in the west by reformation and
counter-reformation polemics, on a new theological level with perceptive
analyses of forgotten thought from the early centuries of the history of
the Church. Fr. Florovsky became the spokesman for what he termed the "new
patristic synthesis"; that is, one must return to patristic thought for a
point of departure; church history ought not - from this perspective - be
analyzed through the thought patterns of the reformation or of the Council
of Trent or through the thought structure of Thomas Aquinas: one must
return to the earliest life of the church, to that living church which
existed before the written testimony of the New Testament and which
ultimately determined the canon of our New Testament - the church of the
fathers. That Fr. Florovsky influenced contemporary church historians is
obvious. It is noteworthy that the best contemporary multi-volume history
of the church pays a special tribute to Fr. Florovsky. Jaroslav Pelikan of
Yale University, in the bibliographic section to his first volume in The
Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, writes under
reference to Fr. Florovsky's two volumes (in Russian) on the Church Fathers
(The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century and The Byzantine Fathers of the
Fifth to the Eighth Centuries): "These two works are basic to our
interpretation of trinitarian and christological dogmas" (p. 359 from The
Emergence of the Catholic Tradition: 100-600). George Huntston Williams,
Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, wrote: "Faithful
priestly son of the Russian Orthodox Church . . . , Fr. Georges Florovsky -
with a career-long involvement in the ecumenical dialogue between apostolic
patristic Orthodoxy and all the many forms of Christianity in the Old World
and the New- is today the most articulate, trenchant and winsome exponent
of Orthodox Theology and piety in the scholarly world. He is innovative and
creative in the sense wholly of being ever prepared to restate the saving
truth of Scripture and Tradition in the idiom of our contemporary yearning
for the transcendent . . . "
Fr. Florovsky's professorial career led him from the University of
Odessa to Prague, where he taught philosophy from 1922 until 1926. In 1926
he was invited to hold the chair of patrology at St. Sergius' Orthodox
Theological Institute in Paris. In 1948 Fr. Florovsky accepted the deanship
of St. Vladimir's Theological School in New York. Simultaneously he taught
at Union Theological School and Columbia University. In 1956 Fr. Florovsky
accepted an invitation from Harvard University where he held the chair of
Eastern Church History until 1964. While teaching at Harvard University,
Fr. Florovsky also taught at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School
in Brookline, Massachusetts. From 1964 until his death in 1979 Fr.
Florovsky was Visiting Professor at Princeton University. It should be
remembered that through all the years and during all the research, Fr.
Florovsky was a faithful priest of the Orthodox Church, officiating at the
numerous liturgical services, presenting sermons, and acting as a spiritual
guide and father confessor. The history of the translation of Ways of
Russian Theology could by itself be a separate book. Suffice it to say that
more persons had a hand in this project than is obvious, especially in the
early years of the project. The work of Andrew Blane and friends was quite
significant. In late 1974 I received a personal request from Fr. Florovsky
to head the entire project and to bring it to completion. I hesitated until
Fr. Florovsky insisted that I assume the general editorship of the project.
I agreed. From that time on, the organization of the project began anew.
The first step was to compare existing translations.
The second step was taken when Fr. Florovsky insisted that Robert L.
Nichols be appointed the new translator. The third step was to compare the
new translation with the original text. And, finally c. 868 footnotes were
added to part One of Ways of Russian Theology. I do not pretend that we
have produced a perfect book. There are, I am sure, errors still to be
uncovered. But in the main I think the product is "ready," especially in
light of the fact that a readership has been awaiting this English
translation for approximately forty years.
The footnotes were added for a specific reason. It was thought that
there would be two types of readership: theologians who might be unfamiliar
with the world of Russian culture in general; and, Slavists who might be
unfamiliar with church history and patristics. It was considered unfair to
expect Slavists to know Cappadocian theology, just as it was considered