Georges Florovsky and the Problems of History

Given, as I've argued on here several times, that too much of the East-West divide seems to turn on bad history, I am greatly looking forward to seeing in print next spring this book by the Orthodox theologian Paul Gavrilyuk: Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford University Press, 2014), 336pp.

This book, the publisher tells us, does several things. Inter alia, it:

• Offers an accessible introduction to the thought of Georges Florovsky 
• Presents a new interpretation of twentieth-century Orthodox theology that revises the standard narrative of Russian émigré theology 
• Contextualizes Florovsky's neopatristic theology through analysis of different currents of the Paris school of Orthodox theology 
• Discusses little known aspects of Florovsky's biography Draws on unpublished works and correspondence 

Moreover, the publisher says:

Georges Florovsky is the mastermind of a 'return to the Church Fathers' in twentieth-century Orthodox theology. His theological vision-the neopatristic synthesis-became the main paradigm of Orthodox theology and the golden standard of Eastern Orthodox identity in the West. Focusing on Florovsky's European period (1920-1948), this study analyses how Florovsky's evolving interpretation of Russian religious thought, particularly Vladimir Solovyov and Sergius Bulgakov, informed his approach to patristic sources. Paul Gavrilyuk offers a new reading of Florovsky's neopatristic theology, by closely considering its ontological, epistemological and ecclesiological foundations. It is common to contrast Florovsky's neopatristic theology with the 'modernist' religious philosophies of Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, and other representatives of the Russian Religious Renaissance. Gavrilyuk argues that the standard narrative of twentieth-century Orthodox theology, based on this polarization, must be reconsidered. The author demonstrates Florovsky's critical appropriation of the main themes of the Russian Religious Renaissance, including theological antinomies, the meaning of history, and the nature of personhood. The distinctive features of Florovsky's neopatristic theology—Christological focus, 'ecclesial experience', personalism, and 'Christian Hellenism'—are best understood against the background of the main problematic of the Renaissance. Specifically, it is shown that Bulgakov's sophiology provided a polemical subtext for Florovsky's theology of creation. It is argued that the use of the patristic norm in application to modern Russian theology represents Florovsky's theological signature. Drawing on unpublished archival material and correspondence, this study sheds new light on such aspects of Florovsky's career as his family background, his participation in the Eurasian movement, his dissertation on Alexander Herzen, his lectures on Vladimir Solovyov, and his involvement in Bulgakov's Brotherhood of St Sophia.