LOGOS: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies Fall 2015

I am delighted to be putting the finishing touches on the upcoming fall issue of Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, the oldest academic revue of its kind in North America whose editor I am. We have two interesting articles, several shorter essays, and a nice array of book reviews and notices.

Articles:

The lead article is especially fascinating: it treats relations between Orthodox and Greek Catholic clergy in Soviet Ukraine, showing the messiness and complexity of those relations after the forced pseudo-sobor of 1946. Some UGCC clergy wanted to regard others who went over to Russian Orthodoxy as "Judases" while others had a much more sympathetic view and co-operated with them unofficially at the parish level. Entitled "After 'Reunion': Soviet Power and the 'Reunited' and 'Non-Reunited' Greek Catholic Clergy in Eastern Galicia (1950s-1960s)," the article is written by Kateryna Budz, a doctoral candidate in history at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine) and, until the end of this month, holder of a scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. She draws on original archival research in a variety of repositories in Ukraine to see what official records among Soviet state agencies reveal as well as ecclesial bodies and their own archives. Some figures in this story are well known--e.g., Josyf Slipyj--but others have not received much scholarly attention until now. 

The second article by Timothy Wilkinson treats the phenomenon of Christians appropriating Jewish traditions as seen in the popularity of celebrating a "seder" supper in many Protestant traditions over the last two decades.Entitled "The Contemporary Protestant Seder: An Orthodox Critique," the article reviews the rise of seder suppers and what they say about a late-modern Christian understanding of church and Jewish history, Jewish-Christian relations ancient and modern, and contemporary Western liturgical theology, which is critiqued gently in light of such Orthodox figures at Alexander Schmemann.

Notes/Essays/Lectures:

In the Notes/Essays/Lectures section, we feature three pieces. The first is an up-to-the-moment report from Andriy Chirovsky on the recent patriarchal sobor and synod of bishops, both held in and for the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church in Ivano-Frankivsk this August. 

The second is a short excerpt from my lecture at OTSA at Fordham this past June in which I treat the questions of memory and "forgetting" in Orthodox-Catholic relations, focusing on the upcoming 70th anniversary in 2016 of the pseudo-sobor of Lviv which saw the Stalin-approved destruction of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church with the collusion of the Russian Orthodox Church.This is a

Finally, Augustine Casiday, author of the invaluable landmark work Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus: Beyond Heresy (whom I interviewed about this very book here) has a fascinating and learned essay treating the uses and abuses of Evagrius' famous definition of theology and a theologian from his treatise On Prayer. This maxim, which I have myself quoted regularly, and which seems to be a staple of contemporary Eastern spiritual and apologetical literature, is often used as little more than a thinly disguised sneer at intellectual work--as a cloak for anti-intellectual obscurantism in other words. Casiday's treatment of what Evagrius really meant is important and not to be missed. 

Book Reviews: 

Finally, in this section we have reviews by the Orthodox scholar Will Cohen of Maximos Vgenopoulos' important study (which I read in draft form before publication), Primacy in the Church from Vatican I to Vatican II: An Orthodox Perspective.

Daniel Galadza of the University of Vienna reviews the hefty scholarly collection Languages and Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Georgian, one of the latest installment in this invaluable series of books from Ashgate to which I have drawn attention on here before.

Michael Plekon reviews a new French-language publication of autobiographical "notes" from Sergius Bulgakov. 

And finally we have two review essays: the first by the Orthodox priest-historian D. Oliver Herbel (whom I interviewed here about his recent outstanding book) looks at two books both published recently and both treating the question of Orthodox identity: Orthodox Identities in Western Europe: Migration, Settlement and Innovation and Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness: Values, Self-Reflection, Dialogue.

The second review essay is mine, reviewing two recent treatments of papal primacy and Orthodox-Catholic searches for unity: the first is from the Orthodox philosopher and Greek priest, John P. Mannoussakis, whom I interviewed here about the book, For the Unity of All: Contributions to the Theological Dialogue between East and West.

The second is by the Roman Catholic theologian Paul McPartlan,A Service of Love: Papal Primacy, the Eucharist, and Church Unity. Both are short but valuable contributions from scholars noted for their clarity of argument and their charity in engaging those they disagree with. 

All told then, given this cornucopia of riches, what keeps you from subscribing today? 

The Fall Issue of LOGOS: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies

You know, if you are not yet a subscriber to Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, you really are continuing to miss out on a wealth of riches that only increase from issue to issue. The upcoming fall 2014 issue is one of the most jam-packed issues we've published in over a decade. It includes the following:

Articles:

Natalia Shlikhta, "Two Portraits – A Study of the Orthodox Episcopate in Postwar Soviet Ukraine." Abstract:

Drawing on the methodological insights of scholars such as James C. Scott, William Fletcher, and Sheila Fitzpatrick, the author, by means of research into Soviet archives, correspondence, and synodal documents and other sources, has uncovered many details of how Bishop Feodosii Kovernynsky and Archbishop Palladii Kaminsky not merely survived but in many cases actively and repeatedly subverted the restrictions placed upon their episcopal ministry in several Ukrainian dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church from the late 1940s until the late 1970s. Shlikhta looks in particular at daily practices of these two men (e.g., redistricting of parish boundaries; promoting to priestly ranks of those who were often locally established deacons or laypeople not hand-picked by the state to be priests; publishing prayer books in Ukrainian rather than Russian as an ostensible tool to help “Uniates” integrate into the official Russian Church more easily) to dis-cover their subaltern strategies, which, while not always rising to the level of mass protest, major manifestos demanding rights, or similarly dramatic defiance of the regime, were nonetheless effective. The portrait that emerges significantly complicates the previous narrative of “two churches” whereby there was an officious and ideologically subservient church under complete communist domination on the one hand, and a rebellious, illegal underground church on the other. These two bishops reveal various quotidian strategies by which they demonstrated how it was possible to be rebellious within the officially permitted structures of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine in the postwar period.

Peter Galadza's brief response to Shlikhta's article follows.


Jaroslav Z. Skira, "John of Damascus and Theodore Abū Qurrah: Icons, Christ, and Sacred Texts." Abstract:

Increasingly scholars dispute the idea that the rise of Islam in the sixth and following centuries contributed to the rise of iconoclasm in the Byzantine east in the seventh-ninth centuries. Two significant figures living under Islamic domination, John of Damascus and Theodore Abû Qurrah, both dealt with the permissibility and theology of images by appeals to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scriptures. Both stressed the importance of differentiating worship of God from veneration of icons in order to guard against the charge of idolatry. But they diverged in the audiences to whom they aimed these arguments, John aiming at a Christian audience, and Theodore at a Jewish and Islamic one. Both, however, claimed not merely to be reiterating the inherited tradition, but actively developing it to face new challenges. The author reviews their respective development of tradition in their diverse contexts to reveal overlapping defenses of icons.

Nadia Delicata, "On Divine-Humanity: Sergius Bulgakov’s Personalist Theology as Foundation for the Christian Life." Abstract:

The article argues that Bulgakov’s radically personalist understanding of God elucidates a sophisticated personalist Christian ethics. A novel understanding of the form, end, mat-ter and method of the Christian life can be discerned through Bulgakov’s four theological entry points evident in his great trilogy. First, an overall understanding of the Christian life as a paideia tou kyriou, that is, as a formation to Christ-like be-coming. Divine-humanity, the end of the Christian life, is an imitation of God-Manhood. For Bulgakov, however, the principle of self-emptying that characterizes God-becoming-flesh is a revelation of God’s own personalist nature. Divine peri-choresis as an emptying and filling of the immanent Trinity is revealed economically in the theology of creation, where creation is properly out of nothing to become something through the self-revelation of the Father in the Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, immanent divine being as self-revelation, or “divine Sophia,” has its creaturely counterpart in creation’s becoming a revelation of God, the “creaturely Sophia.” Yet creation also necessitates its own created hypostases to return God’s love offered to the world. The method of human flou-rishing is an imitatio Dei as becoming persons-in-relationship. However, the essence of the Christian life as a kenotic-pleromic ethic in imitation of divine perichoresis, is only possible through receiving the Holy Spirit who descends at Pentecost on all flesh, allowing humanity to seek her ultimate transcendence by actively returning to the Father his divine Love.

Oleh Kindiy, "Patrology, Ecology, and Eschatology: Looking Forward to the Future of the Planet by Looking Back to the Fathers of the Church." Abstract:

Nearly a half-century ago in an infamous article, Lynn White Jr. accused Christianity of being complicity in environ-mental degradation, a claim that has met with widespread rebuttal. And yet, there are signs today of renewed ecological degradation in manifold forms, and peoples of all intellectual disciplines and backgrounds are struggling to respond to these challenges. Theologians have their role to play, and this article shows that there are deep theological resources within early Christianity addressing the goodness, stewardship, and salvation of God’s creation. Drawing especially on the patristic literature of such as Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Basil of Caesarea, Ps-Dionysius the Areopagite, John of Damascus, Maximus the Confessor, Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose of Milan, the author argues that we need today new forms of asceticism in addition to fasting from food that will help us forego excessive consumption and in so doing free us to draw into a deeper communion with all of God’s creation.

Notes/Essays/Lectures:

In this section we have three relatively short stand-alone pieces:

• Robert F. Slesinski, "Alexander Scriabin: New Age En Avant de la Lettre."

• Michael Plekon, “Maria Skobtsova: Making a Saint in the Eastern Church Today."

• Andrew Cuff,"Συμπροσευχή: Defeating the Otherness Mentality with Joint Catholic-Orthodox Prayer."

We also are featuring three essays, and an introductory letter, to a conference on Eastern Christianity and Islam (viewed through the life and work of Louis Massignon) held recently at Heythrop College in the University of London:

• Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch and all the East,"Greetings for the Conference of 27 November 2012 on The Life and Thought of Louis Massignon (1883-1962): Comparative Political and Theological Perspectives."
• Christian Krokus: "Louis Massigon: Vatican II and Beyond"
• Stefanie Hugh-Donovan, "Louis Massignon, Olivier Clément, Thomas Merton, Christian de Chergé: Radical Hospitality, Radical Faith."
• Richard J. Sudworth, "Responding to Islam as Priests, Mystics, and Trail Blazers: Louis Massignon, Kenneth Cragg, and Rowan Williams."

Book Reviews:

Matthew Milliner reviews John Haldon and Leslie Brubaker, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History as well as The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium.

Michael Plekon reviews Paul Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (see also my lengthy discussion of the book here.)

Christopher Johnson reviews Victor Roudometof, Globalization and Orthodox Christianity: The Transformations of a Religious Tradition

Michael Plekon reviews Walter Kasper, Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life.

And finally I review Augustine Casiday's Remember the Days of Old: Orthodox Thinking on the Patristic Heritage. (My review is a shorter version of the one published here.)

LOGOS: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies: Spring 2014 Issue

Further to my note last week, I'm delighted to be able to give details of the spring issue of Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies. It contains fascinating articles in areas we have not published before, especially Coptic-Muslim relations and Orthodox understandings of human rights. But permit me to point out in particular two of the long review essays noted below, which I think are in themselves worth the price of a subscription if, through some unimaginable oversight, you have not yet managed to subscribe.

Articles:
We seem to be at a point, at least in anglophone scholarship, of a burgeoning number of studies on Sergius Bulgakov now that most of his opera has been translated into English. Logos has published several in the last three years, and we have several more currently out for review, which may be accepted for publication in the autumn of this year and spring of next year. In this upcoming issue we begin, among the juried articles, with Stefan Barbu's essay “Orthodox Ecclesiology in Sophianic Key.”

This is followed by a fascinating article by Jason Welle, OFM, “The Status of Monks in Egypt under Early Mamlūk Rule: The Case of Ibn Taymiyya.” The article contains not only original research and analysis, but also annotated translation of Ibn Taymiyya’s Fatwā on the Status of Monks.

Finally, a longer version of a presentation I originally heard in part in 2012 at St. Vladimir's Seminary and the annual meeting of the Orthodox Theological Society of America: Christopher Brenna, “The Transfiguration of Rights: A Proposal for Orthodoxy’s Appropriation of Rights Language.” This article breaks new ground, as the whole discussion of rights in Orthodoxy is a very recent and in some ways still inchoate phenomenon.

Notes/Essays/Lectures:

Among the shorter pieces we are running are three, beginning with a recent presentation of Michael Plekon at a conference in Strasbourg on "Saints Without Borders." Fr. Michael's paper is entitled “Mother Maria Skobtsova: Making a Saint in the Eastern Church Today.”

Bishop Hlib Lonchyna has a short piece on Ukrainian Catholic Identity in Britain Today, ending with some thoughts on the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church's recent 10-year plan for parish revitalization.

Richard Armstrong helpfully reviews the literature and brings us up to date on "Cyril of Jerusalem (c.313-387): an Ecclesiastical Career in Review."

Finally, last fall, Josiah Trenham gave a lecture in Ottawa at the Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, "St. John Chrysostom for the 21st Century."

Book Reviews:

Review Essays:
This section contains three of the most impressive (and longest) review essays we have ever run. Robert Slesinski spends a great deal of time analyzing Dominic Rubin's Holy Russia, Sacred Israel: Jewish-Christian Encounters in Russian Religious Thought. Slesinski very carefully examines the evidence in Rubin's text, and compares it in many cases to the Russian originals, some of which Slesinski re-translates, showing how and where Rubin's analysis is correct, and where, in a few places, it overlooks other evidence or offers perhaps too harsh an interpretation. The essay is a model of how to do careful scholarship on explosive topics (anti-Semitism, Russian nationalism): serenely, objectively, charitably.

ii) Another outstanding model of scholarly engagement comes in a very lengthy review essay authored by Christiaan Kappes, J. Isaac Coff, and T. Alexander Giltner treating the place of Palamas in the history of philosophy and East-West encounters, especially in the hands of David Bradshaw, not only in his 2007 book Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom but more recently in his essay in the collection Divine Essence and Divine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy. Kappes et al review the entire latter book, but concentrate on Bradshaw as well as John Milbank, showing the good points in their work but also showing how and where they overlook a good deal, are unjustly tendentious in places, and fail in others to make necessary distinctions or to trace out lineages that would upset their preformed ideas of intellectual history. The essay is not easy to summarize, but here are a few choice ideas to whet your appetite:   

• contra the usual interpretation, Thomas, Bonaventure, and Scotus, far from being horrid old Western "rationalists" in contradistinction to the supposed "mystics" of the East, are in fact deeply grounded in Greek patristic thought;
• the role of Augustine in shaping the Palamite tradition is very considerable, but completely ignored in Divine Essence and Divine Energies;
• Mark of Ephesus, far from being the trumpet of anti-Latin theology, is heavily indebted to Augustine and the Scholastics;
• Franciscans like Bonaventure and Scotus "accessed important early Eastern sources, particularly through the Carolingian thinker and translator Eriugena, and, moreover, greatly utilized them....One may legitimately wonder how such a cornucopia of sources and incredible parallels have been bypassed";
• in the end, we are still awaiting a full, impartial intellectual geneology of Palamas and Palamite thought that will, inter alia, take account of the fact that "Palamas gave Augustine's opera in Greek an authoritative 'nihil obstat' for Byzantines" and thus "ushered into Byzantium a synthetic project of harmonizing Latin authors (especially Augustine and Aquinas) with Byzantine theology and Orthodoxy." Yet little of this remains understood, even by scholars, never mind Orthodox bloggers ranting about the pernicious effects of Aquinas and Augustine and Anselm and other figures they have never read, least of all in the original.

iii) Slesinski’s Review Essay on Bulgakov. Reviewing the "major trilogy" of Bulgakov's works which has recently appeared in English over the last decade, that is, the works The Lamb of God, The Bride of the Lamb and The Comforter, Slesinski in fact teases out of these three works their underlying theology of the "first hypostasis," God the Father. Far from ignoring the Father in works ostensibly devoted to Christ, Christ's Church, and the Holy Spirit, Bulgakov in fact has woven throughout all three volumes the theme of the "monarchy of the Father."

Regular Reviews:
 

a) Michael Plekon reviews C.A. Tsakiridou, Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity: Orthodox Theology and the Aesthetics of the Christian Image.

Having recently read, and commented elsewhere on, this book, let me second our reviewer's judgment that this is a very substantial, deeply challenging, and very important book. If you have any interest in the topics of icons and iconoclasm, and more generally the relation between theology and art not only in the ancient period, but also today, you will want to get a copy of this book, the expense notwithstanding.

b) Peter-Michael Preble reviews Creation and the Heart of Man: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on Environmentalism.

c) Radu Bordeianu reviews Boris Bobrinskoy’s The Mystery of the Church: A Course in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology

d) Daniel Avila reviews Icons of Hope: The "Last Things" in Catholic Imagination.